Mayor Foster: Sternberg Will Honor the Rays 2027 Contract

St. Petersburg mayor, Bill Foster, has made his first official statement with Bay News 9 regarding yesterdays two hour meeting with Rays principal owner, Stu Sternberg. Foster said he “came out of the meeting confident that Sternberg and the Rays organization are prepared to honor their current contract through 2027.” Foster also said he “tried to bring up the issue of tearing down the Trop and building a new stadium to Sternberg, but the Rays had no real interest in the idea.”  That offer was left on the table.

If the mayor is not speaking in hyperbole, which he has been known to do in the past, why has Sternberg changed his expectation about the future of the Rays in the Trop? One wonders if he’s realized that building a new stadium, especially one in Tampa, is not going to effectively change the attendance woes, at least in the long run? I suspect more will come out from both sides over the course of the next few days and weeks.

The mayor and city council will meet Thursday to discuss ways to better market the Rays. One idea that, reportedly, will be discussed is the potential to make the Trop a stop on the proposed  24 mile long light-rail system, running from Clearwater to St. Petersburg, and eventually connecting with Tampa.

In the end, if we’re talking about a “value of a market, as opposed to the location of a new stadium” type of scenario, it will be incumbent on both the Rays organization and the city of St. Petersburg (as well as region wide leaders) to do exhaustive studies on what could put more bottoms in the seats, and maintain a steady fan-base. I predict that the narrative will soon change to where the Rays can move outside of the region, especially if improvements are not made on that end. With that in mind, asking the leaders in Detroit and those involved with the Tigers organization, how they are able to maintain a steady fan-base in an area that is, arguably, in greater economic dire straits than the Tampa Bay region is a good start. It would also be beneficial to look at, and begin conversations with, other smaller market teams (the Brewers come to mind) in order to see what they do to keep fans coming out to the ball-park. It’s obvious that those who want to make sure that the Rays stay within this community need to look no further than Oakland, as the perfect non-example of how to maintain and sustain a sports (rather multiple) organization in a non-economically viable environment. However, dialog with successful franchises in other small markets, or successful franchises in economically strapped regions need to be on both the leaders of our region, and the franchises, collective dockets.