{"id":536677,"date":"2026-01-24T20:57:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T20:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/536677\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T20:57:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T20:57:16","slug":"bianchi-go-ahead-tampa-bay-rays-use-orlando-as-leverage-for-new-stadium-we-welcome-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/536677\/","title":{"rendered":"Bianchi: Go ahead, Tampa Bay Rays, use Orlando as leverage for new stadium. We welcome it!"},"content":{"rendered":"

The chatter around the Tampa Bay Rays and their ever-elusive new baseball stadium has taken on an all-too-familiar rhythm<\/a> \u2014 one that sports fans, politicians and taxpayers across the country have heard before.<\/p>\n

It goes like this: a team wants a new stadium, the host city hesitates, and suddenly a new city appears on the horizon, eager and willing, whether genuinely or artificially. In this case, Orlando has stepped<\/a> into that role, and it\u2019s no secret that the Rays\u2019 new ownership group is simply using Central Florida as leverage to extract a better deal from Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

But you know what?<\/p>\n

Orlando shouldn\u2019t shy away from that role. We should embrace it.<\/p>\n

Go ahead, Tampa Bay Rays, use us.<\/p>\n

Use us loudly, proudly and publicly.<\/p>\n

In fact, will somebody cue up the song from late, great soul singer Bill Withers:<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I wanna spread the news,<\/p>\n

That if it feels this good gettin\u2019 used,<\/p>\n

Oh, you just keep on usin\u2019 me,<\/p>\n

Until you use me up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Use us up, Rays, just like Hillsborough County Commissioner Ken Hagan \u2014 a longtime advocate for getting a stadium built in Tampa \u2014 is doing. He went on Tampa\u2019s biggest sports station (WDAE) earlier this week and put out a red alert that if Tampa fails to get a ballpark built soon on a proposed 100-plus acre site at Hillsborough College, then Orlando is ready to pounce.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that [a new ballpark] is either going to be located at [Hillsborough College] or the team\u2019s going to be in Orlando,\u201d Hagan warned. \u201cThe reality is that they have significantly more bed tax revenue than we do, and they\u2019ve been pushing for a team.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt [Orlando] is an inferior market,\u201d Hagan added. \u201cTheir TV market is below ours. People think traffic is bad here? It\u2019s horrible over there. Orlando couldn\u2019t keep the Atlanta Braves spring training team, if you remember that. But the reality is if a deal can\u2019t get reached here, I firmly believe [Orlando is] where they\u2019re going to be playing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do you see what Hagan did there?<\/p>\n

He not only sounded the alarm that Tampa might lose the Rays, but then he challenged Tampa\u2019s manhood by saying Tampa may lose the Rays to an inferior Mickey Mouse baseball town like Orlando.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Brilliant.<\/p>\n

Hagan is obviously the Rays\u2019 requisite political mouthpiece, providing the new ownership group with the perceived leverage that every team needs when seeking a new stadium. Professional sports franchises have mastered the art of manufactured urgency. They dangle relocation, knowing that cities fear losing cultural relevance, economic activity and civic pride. Fans recoil at the idea of betrayal. Politicians feel the heat.<\/p>\n

Ah, the playbook is old, but it still works.<\/p>\n

And Orlando has become the Rays\u2019 newest bargaining chip. However, what makes this situation particularly fascinating is the involvement of Rick Workman<\/a>, the dental magnate and longtime Orlando resident who had been the major money man in the Orlando Dreamers\u2019 effort to lure the Rays (or an MLB expansion franchise) to Central Florida. If you\u2019ll recall, Workman unexpectedly left the Dreamers and became part of the ownership group that ended up buying the Rays in September.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

That detail alone complicates the narrative. This isn\u2019t just an outside interest poking Tampa with a stick; it\u2019s a foot planted firmly in both camps. As I wrote when Workman became part of the Rays\u2019 new ownership group, this is actually a good thing<\/a> for Orlando\u2019s effort to lure the Rays. Workman\u2019s presence blurs the line between leverage and legitimacy. If Orlando were merely a ghost city being floated by Rays owners, skepticism would be justified. But when real money, real business leaders and real ownership ties are involved, the conversation changes.<\/p>\n

Critics such as Sentinel colleague Scott Maxwell<\/a> and high-powered attorney John Morgan argue that Orlando is being played; that the Rays are simply using Central Florida as a pawn. And they are absolutely right. But sometimes you have to start out as a pawn to become the king. I say being \u201cused\u201d in this context isn\u2019t a negative; it\u2019s a positive. Cities don\u2019t have to be naive participants in these games. They can be willing ones.<\/p>\n

History supports this idea. St. Petersburg and Jacksonville know it well.<\/p>\n

The only reason the Rays have ever existed in St. Petersburg in the first place is because the city was used as a relocation pawn for years and even built a stadium (Tropicana Field) without the promise of ever getting a team. The Trop was 8 years old before MLB finally decided that St. Pete had paid its dues and deserved an expansion franchise.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

For years before the Jaguars arrived in the 1990s, Jacksonville was dismissed as a bargaining-chip city \u2014 too small, too regional, too implausible. NFL teams floated it in negotiations elsewhere, and skeptics laughed. But Jacksonville stayed in the conversation. It kept its infrastructure plans alive, cultivated business support and made it clear that if the bluff ever became real, the city was ready. Eventually, the league came knocking for real, and Jacksonville was no longer the leverage; it was the destination.<\/p>\n

Orlando is in a much better spot now than Jacksonville and St. Pete were then. We are the largest media market in America without an MLB or NFL team and we have a reliable financial mechanism (the tourist development tax) to help fund venues.<\/p>\n

I believe our city \u2014 even from within its own leadership circles \u2014 is often underestimated as simply a tourist hub rather than a major-league sports town. Let\u2019s hope our city and county leaders are doing their due diligence in letting the Rays know that we are willing to do business if Tampa can\u2019t get a stadium deal done. In other words, if the Rays want to point at Orlando while negotiating with Tampa, Orlando should point right back \u2014 but with intention.<\/p>\n

Being Plan B doesn\u2019t mean being a sucker. It means being prepared. It means doing what the Orlando Dreamers have been trying to get our politicians to do for years now. It means having serious conversations about stadium locations, transportation, public-private partnerships and long-term economic impact. It means assembling business coalitions that aren\u2019t just theoretical but ready to act. If Tampa balks, Orlando shouldn\u2019t scramble; it should already be standing at the podium.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Orlando is not being victimized here; we are being validated. No, we don\u2019t have to beg or overextend ourselves, but we need to let the Rays and MLB know that we are, at least, a credible alternative.<\/p>\n

For Tampa, the mere fact that Orlando is viable sharpens the urgency. For the Rays, Orlando\u2019s interest strengthens their hand. And for Orlando itself, the process forces a long-overdue reckoning with how the city sees its future. Are we content to be Tampa\u2019s envious little brother, or do we want to claim some major-league relevance of our own?<\/p>\n

And if the Rays ultimately stay in Tampa Bay, so be it. It doesn\u2019t mean we lost; it means Orlando helped our neighbor keep its team. But it also means Orlando demonstrated seriousness, ambition and readiness. Those signals don\u2019t disappear after one negotiation cycle. They linger. They attract attention from leagues, from investors, from future opportunities that haven\u2019t even surfaced yet.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s put our ego aside and remember that every time Orlando\u2019s name enters the conversation, our city moves one step closer to being more than a fallback plan.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Being the leverage city of today can mean being the expansion city of tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Email me at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com<\/a>. Hit me up on social media @BianchiWrites and listen to my new radio show \u201cGame On\u201d every weekday from 3 to 6 p.m. on FM 96.9, AM 740 and 969TheGame.com\/listen<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The chatter around the Tampa Bay Rays and their ever-elusive new baseball stadium has taken on an all-too-familiar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536678,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2377],"tags":[46,5,4,184,24987,297,1424,295,2550,68,2551,2549,1966],"class_list":{"0":"post-536677","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-rays","8":"tag-atlanta-braves","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-orlando","12":"tag-ownership-group","13":"tag-rays","14":"tag-rick-workman","15":"tag-tampa","16":"tag-tampa-bay","17":"tag-tampa-bay-rays","18":"tag-tampabay","19":"tag-tampabayrays","20":"tag-the-rays"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115952081011286808","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536677","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=536677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}