‘Dear Rays, Montreal won’t pay for your new stadium’ billboard up near Trop

Right next to the Interstate 275 exit for The Pier, between flashes of ads for light beer, is a message on a billboard from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation to the Tampa Bay Rays.

Every minute or so, “Dear Rays, Montreal won’t pay for your new stadium. Sincerely, Taxpayers” lights up just west of Tropicana Field.

It’s a stark message for the Rays, who have been exploring splitting future seasons between Tampa Bay and Montreal, a move they say would make the organization more financially viable in Tampa Bay long-term. The Rays’ lease at Tropicana Field is up in 2027, and the topic has dominated the St. Petersburg mayoral race, which ends Nov. 2. Tampa has been working on finding a site for the Rays in Ybor City.

Renaud Brossard, Quebec Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, flew down for less than 48 hours to host a news conference Monday morning underneath the billboard outside Lot 2 at Tropicana Field. He said he had hoped the Rays would be in the World Series so he could go to a game.

Brossard said his organization, which he characterized as not-for-profit and nonpartisan, wanted to send a clear message to the Rays: that Quebec taxpayers are against any kind of subsidies to build a stadium in Montreal for a part-time, or even full-time, Rays team. He cited a March poll, where 60 percent of 1,000 Quebecers surveyed did not want public money to go toward the construction of a baseball stadium in Montreal, a project led by billionaire Stephen Bronfman.