ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Edge District business owners in downtown are excited for the upcoming Tampa Bay Rays season in St. Petersburg, after collectively losing millions last year when the major league baseball team played home games in Tampa, according to the neighborhood association.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know
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\nEdge District hospitality business owners collectively lost millions while the Rays played in Tampa last year
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\nMark Ferguson, owner of Ferg\u2019s Sports Bar and Grill, said his business was down 30 percent
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\nFerguson was excited to see an official Tampa Bay Rays team store pop up in the Edge District
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\nThe Rays’ opening day at the Trop is scheduled for April 6 against the Chicago Cubs
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Mark Ferguson, owner of Ferg\u2019s Sports Bar and Grill, said that from April through August of last year his business was down 30 percent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat hurt, but we didn’t have to lay anybody off,\u201d he said. \u201cWe just gave people less hours and tried to make sure it worked for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ferg\u2019s is located right across the street from Tropicana Field. Many other hospitality businesses in the Edge District also saw a dip while the team was away.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of downtown from here, all the way to the water, missed baseball,\u201d said Ferguson. \u201cThey\u2019ve all been crying to city council.\u201d<\/p>\n
Signs of life that the Rays will be back in St. Petersburg for the 2026 season began showing up last November. That\u2019s when the Trop roof was completed ahead of schedule and an official Tampa Bay Rays team store popped up in the Edge District. Ferguson said he is looking forward to a rebound.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody’s excited,\u201d he said. \u201cFor them to move the Ray store over here helps get everybody thinking about baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Rays store will be moved back into the Trop once all the renovations have been completed. The Rays’ opening day at the Trop is scheduled for April 6 against the Chicago Cubs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Edge District business owners in downtown are excited for the upcoming Tampa Bay Rays season…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[67119,560,5,255,559,2115,4,169,8602,297,295,2550,68,2551,2549,558,35162,1542],"class_list":["post-507092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa-bay-rays","tag-app-local-business","tag-app-top-stories","tag-baseball","tag-business","tag-instagram-bn9","tag-josh-rojas","tag-mlb","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-rays","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-tampabay","tag-tampabayrays","tag-top-stories","tag-trending-topics","tag-vod"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115845216776555285","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507092","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=507092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}