Tag: Tampa Bay

Ballpark

To get their new ballpark approved, the Tampa Bay Rays made many promises to local students…now that the deal is done, the Rays will just ignore almost all of them.

It has been reported this week that the city has agreed to a community benefits agreement (“CBA”) with the Tampa Bay Rays. In this agreement, the Rays are forced to do little except say that they made efforts to do small things for local citizens. Overall, the CBA has the city giving the team $80M of taxpayer money while the team is promising to give $21M worth of benefits to the city. As the Tampa Monitor wrote about the community benefits agreement, the deal “relies too much on the Rays voluntarily keeping their promises.” Additionally, there is almost “nothing…

William Neilson Jr.
Ballpark Stadium

The Washington Commanders owner is “frustrated” when he is asked to negotiate a deal that was done in secret for months

Sports owners are trying to negotiate their new stadiums in secret and then refuse to negotiate once the agreements are in the public eye. Recently, the owners of the Tampa Bay Rays and Washington Commanders have used this tactic, although in slightly different ways. Residents of both Tampa Bay and Washington DC were never involved in stadium talks before an announcement was made on a new stadium. Once their deals were announced, the Rays claimed that their deal would not change because they had given up too much already, while the Commanders stomped their feet like a child and…

William Neilson Jr.
Arena Ballpark Stadium

Will news sites ever properly label people who are clearly biased or have an interest in the venue?

Yesterday, I saw an opinion piece in the Sports Business Journal. The point of the piece was just how great the World Cup will make our stadiums look for future events. The article claims that the current stadiums that are hosting World Cup matches shortly are all in top-notch form and can handle any future “World Cup (matches), Super Bowl(s) & specialty events, concerts, and more.” About here is where I started to wonder whether this was an actual opinion piece or essentially an advertisement by a financially biased individual/group. It is the latter. Before we go into that,…

William Neilson Jr.
Ballpark Stadium

In Chicago, Kansas City & Tampa Bay, sports owners are trying to push new venues without any public input or review

If you are a sports owner, massive projects should and do get agreed upon in weeks, if not a month or two…max. I have written numerous times about how almost every sports owner runs the same play every time. The sports owner will come out and demand a new stadium and mandate that a deal must be done within weeks due to…reasons unknown. If this isn't good enough, then the team will possibly relocate. The purpose is clearly to pressure local leaders into agreeing to the project without any time to properly review and vet it. Most local politicians…

William Neilson Jr.
Ballpark

Why are the Tampa Bay Rays publicly crying about rising ballpark costs yet refusing to give the mayor any evidence of this financial increase?

In June 2024, the Tampa Bay Rays agreed to a $1.3 billion deal with both the city of St. Petersburg and Pinellas County. The initial numbers given to the public about costs showed that $600 million would be split between the city and county while the Rays pick up the rest, totaling $700 million. These numbers are insanely misleading for several reasons. One, they don't include the many hundred of millions that the city/county will need to spend on infrastructure improvements. Two, the lack of property taxes is not included in these numbers. Three, there are still so many…

William Neilson Jr.
Ballpark

Tampa Bay Times: Just approve the new ballpark. If we don’t, people will say mean things to us

Transparent? Everyone, outside the team, knew little to nothing about this deal until the very end. A few months after the deal was announced in 2023, the Tampa Bay Times wrote an article that had this line in it: “After months of secret negotiations, the release Thursday of finance projections…”. In March of this year, the team was actively trying to get both the city and county to approve the ballpark deal. However, both Pinellas County commissioners and St. Pete City Council members seemed to say the same thing…they needed actual answers. Pinellas County Commissioner Dave Eggers issued a…

William Neilson Jr.
Ballpark

St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce backs Tampa Bay Rays ballpark proposal

The Tampa Bay Rays are lucky that the package passed the city council, as it was approved barely. Apparently, language was put in very late that gave developers “more flexibility in opting out of creating affordable housing units” and gave developers a required 10%  participation from minority-owned businesses, instead of the previous language stating it was 30%. When the Community Benefits Advisory Council met to agree to the package, they had several changes that they wanted to put in place. The problem? Any revisions by the council are “nonbinding”. Just like what most good neighbors do once they are…

William Neilson Jr.
Arena Ballpark Stadium

When Utah leaders say that taxpayers “will not” pay for a ballpark, they mean that $900 million taxpayer dollars will be used

Over the last few months, more and more stories have been popping up online that discuss whether Salt Lake City or the state of Utah should build a ballpark for some future MLB expansion team. Utah residents have therefore been asking local leaders who exactly would be paying for such a project. Rep. Ryan Wilcox, R-Ogden, has an answer. He wants residents to know that local taxpayers will not be left on base holding the bill. Many other city and state political leaders agree, and expressed to a local Fox 13 station that they do not favor taxpayer money…

William Neilson Jr.
Ballpark

The Philadelphia Phillies will ask Clearwater for public money in two weeks. Two weeks after that. Some time later. Maybe?

The Philadelphia Phillies have a history with Clearwater, Florida. Since 1947, the Phillies spring training facility and ballpark has been found here. But over the last decade or so, the Phillies have struggled to get money out of local city leaders. In early 2019, the Phillies asked for $40 million from tourist taxes for ballpark renovations and were flatly rejected. But now they are trying again. Maybe. We think.

William Neilson Jr.
Ballpark

The Philadelphia Phillies and Tampa Bay Rays are fighting each other for tourist dollars

When the Tampa Bay Rays do construct a new ballpark, it will be with a significant amount of taxpayer money. For years, it has been reported that the Rays are “willing to finance half of the cost of a new (ballpark)”. How nice of them. But the Rays couldn't build it on their own if they wanted to because their owner isn't wealthy enough to fund such a project. This means the Rays will need as much taxpayer funds as possible.

William Neilson Jr.
Ballpark

Worcester was promised that Polar Park would pay for itself, it has not and will not

In 2018, Worcester, Massachusetts, agreed to finance a substantial portion of taxpayer money to build a brand-new ballpark. Although the city would be borrowing around $100.8 million for this project (making it the 4th most expensive minor league ballpark to be built), city leaders justified this expense by stating how the ballpark would fund itself, if not make the city money in the long term. At the press conference announcing the deal, the city manager told everyone outright that “in essence, the project pays for itself”. What if there are cost issues after the ballpark is built?

William Neilson Jr.
Ballpark

The Tampa Bay Rays avoid almost all public records when negotiating their new ballpark

So even though this is public land and the parties will be receiving significant taxpayer support, the city of St. Petersburg is denying all interview requests or interviews in general. A big reason for the secrecy is likely due to the hope that the deal can be done as quickly as possible. Out of nowhere several weeks ago, the Tampa Bay Rays owner stated that if a deal wasn't done by the end of 2023, then there would be no deal at all.

William Neilson Jr.