Three months after stepping away from an agreement to build a new stadium in St. Petersburg, the Tampa Bay Rays took a much-anticipated step in their endless stadium saga: Attempting to sell the team.
The Rays announced on Wednesday that they “recently commenced exclusive discussions” with a potential ownership group led by Jacksonville developer Patrick Zalupski and two of his associates, along with “prominent Tampa Bay investors.”
The Rays have been owned since 2005 by New York-based investor Stuart Sternberg, who in the nearly two decades of his reign has made finding a new stadium his top priority for the lower-revenue club.
Yet just as the club reached agreement on a sprawling ballpark project in the shadow of Tropicana Field, a pair of hurricanes devastated Tampa Bay last autumn, rendering the Trop unplayable and creating a fiscal and political environment that the club determined was untenable.
In March, they halted the project before a deadline to commit funds to it, putting the franchise’s future in doubt. Meanwhile, the club has played at the New York Yankees’ spring training stadium while Tropicana Field undergoes repairs; the stadium is expected to be ready for the 2026 season and the club has two years remaining on its lease there.
Sportico, which first reported news of talks between the Rays and Zalupski’s group, reported that the negotiations are hinging on a potential sale price of $1.7 billion. Sternberg originally paid $65 million for 48% of the club in 2004.
The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.