The Tampa Bay Rays said Thursday the team will not meet the March 31 deadline to execute its part in the pending $1.3 billion new ballpark deal with the city of St. Petersburg, Fla.<\/p>\n
The decision, coming two weeks prior to the deadline, was announced by the Rays on X<\/a>, and it calls into question the future of the beleaguered franchise in the Tampa Bay area. The deal for a new ballpark had been largely negotiated before Hurricane Milton tore the roof off the Rays\u2019 home, Tropicana Field, in October. Rays owner Stuart Sternberg relayed the team\u2019s decision to St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch in a phone call.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n More from Sportico.com<\/p>\n \u201cAfter careful deliberation we have concluded we cannot move forward with the new ballpark and development project at this moment,\u201d the statement read in part. \u201cA series of events beginning in October that no one could have anticipated led to this decision.\u201d<\/p>\n The Rays\u2014who will play this season at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, Fla., the spring training home of the New York Yankees\u2014have no place to play in the area beyond this season unless repairs are complete at the Trop. They open their season against the Colorado Rockies on March 28.<\/p>\n The deal was already under siege from the St. Petersburg City Council and Pinellas County Commission. Both bodies approved public dollars for the project earmarked for the Historic Gaslamp District adjacent to the damaged domed facility, where the Rays had played since expanding into the American League in 1998.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Hurricane Milton last year blew off the Teflon panels that constituted the roof, causing flood damage inside of the building. The estimate to repair the building is $55.7 million. Since the initial damage, the stadium has remained susceptible to the elements.<\/p>\n The Rays have a stadium lease with St. Petersburg through 2028. The lease says the city is responsible for fixing the damage.<\/p>\n The Rays said that the city is \u201ccurrently advancing plans to restore Tropicana Field for the 2026 season,\u201d adding, \u201cwe continue to focus on finding a ballpark solution that serves the best interests of our region, Major League Baseball and our organization.\u201d<\/p>\n Best of Sportico.com<\/p>\n Sign up for Sportico’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tampa Bay Rays said Thursday the team will not meet the March 31 deadline to execute its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[5,52,4,297,2550,23444,68,2551,2549,1966,8607],"class_list":{"0":"post-107879","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-rays","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-colorado-rockies","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-rays","12":"tag-tampa-bay","13":"tag-tampa-bay-area","14":"tag-tampa-bay-rays","15":"tag-tampabay","16":"tag-tampabayrays","17":"tag-the-rays","18":"tag-tropicana-field"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114692767440244846","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}