The Tampa Bay Rays will play their home games in 2025 at Steinbrenner Field, the spring-training home of the New York Yankees.
The announcement comes after the Rays’ home venue, Tropicana Field, had its roof torn off during Hurricane Milton last month. Steinbrenner Field is located in the northwest portion of Tampa and is located a short distance from Raymond James Stadium — the home of the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Steinbrenner Field, an 11,000-seat stadium, provides the Rays with a temporary home in Tampa. Tropicana Field is located in St. Petersburg, roughly 20 miles southwest of the Yankees’ spring training facilities.
“It is singularly the best opportunity for our fans to experience 81 games of major league Rays baseball,” Rays owner Stuart Sternberg said in a statement. “As difficult as it is to get any of these stadiums up to major league standards, it was the least difficult. You’re going to see Major League Baseball in a small environment.”
Their presence will push out the Yankees’ Single-A affiliate, the Tampa Tarpons, to other fields in the area.
This is just another unforeseen stadium hurdle that the Rays have been forced to deal with. After years of lobbying for a new stadium amid whispers of relocation, the franchise finally struck a deal to build a new home for the 2028 season in St. Petersburg, not far from Tropicana Field.
Hurricane Milton tore the majority of the stadium’s fiberglass roof off, and it will cost more than $55 million to repair it before the start of the 2026 season.
The Rays will become the second MLB team in 2025 to play in a minor-league ballpark after the Athletics moved from Oakland and will temporarily call Sutter Health Park in Sacramento, CA, their home before a move to Las Vegas later in the decade.
An AL East rival of the Yankees, Tampa will attempt to bring postseason baseball to Steinbrenner Field after an onslaught of injuries resulted in an 80-82 season in 2024.
