Lots of St. Petersburg officials didn’t like it, but the business-savvy group charged (by former Mayor Rick Baker) with looking into the Tampa Bay Rays’ stadium situation has unanimously reported that downtown St. Petersburg just won’t do. Even with an obscenely expensive, retrofitted Tropicana Field, said the 11-member, Pinellas-heavy ABC Coalition.
What else St. Pete movers and shakers won’t like is that most Tampa Bay residents not viewing this scenario through a narrow, self-serving, St. Pete lens would agree with ABC. Mid-Pinellas or Tampa’s West Shore and downtown are far superior, assessed ABC. Mercifully, it didn’t unequivocally say: “Tampa.” But it might as well have.
It’s no surprise that the Rays have to be a regional franchise to survive and succeed.
And it’s no revelation that the Rays inherited a myriad of all-too-familiar challenges – ranging from the demographic and logistical to the commercial, historical and recreational. Tampa Bay is an asymmetrical market with spread out populations, no mass transit, few corporate headquarters and lots of relocatees with other allegiances. Plus, there are plenty of summer lifestyle options superior to watching baseball. This isn’t a Pittsburgh or a Cincinnati, where, after a century of big league ball, the sport is embedded into the societal fabric — and contemporary “small market” status is irrelevant.
And all of this, as we well know, has been compounded by a poorly placed playing facility — on the market’s fringe, near the Gulf of Mexico. The closest market to the west is Corpus Christi.
The Rays are trying to finesse this right now. It’s hardly the time for public-sector demands or veiled threats of relocation. These are sensitive, recessionary times and the Rays have contractual obligations to play their games at the Trop through the 2026 season. Almost nobody, however, believes that will happen. Crunch time inexorably approaches. And there’s precedent for contract-breaking as the cost of doing better business somewhere else. A San Antonio or a Portland, for example.
It’s a given that the Rays will be out of their catwalk house before their lease is up. And whether St. Pete leaders want to recognize reality or not, it’s also a given that the Rays will be out of downtown St. Petersburg as well. The question is will they be out of this regional market? Tampa has to be in the discussion — and the mix — St. Pete ego notwithstanding.
Rays’ development official Michael Kalt has diplomatically noted that “We need a regional dialogue about what’s best for keeping baseball here.” Well nuanced. We know what “here” doesn’t mean: downtown St. Petersburg.
We also know that anything less than taking one for “Team Tampa Bay” could result in Major League Baseball being replaced by bush league parochialism. Then everybody loses.
But it could be worse. Kathleen “Honor the Lease” Ford could have been elected mayor.