{"id":277528,"date":"2026-05-20T02:41:47","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T02:41:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/277528\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T02:41:47","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T02:41:47","slug":"rays-advocates-call-2b-tampa-stadium-subsidy-deal-city-building-critics-call-it-pie-in-the-sky-field-of-schemes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/277528\/","title":{"rendered":"Rays advocates call $2B Tampa stadium subsidy deal \u201ccity building,\u201d critics call it \u201cpie in the sky\u201d \u2013 Field of Schemes"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Hillsborough County commission and Tampa city council look set to vote tomorrow and Thursday, respectively, on a nonbinding MOU for a Tampa Bay Rays stadium project requiring about $976 million in city and county tax dollars<\/a> plus $839 million in property tax breaks and at least $250 million in free land<\/a> for the stadium site, coming to just over $2 billion in subsidies for a stadium that will cost $2.3 billion. Let\u2019s hear what some of the main players have to say for themselves:<\/p>\n

Tampa council chair Alan Clendenin wrote an op-ed in the Tampa Bay Times<\/a> declaring that this one will be different<\/a>, because unlike when Tampa gave money to the\u00a0Buccaneers owners for an NFL stadium and the New York Yankees owners for a spring training facility and the\u00a0Lightning owners for an NHL arena, this is \u201can expansion of that successful public-private model to an entirely new level\u201d and \u201ca city building deal\u201d that will \u201ccreate tens of thousands of jobs and generate new tax revenues that can help improve parks, roads, infrastructure and future transit opportunities\u201d [citation extremely needed<\/a>].
\nRays CEO Ken Babby got a column worth of softball questions<\/a> from Florida Politics (with \u201cassistance from AI,\u201d okay then), which he used to assert that the stadium district will generate \u201c$55.5 billion in economic impact\u201d (as reported previously, this is a largely meaningless number based entirely on assuming the team\u2019s projections are correct<\/a>), that \u201cthere will be no new taxes to fund this project\u201d (only true if Tampa and Hillsborough County don\u2019t have to raise taxes to fill in the resulting budget holes, which LOL<\/a>) and that it would be \u201cthe largest private investment by a sports team in Florida history\u201d (also the largely public investment in a privately controlled sports stadium in Florida history, but who\u2019s counting?). Babby also got his own TB Times op-ed space, alongside Hillsborough College president Ken Atwater, to assert: \u201cThis is not merely a ballpark project. This is the definition of transformation\u201d (but in which sense of the noun<\/a>?).
\nCounty commissioner Joshua Wostal, also speaking to Florida Politics, said of the new MOU, \u201cif anything, it may have gotten worse<\/a>,\u201d and that the increase in county Community Investment Tax spending from $272 million to $360 million would eat up more than half of the tax\u2019s revenue between 2027 and 2030, with the result that \u201cwe\u2019re going to have to delay a significant amount of projects.\u201d
\nTampa council member Charlie Miranda told Florida Politics that the new MOU is \u201call about pie in the sky and that everything is going to work out. Well, that\u2019s not the way I do business.\u201d
\nTampa Mayor Jane Castor assured residents in her weekly newsletter that the nonbinding MOU is \u201cless like a contract and more like a handshake with a witness,\u201d so all good to agree to it and then figure out what it actually means later.
\nUPDATE: Late addition to the TB Times op-ed section this morning: Five former local elected officials say current elected officials should \u201cjust say no\u201d<\/a>: \u201cThe owners of the Rays need to be in the Tampa Bay market much more than we need them to stay. So, elected officials, call their bluff.\u201d<\/p>\n

It seems likely \u2014 though by no means certain \u2014 that the county and city will okay the nonbinding MOU this week. After that, it\u2019ll be up to the state legislature to decide if that\u2019s enough local skin in the game for Florida to hand over state land and funds<\/a>, or if it will wait until there\u2019s a binding MOU. And after\u00a0that, it\u2019ll be up to the city and county to turn that handshake into a contract \u2014 something that could go more smoothly once the project gets state approval and seems like a fait accompli, or could run into even more opposition if, I dunno, Tampa Bay gets hit by another hurricane<\/a>, say. But don\u2019t worry, that probably won\u2019t happen unless \u2026 oh. Oh<\/a>. Maybe don\u2019t place your prediction market bets on a new Rays stadium just yet, at least until you see the fall water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Hillsborough County commission and Tampa city council look set to vote tomorrow and Thursday, respectively, on a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-277528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277528","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=277528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}