Stuart Sternberg

Stuart L. Sternberg

• School St. John's University

• Born ~1959 in Brooklyn, NY USA

Biographical Information

Stuart Sternberg headed a group that purchased 48 percent of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 2004. In October 2005, he took over control of the club from Vince Naimoli.

While the team, which was renamed the Tampa Bay Rays in 2008 has been successful on the field, reaching the World Series twice, in 2008 and 2020, off-field issues have plagued them, low attendance being foremost among them. Sternberg was not able to get out of a punitive lease tying the team to outdated Tropicana Field until 2028, and all attempts he made to find an alternate site for a ballpark in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area floundered for lack of local commitment. In 2019, he proposed what he called a visionary plan that would have seen the team share two homes - one inthe Tampa area, and another on the other side of the continent in Montreal, QC, where a prospective co-ownership group, led by Stephen Bronfman, was ready to move forward and there were actual possibilities of building a new ballpark. Major League Baseball initially gave Sternberg the green light to explore the option further, but on January 20, 2022, it killed the idea for good, as the executive committee explained that it would never give the go-ahead to a shared-city concept. Already, many observers had pointed out some seemingly insurmountable practical problems that would come with such a plan. As a result, the future of the team was as murky as ever, with the 2028 date approaching.

On May 22, 2023, following speculations that interests in Orlando, FL were interested in relocating the Rays, Sternberg issued a statement saying: "I expect we will build a ballpark in Tampa Bay that will keep the Rays here for generations to come. I also plan on remaining the Rays owner." However, that only lasted until 2025. After the team was forced to move to a temporary home at George M. Steinbrenner Field for the 2025 season following hurricane damage to Tropicana Field, he put the Rays up for sale. On September 30th, a group headed by Patrick Zalupski and also including Bill Cosgrove and Ken Babby, who became the new CEO, completed the purchase of the team. The sale was quickly approved by MLB, by unanimous vote. The purchase price was not disclosed but was estimated to be around $1.7 billion. The new owners also acquired the Tampa Bay Rowdies of the United Soccer League as part of the deal.

Further Reading

• "Tampa Bay Rays Sold To New Ownership Group", mlb.com, September 30, 2025. [1]
• Alden Gonzalez: "Tampa Bay Rays say split-season plan with Montreal rejected by MLB", ESPN.com, January 20, 2022. [2]
• Gabe Lacques: "MLB pulls plug on Rays' Tampa Bay-Montreal 'sister city' concept, leaving franchise's future in limbo", USA Today, January 20, 2022. [3]