Tampa Bay Times13%
Could a Tampa Bay Rays stadium deal happen without the city of Tampa? 13%
By Nina Moske16% Nicolas Villamil0%
7/15/2026, 7:20:38 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 18 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Appeal to Emotion, and False Dilemma, with Unattributed Quote as the most egregious example at 11% saturation with 83 hits. Analysis detected 672 faulty-reasoning hits from 752 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 29.2% and a BS Rank of 13% (19,221 of 21,886 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 87.80% of the article peer group.
Two months ago, after the Tampa City Council narrowly approved a nonbinding stadium agreement with the Tampa Bay Rays, the fate of the city’s negotiations with the baseball team remained uncertain.
The council’s deciding vote, Bill Carlson, vowed from the dais that he would vote against any future deal.
For approval on its proposed $2.3 billion baseball stadium, he said, the team would have to look elsewhere.
Now, the Rays are weighing a stadium deal with no city involvement at all, Hillsborough County Commission chairperson Ken Hagan told a local radio station Wednesday morning.
“It’s just a matter of the Rays determining which is the best and quickest path for them,” Hagan said on WDAE.
“If it involves the city, if it doesn’t, or to what degree it does.”
The Rays’ current draft stadium agreement, approved in May by both the County Commission and the City Council, outlines a $976 million public contribution toward the cost of the stadium at the Dale Mabry campus of Hillsborough College.
Of that, $180 million would come from the city, with $100 million from Tampa’s Community Redevelopment Agency and $80 million from the Community Investment Tax, Hillsborough’s half-cent sales tax that pays for roads, public buildings and upgrades to existing professional stadiums.How the terms would be structured in the absence of city money has not yet been determined.
Council member Lynn Hurtak said the Rays have reached out to gauge interest in a county-controlled Tax Increment Financing district — which leverages future tax value increases to pay for current projects — to cover the Redevelopment Agency’s $100 million contribution.
Both Hurtak and Carlson said they had previously proposed the idea to the Rays.“
For me, this takes out the middlemen,” said Hurtak, who voted against the nonbinding agreement in May.
“And I think that’s a really good way to go about it because I really believe government suffers a lot from having too many cooks in the kitchen.
Having one fewer entity to go through I think is wise.”
That would leave the city’s proposed $80 million contribution from the Community Investment Tax on the table.
“The stickler for me is still the CIT money,” Hurtak said.
“I’m not OK with that.”
Of the city’s involvement in the deal, Tampa City Council chairperson Alan Clendenin said, “If you can’t go through, you go around.”
“If the city is not going to be cooperative and be able to reach this deal, they’re going to look at other opportunities,” he said of the baseball team.
“And unfortunately, there’ll be a cost of the city not having participated in the process.”
Hagan criticized the resistance from some city leaders given the size of Tampa’s proposed contribution compared with the county’s.
“When you look at the project itself, the return on investment is incredible, and that’s what’s so frustrating when people are so shortsighted and can’t see the big picture,” he said.
Still, Hagan said, he is confident that a deal will move forward with or without the city.
The development comes a month before the council’s next scheduled vote on the stadium agreement on Aug.
20.
The city’s Community Redevelopment Agency board, composed of the seven council members, is set to vote on the nonbinding agreement already approved by the city and county.
That vote, previously scheduled for mid-June, was pushed back to the end of the summer after council members requested more time to evaluate the deal.
The delay came days after the state Legislature approved a constitutional amendment proposed by Gov.
Ron DeSantis to restructure the state’s property tax system.
If approved by voters in November, the pitch could drastically diminish funding for local governments.While continuing to push toward final agreements, the team has opened a search for a stadium contractor and plans to announce its pick on Aug. 14, with the goal of starting construction as soon as that day.“
This deal needed to be finalized yesterday,” Hagan said.
“We need to have answers in August and there need to be shovels in the ground in September.”
Rays CEO Ken Babby agreed.
“We heard the chairman’s comments and agree wholeheartedly with his assessment of where the project stands, including the importance of an August vote,” he said in a phone call with the Tampa Bay Times on Wednesday.
“In addition to meeting with staff, we continue to meet with elected officials and engage in dialogue.”
Times columnist John Romano contributed to this report.
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