Two Teams Now Play Their Home Games In Minor-League Ballparks

Forbes

01-04-2025

At the end of 2025 baseball spring training, fans at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa Bay saw ... More new signage for the first time. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
Major-league teams don't usually play home games in minor-league ballparks. But two established ballclubs are doing just that: playing all 81 home games on fields usually occupied by minor-league teams.
The facilities – from seating capacity to lighting for night games – are invariably below big-league standards in ways too numerous to mention.
In 2025, however, two teams have relocated to smaller ballparks best-suited for meaningless spring training exhibition games or regular-season games between minor-league teams.
The Tampa Bay Rays had little choice after Hurricane Milton imploded the fixed roof at Tropicana Field, the St. Petersburg stadium that had been their home since they began life as the Devil Rays, an American League expansion team in 1998.
Sacramento's Sutter Health Field is the temporary home of the Athletics while they await completion ... More of their new facility in Las Vegas. (Photo by Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
At the same time, the Oakland Athletics – ousted from the Oakland Coliseum when their lease expired – won approval from major-league owners to relocate to Las Vegas, ostensibly for 2028 after completion of their new stadium there. Sacramento emerged as a way station to fill the three-year gap between ballparks.
The Rays moved too – from St. Petersburg to Tampa, on the other side of a long causeway, after paying the Yankees $15 million for the right to borrow George M. Steinbrenner Field, where New York holds spring training.
Unlike the A's, who are suddenly the only team without a geographic designation in their official name, the Rays hope to stay in their original territory. But that would mean Pinellas County and the City of St. Petersburg would have to pay an estimated $55 million to repair the roof and restore the 34-year-old stadium.
That could take at least a year and maybe longer – if it happens at all.
The Rays had agreed to share the cost of a new billion-dollar ballpark in St. Petersburg before Hurricane Milton blew the cover off that deal last October. The remaining options seem to be repairing The Trop or relocating to another city, with Orlando, Nashville, and even Monrtreal mentioned often but Major League Baseball reluctant to lose a likely $2 billion expansion fee from newly-created franchise.
Neither of the two teams in limbo figures to recoup much revenue from its new environs. Sutter Health Park, previously occupied by the Sacramento Solons of the Triple-A Pacific Coast League, seats 14,000, while Steinbrenner Field holds 11,026. Both are far below the average big-league capacity.
Then again, the A's and Rays were bottom-feeders in drawing fans last year. The former ranked last in the majors with an attendance of 922,286, an average of 11,386 per game. Tampa Bay wasn't much better, with Tropicana Field turnstiles admitting 1,337,739, an average of 16,515 per home game.
Both ballclubs were hurting for money last year and figure to struggle even more mightily even if they sell out every game. According to Roster Resource, the A's rank last with a projected payroll of $55,690,000, less than half of Tampa Bay's $128,533,112.
Playing in an open-air ballpark is another potential problem for the Rays, who were protected from the steady diet of Tampa Bay frequent summer thunderstorms when they played in a domed stadium.
Regular rain delays are so certain to be a drag on attendance that Major League Baseball changed its schedule to give the Rays more games early and late in the schedule, swapping several series that had been planned months earlier.
Tropicana Field, erstwhile home of the Rays, lies in ruins after Hurricane Milton pounded the Tampa ... More Bay region last fall. (Photo by)
The biggest problem the Rays faced was turning Steinbrenner Field from a spring training facility to a major-league ballpark overnight. The Yankees insisted the Rays could change the signage so long as they didn't remove the 600-pound bronze statue of the late George M. Steinbrenner, the iconic owner for whom the field is named.
In 72 hours, the Rays had to rebrand the ballpark with more than 3,000 separate pieces of art, according to a report published on SNY, the website of Sports New York. At the same time, the Rays not only put 80 staffers to work on the whirlwind turnaround but also hired outsiders: 50 contractors from five different companies.
'The goal is to have this place feel – when you're walking around, when you're sitting in the seating bowl – to feel like this is the home of the Rays,' Rays chief business officer Bill Walsh told ESPN.
Upgraded facilities for players, coaches, and staff were already in the works at Steinbrenner Field, which opened in 1996. Improvements also included a two-story weight room, players' lounge, and kitchen, not to mention broadcast booths. The $50 million cost also included upgrades at an adjacent field for the dislodged Tampa Tarpons of the Florida State League, Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred revealed.
One of the additions is the first tarp in the history of the Tampa Bay Rays, who never needed one when their roof was intact. A new revenue source, it now doubles as a paid advertisement for Budweiser.
The 29-seat press box – too small to handle potential post-season coverage – now has hastily-hung photos of Rays players and media guide covers, replacing anything suggesting Yankees or pinstripes. One of the stadium's stores has been restocked with Rays memorabilia. And a large clubhouse light fixture containing a Yankees logo has been covered by a box with Tampa Bay's team insignia.
All those changes may surprise the Yankees when they return to Tampa for regular-season games against the Rays. But the most jarring thing they will have to remember is that they are the now visiting team -- dressing in the visitor's clubhouse – even though they are playing in their own stadium.
On the opposite coast, the A's have settled into their new digs while keeping an eye on a potential grievance from the Players Association that could delay or reduce their regular revenue-sharing funds. The union could file if it believes the team did not spend enough on players – an issue the Athletics say they solved by handing out three of the four largest contracts in team history.
Luis Severino got three years at $67 million, a figure larger than the entire 2024 A's payroll, while Jose Leclerc got a one-year, $10 million deal and Gio Urshela signed for one year and $2.15 million. Both T.J. McFarland and Luis Urias also signed one-year deals for more than $1 million each, bringing the A's off-season spending to $40.05 million.
That included extensions for Lawrence Butler (seven years, $65.5 million) and Brent Rooker (five years, $60 million).
The A's also acquired starting pitcher Jeffrey Springs from Tampa Bay.
Fans will find in-stadium improvements at the Legacy Club, which features a private balcony and 15-foot televisions; the Gilt-Edge Club, an open-air shaded lounge with a build-your-own-hot-dog station; and the Solon Club, another shaded outside venue with views of the Sacramento skyline. It has a rotating menu of ballpark food favorites.
Although the A's started this season in Seattle, the Rays opened at Steinbrenner Field Saturday, drawing a near-capacity 10,046 for their first official game there. They lost to Colorado, 2-1.