Tampa Bay Rays

How a St. Petersburg team ended up with a Tampa deal

The Rays have been trying to replace Tropicana Field for close to twenty years. A waterfront ballpark at Al Lang Stadium was proposed in 2007 and abandoned. An Ybor City site was proposed in 2018 and abandoned for lack of a funding plan. In September 2023 the team reached agreement with St. Petersburg on a $1.3B ballpark inside a $6.5B redevelopment of the 86-acre Tropicana Field site — the Historic Gas Plant District, named for the predominantly Black neighborhood displaced by the Trop and an interstate spur.

That deal was approved. St. Petersburg City Council committed $287.5M in July 2024 and Pinellas County committed $312.5M in bonds, for roughly $600M of public money against a $1.3B ballpark — a public share near 46%. The Rays were on the hook for $700M plus overruns.

Then Hurricane Milton took the roof off Tropicana Field in October 2024. Costs escalated, delivery slipped from 2028 to 2029, and in March 2025 principal owner Stu Sternberg withdrew. St. Petersburg formally terminated the redevelopment agreement in July 2025. On September 30, 2025 the franchise sold to a group led by Patrick Zalupski, founder of Jacksonville-based Dream Finders Homes, at a reported ~$1.7B, unanimously approved by MLB owners.

Where the $2.361 billion comes from

Most coverage reports this deal as two numbers — team money and public money. The public side is actually six distinct revenue sources with six different legal characters, six different repayment profiles, and six different answers to the question “whose money is this?” Here is the top-line split, and then the county detail.

Percentages computed against the $2.361B budget carried in the definitive documents released August 21, 2026. The Rays figure excludes cost overruns, which are the team's responsibility without a stated cap.

The county's $796 million, itemized

County component figures as reported from the definitive documents, August 21–22, 2026. The four components sum exactly to $796M.

The arithmetic does not close, and that is worth saying out loud

Adding the identified sources produces a number smaller than the stated budget. This is not an accusation of anything — large project budgets routinely carry lines that live outside the headline public-private split — but a reader building a model needs to know the gap exists rather than discovering it later.

What each revenue source actually is

The phrase “no new taxes” is accurate and also incomplete. No new levy is created. Every dollar below comes from a tax that already exists, from a federal grant, or from future growth in a tax base that does not yet exist. Those are three different things.

Community Investment Tax — $360M

The CIT is a voter-approved half-cent sales tax in Hillsborough County, earmarked for public infrastructure and, explicitly, stadium improvements. It is already being collected. Directing $360M of it to a ballpark does not raise anyone's tax bill; it decides what the existing collections buy. The opportunity cost is whatever else that $360M would otherwise have funded.

Tourist Development Tax — $303M

The TDT is a bed tax on hotel and short-term stays. It is the most politically durable stadium revenue source in Florida because its incidence falls largely on visitors rather than residents, and Florida statute restricts what it can be spent on in ways that generally include sports facilities. The $303M is structured in three pieces: $228M of initial bonds, a $40M sixth-cent reserve payment, and a $35M second tranche. Bonding against TDT means the county is pledging a stream of future bed-tax collections; if tourism softens, debt service still has to be paid.

Other county funds — $103M

General county sources identified in the funding schedule. This is the least specified line in public reporting.

Federal disaster recovery (CDBG-DR) — $30M

Community Development Block Grant — Disaster Recovery money. Federal dollars routed through the county rather than raised locally, made available in the wake of the 2024 storm season. It is public money, but it is not Hillsborough taxpayers' money in the way the CIT is.

The City of Tampa's $80M — an advance, not an appropriation

This is the piece that changed most and the piece most likely to be misread. In the May 2026 MOU the city was to put in $180M drawn from its share of CIT revenue — a term most of the council opposed. In the definitive documents the city's number is $80M, and it is structured as a four-year advance that the city recoups from future property-tax growth generated inside a new Community Development District overlaying the college property.

Mechanically, the city fronts cash and gets paid back out of a tax base that the project itself creates. If the district develops as projected, the city's net contribution over time trends toward zero. If it does not, the city has fronted $80M against a recovery that underperforms. The risk did not disappear — it changed shape, from a certain outlay into a timing-and-performance exposure.

The Drew Park CRA carve-out and the $100M private placement

A Community Redevelopment Area is a designated district where growth in property-tax revenue above a frozen base year — the tax increment — is captured and reinvested inside the district rather than flowing to general funds. The MOU had the Drew Park CRA contributing $100M. In the definitive documents that contribution is eliminated, and the stadium land is carved out of the Drew Park CRA entirely, so property-tax growth from the ballpark district no longer counts as CRA increment.

In its place, the Rays will privately place $100M of taxable bonds, notes or other indebtedness to finance public components of the ballpark, with debt service paid from tax increment directed to the CDD. The money for the public components still ultimately comes from the increment the district generates. What changed is who carries the paper and who bears the placement risk.

What moved between May and August 2026

The May 2026 memorandum of understanding was non-binding. The August 21, 2026 documents are the negotiated result of roughly six months of work by the Rays, the city, the county and project partners. Both are dated below because the difference between them is the story.

MOU column reflects terms as passed in May 2026. Definitive column reflects the documents released August 21, 2026, as reported August 21–22, 2026. The April 2026 initial budget of $2.3B carried a public ask of $1.065B and a Rays commitment of $1.235B, so the public number has moved down twice.

Who carries what if things go wrong

The dollar split answers who pays. These terms answer who pays more than expected, and what happens if a party walks.

Cost overruns — entirely the Rays

The team is responsible for all cost overruns and design fees, with no stated public cap exposure. On a $2.361B project with a March 2029 target and demolition not starting until December 2026, this is the single most valuable protection the public side holds. It was also true in the MOU and in the terminated St. Petersburg deal, so it is a continuation rather than a concession.

Non-relocation — 35 years

A 35-year initial term with an accompanying non-relocation agreement requiring the team to remain in Hillsborough County. For reference, Tropicana Field's use agreement ran from 1998 and the Rays spent the last decade of it openly seeking an exit; a 35-year term signed in 2026 runs past 2060.

Payment and performance guarantee

The Rays agreed to guarantee their payment and performance obligations under the definitive documents, giving the city and county recourse if the team fails to meet its commitments. The strength of a guarantee depends on who the guarantor is and what stands behind it — a detail that lives in the documents rather than in the press coverage.

Rent — $4M annually to the county

Against a $796M county contribution, $4M a year over 35 years is $140M nominal, undiscounted. Rent in stadium deals is rarely intended to amortize the public investment; it is a use payment. Read it as such rather than as a return calculation.

Twenty years of attempts, and the next six months

Dates after August 22, 2026 are targets stated in the definitive documents or scheduled meeting dates, not completed events.

Public share against recent deals

Public share is the crudest possible summary of a stadium deal — it ignores who bears overruns, how long the non-relocation term runs, what the public gets back through rent or revenue sharing, and whether the money is appropriated or captured. It is still the number everyone reaches for first, so here it is, with the caveats attached.

Project costs and public contributions as reported at the time of each agreement; not inflation-adjusted and not adjusted for scope. The Rays Tampa row reflects proposed terms as of August 21, 2026 and is not an enacted deal. Percentages are computed from the figures shown.

The open items

• The two votes. Tampa City Council August 27, Hillsborough County Commission August 28. The commission chair has said the city must approve before the county votes, which makes the council the gate.
• The CRA amendments. Changes to three of the city's Community Redevelopment Areas — Drew Park, East Tampa and West Tampa — were still to be approved as of the document release, with the CRA board scheduling a special meeting. These are not incidental; the Drew Park carve-out is structural to the financing.
• Bond validation. Approval by both bodies starts, rather than finishes, the process. Florida bond validation is a judicial proceeding and can be contested.
• The $115M reconciliation. Whether the private placement and the state campus appropriation sit inside or outside the $2.361B budget line.
• CDD performance. The city's recovery of its $80M and the debt service on the $100M private placement both depend on tax increment from development that has not been built. The projections underlying that increment are the most assumption-heavy part of the structure.
• Schedule. Demolition in December 2026 and foundation work by March 2027 to hit a March 2029 opening is a compressed sequence, and the team owns the overrun risk that comes with it.

Sources, dating, and what this page does not do

Every figure on this page carries the date it was measured, not merely the date this page was published. That is deliberate. Stadium-finance numbers move, and a figure that was accurate in the May 2026 MOU is not accurate in August 2026 — the public contribution alone moved from $1.065B in April to $976M in May to $876M in August. A reader who inherits a number without its measurement date inherits a liability.

Figures are drawn from reporting on the definitive documents released August 21, 2026, principally Rick Mayer's coverage for WUSF and the St Pete Catalyst, together with MLB.com, Florida Politics and Tampa-market broadcast reporting. The underlying 134-page Stadium Development and Funding Agreement is the controlling source and supersedes any summary here, including this one. Where public reporting does not reconcile — as with the $115M — the page says so rather than smoothing it.

This page is a mechanics walk. It explains how the structure works and what each instrument is. It does not argue that the deal is good or bad, that the public share is too high or too low, or that either vote should go one way. Those are political judgments for the residents of Hillsborough County and the City of Tampa and their elected representatives, and the Institute is a publisher rather than an advocate.

Cross-references