Tampa Bay Rays new owners top priority: a new stadium

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — The new owners of the Tampa Bay Rays laid out some of their plans for the future of the team, but did not reveal many details.

Patrick Zalupski, the team’s new managing partner, Bill Cosgrove, the new co-chair and Ken Babby the new Chief Executive Officer of the team, fielded a number of questions from the media and said their new top priority is to find a permanent home for the team.

However, they stopped short of saying where that new home will be.

“We’re encompassing all of Tampa Bay. We are evaluating sights currently,” said Zalupski.

He says they are looking for sites that have at least 100 acres of land that can support a new baseball stadium, hotel, retail space, as well as bars restaurants and a concert venue.

New owners of Tampa Bay Rays share excitement, optimism for team’s future

“It is what you have to have in today’s major league baseball to be successful. We think without that revenue generation, it’s going to be really, really challenging, if not impossible to compete with the major markets,” said Zalupski.

He says his new group does not want to be limited to where they can look.

“We think more is better, but it’s also balancing location, quality of location with amount of land. There’s a point where that will intersect. It’s not just, this is 500 acres, 30 miles outside of Tampa. That’s not what we are looking for,” said Zalupski.

However, local leaders from both sides of the Bay say it may be difficult to find 100 acres that can be developed.

“We’ll see where they are going to build over here because they are talking about 100 acres, and as I said, there are many prospects, but 100 acres is a lot of land,” said Tampa City Councilman Guido Manuscalco.

St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch says the owners need to respect the history of previous negotiations.

“This is a new ownership group. They seem to be open about what their priorities are. We are going to be very direct about what our priorities are,” said Welch.

The new owners say they hope to have a new stadium built in time for the 2029 season.

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Tampa Bay Rays new owners top priority: a new stadium

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