Rays announce plans to build new stadium, but should they just relocate instead?

A new home stadium for the Tampa Bay Rays is finally in the works, but is it worth keeping the team in a struggling baseball market?

Well, the Tampa Bay Rays finally have plans for something they have desperately needed for a long time: a new stadium.

The Rays have played at the misery dome known as Tropicana Field since their inaugural season in 1998, when they were known as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The Trop has long had a reputation as being one of the worst stadiums in baseball for many reasons, including the catwalks that obstruct views, the dreary interior of the venue, the fact that it’s the only stadium in baseball with a non-retractable roof, and most importantly, the fact that it’s in St. Petersburg – across the bay – a very inconvenient location for people to get to.

The new stadium, which they hope to build in the Ybor City neighborhood of Tampa, would be the smallest stadium in the Major Leagues with a seating capacity of just under 31,000. But that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, seeing as how the Rays only drew an average of roughly 15,000 fans to games last season at the Trop. The new stadium would be covered by a non-retractable glass dome, but that would still be a much more inviting atmosphere than the current situation at Tropicana Field. And having the stadium in Tampa would make it much more accessible for the fans, as it would be within a 30-minute drive of Tampa’s most populous areas.

But even with these improvements, it’s unlikely that the Rays would suddenly start selling out games, given the fact that Tampa isn’t exactly the most thriving baseball market out there, coupled with the fact that the Rays have often struggled to field competitive teams (minus a few seasons here and there).

This begs the question … is it worth building the new stadium and keeping the team in a struggling market? Or would it be better to relocate the team to another city … like maybe Montreal? There have been rumors of bringing baseball back in the near future to Montreal, which has been without the sport since the Montreal Expos became the Washington Nationals in 2005.

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The Expos were known to struggle with attendance as well, but if a brand new stadium is built there, the sport of baseball might thrive a little better in Montreal than it would in Tampa. Either way, if the city of Tampa fails, for whatever reason, to get this new stadium built, then it’s likely we will see the end of the Tampa Bay Rays regardless.