The principal owner of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team has expressed disappointment after Major League Baseball (MLB) rejected the franchise’s innovative “Sister City” venture with Montreal.
Major League Baseball’s Executive Council has voted to end the Tampa Bay Rays’ Sister City project, in which half of the franchise’s home games will be played in the sister city of Montreal and half in Florida. This exacerbates the Rays’ stadium problems again. In June 2019, the league gave the green light to the idea for the first time.
The Tampa Bay Rays have hosted their home games at Tropicana Field since 1998. The contract with the stadium in the small town of Saint Petersburg right in Tampa Bay runs until 2027. The club has been looking for a more suitable home stadium in the region for a long time. “Absolutely disappointing” is what main owner Stuart Sternberg calls the current news.
According to the Wall Street shareholder, things have been going well so far. He is also quite certain that the “Sister City” method will prevail in all professional sports in the long term. The MLB is currently simply not ready to cross this threshold. Sometimes people don’t like being first, Sternberg explains.
The Rays have repeatedly sought to build their own stadium. As early as 2008, attempts to build a stadium right in downtown Saint Petersburg failed. In December 2018, it was announced that the Rays were once again looking for a new home in the region, although the club said they had already “two strikes”. Now locations in the entire region are to be examined again.
This is what the designs for a possible new stadium for the Tampa Bay Rays looked like. Bild: Tampa Bay Rays
Asked how the Rays’ new situation relates to future plans for Tropicana Field, Saint Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch said they want to make the best possible plan. He is confident of achieving a long-term partnership with the Tampa Bay Rays. Tampa Mayor Jane Castor also explained that the goal from the start was to keep the Rays in Tampa Bay. For his part, Stuart Sternberg stated that a possible move of the franchise outside of Florida is not an option.
As recently as May 2019, Groupe de Montréal, which is seeking to bring an MLB franchise back to the Canadian city, reached an agreement for a piece of land on which it would like to build a stadium. Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante said her administration will now seek alternative uses for the proposed site. (Stadium World, 01/25/2022)
