The Future of The Tampa Bayreal Expos
As I opened the laptop and decided to start writing about the decision by the ownership group running the Rays wanting to split the season between Tampa Bay and Montreal, Backstreet Boys’ Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely starts playing in my ITunes.
I guess my laptop is also feeling the blues, knowing what the future holds.
After all, me and my laptop have been together since 2014, and we’ve attended dozens of Tampa Bay Rays games over the years even though the atmosphere is never quite what it should be at the Trop (with the exception of me being there for Game 161 and Game 162 during that epic 2011 season), I still like to go and lend my support for a team that does deserve a better stadium with a full crowd cheering and smacking those infamous cowbells. I have brainwashed my youngest brother to be a Rays fan as we take on the rest of our family and their permanent fandom for the Yankees with our yearly trips to see a Rays/Yankees showdown. Baseball in Florida under the right circumstances will thrive, I will take this stance with me to my grave. I was in Miami for the 2013, and 2017 World Baseball Classics and I promise you, there is no ballpark that can duplicate the noise and mayhem I experienced when the Latin American teams played each other.
But Major League Baseball and the owners of the Marlins and the Rays have not been kind to their fanbases, and the latest stunt is just the latest sad example of the sad sad history between the owners and the fans and the teams and the circumstances that prevents Major League Baseball from elevating to the next level and expanding its brand further.
The Tampa Bay Rays announced that they were seeking an option to split their games between St. Petersburg and Montreal in the near future, and possibly build new ballparks in each city in order to increase revenue and provide a solution to bring back baseball to Montreal, keep baseball in Central Florida, and keep the costs down. And Major League Baseball, for whatever reason, didn’t see an issue and handed the franchise permission to pursue this option. The feedback has been….pretty awful to say the least.
Look, everyone in sports media is going to nitpick this and point out the thousands of flaws with the current plan (contracts, union issues, tax issues, what happens in the playoffs, obvious resistance from Tampa Bay fans, obvious resistance from St. Petersburg, the sheer mileage between teams, the bad history of split-seasons) but I’m going straight to the point: this is a slap in the face to the Rays fans in Florida and an obvious ploy to try to get some money from the taxpayers to fund a new stadium in the area whether it be Tampa, Orlando, Lakeland, Clearwater, hell maybe even Sarasota or St. Pete again.
Argue all you want about how smart/dumb Floridians are, but the sports fans within Central Florida and Tampa Bay has seen the fiasco surrounding South Florida’s publicly-funded stadium housing a AA Marlins team after years of betrayal from ownership and seeing back-to-back MVP ex-Marlins thriving elsewhere. Marlins Park has been completely built without the owners paying a penny, and guess what, no extra money was spent to make the team competitive—and whenever they are at the cusp of performing at playoff levels the players get shipped. Having two championships during your only playoff appearances displays the amazingness of Marlins’ scouting combined with the cheap tactics of the owners.
No way is Florida sports going to repeat the history of Marlins Park. And this might cost Rays fans their team, but during a political climate of uncertainty and during an economy that is good but still fragile, no way are taxpayers suddenly having a change of heart and supporting footing the bill on a new stadium seeing the Stu and Friends become penny-pinchers all decade long. The Rays are well-supported in print, on TV, on the radio, and all we want is for the owners to put in their part of the work in the relationship and go the necessary steps to ensure the team remains in Tampa Bay but in a better location. Repeat, a better location, and not one that’s hard to reach, expensive to reach, and in an area missing pre and post-baseball activities. The Rays Republic has done the work, we’ve bought the merchandise, and gave the team locally higher TV ratings than that of EVERY other sporting event happening this summer so far.
Clearwater Beach, Downtown Tampa, Ybor City, Hyde Park, Lakeland, Orlando, Lake Buena Vista are ALL venues that would increase attendance by at least 10,000-15,000 per game, especially if Kevin Cash and the extremely smart management staff keeps up their low-budget winning ways. The space exists, the fandom exists, but of course taxpayer money remains the biggest hurdle and obviously Stu doesn’t want to spend his money. And he has every right to not spend, but we have every right to call his bluff and see him move the team to Montreal.
The Rays are more than likely moving to Montreal barring an ownership change. Tampa Bay politically will call Stu’s bluff, rebuff his demands for taxpayer money, and once that lease is up he is disappearing. I had already started preparing for the beginning of the end especially after the Ybor City stadium talks died without much progress even though it definitely could have been a great location for a baseball team. But this news today upsets me nonetheless because it is speeding up the inevitable process: now we see Montreal as his next target, we see how low he will stoop to try to get his money, and this is going to kill a lot of the momentum the Rays had been getting with their playoff chase this season. This stupid idea just might ruin what has been a nice season of Tampa Bay Rays baseball.
From now on I’m showing up to these baseball games wearing Expos gear until Stu apologizes and decides to pony up the money. Until then, it’s time to envision this team wearing different uniforms and playing in another country.
Tampa, Tampa Bay, St. Petersburg, the Rays players, and the entire Rays Republic deserves much better.