A's, Rays Ballpark Deals Mean Expansion is Coming

The Tampa Bay Times reported on Monday morning that the Rays are set to announce a new ballpark deal in St. Petersburg on Tuesday. The ballpark will be a fixed dome with artificial turf, seat around 30,000 and be part of a public-private funding deal. There is even talk of Tampa's ownership selling shares of the team in order to raise their part of the funding. The new ballpark is projected to open in 2028.

Sound familiar?

This is nearly the same deal that the A's have set up in Las Vegas that is awaiting a vote by MLB owners. The A's deal is for a 33,000 seat venue (previously 30,000), that could end up being a dome, though that has yet to be confirmed. A's owner John Fisher is also working with Goldman Sachs on a debt/equity financing plan for the proposed ballpark.

Obviously the new ballpark deal is great news for Rays fans who get to keep their team. But the big headline for fans in Oakland here is that expansion is coming soon. While A's fans would prefer to keep their team in their city, getting rid of John Fisher and still having baseball would be suitable for some.

All we know about the expansion timeline right now is that the League plans to add two more teams once the A's and Rays ballparks are figured out. With Tampa's announcement coming on Tuesday, and the A's Vegas relocation getting a vote with the owners in November at the owner's meetings, that could wrap up that situation.

From there, MLB would have to determine where they would like to expand. The rumors have been swirling around Nashville being a pretty firm location for one of those expansion spots. There would also need to be a location on the west coast, and Oakland could be that spot, if they have an ownership group lined up and a site is secured for a new ballpark.

The timeline for the last round of expansion, which resulted in the addition of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Rays in 1998, began with an expansion committee being formed in March of 1994. By March 9, 1995, the committee had picked Tampa and Arizona, and in 1998 the two teams were added to MLB.

We could be looking at a similar timeline for this round of expansion, with a committee being formed shortly after the owner's vote in November. The one big difference here is that the A's are also planning to relocate, and they don't have a temporary home lined up past 2024, meaning that remaining at the Coliseum from 2025-27 is their best bet at securing a Major League facility in the interim. It would also allow them to keep their tv rights and continue receiving payment on their RSN deal.

If the A's nomad situation is figured out before June of 2024, then we should have clarity on where MLB is leaning with that second expansion franchise. However, if it's getting time to release the 2025 schedule and there is still no place for the A's to play, MLB may need to award Oakland that expansion bid so that the city will extend the team's lease, which expires after the 2024 season.

There are some moving parts here, but those are the factors to watch out for.

It doesn't make sense to take a team away from one city and then just give that city a new one, but A's fans have shown their passion for baseball all summer long, which may have proven to MLB that they deserve a team, but felt the Vegas train had left the station. This is also what MLB did with Kansas City after the A's left for Oakland, giving them the Royals in 1969, a year after the A's settled in the East Bay.

While the previous round of expansion saw teams introduced just three years after they were announced (95-98), we could end up seeing their on-field introduction delayed a year with both the new Tampa Bay ballpark and the Vegas ballpark scheduled for 2028 openings. It would make sense if League would prefer to stagger the new ballparks and expansion across multiple seasons the same way that you don't see television shows throw out all of their best plot points in the pilot episode.

If you're a city hoping to land an MLB franchise, it would be wise to start getting your ownership group together now. Expansion is coming.