Say whatever you will about the Tampa Bay Rays and Tropicana Field but one factor is clear in the Bay area…most residents have some sort of an opinion about the team, the stadium and its future in the Bay area.

Whether it remains best for the baseball team to continue playing its games in St. Petersburg or ramp up a push for exploring stadium sites in Hillsborough County or downtown Tampa, opinions abound.

Some residents let those feeling be known in a recent exclusive Tampa Bay Times/Bay News 9/AM 820 survey.

An ongoing issue that has stretched beyond the sports world, the stadium debate has morphed from a Bay area debate to a national sports and business discussion.

Detractors say Tropicana Field, built in 1990, is an outdated stadium, designed and built before the rise of the destination-style modern baseball-only edifices like Baltimore's Camden Yards, Coors Field in Denver, Safeco Field in Seattle and PNC Park in Pittsburgh. In 2012, the Rays became the first team in Major League Baseball history to finish the season with at least 90 wins and finish last in attendance.

St. Petersburg officials and Mayor Bill Foster counter that the Rays have a contract with St. Petersburg that runs through 2027. Rays officials have said the team cannot remain economically viable for that long in the multi-purpose Trop, which has regularly been rated as not only one of the worst facilities in baseball but all of sports.

While the survey hit on various issues involving the team's stadium push, including possible locations and how to fund a facility, a couple of key issues were most prominent:

What Hillsborough and Pinellas residents thought of team staying at Tropicana Field, and, should local governments commit tax money to pay for a new facility.

Among the Pinellas County residents asked if the Trop remained the best location for the Rays to play, 42 percent of them responded yes. Twenty-eight percent of Hillsborough County residents polled said Tropicana Field is the best place for the team.

The idea of a baseball facility in St. Petersburg's Carillon area, promoted earlier this year, received 21 percent of the vote from Pinellas residents as the best location. About 25 percent of Hillsborough residents polled said the best location was the fairgrounds.

Regularly talked about by many as the most logical landing place for a stadium - downtown Tampa - did not rank high in the survey.

Only two percent of the Pinellas residents surveyed said the team should play in downtown Tampa. Just 16 percent of Hillsborough residents surveyed said the Rays should play ball downtown. When asked the same question, 14 percent of Hillsborough residents and 19 percent of Pinellas residents said they weren't sure where the team should play.

Just this year, in a letter to Rays owner Stuart Sternberg, Mayor Foster reiterated his long-time stance, saying the only way to preserve the St. Petersburg's interests is not to let the team look for stadium sites outside the city or the Pinellas Gateway area.

Sternberg said he was surprised and disappointed.

"I want the Rays to be successful in Tampa Bay - in St. Pete," Foster said during a recent interview at Bay News 9. "Nobody wants to lose the Rays to outside the geographical area of Tampa Bay."

How to pay for it?

Regardless of which location could ultimately become the new home for the team, poll respondents did not vary wildly when it came to how to pay for a facility.

When asked would they favor a local government committing tax money to build a new stadium if it did not result in increased taxes for them personally, 42 percent of the Hillsborough residents surveyed and 39 percent of the Pinellas residents surveyed said yes.

Forty-seven percent of the polled Hillsborough residents said they would not favor tax money being used despite no personal rise in their taxes. On the Pinellas side, 54 percent said they wouldn't favor using tax money.

When asked what are some of the reasons for being unwilling to commit public money toward a stadium, 56 percent of the Hillsborough residents asked said public money should not be used for a professional baseball stadium. Forty-eight percent of the Pinellas residents answered the same way.

Among the other top reasons given for not comitting public funds towards a stadium:

The Rays should make their own financial commitment towards a stadium (19 percent of polled Pinellas residents answered this way) (16 percent Hillsborough).

The Rays have a contract in place to play at the Trop until 2027 (10 percent Pinellas) (5 percent Hillsborough).

Among some of the other answers polled residents gave for not comitting public funds included the Trop being good as it is, they aren't baseball fans, taxes ultimately will have to go up and poor attendance for the team.

Nine percent of those polled on both sides of the Bay said they were unsure of an answer.

The telephone survey of (521) Hillsborough and Pinellas County residents was conducted December 5 through 13 for the St. Petersburg Times, Bay News 9 and AM 820 News.
The surveys were administered by Braun Research, a national polling firm based in Princeton, N.J.
The margin of error was plus or minus (4.3) percentage points overall.