Rays move home games to avoid conflict with Buccaneers

After Hurricane Milton swept through Tampa Bay and damaged the roof of the Tampa Bay Rays' Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Rays moved a bit up north to the city of Tampa to play at Steinbrenner Field.

The New York Yankees were kind enough to lend the Rays, their division rivals, their spring training stadium for the season — but there's one problem. Steinbrenner Field happens to be right across from Raymond James Stadium, and while traffic concerns wouldn't normally be a problem with both teams playing across the bridge from each other, the fact that the Rays are now in Tampa would have certainly caused some problems.

There were two games on the Rays' schedule that would have majorly conflicted with the Buccaneers — an Aug. 23 game against the St. Louis Cardinals that would have conflicted with a 7:30 preseason game against the Buffalo Bills and a Sept. 21 game against the Boston Red Sox that would have started an hour before the Bucs kicked off against the New York Jets. Now, though, that isn't happening, as the Rays are moving the Cardinals game up two days to Aug. 21 and are moving their game against the Red Sox on Sept. 21 up to a 7:35 p.m. time slot.

This is now official:
Aug. 21: #StLCards at #Rays, 7:35 p.m. with Aug. 23 off;
Sept. 21: #RedSox at #Rays, 7:35 p.m. start rather than 12:10 p.m. https://t.co/HFwru5SQBW
— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) May 24, 2025

Traffic and logistics likely would have been a nightmare had the two games gone on as planned, so the move is understandable. The Bucs will only play 17 games in 2025, but the Rays will play 81 games at home, so the burden to move was on them.

While the Rays' future in Tampa Bay is unfortunately unknown, this won't be a problem in the meantime from next year on — the Rays are set to head back to St. Pete and play at Tropicana Field once again in 2026.

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