Tampa Bay Rays to Play Half of Games in Montreal

[Jacques Strap]

The Tampa Bay Rays are adding a sign to the back wall of Tropicana Field for the postseason to advertise their plan to split home games in future seasons between Florida and Montreal.

Team president Matt Silverman announced the plan on Saturday's "This Week in Rays Baseball" radio show, according to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times.

"We’re going to add a sign in the right field foul territory with a very simple Tampa Bay Montreal graphic," Silverman said. "Especially with the eyes of baseball on us this October, we want that visible symbol of our plan and our excitement for it. It will mark the effort subtly and keep the focus on winning."

While the plan hasn't officially been put in place, Silverman said it's the best path forward to keep baseball in the area.

https://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/2199110

[MotorCityRadioFreak]

That is the stupidest thing ever. Attendance is down but not THAT bad.

[MasterB]

They want a new stadium that has been said before that the Rays would play games in Montreal which will get the Expose again.

[moldyoldie]

Does Montreal have a stadium with a retractable fully-enclosed dome? How will post-season games be apportioned? I absolutely hate watching baseball in snow and freezing temps! I'd imagine the players would absolutely hate going from sunny Florida to frigid Quebec and back again.

[Realist]

Read another article on this. The Rays want new open air stadiums in both cities. Would play spring training and April / May / part of June games in Tampa, then the rest of the season in Montreal.

Considering that they’ve now won their division 2 years in a row and they average less than 10K in attendance the past 2 years, I find this to be incredibly dumb. Just move the franchise to Montreal as Florida obviously doesn’t support this team. I’ll never forget when the World Series was in Tampa and they didn’t sell out a game .

[MotorCityRadioFreak]

Tropicana isn't that bad of a field though.

[Chrocket87]

I went to the Trop in April and it was by far my least favorite ballpark. The FL family I have say the location is the biggest problem- St Pete location is rather inconvenient for anyone not located in Pinellas County. The aesthetics are just not pleasing inside- my wife described the ceiling as “a white circus tent where you can barely follow balls”.

I know they’ve tried to get a new ballpark in Ybor City or near Raymond James Stadium, but no dice. As long as they’re at The Trop, they’ll never be very successful financially. I hate the idea of bringing MLB back to Montreal- they barely drew more than what the Rays were pre-pandemic. I’d love to see them move to Nashville.