Hillsborough County Approves Tampa Bay Rays' New Permanent Ballpark

Hillsborough County cast its formal vote approving the Tampa Bay Rays' new ballpark, per MLB.com's Adam Berry — the latest and apparently decisive governmental checkpoint in a process that has kept the franchise's future in Tampa Bay an open question for years.

The county vote follows Tampa City Council's 4-3 approval of the stadium deal, with the Hillsborough County Commission subsequently signing off on the plan. The project carries a reported price tag of $2.3 billion.

What the votes mean

With both the Tampa City Council and Hillsborough County Commission now on record in favor, the Rays have cleared the major governmental hurdles standing between the franchise and a permanent home. The club's CEO Ken Babby and Managing Partner Patrick Zalupski each issued statements following the votes, and the club has announced it will remain in Tampa Bay permanently.

What to watch

A county commission vote is not a shovel in the ground. The path from governmental approval to an open ballpark involves financing, construction timelines, and further logistics that the available material does not detail. What the vote does settle, at least for now, is the question of whether the Rays would stay — a question that had followed the franchise with uncomfortable persistence.