{"id":694536,"date":"2026-01-21T20:03:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T20:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/694536\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T20:03:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T20:03:17","slug":"hillsborough-county-tampa-bay-lightning-extend-arena-deal-to-at-least-2043","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/694536\/","title":{"rendered":"Hillsborough County, Tampa Bay Lightning extend arena deal to at least 2043"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a> fans, rejoice. Your home team will stay in Tampa until at least 2043 under a deal Hillsborough County Commissioners<\/a> approved to extend by six years the team\u2019s lease to play at Benchmark International Arena.<\/p>\n

Under the agreement, the county is committing $250 million to pay for arena renovations, an amount that could increase and that will come from a portion of the county\u2019s tourist development tax. The deal does not require any general fund revenue, Community Investment Tax proceeds or property tax revenue.<\/p>\n

In return, the agreement calls for Lightning ownership to spend at least $75 million on renovations.<\/p>\n

The agreement protects the county by requiring millions in repayment penalties should the team breach its contract by leaving early.<\/p>\n

The deal increases the amount of county funds committed under the original agreement in 2008 for arena renovations from $108.5 million to $358.5 million, and the amount the Lightning spend on such renovations from $38.4 million to $113.4 million, which is where the $250 million and $75 million spend split comes from.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Lightning, under the agreement, can spend its portion incrementally, but the expenditures must be made before the county\u2019s portion of the split is required.<\/p>\n

To date, the county has spent about $91 million under the original agreement.<\/p>\n

Prior to this deal, the Lightning had been obligated to play hockey in Tampa at Benchmark International Arena (formerly Amalie Arena) until June 30, 2037. Now, they must remain in the arena until at least June 30, 2043.<\/p>\n

The Tampa Sports Authority, which serves as the landlord for the arena, previously approved the deal on a 7-3 vote.<\/p>\n

Commissioners made clear Wednesday that the new deal with the Lightning could set a tough precedent as the Tampa Bay Rays seek a new stadium at Hillsborough College\u2019s Dale Mabry campus and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers work toward major upgrades to Raymond James Stadium directly across the street.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One Commissioner, Republican Chris Boles, said that would be \u201clike comparing apples to rocks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite a failed amendment to the deal from Commissioner Joshua Wostal that would have increased the Lightning\u2019s share of the cost split, which was seconded by Donna Cameron Cepeda, the new agreement cleared with unanimous support.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tampa Bay Lightning fans, rejoice. Your home team will stay in Tampa until at least 2043 under a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2077],"tags":[101355,211,101356,101357,7,101358,101359,101360,6,704,250,8214,101361,2597,2596],"class_list":{"0":"post-694536","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-buccaneers","8":"tag-benchmark-international-arena","9":"tag-buccaneers","10":"tag-chris-boles","11":"tag-donna-cameron-cepeda","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-hillsborough-county-commission","14":"tag-hillsborough-county-commissioners","15":"tag-joshua-wostal","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-tampa-bay","18":"tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","19":"tag-tampa-bay-lightning","20":"tag-tampa-sports-authority","21":"tag-tampabay","22":"tag-tampabaybuccaneers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115934881946859870","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}