{"id":436809,"date":"2026-10-24T13:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T13:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/436809\/"},"modified":"2026-10-24T13:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T13:38:10","slug":"how-st-pete-is-bracing-for-100000-world-series-fans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/436809\/","title":{"rendered":"How St. Pete is bracing for 100,000 World Series fans"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the first time since 2008, the World Series is returning to St. Petersburg. After the first two games in Milwaukee against the Brewers, the Tampa Bay Rays will play three games at home starting Monday.<\/p>\n

Mayor Ken Welch and Police Chief Anthony Holloway held a news conference Friday to discuss how they\u2019re preparing to host the event, as well as advice for attendees on how to stay safe.<\/p>\n

Welch said there will be more than 100,000 people in the city who will be attending the games and watch parties, as well as visiting restaurants and other businesses. He said there are plans in place to accommodate that many people.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important that the community understands and plans for the logistics of this celebration,\u201d Welch said.<\/p>\n

Welch said St. Petersburg has handled crowds of this size before.<\/p>\n

ALSO READ: Small-market Rays and Brewers begin play on baseball\u2019s biggest stage<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThankfully, our St. Pete team has a lot of experience with large events, including the playoffs that we just had, and we are in good hands with our police department, fire department, and departments under our city administrator,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

While tickets to the games are expensive, Holloway addressed another challenge for fans heading to Tropicana Field: parking.<\/p>\n

Some lots around the stadium are charging an average of $150 for parking, he said. Fans can save money by parking in one of the city\u2019s downtown lots and taking one of four shuttles to the stadium.<\/p>\n

\u201cParking is as low as $25,\u201d Holloway said. \u201cSo if you get here early, you can enjoy downtown. You can get on the shuttle and then go to the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holloway also said there will be a heavy law enforcement presence.<\/p>\n

ALSO READ: Rays World Series tickets can be found. But they will cost you<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to have our state, local partners here, also our federal partners here,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to have officers inside, outside. We\u2019re going to have officers undercover. We\u2019re going to have our drones up to make sure we can get our traffic flow in and out.\u201d<\/p>\n

The stadium will open three hours before the games start, and the mayor and police chief urged fans to get there early.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a once-in-a-lifetime event for our community, and we are ready,\u201d Welch said. \u201cAnd we want to say, Rays up and let\u2019s go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tropicana Field will host official watch parties during the road games. Fans can watch from the field or seats while the games are shown on the 171-by-36-foot LED video board behind right field.<\/p>\n

The city is also holding two days of block parties; there\u2019s one today from 4 to 8 p.m. on Central Avenue between 13th and 15th streets. The city said it created limited-edition posters that will be available to residents during the parties.<\/p>\n

WORLD SERIES
(Best of seven)
All games at 8 p.m.
Game 1 \u2013 at Milwaukee, Oct 23 (Brewers win, 3-2)
Game 2 \u2013 at Milwaukee, today
Game 3 \u2013 at Tropicana Field, Monday
Game 4 \u2013 at Tropicana Field, Tuesday
Game 5 \u2013 at Tropicana Field, Wednesday (if necessary)
Game 6 \u2013 at Milwaukee, Friday, Oct. 30 (if necessary)
Game 7 \u2013 at Milwaukee, Saturday, Oct. 31 (if necessary)
TV: WTVT (Fox), Fox Deportes
Radio: WDAE (95.7 FM\/620 AM)<\/p>\n

Eva Liguori is a reporter for WUSF, the bay area\u2019s NPR affiliate. Digital producer Rick Mayer contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first time since 2008, the World Series is returning to St. Petersburg. After the first two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":436810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-436809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436809","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=436809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}