Reminder to Tampa Bay Rays Fans: The Funding in Las Vegas Isn't Team Specific

Jason Burke | Nov 18, 2024

The roof of Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays MLB team, was torn off by Hurricane Milton's powerful winds. Satellite imagery from Maxar shows the destruction on Oct. 10, 2024. Prior to landfall, the stadium was converted into a base camp for emergency responders. / Satellite image ©2024 Maxar Technologies / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Major League Baseball has said that expansion is on the way, as soon as The Athletics and the Tampa Bay Rays have their ballpark situations figured out. For a minute there it looked as though both teams had secured their new homes, with the A's choosing to move to Las Vegas, and the Rays just needing to dot some i's and cross some t's.

Turns out those i's and t's were never addressed in Tampa, and then Hurricane Milton ripped the roof off of Tropicana Field. While dealing with and assessing that devastation, Election Day passed and now votes on bonds are being delayed, which led the Tampa Bay Times to say that the deal for the Rays' new ballpark appears to be dead.

Obviously, nothing is official one way or another, and nothing is official in Las Vegas when it comes to the A's, either. But the dynamics of things also just changed for John Fisher with the Mayor of Oakland being recalled and a new president elected. Could that change his calculus at all? Any way that he can find to not spend over a billion dollars of his own money is the path he is likely to choose.

If the A's situation in Las Vegas doesn't have a resolution soon, could Major League Baseball approve the Rays to start flirting with Vegas as well?

It's important to note that the Las Vegas funding package that was approved back in 2023 is not team specific, so if another club ran into some issues getting funding from their local municipalities, then Vegas is certainly a one size fits all boogeyman.

Rays owner Stu Sternberg is already planting some of the relocation seeds, telling the Times: "We’re going to exhaust all that we can here until, and unless, it comes to that,” Sternberg told the Tampa Bay Times. “We’ve been in that sort of position before, in a sense, but without an expiring clock. An expiring clock that just exploded, basically. If we had 10 years, 12 years left, it’s a different conversation. If we had one year left, it’s probably a different conversation. If we had no plans to do a stadium here, it’s a different conversation.

"But, as you point out, it’s a confluence of events and without the minds here coming together, (relocation) is not an unlikely conclusion."

We're running out of time! We need to make a deal quickly! Sound familiar? That is the same playbook that the A's ran to get out of Oakland, using the deadline of having a binding deal in order to stay on revenue sharing as their guiding light. Not the fans. Not what is best for business. Instead, they were propelled to action--any action--by free money that they get from the other owners.

Sternberg also mentioned that he would be ok with the losses he'll have to take on while the Rays play in a minor league ballpark, "but not if the new stadium remains in limbo." That's yet another tricky negotiation tactic.

Who knows how it will all end, but don't be surprised if at some point they start touting that money in Las Vegas as an option for themselves as well.