While certainly not the most significant impact of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton on the state of Florida, damage from the storms left the Tampa Bay Rays wondering where they’d be able to play their home games for the 2025 MLB season. Tropicana Field was left in tatters in their wake, wind ripping the roof off of the dome and leaving the field and stands vulnerable to the elements.
Almost immediately, the team announced that it wouldn’t be able to play next season at the Trop, eying a return in 2026 after significant repairs. What they might do in the meantime was an open question, one without a ton of good answers; short of picking the team up and moving to a different state — bringing with it a host of logistical issues, not to mention the optics of leaving a fan base that was just hammered by two different hurricanes — the only option would be to play in one of the many Minor League stadiums on the Gulf Coast of Florida.
And sure enough, that’s exactly what the Rays have decided to do, announcing on Thursday that the team will play its 2025 home games at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa — otherwise known as the New York Yankees’ spring training facility.
Irony of playing “home” games at a park named after the iconic former owner of a division rival aside, this was making the best out of a bad situation. But, lest you think that this was some act of pure altruism, let’s remember that this is the Yankees we’re talking about. And with the Yankees, everything comes with a cost.
Yankees charging the Rays $15 million to use George M. Steinbrenner Field for 2025 season
New York isn’t letting the Rays use its facility for free; on the contrary, the agreement between the two teams will bring the Yankees some $15 million in revenue.
Granted, welcoming Tampa Bay isn’t without obstacles for New York, as the stadium also doubles as a player development complex and the home of the Yankees’ Single-A affiliate during the regular season. We don’t have specific details yet on how accommodating a Major League team will affect those arrangements, but safe to say it’s not nothing.
Still, it’s not as though the Yankees needed the money, and now they can just turn around and put that extra cash toward as big an offseason as possible — if Juan Soto’s contract winds up with an extra zero at the end of it, you’ll know why.
