Rays 2020 Business Leaders React to the Dual-City Concept - Tampa Bay Business Journal

Rhea Law, Of Counsel in the firm's Real Estate practice, comments on recent developments in an effort to rally business and community leaders to support and keep the Tampa Bay Rays in Tampa.

At first blush, a dual-city plan has not been done anywhere else and raises some skepticism, said Law, of counsel at Buchanan Ingersoll, and an active 2020 member and community leader.

"But that same skepticism turns into a real curiosity because this is a really unique, interesting idea that has come up in an effort to solve a problem that is not just true for the Rays but it’s true for other sports teams," she said.

She believes the idea is disruptive enough to sports in general that it deserves a hard look and it solves financial issues.

"It’s adding an additional market that would lead not only to more fans and more sponsorships, but the big opportunity I see is having a sister city where you can have business connections and economic impact from business expansions as well as tourism," she said. "It certainly would be disruptive to the sports entertainment field and I bet there are a lot of places around the country and the world that are looking to see what we do on this."

Any other business would look at it in a heartbeat, she said. "Every one of our businesses has been disrupted significantly in the last five years, and it’s not going to stop."

Read more in Tampa Bay Business Journal's article "Rays 2020 Business Leaders React to the Dual-City Concept."