Tampa President Jane Castor talks about Rays

In an interview with the prestigious Tampa Bay Times newspaper, Tampa Mayor Jane CastorThe 61-year-old made it very clear that he expects the Rays to remain in the Tampa area.

While adding the caveat that the Tampa region “will undoubtedly continue to grow” regardless of the team’s future, Castor also advocated for the city to hold on to a team that has been plagued by stadium problems, low attendance and limited income since its Started as an expansion franchise prior to the 1998 season:

Tampa is a great urban city that grows every day, so we should add assets to our community instead of other municipalities or countries taking them away. “

Principal owner and financier Stuart Sternberg raised the idea of ​​moving the team to Montreal, Canada, which hasn’t had a major league team since they lost the Expos to the Washington Nationals after the 2004 season, as early as 2014, and in 2019 Major League Baseball gave it the club permission to explore the possibility of playing half of its home games in Montreal starting in 2024.

Although a number of new stadium projects have been proposed over the years, most notably at the current site of Al Lang Stadium on the St. Petersburg waterfront and in the Ybor City neighborhood of northeast Tampa, none have obtained the necessary political support.

An October report by Charie Frago and CT Bowen in the Tampa Bay Times suggested the club had revived its attempts to build a new ballpark in Ybor City, though such a project would not necessarily rule out the club’s divided city plans.

An open letter on January 8, signed by several dozen Tampa businessmen and published in the Tampa Bay Times, expressed support for both the new stadium in Ybor City (which it calls “an economic development platform”) and the concept of “Sister city”.

Although Castor refers to the letter as “a step in the right direction,” he declined to commit public money to the project, stating that while he hopes to keep the team in the Tampa area, “the community’s appetite for paying a stadium has left the train station ”.

It may interest you: MLB Proposal for New Tampa Bay Rays Stadium

Castor continued to rule out using money from the city’s general fund, suggesting that his office would explore alternative funding methods. The proposed stadium would cost approximately $ 700 million, of which the Rays promised to pay $ 350 million, or 50 percent.

Rafael Martinez

I am fond of the King of Sports, especially the Boston Red Sox in MLB and in general all of Mexican baseball. This profession has given me the opportunity to cover major events such as the Caribbean Series, the LMB All Star, LMP (uninterrupted since 2009), signings of important players. I had the chance to attend the 2013 World Classic in Arizona, USA, albeit as a fan. Apart from this beautiful sport, I love basketball, where I have also narrated games and even a friendly NBA 10 years ago, but I carry baseball in my veins. Graduated in Communication Sciences from the Autonomous University of Sinaloa (UAS) , from which I graduated in 2011. I was born in Mazatlán, Sinaloa and started in the world of sports journalism in 2004 in the newspaper El Sol de Mazatlán, where I was a baseball columnist and reporter at the same time. In January 2009 I came to El Debate as a journalist reporter and it was almost six years (in the first stage), until in November 2014 I emigrated to the radio providing my services in Línea Directa-Grupo RSN. My cycle there ended in July 2019 and within days, El Debate gave me another opportunity to work and opened the doors for me again. That is how I came to Al Bat, where I have been since 2019 as a web journalist.

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