The Tropicana Field soap opera has taken a curious turn

Now the Rays want to come back after 2025.

As you know, the roof at the home of the Tampa Bay Rays, Tropicana Field, was shredded by Hurricane Milton last October.

When last we visited this topic, the Rays had made an agreement to play the 2025 season at the Spring Training home of the Yankees, Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, and beyond that it wasn’t clear where the team would play after that.

Now, according to an article by Colleen Wright in the Tampa Bay Times, the Rays have changed their tune, in an email sent to St. Petersburg city administrators just before the end of December:

In a Dec. 30 e-mail to St. Petersburg City Administrator Rob Gerdes, Rays president Matt Silverman said that the team had been open to considering a settlement that would’ve bought the city out of its obligation to repair the ballpark. Now, Silverman said the Rays “support and expect” St. Petersburg to rebuild the Trop according to its current use agreement.

Oh.

The article further states that any roof repairs made to the Trop will cost “at least” $56 million and:

According to the original 1995 agreement with the team, the pact is extended by one season for every year the dome is not suitable for playing home games.

So… that sounds like an ultimatum to the St. Petersburg City Council, right? Except:

Absent in the e-mail is any mention of the Rays’ intentions to follow through with a massive deal to build a $1.3 billion replacement stadium by opening day 2028 and redevelop the surrounding acreage. The team and its development partner Hines have until March 31 to meet certain benchmarks or the deal automatically terminates.

Repairs to the Trop’s roof would’ve already been underway if not for comments made by Rays president Brian Auld at a City Council meeting Nov. 21. Council members that day were reluctant to spend $24 million on a building that would be razed in a few years. They voted to do so anyway, despite not knowing whether the Rays have a future in St. Petersburg.

Shortly after that vote, Auld told reporters that the team wasn’t confident repairs could be done in time for a 2026 reopening for the estimated costs. He said that the team would have “more certainty” working out a settlement with the city.

Oh.

So where this leaves things between the Rays and St. Petersburg is unclear. We have covered this topic in detail on this site here, here, here, here, here, here and here (those are in chronological order), and I have made this handy StoryStream for those and all future BCB articles on this topic.

One of the St. Petersburg council members doesn’t seem too happy about all this:

(The link in the tweet is to the Tampa Bay Times article I have linked here.)

So where do things go from here? From the Tampa Bay Times article:

The City Council would still need to approve the lion’s share of repairs. At least one of the two new council members would have to be on board with that spending. According to the city’s timeline, that approval would need to happen by late March in order to install a new roof membrane and turf by February 2026.

That March timeline coincides with the Rays’ deadline to complete a checklist of conditions to the city and county’s satisfaction to access public funding to build the new stadium. That includes proof that the Rays have cash on hand to pay an estimated $700 million share of a new stadium.

There’s a long way to go. The email sent by Rays President Matt Silverman, along with the article, have struck notes of cautious optimism that all of this can be settled.

Danny Russell, managing editor of our SB Nation Rays site DRays Bay, told me:

The Rays encouraged the city not to repair the Trop (as required by the “use agreement” that is the stadium lease) because their consultants didn’t think it could be done in a year or so.

The Rays then tried to buy their way out of the use agreement (which legally keeps the Rays from even considering leaving town).

So this new letter demanding the City abide by the use agreement — in my humble opinion — appears to be a way to make the City fail to meet their legal obligations and provide leverage to get out of the deal.

So maybe there will be baseball at a renovated Tropicana Field in 2026… or maybe there won’t. As always, we await developments.