Rays continue false claim County delay approving bonds “broke” stadium contract

The team says the County “effectively broke” the new stadium contract. This is a lie.

Rays co-Presidents Brian Auld and Matt Silverman were interviewed this week by the team’s podcast regarding the struggles the team has faced following the damage to Tropicana Field that displaced the team for 2025. It was a humanizing and compelling retelling of the challenges the front office faced. At first.

Unfortunately, the tone shifted dramatically when the interviewer Chris Adams-Wall asked “what happened” this fall regarding the Rays claims the New Stadium project was dead, and it was here the the team’s co-Presidents resorted to bold face lies.

Sounding as though he was reading from a pre-written script, Matt Silverman stated the following:

It was the County Commission who made the choice to abandon the agreement, for reasons we really don’t understand and can only speculate on. But they had approved the deal in August, and there was one final technicality that needed to be voted on — effectively a rubber stamp — and that was all that was required before the November elections. The moment they voted to delay, they effectively broke the deal and turned their back on the commitment they had made to us in August. [...] So everything that’s happened on the ballpark front since October has been a result of that failure, the County Commission’s failure to complete its approval.

The claim that the County Commission “effectively broke the deal and turned their back on the commitment” to fund a new ballpark is a lie, easily evidenced by the fact the Commission did “rubber stamp” the bonds required for a new ballpark. They did not “abandon the agreement” in any literal sense.

Following the hurricanes of 2024 there was indeed a 47 day delay in receiving one of many necessary approvals for the bonds, but a 47 day delay in one step of a bond issuance process that can take more than a year does not kill a 30+ year investment strategy.

County bonds require feasibility studies and cost estimates; financial advisors, bond counsel, and underwriters to determine the best type of bond; an initial bond resolution outlining the purpose, amount, and repayment plan; a public hearing to explain the bond and its impact; approval by a court of law through a process called validation; a vote where the county formally adopts a bond resolution; obtaining a bond rating from agencies (e.g., Moody’s, S&P) to determine creditworthiness; more underwriting; a vote to approve the final bond language; a bond sale; the collection of funds to a designated account; and the achievement of contractually obligated milestones by the recipient. This process can take 18 months. So again I must ask, how can a 47 day delay really be a deal killer?

Now, trying to make a case that either the Rays or the County Commission have been entirely honest brokers here is a fool’s errand — but that didn’t stop Silverman from claiming the Rays, “lost the support of our partners at the city and the county,” later in the interview. Nevertheless, the Rays received approval for every dollar the city and county has agreed to give them.

The reality of the situation is the the Rays made an assumption, based on the November elections changing the composition of the County Commission, that they would never receive the County funds as per the agreement, so they halted the project.

The Rays claim extended timelines and cost overruns mean they need to receive more cash than the $750 million already promised. And this is on top of the sweetheart deal they’d received to purchase the surrounding land at a steep discount to build condos, hotels, restaurants, office buildings, a museum, a concert hall, and more. And the reason they claim they need more public money is because the County “effectively broke” the deal.

It’s a lie.

The legal agreement requires the Rays to pay cost overruns, no matter how many bad decisions are made, by any party. That was one of the sweeteners that persuaded elected officials to vote yes on a deal that gave the team a lot of public money. No doubt a lot of things — inflation, continued high interest rates, potentially higher construction costs related to hurricane recovery — are leading to higher cost projections but the way the deal is structured makes that the Rays problem, and the Rays problem alone.

Unfortunately, the Rays have an interest it making it seem as though increased costs can be blamed on Commission and City Council “delays.” It would be particularly useful in a court of law, but it has not been one in the court of public opinion, with one local CBS reporter reacting to this podcast by saying, “The Rays aren’t going to win that PR battle with the public.”

Maybe the idea here is if they say a falsehood loudly and often enough they can push elected officials to cough up more money. Or maybe they just want out of the stadium deal, but don’t want to bear whatever legal or financial repercussions there are from tearing up the deal.

Either way, if you’re anything like me, it all makes you wonder whether the Rays actually want to be here, or if they are even worth your time and attention.