Mayor Bill Foster Came Away the Loser of the Trop Meeting

There have been dozens of articles(see some links below) written about Mayor Bill Foster's meeting with Stu Sternberg at the Trop last week, and it basically came down to this: they only talked about marketing. There was no discussion about a new stadium at all. Stu laid it out that he didn't want to discuss a new stadium, even though Foster brought it up, and Stu indicated that they don't know if the Tampa Bay region as a whole can even support the Rays.

It's pretty clear that Stu dominated the conversation, he knows Foster is inflexible on a new stadium, and he's most likely already planned what he is going to do in the future, which is probably either to wait out Foster(who may be out of office in less than two years anyway) or just bide his time as it becomes cheaper and cheaper to buy out their contract and then just take the Rays wherever he wants to go. He threw Foster off balance by not talking about a new stadium at all(something Foster probably spent a lot of time preparing for) and instead Stu questioned the entire region's support for the Rays, putting Foster on the defensive.

So in the end, Foster's shortsightedness with the Rays has hurt him in this meeting, and he clearly ended up as the loser, even promising more free marketing support to the Rays. Advantage: Stu.

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