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Florida, June 6, 2022 – (Steve Contorno | CNN) Gov. Ron DeSantis blocked state funding for a new Tampa Bay Rays training facility partly because the baseball team spoke out against gun violence in the wake of back-to-back gun-related massacres in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York, a source familiar with the internal conversations told CNN.
DeSantis on Thursday used his line-item veto powers to eliminate $35 million for a sports training and youth tournament complex in Pasco County, in the Tampa Bay area, which local officials hoped could serve as the new player development facility for the Rays. On Friday, he said he eliminated the funding because “I don’t support giving taxpayer dollars to professional sports stadiums.”
But a source said the Republican leader had not made up his mind until the Rays took an organizational stance calling for action in the wake of the latest mass shootings.
Two days after a gunman killed 19 children and two adults at a Texas elementary school, the Rays announced a $50,000 donation to Everytown for Gun Safety, an organization that advocates policies to prevent gun violence. The Major League Baseball team also tweeted a statement calling for action.
“This cannot be normal,” the tweet read. “We cannot become numb. We cannot look the other way. We all know, if nothing changes, nothing changes.”
It would not be the first time DeSantis has moved against a company that took a political position opposite to him. DeSantis signed a bill in April to strip Disney of its special governing status in Florida after the company publicly criticized a new state law that bans certain classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity.
DeSantis on Friday hinted at his displeasure with the Rays’ remarks, telling reporters at a news conference that it was “inappropriate to subsidize political activism of a private corporation.” But he added, “Either way, it’s not appropriate, but we were not in a situation where use of tax dollars for a professional stadium would have been a prudent use.”
A spokeswoman for the Rays did not respond to a request for comment.
Pasco County had successfully lobbied state lawmakers to include $35 million in the budget for a sports complex in Odessa that would provide “community facilities serving general recreation, youth/amateur/professional baseball and softball participation, sports tourism, and other programming and events,” according to the budget request. It was hoped that the Rays would move their training operations to the complex.
DeSantis was skeptical of the proposal, the source said. The governor thought it might upset residents in Port Charlotte — home to the Rays’ current spring training facility — if he helped the team move to another part of Florida, and he didn’t believe it would provide much economic benefit to shift the Rays’ training operation from one part of the state to another.
The new complex also needed the Rays and local governments to each put up $35 million, which they had yet to officially commit to, another sticking point for the governor.
DeSantis on Friday hinted at his displeasure with the Rays’ remarks, telling reporters at a news conference that it was “inappropriate to subsidize political activism of a private corporation.” But he added, “Either way, it’s not appropriate, but we were not in a situation where use of tax dollars for a professional stadium would have been a prudent use.”
A spokeswoman for the Rays did not respond to a request for comment.
Pasco County had successfully lobbied state lawmakers to include $35 million in the budget for a sports complex in Odessa that would provide “community facilities serving general recreation, youth/amateur/professional baseball and softball participation, sports tourism, and other programming and events,” according to the budget request. It was hoped that the Rays would move their training operations to the complex.
DeSantis was skeptical of the proposal, the source said. The governor thought it might upset residents in Port Charlotte — home to the Rays’ current spring training facility — if he helped the team move to another part of Florida, and he didn’t believe it would provide much economic benefit to shift the Rays’ training operation from one part of the state to another.
The new complex also needed the Rays and local governments to each put up $35 million, which they had yet to officially commit to, another sticking point for the governor.
