Major League Baseball’s last expansion was in 1998. For years, commissioner Rob Manfred maintained that the league would not consider expansion until the Oakland Athletics and Tampa Bay Rays resolved their situations in the stadium.
In September, the A’s played their last game in Oakland, on the way to Sacramento next year and finally Las Vegas. In July, the Rays and their hometown of St. Petersburg, Florida, agreed to build a new ballpark there that would open in 2028.
Following Hurricane Miltonwhat made the Rays current home Tropicana Field unplayable For the 2025 season, city and county officials have focused on the region’s recovery from the hurricane. They also delayed votes on bond financing for the proposed project, and newly elected officials expressed doubts about the project.
Rays owner Stuart Sternberg responded Saturday in the Tampa Bay Times. Moving the Rays out of town altogether, he said, “is This is not an improbable conclusion..”
If Sternberg makes good on his threat, cities awaiting an MLB expansion process could scramble to lure the Rays.
Montreal had already considered the Rays’ concept of splitting the season between Florida and Canada. Nashville, Charlotte and Raleigh have expressed interest in expansion, and these cities would allow the Rays to stay in the same geographic region.
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Austin, San Antonio, Salt Lake City, Portland, San Jose and Mexico City have also expressed interest. It is considered highly unlikely that MLB will consider placing another team in Oakland in the near future.
The Rays agreed this week to become the second team to play the 2025 season in a minor league stadium. The Rays will play at nearby Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, with the A’s at Sutter Health Park in Sacramento.
The city of St. Petersburg has not yet decided whether to approve an estimated $56 million in hurricane damage repairs to Tropicana Field, which would allow the Rays to play there in 2026 and 2027.
The county has yet to approve bond financing for the new ballpark, postponing the vote until October in the wake of the hurricane. In this month’s election, two rough supporters of the county commission were replaced with rough skeptics.
“Last month, the county commission upended our rough agreement by not approving their bonds, as they had promised to do,” Sternberg said. “This action sent a clear message that we had lost the county as a partner.
“The future of baseball in Tampa Bay became less certain after this vote.”
The Rays’ rough search lasted nearly two decades, and a few more months wouldn’t necessarily affect the outcome, whether under the current deal or a renegotiation with the city and county. Sternberg told the Tampa Bay Times he would try again and again before moving the team.
“We’re going to exhaust everything we can here until we get to that point,” he said.
This story was originally published in Los Angeles Times.
