Rays co-president: St. Pete stadium deal won’t happen if city council requires name change for team

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Talk around changing the Rays’ name from the "Tampa Bay Rays" to the "St. Petersburg Rays" took another turn on Thursday. 

The St. Petersburg City Council had a lengthy discussion with Mayor Ken Welch, the community and the Rays about the topic. The Rays’ Co-President, Brian Auld, made it very clear that if the team has to change its name, the stadium deal won’t happen.

Council member Gina Driscoll proposed having city administrators include a name change in negotiations with the Rays for the new stadium deal. She also asked them to come back to council in January with a report on how the talks went. 

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Driscoll said Thursday there’s been a lot of talk around the topic, and she wants to hear both sides.

"This is coming from the people too, and it’s important to them too," she said. "I respect them. I don’t dismiss them, and I’m going to make sure that they continue to be heard."

Several people during the public comment period voiced support for the name change, including Sean Gallagher, who created a website in support of the change called nameitstpete.com. He said more than 150 people have signed on supporting the name change. 

"I really think that our city is an amazing city," Gallagher said. "Hearing the issue about what we're doing with the new stadium, how our city is going to be putting our tax dollars, our land into a new stadium is amazing. But it is a very significant financial investment from our city and land investment. And with that, I had some concerns with the fact that it doesn't bear our team name."

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Former St. Pete Mayor Rick Baker shared a similar sentiment. 

"St. Petersburg, if it's going to put in hundreds of millions of dollars and incredibly valuable property into the enterprise, then at least we ought to have a discussion about whether the team name could be St. Petersburg," Baker said. "There are two sides of any negotiation. The City Council plays a very important role in this discussion, not a rubber stamp."

"I don't really think that there's a need to change the name of the of the baseball team," Kenneth Mack said during the public comment period. "It speaks for itself. It speaks for the region … the brand is already there."

Auld told council there won’t be a new stadium in St. Pete if they’re forced to change the team’s name. He said the name is "deliberately inclusive," and fans live throughout the Tampa Bay area and come to St. Pete to watch games. 

"Please understand that within the context of this particular issue, there will not be a new ballpark nor a development project if there’s a requirement to change our franchise’s name," Auld said.

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"We are the Tampa Bay Rays," Auld said. "We proudly call St. Petersburg our hometown, and we are so excited about the energy, the excitement and the impact we can create here with this ballpark and neighborhood development," he said. "We want the Tampa Bay Rays here to stay. Of course, what we do is ultimately in your hands, in the hands of the board of county commissioners."

Mayor Welch said a name change would distract from the city’s main goal of redeveloping the Historic Gas Plant District, and would alienate the city’s partners on the project.

"I still believe it's an idea of a past era, the time of a smaller St. Pete, and today it's a notion that undermines our progress towards an agreement with the Rays," Welch said.

He said this issue was talked about 15 years ago when he was a county commissioner, and he didn’t support it then either. He said the county, which is investing more than the city in the stadium, isn’t calling for the change and the Rays, who are paying for more than half of the stadium’s cost, isn’t either. 

"Because we respect the partnership that has brought us this far, and because of my confidence in St. Pete's ascension as a vibrant community to compete with any community in Tampa Bay, in Florida, a request for changing the name of the Tampa Bay Rays is not something that's in the term sheet," Welch said.

"My administration is not supportive of asking for that name change. We think it would be detrimental to the progress we’ve made, if not fatal to this redevelopment," Welch said. 

READ: St. Pete releases terms of agreement between the city and Tampa Bay Rays for stadium plans

Some council members agreed.

"I'm all for ways to elevate St. Petersburg," Council member Copley Gerdes said. "I am against talking about a name change, because I think we are alienating, and I thought the mayor put it very well, the partners which got us here to this point so close to this development, so close to keeping the Rays here permanently in a home, and I'm just not willing to put that at risk."

"This is a regional asset," Council Chair Brandi Gabbard said. "The fact that it is going to be in our city is the win. That is the win. It’s not about these nuances that will not get us any closer to bringing the equity and prosperity that needs to be brought into that district."

"What if we were having conversations that, you know, the Bucs wanted to change their name to the Tampa Bucs or, you know, the Lightning wanted to change their name to the Tampa Lightning. Our hair would be on fire. We would be so upset, because we would all of a sudden feel left out, but we want to make the Rays do this as like, ‘if you want to do this deal with us, you’ll change this,’ and I just don’t think that’s fair," Gabbard said.

Other council members said they thought too much time, about an hour and a half, was spent on the conversation around a possible name change.

"As a council, we have had some very extraordinary issues that impact a large part of our community that we didn't spend an eighth of this time discussing," Vice-Chair Deborah Figgs-Sanders said.

"We are literally sitting here spending this last time talking about the name change. I would love for us to go to bat about those housing numbers. I would love for us to go to bat about those job numbers. I would love for us to go to bat about other things as far as the naming conventions in the terms sheet and having that conversation versus whether or not St. Pete is recognized. St. Pete is recognized. We are here," Figgs-Sanders said.

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"I just wish that when we have these conversations about the terms sheet that we're just as passionate about our housing issues and other things that I think that we really do need to address," Figgs-Sanders said.

Council member Richie Floyd agreed, and called the stadium deal a "money pit."

Driscoll also proposed talking about renaming the stadium after St. Pete, and talking with broadcasters to make sure it’s clearer that the Rays are playing in St. Pete and not Tampa. 

Driscoll changed her motion to instead ask city administrators to negotiate with the Rays on several options that would help elevate St. Pete in the deal. It passed 6-2 with Figgs-Sanders and Gabbard voting against it. City administrators will present a report on the talks to council at the Jan. 4 meeting.

Auld said after the meeting that while he knows there were some ups and downs during the meeting, he thinks everyone is in the same page promoting the city and keeping the name.