John Romano: Is Orlando chasing Major League Baseball or just chasing the Rays?

Even if Stuart Sternberg is inclined to sell to someone local, the total cost of buying the Tampa Bay Rays and investing in a stadium may be too high for a market that has struggled to draw fans.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Here, in the land of Dreamers, baseball is still a romantic’s game.

It is coifed fields and youthful prospects. Devoted fans and timeless stories. It is yesterday’s memories and tomorrow’s promise, and dang if it doesn’t feel worth as many checkbooks as it’ll take to make the dream come true.

Of public financing to help pay for a Major League Baseball stadium in Orlando, Florida,“ my question is, what is the return on investment for the community,” said Orange County Commissioner Mike Scott, right, pictured alongside Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, Feb. 3, 2025.

So, tell me, would it be impolite to point out that history may not be their friend? That economics, politics and optics could all be standing in the way of bringing Major League Baseball to Central Florida? Do you suggest that the 75-80 million tourists at the heart of this dream are probably more interested in Fantasyland than fantasy baseball?

Fence around the 35.5- acre plot of Orange County land next to the Aquatica water park off International Drive that reportedly is sought by the Orlando Dreamers, a group of investors reportedly trying to bring the Tampa Bay Rays, Major League Baseball team to Central Florida in Orlando, Florida, Friday, March 14, 2025.

Or do you throw up your hands and let their optimism pull you in?

For more than 30 years, Orlando has been chasing the idea of being a baseball town. It’s easy to forget, but Orlando was one of four finalists — along with northern Virginia and winning bids from Tampa Bay and Arizona — the last time baseball voted on expansion in 1995.

The world has changed, the group has rebranded itself as the Orlando Dreamers, once-available public funding for a stadium has vanished and the architect of this audacious idea has passed, but Central Florida’s baseball fortunes may be more viable today than ever before.

If only because God and man have torn the roof off and pulled the rug out from under Tampa Bay.

Is tourism the ticket?

The pitch is simple. Orlando is one of the fastest-growing metro areas in the U.S. and, depending on the metrics, the largest market without Major League Baseball in the nation. But that’s not even the coup de grace for the Dreamers.

Orlando also draws more tourists than any city in America, and the folks behind Orlando’s push are convinced they can tap into that reservoir of spenders like no professional sports franchise ever has.

“Orlando is a unique market,” said Dreamers chief operations officer Jim Schnorf. “We’ll get 80 million tourists this year. That’s 2 million unique tourists every week of the baseball season, so it’s similar to having the city of Dallas superimposed over Orlando.

“We don’t think there’s a close second to us. We would have said Las Vegas would have been the second choice (if the Athletics weren’t planning to move there). So let’s evaluate that. They get half the number of tourists. They’ll get 40 to 42 million. They’re the 39-40th media market. We’re 15th. Eight years ago, Las Vegas had no professional sports teams. The Raiders have since knocked it out. Hockey sells out every game in Vegas, and I think they have the third-highest ticket price of the 32 NHL teams.

R-A-Y-S lettering and a sunburst replace New York Yankees signage in the stands at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, Florida. "At a certain point it’ s going to be untenable to keep playing games in Tampa at the Yankees spring training stadium," said attorney John Morgan, who has joined a proposed Orlando ownership group. "Too hot, too much rain, not enough capacity."

“So what’s the message? Tourism matters. It matters a whole lot.”

That sounds intriguing, but is it true? Baseball is a different beast than the NFL, NBA and NHL because of the sheer volume of inventory. The average NFL team sold about 560,000 tickets in 2024. The average MLB team sold more than 2.5 million. That includes tickets on a Monday against the Royals. Or a Tuesday against the Brewers. That includes nine-game homestands and school nights in the fall.

At a 2023 news conference, Orlando Magic co-founder Pat Williams shows rendering of a proposed new domed baseball stadium he hopes will help lure a Major League Baseball team to Orlando, Florida.

Baseball depends heavily on corporate sales of season tickets rather than selling individual seats on a per-game basis. Miami and Tampa Bay may not have the same tourism numbers as Orlando, but both markets draw more visitors than most. And yet neither has been wildly successful getting out-of-town beachgoers to buy bleacher seats.

Now, could Orlando change that equation for baseball? Is there a universe where a family of four spends a day at Disney, a day at Universal and a day at the ballpark? Can Orlando succeed in ways that Miami and Tampa Bay have not?

For comparison’s sake, the NBA’s Orlando Magic does do outreach with tourism operators to sell tickets — particularly to international markets such as Brazil, Germany, Mexico and England — but it’s more of a supplementary plan than a main focus.

“The tourism market is a part of our business, just like season tickets, partial plans, group sales and single-game tickets,” said Joel Glass, the Magic’s chief communications officer. “We do take advantage of the NBA’s position as a global sport to try to tap in and attract visitors.”

Not after the Rays yet

Officially, Schnorf says the Dreamers do not have a preference between chasing an expansion team or getting an existing franchise to relocate. And to emphasize that point, he said they have not yet talked to Rays owner Stuart Sternberg about a potential sale.

Realistically, however, Orlando’s hopes probably hinge on the Rays leaving Tampa Bay.

It’s hard to imagine baseball officials agreeing to a third team in Florida considering how the state has consistently underperformed at the box office. And that reputation seems to be getting worse by the day. Even if you combine all the tickets sold by Tampa Bay and Miami in 2024, it still would not add up to the league’s average attendance.

And now think about how much money the Rays and Marlins are costing other owners in annual revenue sharing payments and how unlikely it seems they would want to triple down on Florida.

Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred has made it clear that he wants the Rays to remain in Tampa Bay and he does not appear to consider Orlando to be part of that equation. Also, there are multiple ownership groups in Tampa Bay that are exploring the idea of purchasing the team and potentially building a ballpark. If, however, a stadium plan does not materialize in Tampa Bay, then all bets are off.

In that case, the Rays could move to Orlando or even out of state. And if relocation comes to pass, an expansion team somewhere in Florida would at least be on the table. Rays president Matt Silverman declined to discuss any ownership issues.

Attorney John Morgan, who has joined a proposed Orlando ownership group, does not rule out the idea of expansion but says relocation is the city’s best hope. And he seems fairly confident that neither Sternberg, nor any other ownership group, will get a stadium built in Tampa Bay.

“First of all, I think a stadium in St. Pete will never happen again. That’s probably a bridge too far,” said Morgan, whose Morgan & Morgan firm has offices in Orlando and Tampa Bay. “I hear that they’ve talked about Ybor City, but I don’t see that as a possibility because Ybor City is like coming out of a honeycomb. It’s impossible to get out of there. So I don’t know that there’s ever going to be a (good) site around there.

“Here’s what we know: At a certain point it’s going to be untenable to keep playing games in Tampa at the Yankees spring training stadium. Too hot, too much rain, not enough capacity. The stadium (location) has to be moved, which means the owner needs to sell to someone in Tampa Bay. And the people who have talked to me understand that I’m not interested in Tampa Bay as an investment for baseball. So they’ve either got to sell it to a group of people over there and build a stadium, or not.

“And to me, the best option, if our group can pull off the stadium part, is Orlando.”

A stadium costs how much?

If you go by news releases, Orlando’s proposed baseball stadium is a bulldozer away from reality. They’ve got a site, they’ve got renderings, they’ve got up to $1 billion in cash committed to stadium construction and surrounding development with hotels and a parking garage.

But if you’ve watched multiple stadium plans implode in Pinellas and Hillsborough over the past 15 years, you know it is never as easy as it appears, and the money never seems to be enough.

The site they have targeted — 35 acres of mostly wooded property off International Drive and adjacent to SeaWorld and the Aquatica water park — is owned by Orange County and valued at approximately $1 million per acre. Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, who declined comment, has previously expressed skepticism about giving the land to the Dreamers at no charge.

That’s not the only stumbling block.

Some residents of the nearby Williamsburg neighborhood have raised concerns about increased traffic and noise. Gov. Ron DeSantis said this week that no state money will be used for the construction of a baseball stadium anywhere, but he would be open to investing in the building of roads and other necessary infrastructure.

Schnorf said MLB wants stadiums to be a private/public partnership, but the Dreamers were rebuffed when Pat Williams asked for $975 million in tourism revenue from Orange County in 2023. Williams, who passed away in 2024, was one of the founders of the Magic and a hugely popular figure in Orlando. It seems likely the Dreamers will make another run at some form of public financing in the near future.

“My question is, what is the return on investment for the community,” said Orange County Commissioner Mike Scott. “Everybody is talking about tax dollars, but getting down to the community level, the family level, what does that mean? What does it mean for jobs? For parking? What does that mean for housing opportunities? I think that’s a conversation worth having.

“And these are all things that need to be discussed with the stakeholders, not just wealthy folks or potential team owners, but the people in that community.”

The Dreamers are a little vague on how the $1 billion in private money they say has been pledged to stadium and surrounding construction would work in terms of a team ownership stake. They also say another $1.5 billion has been committed to buying an existing team or paying MLB’s expansion fee, with Dr. Rick Workman as the anchor investor.

Workman, a huge St. Louis Cardinals fan, moved to Orlando after starting Heartland Dental in 1997, which is touted as the largest dental support company in the nation.

Still, for all the money supposedly waiting to be invested, the main point they keep coming back to is Orlando’s popularity as a destination. And while Schnorf said the group is being respectful of other franchises and not butting into anyone else’s business, he wondered aloud about the long-term viability of the Rays in Tampa Bay when it comes to a new stadium.

Even if Sternberg is inclined to sell to someone local, the total cost of buying the team and investing in a stadium may be too high for a market that has struggled to draw fans.

“Stuart Sternberg, who is a Wall Street guy, couldn’t make it work while already owning the team, and that’s with $700 million-plus coming from the city and county,” Schnorf said. “So how does (a new owner) justify economically paying $1.5 billion for a team, getting a return for investors, plus financing a meaningful portion of the stadium?

“How do those economics work? We look at it and say they don’t.”

So why would it work in Orlando?

“That is a wonderful question,” he said. “And the answer is 80 million tourists.”

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