Tampa Bay Rays new ownership group has MASSIVE PLANS for the team!

Tampa Bay Rays new ownership group has MASSIVE PLANS for the team!

It happened in Tampa yesterday. One of my favorite days of a life of an owner when a new owner takes the microphone and says, “Hello, I am going from no one knows who the heck I am, but I’m rich and now you all know who I am because I get a microphone and all I do is say that I’m going to talk Patrick Zaloopski.” Do you know me? You don’t? Guess what? I want to do a press conference. Holy cri. There’s a hundred people here with 50 cameras. This is awesome. Whisper whisper to the vice chairman. That’s why we bought the team. Look at what Balmer said. We’re gonna get into any restaurant we want. We’re going to get the best table right near the back where we can do the side entrance into Tootsies. Make a right turn then a left down the stairs. Totally private. Then out. No problem. And don’t you worry, we’re going to get into Burns whenever we want. Yep, it’s true. Patrick Zalookupski is the new owner of the Rays. had his press conference. How do new press conferences go? What would you say? What’s pretty common? Remember the Stevie Con new press conference when he bought the Mets? That was a funny one. We expect to be in the World Series in the next 3 to 5 years with the parade down canal. We’re going to come in here and we’re going to clean up the mess that went on under the previous group and we’re going to bring you sustained winning. You can go one of two ways. Depends on what team you’re buying. Depends on who you’re replacing. What do you do if you are a new raise owner? When I say raise, what do you say? We’re going to play word association because I happen to have thousands of people right in front of me right now. This is a show that I’m doing from my home studio and I have so many visitors that have crowded into my place. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hi. What do you think? What do you think as a raise owner? Which way do you got to go? What’s your view of the raise? When I say raise, you say winning. When I say raise, you say cheap. When I say raise, you say smart. When I say raise, you say stadium. When I say raise, you say Yankees. When I say raise, you say St. Petersburg. What do you say? What’s your word? Well, when you’re practicing for your first ever press conference as owner of a team, you get up there and you got to decide for yourself, what direction am I going to go? And what do you think Zalupski did? Bless his heart. I’m loving the guy. Loving him. He went right with I’m going to let the baseball people handle everything baseball related. That’s always good. The PR people come in and say, “Hey, Patrick, here’s an idea. You don’t know anything about anything. You’re super rich now. You’re an owner of a team. Your baseline is 1.7 billion. We got major business to do if you’re going to have any sort of rate of return for all of your myriad investors. And by the way, here’s the page Bugs Bunny style of the investors. So why don’t we let the baseball people be the baseball people? Because they’re so good. Like the third best number of wins since 2008. These guys are on it. All right. I can say that later on we’ll find out his toes were crossed or fingers were crossed and like all 29 owners he is going to be like all of them. Of course he’s not going to let Neander and Cash and the baseball operations team do their job independently. Don’t be ridiculous. All right, we’re done with that. Next, what should we talk about? Cuz they’re such a good baseball team. What do you think they’re going to ask about stadium? Hell yeah. Zalookupski said we need a new ballpark. I don’t think that’s disputed by anyone. And here it comes. Because you got to work it into the first press conference you do. We want to build a sustainable championship team. We’re confident we can be successful in Tampa Bay. He didn’t say the Tampa Bay area. He didn’t say Tampa Bay. St. Pete. News alert to those of you in St. Pete. Get ready to drive over the bridge. The team is gone from St. Pete. No doubt about it. They’re going to do a stadium in Tampa. Here’s what you don’t do, Mr. Zalupski. Couple words of advice. We’ll get to know each other. Don’t give timelines. He said they’ll be in the new stadium they’re planning to be in by 2029. They’re only missing the following things. A site, financing, and then design. That’s it. Other than that, they are golden. Well, David, it’s only October of 25. That’s true. But I told you how long it takes to build a retractable roof stadium. You need 31 to 36 months. That’s three years. You’re going to open in 29. That means by April of 26. Wait a minute. When’s April of 26? That’s not for a super long time. April of 26. We’re years away from that, aren’t we? Uh-oh. We’re only 7 months from April of 26. And you think that right now Zupski is gonna walk in there and say, “Hi, my name is not Stu Sternberg.” That means you’re going to do business with me. That’s the Derek Jeter school of executives. Hi, I’m Derek Jeter, not David Samson. Ready? And they’re like, I don’t care. No, I’m not ready. See you later. Zoopski is going to find it’s not easy to get a deal done. They’re still looking at different sites. Why give a date of 29? Mistake. Then we want to build a sustainable championship team. How come everyone says that? Does anyone have a sustainable championship team? I guess David, the Dodgers do. The Yankees. Would you say the Yankees are a sustainable championship team? I guess you’d have to say it. You’re just disappointed by the fact they haven’t won one since ’09. Would you say that Tampa’s had sustained winning since 2008? I know. I would. Does it mean they’ve won a World Series? No. Have they gotten to World Series? Yes. Would there be 25 teams who would trade with the Tampa Bay Rays right now? No. But 20 teams would. maybe 22 teams. But then Zalookupski wasn’t done. He could have stopped. He said, “Hey, the revenues are what the revenues are. These are the revenues.” Do you know what the people were asking, Patrick? They were asking, “Are you going to increase payroll?” Because that’s what fans want to know out of the gate. Are you, Mr. new owner going to be Stevie Con of our dreams and just build the payroll up up and up with reckless disregard toward whether the team is profitable and then still losing. You got to be ready for that question, Patrick. You’re going to get it a lot because you’re buying a team that always had a low payroll. So, the fans are asking, “Do we have a different owner now?” And Zelupski, to his credit, said, “Hey, you know, it sort of is what it is right now. Where we are is where we are. That’s why we need a new ballpark. Good for you, Patrick. Kick the can. Just kick the can. It gives you a chance. Even with all the tax benefits, depreciation, amortization, even with all those things that are beneficial over the first 5 years of your ownership, you get to now have a smaller, shorter, quieter payroll. And just say, “Dude, it’s not like I’m a miracle worker. My miracle will be getting the stadium, saving the team for Tampa, and making us able to increase our payroll in a new stadium.” And guess what? That used to work, but it works way less often now. The new stadium bump, the new stadium panacea, that does not exist the way it used to. But shh, don’t tell Patrick that because they need a new stadium so then they can start with expansion. So MLB and Patrick are together saying, “Get that new stadium quickly in Tampa.” Tell everybody the payroll is going to go up once the new stadium starts. Here’s a spoiler alert. They’re going to have to send new stadium projections to baseball to approve before the new stadium opens. So, everyone’s going to know how high the payroll is going to go. What exactly is the plan? We’re going to have way more time to talk about it, way more time. But what fascinates me about that press conference and what I know fascinates you is that once you do one as a new owner, all of a sudden, we’re going to keep hearing from them. And when you keep hearing from owners who all of a sudden realize, uh-oh, this was not as easy as I thought it would be. That’s where the beauty is. That’s where the fun is. That’s where our show resides.

#baseball #rays #MLB

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