{"id":677015,"date":"2026-04-16T15:57:58","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T15:57:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/677015\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T15:57:58","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T15:57:58","slug":"hillsborough-county-to-hold-stadium-workshop-this-afternoon-as-rays-dial-up-pressure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/677015\/","title":{"rendered":"Hillsborough County to hold stadium workshop this afternoon as Rays dial up pressure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The workshop is largely for commissioners to gather more information, which means it will also be the public\u2019s best opportunity as well. Remember that Florida\u2019s Sunshine Law means the County can\u2019t have any meetings in private, so this kind of info gathering and discussion happens \u201cin the sunshine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Ahead of the meeting both the Rays and the Governor interestingly seem to be adding pressure for the County as well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">CEO Ken Babby authored the letter that \u2014 for the first time, since the new ownership group took over \u2014 includes a threat that not meeting the team\u2019s funding requirements could result in the team leaving the area, including key statements like, \u201cShould this commitment ultimately not be achievable, we would have no choice but to evaluate alternatives\u2026\u201d and \u201cFailure to meet these timelines risks the loss of critical state funding for Hillsborough College, which would render the deal economically infeasible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Similarly, Governor Ron DeSantis has also put his thumb even further on the scale, posting to social media to add further support:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The workshop is largely for commissioners to gather more information, which means it will also be the public\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[5,4,297,2550,68,49846,2551,2549],"class_list":{"0":"post-677015","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-mlb","10":"tag-rays","11":"tag-tampa-bay","12":"tag-tampa-bay-rays","13":"tag-tampa-bay-stadium-saga","14":"tag-tampabay","15":"tag-tampabayrays"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116415214695757341","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677015","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=677015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}