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St. Petersburg officials cringe at adding "Tampa" to change the dome's name to Tampa Bay Devil Rays Tropicana Field.
By STEPHEN HEGARTY
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 18, 2000
ST. PETERSBURG -- It's been open less than a decade, but Tropicana Field is about to get its fourth name.
The stadium, which opened in March 1990 as Florida Suncoast Dome, then became ThunderDome and Tropicana Field will soon be renamed "Tampa Bay Devil Rays Tropicana Field," if Tropicana Products Inc. approves the change.
The team asked the City Council for the name change -- a necessary first step for getting some state Department of Transportation traffic signs to include the team name -- and on Thursday the request was granted pending Tropicana's approval. But not before council members reopened old wounds about the team's name and the prospects for having that nasty word "Tampa" on a St. Petersburg building.
"The "Tampa' word on a facility built by our tax dollars is a bit unbearable," said City Council Chairwoman Bea Griswold. "The facility belongs to the taxpayers of St. Petersburg and Pinellas County who paid the bills and are still paying the bills."
After begrudgingly granting the Devil Rays' request, the City Council came up with a request of its own. Clearly still irritated by a long history of out-of-town sports announcers referring to the stadium as being in Tampa, they voted to ask the Devil Rays to place the words "St. Petersburg" behind home plate where they could be seen by a national audience.
"I want this city to receive all the benefits," council member Rene Flowers said. "This is St. Petersburg, not Tampa, not Tampa Bay. We keep losing out on all the marketability."
Devil Rays spokesman Rick Vaughn said the organization would consider the request.
"We will have to look at that," Vaughn said. "Our marketing people would have to talk to the city."
Vaughn pointed out that the team has considered advertisements behind home plate for several years. They could be either virtual-reality ads that would be introduced to the television telecast, or billboards that rotate every few minutes. So far, though, the team has made no decisions about ads behind home plate.
The Devil Rays spokesman said he expected Tropicana would not have a problem with the proposed name change because it wouldn't change anything in the naming-rights agreement.
A Tropicana spokeswoman said the company had not been consulted.
"They have not presented it to us, so I really can't comment on it," said Tropicana spokeswoman Kristine Nickel. "It is a bit puzzling."
City Council members had one other request Thursday. They want to know if the Devil Rays are late with a $200,000 payment to city, as part of the naming-rights agreement.
The agreement is between the Devil Rays organization and Tropicana. But the city -- the actual owner of the facility -- benefits from the naming-rights agreement.
Council member Kathleen Ford asked how much the city makes through the agreement. Chief Assistant City Attorney John Wolfe looked on his computer and reported that under the agreement the Devil Rays sent the city a check for $200,000 for 1998. That payment arrived on Jan. 27, 1999. The computer memo indicated the Devil Rays were supposed to send a check for $200,000 for 1999 but that the payment had not yet been received.
That didn't go over well with the City Council. They asked for a report letting them know whether the Devil Rays were remiss with the $200,000 payment.
Wolfe said later that the payment is not necessarily due in late January. The contract says it is "due upon receipt," meaning that when Tropicana pays the Devil Rays, the baseball team is supposed to pay the city.
Devil Rays spokesman Vaughn said that if the city had not yet received its payment, it will soon. The money from Tropicana typically flows through the team before being sent on to the city, and that process is under way, Vaughn said.
- Staff writers Kyle Parks and Chuck Murphy contributed to this report.