Tampa Bay Rays stadium rendering
MLBBy Sean Keeley on

The Tampa Bay Rays have long been locked in a will-they-won’t-they saga with the city of St. Petersberg and the Tampa region over whether or not they’ll stay. The crux of the issue is that the Major League Baseball team needs a new stadium. However, if the latest rendering is any indication, that’s not going to get too many people excited about attending Rays games in the future.

Tampa Bay Times reporter Marc Topkin took to Twitter Friday and posted an image of “a rendering of what the Rays proposed new stadium for St. Pete would look like.” The image implies a pavilion-style roof as well as an indoor-outdoor connection that should be much less stuffy than the currently enclosed Tropicana Field.

However, the drab and lifeless look of the rendering, coupled with the empty seats and uninteresting view, did not inspire many MLB folks and Rays fans who came across it. And the reactions to the rendering were fairly less than positive, from those who thought it was a lesser LoanDepot Park (home of the Miami Marlins) and those who thought it was barely an improvement on their current digs.

The Rays have burned a lot of goodwill in Tampa throughout this process and if it all culminates in an ugly stadium that might just be par for the course.

[Marc Topkin]

About Sean Keeley

Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Editorial Strategy Director for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.

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