It appears the team will play games at minor league facilities near St. Petersburg.
Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred hopes that the problem of where the Tampa Bay Rays’ baseball team will play in 2025 will be resolved by Christmas. Manfred has signaled that the franchise can play games using spring training-minor league baseball stadiums in the area. Apparently, Hurricane Milton did not do damage to spring training facilities in nearby Clearwater, in nearby Dunedin, in nearby Tampa, in nearby Bradenton and in nearby Lakeland. During spring training, the Rays’ baseball team uses a stadium in Port Charlotte which is about 85 miles south of the Tampa Bay market. There is a minor league baseball venue in the Orlando area at the Walt Disney World complex.
“We can make it work in a minor league park,” Manfred said. “I think there’s probably some flexibility in terms of what we do with the big league schedule. “I think by Christmas they’ve got to have a pretty good plan in place and there’s a lot to that. So once we get past Game 7, and we’re going to have seven, we’ve got to really get focused and figure out where we’re going to be and get the logistics worked out.” Hurricane Milton blew the roof off of the Rays’ St. Petersburg home field. “They’re still in the damage-assessment mode. That needs to get done and, obviously, it was not just the roof. There was damage internally, as well, and won’t know exactly what’s going to happen until they complete that process,” Manfred said. Is it worth fixing up the stadium that was scheduled to be knocked down after the 2027 season? The Rays’ ownership was planning to open a new stadium in 2028 but some funding for the stadium construction was tied to a local tourism tax in Pinellas County and right now tourists cannot use local hotels and motels which could impact stadium bonds. Questions abound.
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The Rays’ stadium is “temporarily” closed.
