The roof of Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays MLB team, was torn off by Hurricane Milton’s powerful winds. Satellite imagery from Maxar shows the destruction on Oct. 10, 2024. Prior to landfall, the stadium was converted into a base camp for emergency responders. Ballparks in Montreal and Durham, N.C., will not be considered to play host to Tampa Bay Rays home games in 2025, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
The Rays are expected to need a venue for home games, at least for the early part of the 2025 schedule, after Hurricane Milton destroyed the Teflon roof of their home stadium in St. Petersburg, Fla., on Oct. 9.
Montreal was speculated as a potential site of games after the Rays floated a plan in recent years to play some of their home games in the city’s Olympic Stadium, which was previously the home of the Montreal Expos. But the venue will not be in operation for three years as its previously retractable roof is repaired.
Durham Bulls Athletic Park is the current home to the Rays’ Triple-A affiliate but will not be able to host the Rays due to scheduling and logistical challenges.
The Rays’ current stadium opened in 1990 and has been the team’s home since the franchise played its first game in 1998.
The club is planning to move to a $1.3 billion ballpark on the same site, but it won’t be built before 2028.
Alternative options for the Rays if they are displaced for the early part of the 2025 season could include several spring training venues: St. Petersburg’s Al Lang Stadium, Clearwater’s BayCare Ballpark, Dunedin’s TD Ballpark and Tampa’s Steinbrenner Field.
Other options included sharing the home ballparks of the Miami Marlins and Atlanta Braves, while the Oakland Coliseum also could be in consideration after the Athletics departed the ballpark at the end of this past season.
–Field Level Media
