{"id":682291,"date":"2026-04-25T01:19:03","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T01:19:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/682291\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T01:19:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T01:19:03","slug":"hillsborough-likely-to-miss-rays-stadium-deadline-memo-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/682291\/","title":{"rendered":"Hillsborough likely to miss Rays stadium deadline, memo says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TAMPA, Fla.\u00a0\u2014 Hillsborough County officials say they will likely not meet the Tampa Bay Rays\u2019 deadline of approving a stadium deal.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/baynews9.com\/fl\/tampa\/sports\/tampa-bay-rays\/tampa-bay-rays-stadium\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">SEE ALSO: Previous stories on Tampa Bay Rays stadium<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Rays had given both the county and the city of Tampa an ultimatum to approve funding by June 1.<\/p>\n<p>The comments come from a preliminary feedback memo released by the county attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n<p>The county\u2019s memo states discussions would likely take at least another 60 to 90 days to work out the specifics after reaching a preliminary deal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnce the parties reach an agreement on the MOU, certain project agreements could be prioritized over others to help move the project forward. It would likely take at least 60-90 days to negotiate the Development and Funding Agreement (and possibly the Use Agreement) following the approval of the MOU,\u201d the county\u2019s memo states.<\/p>\n<p>It is unclear if the Rays and the county will be able to solve this timeline dispute.<\/p>\n<p>The Tampa Bay Rays have released this statement on the situation:<\/p>\n<p>We are working diligently on the list of questions provided to us by the county and city and will share our responses with them soon. With the right public-private partnership, we can build a world-class ballpark by 2029 and remain focused on doing so.<\/p>\n<p>View the full Hillsborough County memo to the Rays below:<\/p>\n<p>&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Rays\u2019 proposal released earlier this month calls for the Rays to fund 50% of the project, including any cost overruns. The city of Tampa would contribute $251 million, while Hillsborough County would contribute $750 million.<\/p>\n<p>Ahead of a public workshop earlier this month, Rays CEO Ken Babby sent a letter to commissioners reiterating that the deadline is imperative to keep the deal economically feasible and to meet the 2029 opening day timeline.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShould this commitment ultimately not be achievable, we would have no choice but to evaluate alternatives; however, that is not our desired outcome. Time and action are of the essence,\u201d Babby wrote in his letter to commissioners.<\/p>\n<p>Some commissioners remain hesitant to sign off on a new ballpark just yet.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrom my perspective, I\u2019d love to be able to vote yes on this,\u201d Commissioner Harry Cohen said at a workshop last week. \u201cBut to vote yes, I have to be convinced this is the right thing for the community and for the taxpayers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla.\u00a0\u2014 Hillsborough County officials say they will likely not meet the Tampa Bay Rays\u2019 deadline of approving&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2377],"tags":[563,556,5,182,7497,19859,19124,4,169,184,557,297,10202,562,185,317,295,2550,68,2551,2549],"class_list":{"0":"post-682291","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-rays","8":"tag-app-professional-sports","9":"tag-app-sports","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-government","13":"tag-hillsborough-county","14":"tag-local-politics","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-orlando","18":"tag-professional-baseball","19":"tag-rays","20":"tag-rays-stadium","21":"tag-spectrum-news-staff","22":"tag-sports","23":"tag-sports-news","24":"tag-tampa","25":"tag-tampa-bay","26":"tag-tampa-bay-rays","27":"tag-tampabay","28":"tag-tampabayrays"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116462719147040387","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682291","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=682291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}