Rays Spending on PR Campaign, But Not on Curb Appeal

ST PETERSBURG, Fla. - Following questions from WTSP, code enforcement officials have notified the Tampa Bay Rays they are violating their contract with the city by failing to maintain their large billboard outside Tropicana Field.

The prominent board above the intersection of I-275 and I-175 serves as a welcome to both Tropicana Field and Downtown St. Petersburg. It displays a team logo, a pair of sponsors' logos, and a "St. Petersburg Welcomes You!" message.

But at night, the lack of maintenance is clear. Numerous lights on the sign appear to have been out for years and the video board is failing. Some of the fabric is torn, and some of the panels are detaching. The issues would appear to violate city code on upkeep of signage.

A spokesman for Mayor Rick Kriseman said the city has asked the Rays "numerous times" in recent years to fix the sign, but little had been done.

Prior to Thursday's season-opener, team president Brian Auld told 10News about $7 million in renovations that include new turf and concessions improvements. The team also spent more than $1 million on a 2014 renovation that made it easier for fans to get around the perimeter of the ballpark and visit concessions.

The Rays have said they spent more than $20 million on Trop improvements after Stu Sternberg took control of the team in 2005. Some of those funds have come from a joint maintenance account shared with the city.

But the outside appearance of Tropicana Field and its signage have gone largely unaddressed in recent years, bolstering the team's argument that the stadium is in need of replacement.

Critics of the team, including former St. Pete Mayor Bill Foster, have suggested the Rays have failed to properly invest in the area for the better part of the last decade since they started campaigning for a new home.

The Rays did not provide comment Friday, but a city official told WTSP the team had been contacted about the issue and promised to make the repairs.

A spokesman for Mayor Kriseman said the Rays have done an "exceptional job" of maintaining Tropicana Field otherwise.

"Grassroots" campaign in Tampa

Meanwhile, the grassroots group that’s trying to build business and community support for a new stadium across the bay, Tampa Bay Rays 2020, may not be so grassroots after all.

One of the group's founders told WTSP on Friday that the Rays have provided the main funding to the non-profit.

A pair of Tampa business leaders, Ron Christaldi and Chuck Sykes, are heading up the effort to secure pledges from local businesses to purchase tickets at the new stadium. Christaldi said the Rays have provided an undisclosed amount for - what appears to be - a healthy roster of public relations and marketing consultants who have been hired on behalf of the campaign

Christaldi said he was not receiving any compensation from the team but that his firm, Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, had done some legal work for Tampa Bay Rays 2020. He did not say if any other attorneys at the firm had been contracted by the Rays.

Christaldi and Sykes spoke Friday morning at Cafe Con Tampa, a forum that addresses different local issues each week. Sykes said the two men got involved because they believe pro teams help bring together a community, and the opportunity to be proactive about bridging the Ybor City/Channelside corridors with development is a once-in-a-lifetime chance.

“Yes...investing in a new stadium will be risky," Christaldi said.  "But I’m betting on that risk myself."

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Stu Sternberg is Willing to Spend Magic Fairy Dust Money on a New Stadium

I want to dive deeper into comments Stu Sternberg made at Thursday's opener, suggesting he'd open up his wallet a little wider if the Rays got a $25M/yr naming rights deal, similar to the Mets.

So generous! 

Except:

1. The Mets' deal was worth $20M a year, not $25M;
2. The Mets play in the No. 1 media market in the country;
3. The Rays' current deal with Tropicana deal is reportedly worth just $1M a year, and its hard to imagine a new deal in the same market would be worth any more than $3-5M per year.
1. CORRECTION: According to TampaBayRays2020 co-founder Chuck Sykes, the Rays are earning $3.5 million per year currently. 
4. A number of teams reportedly seeking naming rights deals, such as the Marlins and Nats, haven't found anyone willing to meet their prices.

And on top of it all, Sternberg offered "to go halfsies" on a hypothetical $800M ballpark if a magical fairy dust CEO gave him that unprecedented naming rights deal.

Except Sternberg knows the ballpark will never cost $800 million.  NOTE: I have received quite a number of criticisms on this number - it is something I plan to continue to dive into. 

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1500 Posts!

It only took the better part of nine years, but this post will be No. 1500 for Shadow of the Stadium.

In many ways, we're in the same place we were a decade ago: the Rays say Tropicana Field is an unsuitable home, they need the public to come up with the cash to buy a new one, and it'll totally succeed at the perfect site they've identified!

That plan turned out to be a bad one in 2008; time will tell how successful their 2018 plan is.

Here are a few of the 1500 posts that stand out over the years:

• Bold predictions: how the Rays Stadium Saga will go down (7/3/09)
• Sternberg gives Tampa Bay stadium ultimatum (6/21/10)
• Gammons: MLB needs ability to blackmail cities (8/31/10) and Update (1/6/15)
• Stadium Saga isn't Tampa Bay's problem; it's MLB's Problem (8/2/11)
• Times hates corporate welfare; except for maybe pro sports teams (3/12/13)
• Crazy simplistic thoughts on the Stadium Saga (8/30/13)
• Rays deal for could mirror Braves' secret, not-so-great, potentially-illegal deal (7/5/15) and Update (3/24/16)
• DONE DEAL: St. Pete approves deal to alter Rays contract (1/14/16)
• How Ken Hagan has flipped on stadium subsidies (3/25/16) and Update (3/1/17)
• Hillsborough still doesn't have $200M hiding in sofa cushions (5/31/16)
• The Rays have 99 problems, but getting rich ain't one (12/21/16)
• Florida's leading economist on sporting events is not an economist (4/16/17)
• Ken Hagan Does Not Like Tough Questions (10/16/17)
• What the Hell Just Happened? Rays' Ybor Press Conference (2/9/18) and Pt. 2 (2/11/18)
• Ken Hagan: How Did We Get Here? (2/15/18)

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It's Time for Opening Day (Stadium Stories)!

It's Groundhog Day all over again for Rays fans, who should once again expect a series of articles about a new stadium, Rays attendance, and some variation of "hope springs eternal" editorial prose.

Once again, we shouldn't expect many questions about the Rays' presumed huge profits, their questionable cost-cutting in the off-season, or how much the team should be contributing to its new home.

Here are the drums the Times' editorial board has been beating since 2010 - mostly about how the slow pace of the Stadium Saga is going to cost the region the team if they don't do something urgently:

• 2014 - 2017: Please just hurry up and do something!
• 2012 - 2013: The Marlins have a new stadium!!
• 2010 - 2011: St. Pete losing leverage in negotiations

Turns out, not doing anything urgently hasn't cost the region the team, and arguably, its given Tampa Bay a lot more information about MLB revenues (they're huge) and how not to get ripped off when negotiating a new stadium (don't do what Miami did).

The only question is whether any of our elected leaders here learned from those free lessons?

Oh yeah, there's still the giant question of how the heck Tampa might pay for a stadium, but that's been a LOL issue for years.

Also of note: the Rays-to-Montreal talk has cooled down with a new, more fiscally-conservative mayor at the helm there and disappointing crowds (51k for two games) for the Blue Jays' annual exhibition games at Olympic Stadium. 

So, expect to hear from the commissioner soon about all the great cities that could be future MLB homes if Tampa and Oakland don't soon build new stadiums soon.

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Good News (Except for Rays): Hillsborough Bed Tax Can Now Be Used for Even More Things

It's no secret Hillsborough County is going to raise its bed tax from 5 to 6 cents on the dollar, but County Commissioner Ken Hagan has tried to keep a secret all the other things the revenues could pay for, basically already carving out the revenues for a new Rays stadium.

"It can't be used for law enforcement or fire-rescue or libraries," Hagan has said in his repeated efforts to stress bed tax revenues are limited in their uses.

But that's terribly misleading, since those revenues CAN be used for tons of things besides a stadium: from marketing to aquariums to performance centers to arts to beaches to tourist-driving festivals.

In fact, since nobody else bothered to look, I found at least $550,000 a year earmarked in the county’s general revenue budget to help promote major Tampa Bay Sports Commission (TBSC) events, such as NCAA championships. While the TBSC doesn’t use all of the funds every year, those expenditures could be funded by the bed tax, which would allow the county to spend that half-million-or-so dollars on general revenue items such as schools, sewers, or roads. A $25,000 annual general revenue subsidy for the Tampa Bay Black Heritage Festival would also appear to be eligible for bed tax funding.
Annnnnnnd, the state legislature just allowed cities to spend that money on even more things!

The Tampa Bay Times reports on HB 7087, on its way to the governor's desk, which allows counties such as Hillsborough and Pinellas to now use bed tax money on "transportation and sewer projects that benefit tourists and the tourism industry."

So the next question is whether Hillsborough leaders will continue to just assume the Rays deserve the $6 million per year the county's bed tax will soon raise...or if they should examine if there are better possible uses for that money?

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New Documents Reveal Rays Stadium & Hillsborough Financing Ideas

Newly-released public records from Hillsborough County’s secret discussions with the Tampa Bay Rays reveal how the county is going about trying to raise public funds for construction on what could require more than $300 million in taxpayer funds.

10Investigates obtained the documents from the county’s two outside legal firms on the dealings, Foley & Lardner LLP and O’Melveny & Myers LLP, who previously responded to the same public records request with zero documents. But after further questions from 10Investigates, the county’s legal department provided 51 pages of documents from behind-the-scenes stadium discussions.

Click here to read excerpted documents

While county leaders have been mum on how they expect to pay for a new Rays stadium, one of the newly-obtained documents shows an agenda item from a previously-undisclosed February 2017 meeting: “general discussion of sources – trying not to focus on amounts, but sources.”

Several Hillsborough County commissioners publicly expressed concern throughout 2017 at the lack of transparency from fellow commissioner Ken Hagan regarding public financing sources and amounts.

As first reported by 10Investgates, Hillsborough County is now eligible to increase its bed tax from 5% to 6%, and Hagan is reportedly leading the charge to make the change as soon as possible to create new revenues to help fund a Rays stadium.

The county also used that Feb. 2017 meeting to discuss a Citigroup debt capacity report, which analyzed the different ways the county could come up with public money to help fund stadium construction.

The report examined how the county could raise $15 million per year by raising rental car taxes by $2 per day. However, the airport recently raised that fee to help fund its own construction, and at $5.95 per day, it’s the highest rate in the state.

With rideshare popularity surpassing rental cars, the airport also had to create new revenue from local passengers, creating a new $3-per-pickup rideshare fee, which will escalate to $5-per-pickup in 2019 to help raise additional funds.

The Citigroup stadium bond capacity report also considered extended the Community Investment Tax past 2026, when Raymond James Stadium will be paid off. The sales tax could generate $10 million per year for a new Rays stadium, but the extension would be a tough political sell and the county may need the funds to appease the Buccaneers when their lease expires the same year as the Rays’.

A new Rays stadium could cost upwards of $600 million, and Rays owner Stu Sternberg’s initial offer in public negotiations has only been $150 million. That could leave taxpayers on the hook for more than $450 million, although most sports business observers expect Sternberg to ultimately offer more.


Ballpark Reimagined
10Investigates also obtained what appeared to be a November 2017 update to the Rays’ “Ballpark Reimagined” research, compiling fan and expert recommendations for a new ballpark. Many of the recommendations echo public statements Rays’ executives have made in recent months about stadium intimacy, the need for a stadium roof, and maintaining “local authenticity.”

The Rays’ report also detailed development ideas, such as “knitting local businesses into the ballpark,” and providing “a defined gateway into the district from adjacent activity centers," such as Ybor City and Channelside.

Several times, the report mentions making the ballpark a “community asset,” which could help satisfy both stadium subsidy critics who complain about ballparks sitting empty 200+ nights a year, as well as subsidy advocates who may be looking for opportunities to use various government funds to help fund stadium construction.

“Regional connectivity” (highways & road improvements) and “site accessibility” are also prominently mentioned in the Ballpark Reimagined report.

Other documents turned over to 10Investigates from the county’s outside counsel, include maps and real estate information from various Tampa neighborhoods that helped elected and business leaders assemble parcels of land together for what ultimately became the proposed Ybor City stadium site.

Through late January, O'Melveny and Foley had billed Hillsborough County nearly $400,000 in legal bills. Firm attorneys and county leaders have quietly met regularly for years about their campaign to lure the Rays from St. Petersburg.