Will Disney World Become Home to a Major League Baseball Team?
Anyone remember the NBA bubble at Walt Disney World? We’re all a little hazy on that awful and weird window, so it was a wild time when professional basketball teams played out the remainder of their season at the ESPN Wide World of Sports, while living in the resort hotels.
Well, there’s the vague possibility that history will repeat itself. Sorta. Well, barely–if at all. As you’re undoubtedly aware, Hurricane Milton hit Florida last week, making landfall as a historically dangerous Category 3 storm near Siesta Key on Florida’s central west coast. The hurricane caused irreparable damage to the roof of Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, where the Tampa Bay Rays play.
The fiberglass roof was torn to shreds, leaving almost the entirety of the building exposed. The Rays have said they will take the next few weeks to assess the damage, but various Major League Baseball insiders are already reporting that it cannot conceivably be ready by opening day and that the costs to fix the roof will be prohibitively expensive.
MLB Insider Jim Bowden reports that it would cost “9 figures” to replace the roof and doesn’t make financial sense to do so as a result. Moreover, he points out that the Rays can’t play at the Trop without a roof because there’s no draining system for rain.
Honestly, when I first read this tweet, I thought it was insane. I mean, it’s one shredded roof, Michael. What could it cost, ten dollars?
How on earth do a bunch of tarps cost $100,000,000? Maybe he was including the decimal point, and nine figures actually meant $1,000,000.00? That certainly seems more plausible. Then I realized I know nothing about engineering or roofing or drainage or the structural integrity of the stadium, especially given that my initial thought was just “tear off the shredded roof and play as-is.” A brilliant idea if I’ve ever had one, but total non-starter due to the lack of drainage.
The Minnesota Twins spent $18 million to repair the old Metrodome after it was damaged by snow in 2010. I guess inflation now just means “add a bunch of zeros to stuff.” More to the point, the damage occurred in December and wasn’t fully fixed until July. Inflation of the monetary variety isn’t the only change since then–construction projects also often take longer. The cost and timeline aren’t necessarily the same, but the Rays are pushing their ability to make it back to Tropicana Field by Opening Day next season.
Which brings us to the operative question: where will the Rays play in 2025?
Marc Topkin of TampaBay.com takes this a step further and writes that there are questions about whether the Tampa Bay Rays can ever return to Tropicana Field.
The reason spending $100+ million to repair the roof and whatever else is wrong with Tropicana Field may not make sense in the first place is because it’s only going to be around for a few more years. The Rays are planning on playing in a new stadium in 2028, which is slated to have its groundbreaking in January 2025. (Or was–we don’t know whether that’s impacted by Hurricane Milton or if construction resources will be spread thin due to other projects as a consequence of the storm, resulting in a longer timeline.)
Once that’s built, Tropicana Field will be demolished. And it’s not as if the current stadium is nice in the first place–there’s a reason it’s being replaced–so spending $100+ million to fix it feels like putting very expensive lipstick on a pig…that you plan on turning into bacon. For Walt Disney World fans, it would’ve been the equivalent of Dino-Rama getting a pricey reimagining themed to “The Good Dinosaur” a few years ago only to be demolished for Tropical Americas. Same idea.
Once I got past my initial knuckleheaded idea about tearing off the existing roof and realized a replacement venue was going to be necessary, my head immediately went to one place. And you’ve probably already guessed it given the title of this post. The Stadium at the ESPN Wide World of Sports in Walt Disney World.
Topkin’s article in TampaBay.com runs through all of the possible options, and assesses the likelihood of each. This includes the possibility of the Rays playing games at their spring training facility in Port Charlotte, but that’s only a 7,500 capacity park. Another possibility is Durham at their Triple-A facility, but that would require evicting the Durham Bulls and, I assume, Kevin Costner.
Several other Spring Training facilities will likely be considered due to their proximity to Tampa and capacity, including St. Petersburg’s Al Lang Stadium, Clearwater’s BayCare Ballpark (Phillies), Dunedin’s TD Ballpark (Blue Jays) and Tampa’s Steinbrenner Field (Yankees). There’s precedent for using Spring Training facilities–the Blue Jays did it during the COVID era.
Although I love baseball, I don’t really care about any of those venues. I’m not a big enough fan to know anything about those venues. What I wanted to know is whether Topkin thought the ESPN Wide World of Sports at Walt Disney World was even a potential option. And guess what? He did.Â
That was all I needed to see–confirmation that The Stadium at the ESPN Wide World of Sports is, indeed, viewed as viable.
From my perspective, and I say this as someone who is totally unbiased, Walt Disney World is the only logical choice. Okay okay, the most logical choice. (Is that more fair and balanced?!) It makes sense that Walt Disney World is in the running. The Stadium has 9,500 seats, including four luxury sky boxes, open-air suites, and patios. It’s a relatively modern and well-maintained venue, having been built in 1997 and kept up to Walt Disney World standards. (It’s certainly nicer than the Trop, if memory serves me.)
Various baseball writers point out the problems with all outdoor venues in Florida. The insane heat and the likelihood of rain delays, which could make it extremely difficult to play in and draw fans to the ballpark. The first part of this is definitely true. Summers in Central Florida are no picnic.
But the second part is not. To paraphrase something Kevin Costner once heard, if Major League Baseball relocates the Rays to Walt Disney World, they (fans) will come.
Frankly, the Rays might be a bigger draw at Walt Disney World than they are in Tampa! Even when the team has been good, attendance hasn’t exactly been stellar. There are a number of reasons for this, but one of the biggest might be demographics–the number of transplants in the Sunshine State, especially older ones.
When we lived in Central Florida, the Rays played in (and lost) the World Series, and there still were far fewer Rays fans in our neighborhood than Yankees, Braves, Red Sox, etc. Baseball fans skew older, and many who relocate to Florida already have teams. I’m not that old (by baseball fan standards), and I never became a Rays fan.
The great thing about playing at Walt Disney World is that it doesn’t need to cater to Tampa Bay Rays fans. It’s close enough that they can attend–sure, whatever. But that’s not the point. Walt Disney World has a steady stream of Yankees, Braves, Red Sox, Cubs, Tigers, etc., fans. Just think how many team hats/shirts/jerseys/etc. you’ve seen in the parks. I can tell you with complete confidence that, on any given day, the most represented teams in guest apparel at Walt Disney World are not from Florida. (With possible exceptions for the Heat, Lightning, and Panthers on weekends during the playoffs.)
This is a lesson that other leagues have already learned with Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
If you watch a Raiders game (I’m sorry) and the camera pans to the stands, you’ll notice the vast majority of fans in attendance are for the away team. Ditto the Rams and Chargers, and that’s despite both having more history in Southern California (where more football fans are, ironically, Raiders fans).
The point is that the leagues have realized Las Vegas and Los Angeles are destination cities, and they don’t need a passionate local fanbase to sustain the teams. To the contrary, that having these serve as ‘hubs’ of sorts for the leagues is good for the health of the sports, even if it’s not great for the individual franchises.
As you’re undoubtedly aware given that you’re reading a website about Disney tourism, Walt Disney World is also a vacation destination. And one that brings families with young children instead of, well, I’ll bite my tongue about Las Vegas visitor demographics. (They do host conventions–but so too does Walt Disney World.) It’s not like I’m even the first one to have this idea–permanently relocating the Rays to Orlando might be a good idea, period.
As noted above, the average age of Major League Baseball fans skews older. Although Shohei Ohtani and recent rule changes have helped baseball to some degree and attendance is stabilizing, the MLB still has long-term problems and an uncertain future. There are not enough new fans replacing the older ones who are dying off. (Not a joke.)
Imagine having Mickey Mouse throw out the first pitch, Elsa sing the national anthem, and Slinky Dog dash around the stadium during the seventh inning stretch. Do you know what that would do to reinvigorate the game?! Just look at what Grimace has done for the Mets. GRIMACE! He’s not even a real thing–just like a purple blob of congealed grape milkshake or something.
I’m not saying having a team at Walt Disney World would magically solve all of MLB’s woes, but it would certainly help–and do a lot more good than having a team in Tampa, even with a brand-new stadium. Signed, someone who became a lifelong baseball fan after watching the Braves play Spring Training games at Walt Disney World in the 1990s and whose favorite restaurant as a kid was All Star Cafe (bring that back while we’re at it).
Oh, and if this idea is unreasonable for whatever reason, the only other logical choice is Montreal. That city deserves Major League Baseball again. (Sorry, Oakland fans, you don’t deserve the fate that befell you, but that city also doesn’t deserve a team right now–and this one makes more sense in Canada, anyway.)
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Your Thoughts
Would you like to see the Rays relocate to Walt Disney World? If the team did, would your family attend a game while on vacation? Are you a fan of Major League Baseball, or are you under 80 years old? Thoughts on any of the other options, roof replacement cost, or anything else discussed here? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback—even when you disagree with us—is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
You mentioned the heat. You mentioned all the summer rain.
But you didn’t offer any solutions.
Outdoors in an Orlando summer is too miserable to contemplate.
As a life long Cleveland Indians/Guardians fan, if they happened to be playing the Rays at WDW while I was visiting, I could see myself carving out an evening to go watch a game. Just take the bus to WWOS from whatever DVC resort I happen to be staying at. Nice and easy…
Baseball and Disneyland are my two favorite things so thanks for this post. Do you ever watch Brodie Brazil on YouTube? He covers this topic in great detail. I loved your analogy about Dinosaur getting a quick fix only to be torn down. That’s exactly my thoughts on Tropicana Field…no way they’d spend even $25 mil when it’s going away in three years anyway. I hope they play at WDW for at least 20-25 games per year until the new stadium is here. I’ll be watching Adam the Woo’s vlogs from the games.
I think it’s a great idea. Eisner would’ve been all over this! Sprinkle some baseball player cameos into the contract to allow for a Disney+ Angels in the Outfield reboot (Rays in the Bullpen? Ray’s in the Dugout? I’m just spitballing here) and you could have the makings of some good ol’ fashioned family fun.
Obligatory plug for the excellent ESPN doc, Once Upon a Time in Anaheim: https://www.espn.com/watch/catalog/41d6ad3a-7da9-4fb0-84cf-3be9d9baf0b0/once-upon-a-time-in-anaheim
I should have added in my last comment that there is no way in the world I would schedule and pay for a trip to Disney World and waste one day watching a baseball game. I might as well be playing golf (which I don’t). Or watching the new coat of paint on Main Street dry!
A couple of observations:
1) based on your comment about the baseball and football fans in Los Angeles it’s obvious you’ve never attended a Dodgers or Rams home game.
2) I know attendance for the Rays has been tepid at best. Same for baseball in Miami. Same excuses in Miami (lousy stadium, poor location, etc. etc. They pack them in at Fenway, which is the worst park in baseball!
3) Attendance at the new stadium will also be tepid — unless (drum roll) they
4) MOVE THE TEAM TO PORTLAND, OR!!
Resident of Portland, OR here to say YES! But coincidentally, I lived in the Tampa Bay area as a teenager and was there when the Devil Rays came to be. Games were full of Red Sox and Yankees fans, even back then. But I still find it spectacularly unfair to the fans when teams move. There are certainly die-hard Rays fans who would be bummed to lose local access to their team, even if it’s just for the short-term that they’d be driving to Orlando (though that’s obviously more doable than Durham). I’ve always hoped we’d get an expansion team here in Portland, rather than another city’s team, for that reason alone. The fans deserve the best possible solution, whichever venue can provide it. (But it’s a business decision, so that won’t happen!)
I’ve attended several Dodgers games (more than any other team!), albeit sadly none this year, as the prices have skyrocketed since Shohei signed. Although the new baby is an equally significant consideration. Few fanbases are as rabid as the Dodgers!
I was speaking specifically to the Rams and Chargers. And admittedly, my perception is based solely on television broadcasts, so it could be off.
I’d also add the caveat that my perception of Las Vegas is also predicated on TV, and does not apply to the Golden Knights–they appear to have grown an organic fanbase, too.
If it’s only for a few years, the stadium capacity issue is not a big concern. The Athletics are going to spend three years in a AAA stadium in Sacramento after all.
While I wouldn’t look to that A’s as a good example of…anything…I agree with your point.
So long as there’s modest capacity, it’s more important to play in or around Florida (IMO) than have a higher capacity stadium. To whatever extent the Rays do have a fanbase, they should continue to want to foster that over the next few years until the new stadium is finished.
WHEN you lived in central Florida?? Did you move??
Also I agree about having the rays at Disney. I wouldn’t travel anywhere to see the rays, but would potentially plan a Disney trip when the braves are playing.
We moved back to California about a year and a half ago!
In a word, YES.
I’m just here for the Lucille Bluth references.
Well, that and the fact that we have traveled to 25 of the 30 MLB parks and am wondering if we now have to add one more to the list in Orlando. Combine an MLB park with the Disney trip? Yes please!
“People will come, Rays. People will come.”
I love the sheer number of Kevin Costner baseball movie references you threw in here. And not just because my name is Annie, I swear.
I’m a lifelong baseball fan, a lifelong Disney fan, and a HUGE proponent of anything that gets more families and kids into the game, so I think that having them play at WDW could do a lot to help drive that. I adore the notion of Elsa singing the National Anthem or during the 7th Inning Stretch or something. MLB should put you on its payroll!
It could be “Boardwalk and Baseball” all over again! 😉
That would be a better reuse of the Dinorama decor than a Wildwood-esque pier on the Boardwalk!
Regarding the cost of fixing Tropicana from an engineer’s viewpoint, if there was damage to the structure, electrical, and ventilation systems (there probably was if they were not weather-proof), the total cost would easily go above $100M.
As noted in another comment, I’m not worried that fans wouldn’t come — there’s just not enough room for the number of fans required to sustain an MLB team. The Rays have always struggled attendance-wise but even as one of the worst-attended franchises (a reason they’ve needed a better stadium experience) they still typically draw an average of 14k-18k a game.
Perhaps temporary stands could work (most of the Paris Olympics venue seating was temporary, and MLB games were played at the Field of Dreams in Iowa with 8,000 temporary seats).
There’s also the matter of dugout/clubhouse facilities, media, TV production, bathrooms, concessions, etc. For a brief emergency period this might be okay — Spring Training worked fine there, and teams have played random one-offs in Cooperstown, Dyersville, etc. — but over the course of at LEAST 3 years I don’t know if the WDW venue can be altered enough to meet the day-to-day logistical and revenue-producing standards required of an MLB team.
But what WDW *should* do is bring a team/experience like the Savannah Bananas to the WWoS stadium. For those unfamiliar, do some googling on this huge success story. But that’s a comment for another post.
I’ll put it this way – I have zero interest in Las Vegas as I don’t gamble, rarely drink, don’t care about shows (mostly, there are probably shows I’d see were I there) and have no desire to partake in the other things Vegas is known for. However, after seeing the designs for the A’s ballpark in Vegas… I would go out of my way to take a trip to see a game there.
I do enjoy visiting WDW in Orlando and having the opportunity to throw in an MLB game as part of it? Absolute no brainer.
Otherwise, there are cities in TX (San Antonio and Austin) or FL (Jacksonville) that have MLB capacity stadiums at the ready for temporary housing. It would be more likely the Rays end up in one of those for 3 years because of cost.
Between this and the Wander Franco situation, the Rays may be cursed.
There are definitely plenty of higher-capacity stadiums (I believe the objectively-best option is in OKC), but do the Rays *need* that? What’s the point of capacity above 10k if you’re not hitting that number in the first place–and are playing games farther from home?
Then again, maybe I am biased and maybe I do just want to watch baseball games at Walt Disney World. Who’s to say?
The average Rays attendance was ~16k in 2024… you will get less diehard Rays fans and season ticket holders, but my belief would be that having it at Orlando would make it a destination, as you say, for all of the away team fans – and create a net demand that far exceeds that 16k. A bit of irony – if you put it in a stadium somewhere else that holds more people, the demand will not be high enough to fill it and you’ll probably draw 5-10k, but if you put it in a 10k seat stadium in Orlando, the demand will be double that!
Incredible to have a baseball post in this blog 😀 Baseball is another passion besides Disney. Hope this becomes true. I’ll probably have to squeeze a USO & WDW vacation to attend a Rays game.
In a perfect world, the readers of this blog would have the exact same interests as me and I could just write about whatever piques my curiosity on any given day. But alas, the rare crossover content (about the Legend of Zelda or Mighty Ducks Day at DLR) has performed terribly. Hopefully this will be the post to buck that trend!
If so, please look forward to my treatise about why the Hartford Whalers logo is the greatest of all-time, and Disney should look to that for future, more creative and clever design inspiration.
Tom, I absolutely loved your Zelda crossover content!
Did you start Echoes of Wisdom yet?!
I have not–but I’m really excited for it. Just haven’t had the time yet. Probably won’t until December or January, unfortunately!
You?
Likewise, life and kids have really cut into my RPG time. The oldest has pretty well commandeered the Switch for Hogwarts Legacy, so expect I’ll get to it around the same time you will. Absolutely looking forward to it – finished TOTK a few months ago and it left an empty hole inside of me. Hopefully I can transfer all of those Lynel horn fused weapons over to Zelda’s inventory. 🙂
The Good Dinosaur was underrated imo
I agree: https://www.disneytouristblog.com/the-good-dinosaur-review/
I didn’t love the movie but still generally agree on it being underrated. Two problems were:
1. Pixar had been on an incredible run of quality films when it was released — but releases were rare. It was only the 2nd Pixar film between June 2013 and November 2015. And it followed the magnificent Inside Out. Expectations were very high.
2. The marketing didn’t match the tone of the movie. I remember the trailer was really cool, showing an asteroid missing the earth (and thus dinosaurs never going extinct). That became the opening scene, but it set up the movie as more of a serious, science fiction oriented story, with a sort of “butterfly effect” conceit. But in reality the movie wasn’t focused on dinosaurs or science or fully fleshing out this alternate Earth, but was a more simple, localized tale of a lost orphan trying to survive. It was also a lot more “cartoonish” than many had hoped — while the landscapes had that classic photorealistic Pixar effect, the characters were rendered in a totally different style (which wasn’t really as evident in the trailers).
I think someone who didn’t know much about Pixar and hadn’t seen any of the marketing for the movie (or its troubled production history) would sit down and enjoy it.
I am a Rays season ticket holder and I would go to at least half the home games at WWoS.
If they also need to have more capacity they can build up temporary stands. Similar to when the Chargers played in LA before SoFi opened. They were in a soccer stadium with about 1/3 capacity of a football stadium. I actually happened to work on that project design, and it got installed relatively quickly.
Do you have a ballpark idea as to what that could make the total capacity?
I wonder if there’s any incentive for Walt Disney World to invest in increasing the permanent capacity of the stadium, and perhaps trying to court bigger events–or even trying to make a bigger ‘thing’ out of Spring Training. It was built in a totally different era of WDW, and the parks see so much more traffic now.
The phrase “ballpark idea” is very apt here.
I would love it. I live in Orlando area and make the trek to Tropicana a couple times a year. if the Rays played at Disney I would probably go to 10+ games a year