TAMPA, Fla. — As Major League Baseball (MLB) now shifts its focus to the offseason, where the Tampa Bay Rays will play in 2025 will be just as big a question as any potential free agent signing.
Hurricane Milton destroyed the fiberglass roof of Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, as winds reached up to 106 miles per hour on Oct. 10. No one was injured inside. But, the stadium was used as a staging area for first responders before the hurricane made landfall.
Even with the St. Petersburg City Council approving nearly $6.5 million on Thursday, Oct. 31, to clean the debris scattered across all parts of the stadium and repair the damage, it appears unlikely that the Rays will be able to host the Colorado Rockies for Opening Day on March 27, 2025, at the stadium they’ve called home since 1998.
In the first stages of the Rays recovery process, engineers have been brought in to assess the damages. Team staff have been working remotely since to come up with a contingency plan.
There are obstacles in the way of a repair. It could cost somewhere north of $100 million to build a new roof, which is not seen as a great investment considering the Rays are set to break ground on their new stadium in January that is supposed to be ready to go for the start of the 2028 season.
The Rays could attempt to make Tropicana Field an open-air stadium, as there are over a dozen farm teams that bear the elements of a Floridian summer during the course of their seasons. However, the constant threat of rainstorms wouldn’t be ideal as there isn’t a drainage system in place at the stadium, and it appears to be nearly impossible to construct.
St. Petersburg’s approval allocates up to $2.5 million for construction and waterproofing, while $3.9 million will go towards remediation service. However, council members explained that clarity is needed on the structural integrity of the stadium to determine if repairs would become unrealistic based on the set budget.
One sporting event has already officially been changed in the wake of Hurricane Milton. The Savannah Bananas announced Thursday they will be holding a one-night-only special event on March 15, 2025, at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa instead of hosting two games at Tropicana Field on March 15–16 as originally planned for their 2025 Banana Ball World Tour.
With the lack of hope for the Tropicana, the Rays and MLB are reportedly looking into spring training sites across the Sunshine State to serve as a temporary home. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred wants the team to stay local to its fan base in Florida, and the Tampa Bay region has plenty of facilities that major league teams could use to prepare for upcoming seasons.
“We’re hopeful that we can figure out something in [the Tampa Bay area] for them and that the repairs can be done in a way that allows them to resume playing,” said Manfred on an episode of The Varsity podcast published Oct. 20. “The easiest thing is always to stay in the market where the clubs are anchored if we can manage it.”
Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times speculates use of the Philadelphia Phillies BayCare Ballpark in Clearwater or the New York Yankees George M. Steinbrenner Field is the most likely option.
“The only way that happens is if it’s such a bad deal for the Rays,” said Rays second baseman Brandon Lowe on playing at the Yankees spring training facility on the Foul Territory podcast. “Why would you? In division, all that — you wouldn’t make it easy. I’m not just gonna hand my stadium over to you, and they have a team that plays there during the summer.”
The ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, where the Atlanta Braves previously held spring training, is also available. The Rays previously used the facility in the spring of 2023, when their complex in Port Charlotte was not ready after damage sustained from Hurricane Ian. However, choosing central Florida as a temporary home would require relocating players and staff 90 miles away from Tampa Bay.
No matter what solution is reached, the near future will be difficult.
In American sports history, the only recent equivalent to the severe and unexpected damage to Tropicana Field would be the December 2010 collapse of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome roof in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The roof was rebuilt for the 2011 season, but the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League (NFL) leveraged the incident for a joint effort between the team, city, and state to build a new stadium.
The Vikings continued to play their home games at the Metrodome through the end of the 2013 season, then playing outdoors at the University of Minnesota once the stadium was demolished until their current home of U.S. Bank Stadium was complete. U.S. Bank Stadium was built on the same lot as the Metrodome and took a little over two years to be finished.
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Photo courtesy of Clifford Carithers.