Financing for two proposed ballparks is a problem.
Major League Baseball wanted to get to the point that expansion was a possibility. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred thought Oakland Athletics’ franchise owner John Fisher solved his situation by leaving the San Francisco Bay Area for Las Vegas except there are a number of problems that have cropped up. Fisher’s team has to play three years in Sacramento’s minor league park, 2025, 2026 and 2027 and then go to Las Vegas. But there is a complication. Funding for the proposed Las Vegas Athletics’ stadium is not there. Fisher claimed he will have the money but there is no evidence that is happening. There is no shovel in the ground in Las Vegas and the 2028 target date for opening that stadium is in jeopardy.
Manfred and Tampa Bay Rays’ franchise owner Stu Sternberg thought they had a deal to build a stadium-village in St. Petersburg. But the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray. There were two hurricanes, including one that ripped the roof off the Rays’ stadium. Pinellas County, Florida commissioners are not issuing funding to float bonds to pay part of the debt of the proposed stadium-village. Pinellas County commissioners have until March to get the funding together for the bonds and there is still time for the Rays’ ownership and Pinellas County officials to work out a funding package. But the Rays’ ownership plan to open the new stadium in 2028 and is in jeopardy as well. Like Fisher, Sternberg will play at a minor league ballpark although unlike Fisher, Sternberg’s team will be playing across Tampa Bay in Tampa for a while. Manfred wants to see 32 teams in the business but that is unlikely to happen before the end of his tenure in 2029. If anything, the Oakland and Tampa Bay situations have worsened.
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Rays baseball will be played in Tampa in 2025.
