An interesting battle is brewing in the Tampa Bay region over where to locate their baseball team.
Right now the Rays play at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg. The Trop isn't exactly a baseball friendly stadium and it isn't particularly close to Tampa. That may have a hand in the team not drawing as well as they probably should.
Now, it comes to light that (a) The owner of the Rays wants out of St. Pete (b) St. Pete wants them to stay and (c) Tampa thinks they would be a better fit on the other side of the bay..
Check out the story from abcactionnews.com RIGHT HERE
((Tampa Bay Rays Logo//Courtesy: Tommybloggingsports.com))
Having grown up in Florida and having spent a decent amount of time on the gulf coast, Tampa has a legit argument here. We get the whole "play nice with your neighbor" thing, but business is business.
St. Pete isn't exactly someplace that people clamor to go to, to say the demographics there skew old...would be a huge understatement. It is one of the city's that Florida gets it's "Retirement Haven" moniker.
Tampa is a larger, more diverse town with a lot more going for it. It's only 30 miles from St. Pete which is great for those few Rays fans who actually live there.
Yes, there are a lot more hurdles and details to go through if the Rays want to stay in the Tampa Bay area. The stadium is going to be expensive; really expensive for an area still trying to recover from the recession.
We'll keep an eye on this story, it should be interesting.
Here is the TV version of the story from ABC Action News:
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