On Thursday, the St. Petersburg City Council voted against spending more than $23 million to repair Tropicana Field's domed roof, which was damaged in October by Hurricane Milton. The Council had initially voted to authorize the repairs. Hours later, they reversed course, adding to an already contentious situation that has the Tampa Bay Rays once again saber-rattling about relocating the franchise to another market.
"I can't say I'm confident about anything," Rays co-president Brian Auld told the council about the team's future, according to the Associated Press.
As our Dayn Perry recently chronicled, Pinellas County Commissioners recently elected to postpone their vote on a $312.5 million bond payment by a month -- that money would serve as public funding toward the construction of a new ballpark. Between the area being hit by two major hurricanes in recent months and the composition of the Pinellas County Board changing with November's elections means that the deal is now in limbo.
Auld and co-team president Matt Silverman declared earlier this week in a letter to the County Commissioners that the Rays "stand ready to work on a new solution with any and all willing partners," the latest in a long line of relocation threats uttered by the franchise. Are there teeth to this particular threat? Only time will tell. Mind you, though, that Auld has previously claimed the Rays would withdraw from any stadium deal that required them to change their name (something they would then have to do if they relocated elsewhere), and said in 2021 that the Rays had "concluded that it's next to impossible that full-season baseball can succeed in Tampa Bay today."
Anyway, the one thing that's for sure about the Rays is that they won't play at the Trop in 2025. They recently announced that they would play their home games during the 2025 season at Steinbrenner Field, the spring training home of the New York Yankees. (The Yankees' A-ball affiliate, the Tampa Tarpons, also play at Steinbrenner Field.)
