Though a sale is not imminent, Tampa Bay Rays owner Stu Sternberg is being pressured to sell his team by several people in the league, including MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, according to The Athletic’s Evan Drellich.
Manfred and “some other owners” are reportedly pressuring Sternberg to sell the franchise, though it’s unclear who else is involved or how hard they are pressuring him. While a sale of the team is not close, there are reportedly several groups with interest in purchasing the team, including the family of Edward DeBartolo Jr.
The pressure to sell the team comes amid Sternberg’s renewed quest to find a new stadium, which is something he has been doing for nearly two decades now. Sternberg and local officials in St. Petersburg have been working toward a $1.3 billion proposal for a new stadium after Tropicana Field was destroyed by Hurricane Milton last year. That has forced the Rays to play home games at the New York Yankees’ minor-league complex this season.
The stadium proposal appears to have hit several roadblocks amid a funding dispute between the team and the city. It’s unclear if it will get done, and there is a March 31 deadline in place for several aspects of that plan.
Sternberg first purchased the Rays for about $200 million in 2004. They were last valued at about $1.25 billion by Forbes last March, which is one of the lowest in MLB. Only the Kansas City Royals, the A’s and the Miami Marlins were valued less. By comparison, the New York Yankees were valued at more than $7.5 billion last year.
Several teams have been sold in the past few years across the league. The Minnesota Twins had hoped to sell before Opening Day this spring, though it’s unlikely that will happen. The Baltimore Orioles were sold for $1.725 billion last March.
The Rays, who entered MLB in 1998, missed the playoffs last season for the first time since 2018. Tropicana Field first opened in St. Petersburg in 1990, and it seats about 42,000 people. Sternberg has been trying to find a way out of that stadium for quite some time, and he even once floated the idea of playing half of the team’s games in Montreal. That plan didn’t gain much traction.
Even though a sale of the team seems far off, MLB reportedly does not want the Rays to move out of the Tampa Bay area market, whether that is under Sternberg’s watch or a new ownership group. MLB believes the region can support the franchise, per the report, and it does not want to give up a potential expansion city to move the Rays.
MLB did not comment on The Athletic’s report Sunday night, and Sternberg did not confirm anything. While the organization’s future appears murky, it appears that calls for a new ownership group to take over will only increase if the current stadium deal falls apart later this month.
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