Tampa Bay Rays sale to close in next two weeks

The Tampa Rays say the sale of the team to a group led by Jacksonville home builder Patrick Zalupski is expected to close in the next two weeks.

The news of the pending completion of the deal was disclosed in a statement Wednesday afternoon announcing that the Ray’s two top executives — presidents Matt Silverman and Brain Auld — are leaving their roles once the new owners take over.

The team, which has reportedly been valued at $1.7 billion, is being bought by a group led by Zalupski, the founder of Jacksonville-based Dream Finders Homes.

The Rays say the closing of the sale is pending final approvals and further “information about the sale and new ownership group will be shared after the transaction is completed.”

Silverman, who joined the team in 2005 and spent 17 years as president, is leaving the Rays completely but will represent current owner Stuart Sternberg and his partners on an executive advisory board being established by the new ownership group.

Auld, who also joined in 2005 and has been president for 11 years, will remain with the Rays as a senior advisor to the new owner.

Both men served as co-presidents and have long been the public faces of the organization’s off-field operations, often the ones facing questions — and the wrath — of politicians and the public.

Among their duties were trying to sell the idea that the Rays should split their seasons between the Tampa Bay area and Montreal, with each locality building a ballpark.

They, however, oversaw a team that despite record low payroll, the departure of the most popular players and among the worst attendance in Major League Baseball, has been to two World Series and a perennial playoff contender for nearly 15 years.

They both have also been at the helm of the Rays as it became a fixture in the area, with parents who were kids when the team played its first game in 1998 taking their kids to games now.

Silverman spoke about that, as he has before, in Wednesday’s statement saying, “What makes me proudest is seeing how the Rays have become woven into the region’s identity, with a true generational fan base taking shape.”

But, with all the success on the field and the challenges off of it, the Rays future remains uncertain even as new owners take over.

The team, under Sternberg, Silverman and Auld, have failed to secure a desperately needed new stadium for the Rays despite several attempts.

The most recent — and the most spectacular — of the failures was a planned $1.3 billion ballpark in downtown St. Petersburg that would have been part of a $6.5 billion redevelopment of the Historic Gas Plant District, a Black neighborhood razed in the 1990s to make way for Tropicana Field.

The Rays, after agreeing to terms and proclaiming it was “Here to Stay” for the next three decades, at least, backed out of the deal after asking for more public money and saying the project was going to be too expensive.

The team spent this past season playing in the New York Yankees’ Spring Training facility after Tropicana Field was heavily damaged during Hurricane Milton last year.

And now, as the triumvirate prepares to depart, the new owners will face the same economic and structural issues the team has dealt with since Sternberg paid $200 million for it in 2004.