Tropicana Field

The stadium opened on March 3, 1990 to designs by HOK Sport of Kansas City, Lescher & Mahoney Sports of Tampa, and Criswell, Blizzard & Blouin Architects of St. Petersburg. It opened as the Florida Suncoast Dome, was renamed ThunderDome in 1993, and became Tropicana Field in 1996 after Tropicana Products signed a 30-year naming-rights deal that October. The roof is fixed and was set at an angle to reduce interior volume and cooling costs. An interior feature is the Cownose Clubhouse, a 35-foot, 10,000-US-gallon tank stocked with rays that spectators can view up close. The ballpark hosted the 2008 World Series, in which the Rays lost to the Philadelphia Phillies four games to one. On October 9, 2024 Hurricane Milton tore through the fiberglass roof, causing extensive damage; the Rays played the entire 2025 season at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa while repairs were completed, and returned on April 6, 2026, beating the Chicago Cubs 6-4. The article on the ballpark puts the repair cost at approximately $55 million; the article on the club puts it at nearly $60 million, and the disagreement is inside the encyclopedia rather than introduced by this research. A proposed Gas Plant Stadium replacement, costed at $1.2 billion, was cancelled in March 2025, and on that cancellation the club also floated redeveloping Tropicana Field itself under a long-term lease. As of March 2026 the Rays are pursuing a new stadium on the Hillsborough Community College Dale Mabry campus, costed at $2.3 billion and targeting a 2029 opening with a capacity of roughly 30,000 to 35,000.