{"id":115728,"date":"2025-06-19T15:14:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-19T15:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/115728\/"},"modified":"2025-06-19T15:14:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-19T15:14:09","slug":"tampa-bay-rays-would-remain-in-tampa-area-with-proposed-sale-new-ballpark-sites-considered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/115728\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa Bay Rays would remain in Tampa area with proposed sale, new ballpark sites considered"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rays, pending the impending sale of the club for about $1.7B<\/a>, \u201cwould remain in the Tampa Bay area\u201d in a new ballpark to be built, with \u201csites in Tampa to be considered in addition to what St. Petersburg could offer,\u201d according to Topkin & Wright of the TAMPA BAY TIMES. The group, led by Patrick Zalupski, Bill Cosgrove, Ken Babby and other local investors, would \u201cseek to retain the core of the baseball operations staff.\u201d Zalupski has signed a letter of intent for the club but does \u201cnot have a purchase agreement.\u201d A letter of intent \u201ccomes with an expiration date,\u201d and if an agreement is \u201cnot reached by then, discussions could be re-opened with other groups, potentially leading to competing, and higher, bids.\u201d Memphis hedge fund founder Trip Miller said last night that he \u201cis hoping for that opportunity,\u201d as his group \u201calready had made an undisclosed cash offer for the team\u201d and is \u201cprepared to compete with Zalupski\u2019s offer.\u201d He added they \u201care financially prepared if needed to bid more.\u201d Rays owner Stuart Sternberg, who bought into the team in 2004, addressed the situation with staff in a Zoom call yesterday and \u201cwas described as being somewhat reserved and somber.\u201d He also \u201cexpressed some frustration about having to take this action since there wouldn\u2019t be support\u201d to get a new ballpark \u201cif he remained in charge\u201d (TAMPA BAY TIMES, 6\/18<\/a>).<\/p>\n

A STEP FORWARD: In Tampa, John Romano writes the Rays being for sale \u201cis necessary news\u201d if you want the club to \u201cremain in Tampa Bay beyond the next few years<\/a>.\u201d We are \u201cat the point in this decades-long saga where two things are abundantly clear\u201d: the team needs to build a new ballpark \u201cin a hurry\u201d and there \u201cwill be no public money for Stuart Sternberg to build one.\u201d Selling the team \u201cwould seem to be the only path forward if the Rays are to remain in Tampa Bay.\u201d That Sternberg is willing to step aside \u201cis a positive sign,\u201d but there is \u201cstill a lot of ground to cover between today and the popping of champagne corks\u201d — specifically, the funding of a ballpark. Maybe if Sternberg is \u201cout of the picture, elected officials in St. Pete and Pinellas will consider revisiting the Trop redevelopment plan\u201d or maybe \u201cTampa politicians will finally come up with a plan that is enticing enough to woo a new ownership group\u201d (TAMPA BAY TIMES, 6\/19<\/a>).<\/p>\n

NAIL IN THE COFFIN? In Orlando, J.C. Carnahan wrote reports of a potential buyer for the Rays \u201cadd a wrinkle to the Orlando Dreamers\u2019 plans<\/a> of one day bringing a Major League Baseball team to the region.\u201d Just two days earlier, before the Rays\u2019 announcement, Dreamers \u201cpublicly presented its case<\/a> for bringing a pro team to Orlando.\u201d Discussions \u201cranged from the possibility of bringing in an existing franchise — such as the Rays — to enticing MLB to award the city an expansion team in the future.\u201d Perhaps presciently, Larkin said at the meeting that \u201che sees multiple sceneries working in favor of Orlando\u201d and that the effort is \u201cnot wholly dependent on landing the Rays\u201d (ORLANDO BUSINESS JOURNAL, 6\/18<\/a>). In Orlando, Mike Bianchi wrote he is \u201cnot willing to say that Orlando\u2019s baseball dream nor its Dreamers are dead.\u201d Bianchi: \u201cMaybe this is just wishful thinking from a sports fan who wants to see a baseball team in my town, but this doesn\u2019t feel like the end of Orlando\u2019s baseball hopes. If anything, it might be the start of a high-stakes game of leverage and optics\u201d (ORLANDO SENTINEL, 6\/18<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rays, pending the impending sale of the club for about $1.7B, \u201cwould remain in the Tampa Bay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[5,6035,4,297,2550,68,2551,2549],"class_list":{"0":"post-115728","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-deals","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-rays","12":"tag-tampa-bay","13":"tag-tampa-bay-rays","14":"tag-tampabay","15":"tag-tampabayrays"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114710686790854707","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115728","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=115728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}