Sunday, January 10, 2016

Rays Ask for Final Year of Stadium Contract Shaved Off; St. Pete Basically Says, "OK"

This blog is clearly the only outlet questioning why the Rays aren't willing to compensate St. Pete for the 2027 baseball season, the final season they originally agreed to play at The Trop.

The team's got a pretty sweet offer lined up now if they choose to move to Tampa, only paying St. Pete $4M if they leave before the 2018 season, $3M/yr for the 2019-2022 seasons, and $2M/yr for the 2023-2026 seasons.  That's significantly less than what other teams have paid to break their stadium contracts.

But everyone forgets the Rays are currently obligated to also play the 2027 season at Tropicana Field.  

So I asked Mayor Kriseman last week why there was no compensation for the Rays reneging on playing that final season in St. Pete:
Kriseman said because he didn't negotiate 2027 compensation into his 2014 deal, "there didn't seem to be any sense" to trying to get them to compensate the city now. 

"The Rays were very clear they weren't going to be paying more," the mayor said.

Well then.

Of course, the Rays also said they wouldn't re-re-re-negotiate their best offer to the city after it was rejected in December 2014.  They then proceeded to re-negotiated the deal in March 2015...and then they re-negotiated it again in December 2015

But, you know, other than that, we should totally believe everything MLB teams tell us.





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3 comments:

  1. The Rays haven't negotiated anything yet. This is a proposal that City Council wants to offer the Rays - not the other way around. The Rays can easily say NO to this offer and keep dragging it out until they owe nothing to St Pete, reap the benefits of any development at the Trop and still get to leave Florida

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    Replies
    1. So you believe the Rays would get a part of development revenues beyond the end of the use agreement in 2027? So they play through 2027 and ALSO get redevelopment money? So when a lease/use agreement expires, and the owner/landlord scrapes the property, you believe the former tenant/licensee has rights in the benefits of redevelopment?

      Kriseman seems to drive a hard bargain. "Well, why is there no compensation for 2027?" "Uh, because the other side said so."

      Facepalm.

      Delete
  2. SO was the guy really trying to steal the microwave, or were you jumping to conclusion to hype the story & because he a black guy working w/o insurance???

    ReplyDelete