{"id":142465,"date":"2026-02-03T21:36:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T21:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/142465\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T21:36:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T21:36:08","slug":"desantis-supports-potential-new-rays-stadium-in-tampa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/142465\/","title":{"rendered":"DeSantis supports potential new Rays stadium in Tampa"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGovernor Ron DeSantis in Tampa \/\/ Chris Young, WMNF News, 5\/12\/2025<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tListen:<\/p>\n

Governor Ron DeSantis joined Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred and others Tuesday to voice support for building the Tampa Bay Rays\u2019 new stadium at Hillsborough College\u2019s Dale Mabry Campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The press conference comes after college trustees approved a memorandum of understanding to develop a stadium and surrounding redevelopment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

DeSantis made his stance clear while speaking on the school\u2019s campus in Tampa.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI happened to be raised in Tampa Bay, but I think it\u2019s true: Baseball belongs in Tampa Bay. Baseball could succeed in Tampa Bay,\u201d DeSantis said.<\/p>\n

DeSantis was joined by Rays leaders as well as Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a great opportunity for this new ownership group to come together with local government, the college, and form the kind of partnership that can make the Rays durable and successful here in the Tampa Bay region,\u201d Manfred said.<\/p>\n

DeSantis says the state will be conveying the land to the college and they\u2019ll be able to negotiate use.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Tampa Bay Times reports that the Rays will pay at least half of the stadium cost, as well as cover construction cost overruns and future repairs, maintenance and ren ovations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The team is asking Hillsborough County to consider covering up to 50 percent of the construction cost with other public funding sources.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Neil deMause is a journalist and author covering stadium deals, and spoke on WMNF\u2019s \u201cMaking Connections.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, the Rays\u2019 owner says he\u2019s going to put up half the money for a Ray\u2019s stadium, which sounds okay, right? Oh great. It\u2019s \u2013 we\u2019re going fifty fifty. We\u2019re not going 50\/50, however, on other avenues. Right. So if there\u2019s money to be made from the stadium, from selling tickets, from selling hot dogs, from selling naming rights, any of that stuff, you know, I mean, we don\u2019t know what the lease is going to look like, but the standard is that the team gets all of that.\u201d deMause said.<\/p>\n

A Rays representative says renderings of the proposed stadium will be released in the coming days.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Governor Ron DeSantis in Tampa \/\/ Chris Young, WMNF News, 5\/12\/2025 Listen: Governor Ron DeSantis joined Major League…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[29208,135,3815,137,136],"class_list":{"0":"post-142465","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-rays-stadium","9":"tag-tampa","10":"tag-tampa-bay-rays","11":"tag-tampa-headlines","12":"tag-tampa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142465","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=142465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}