St. Petersburg in coordination with the St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce launched its “baseball forever” website this week. The website contains little information into the details of the collaboration, but is a swank first step in creating a robust coalition of stakeholders to make the case for baseball in St. Pete.
Mayor Rick Kriseman announced the initiative during his State of the City Address last month.
“I will soon be announcing the formation of a Baseball Forever Campaign to include St. Pete-based fans of the team, business leaders, and elected and government officials,” Kriseman said during the speech. “They will be asked to pitch our city to the Tampa Bay Rays by demonstrating future fan and corporate support and the many benefits of remaining on the current site, perhaps on the site’s eastern half closer to our bustling downtown and waterfront.”
The idea is to market St. Pete to the Tampa Bay Rays as a top-notch place to build a new stadium whether or not it is on the current Tropicana Field site.
The team is speaking with officials in other locations in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties after St. Pete City Council approved negotiations allowing them to do so.
Under that approved agreement, the Rays will fund up to $500,000 a master plan for the current Tropicana Field site. That plan is likely to include one with a baseball stadium and one without.
The new website features images of baseball players old and young, retired and active and plays on a sense of American pride for a beloved national sport.
However, content, for now, falls short. The website simply gives visitors the option to join a mailing list. Subscribers enter their email address and first name and then are given a confirmation that they have been added to a mailing list.
SaintPetersblog completed the form Monday night and as of Tuesday late morning had not received any correspondence from the coalition. The website reminds users that any subscription to email notifications subjects users to having their email address publicly disclosed through Florida’s open records laws.
The website has two URLs both leading to the exact same content. One is Raysbaseballforever.com and the other is baseballforevercampaign.com. The city is officially using the latter. The website was funded through the city’s marketing department and developed in house for what staff describes as a “nominal cost.”
