{"id":127801,"date":"2026-01-22T13:36:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T13:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/127801\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T13:36:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T13:36:08","slug":"tampa-bay-lightning-ink-six-year-lease-extension-will-remain-in-tampa-through-2043","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/127801\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa Bay Lightning ink six-year lease extension, will remain in Tampa through 2043"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"The agreement to rename the Tampa Bay Lightning's home venue as Benchmark International Arena was Oak View Group's 40th such deal since 2019.\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/U5OFHEFTLVFLTORLPVMBCQCZ6A.JPG\"  width=\"800\" height=\"450\"\/>The Lightning are \u201cset to stay at Benchmark International Arena until at least 2043.\u201d Vinik Sports Group <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-facilities \">The Lightning are \u201cset to stay at Benchmark International Arena until at least 2043\u201d after Hillsborough County Commissioners \u201cunanimously approved a six-year lease extension\u201d Wednesday. It is the \u201cfirst of what could be a few stadium funding requests to come before the county this year.\u201d Commissioners said that their Lightning decision should \u201cnot be considered an expectation, praising the team for exemplary commitment to Tampa.\u201d The extension features a $250M \u201ccommitment from the county for renovations to the arena, money drawn from its tourist development tax.\u201d The team is \u201crequired to spend an additional\u201d $75M on \u201carena renovations to fully unlock the county\u2019s contribution.\u201d If the team \u201cwere to decide to leave Tampa, it would have to pay millions in penalties\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tampabay.com\/news\/hillsborough\/2026\/01\/21\/lightning-tampabay-hockey-stadium-arena-hillsborough-bucs-rays-county-commissioners\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TAMPA BAY TIMES, 1\/21<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Lightning are \u201cset to stay at Benchmark International Arena until at least 2043.\u201d Vinik Sports Group The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[4386,5691,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-127801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}