Double vision: Baseball executive tries his hand, er, foot at soccer

After the acquisition of the Tampa Bay Rowdies, Tampa Bay Rays President Brian Auld faces the challenge of guiding not one, but two, local sports franchises to victory.

By Brian Hartz
| 6:00 a.m. April 5, 2019
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Mark Wemple. Tampa Bay Rays President Brian Auld is pulling double-duty as vice chairman of the Tampa Bay Rowdies soccer club.

Leadership

It didn’t come as a big surprise when St. Petersburg real estate and entertainment magnate Bill Edwards sold the Tampa Bay Rowdies soccer club in October. Entering his mid-70s and just more than a year removed from double-bypass heart surgery, Edwards had a great five-year run overseeing the franchise — capped by an energetic and expensive yet ultimately unsuccessful push to join Major League Soccer — but acknowledged it was a break-even enterprise at best.