Tropicana Field

• Tampa Bay Rays ( MLB, 1998 )
• Tampa Bay Lightning (NHL, 1993-1996)

Tropicana Field is a multi-purpose stadium with a closed roof in Saint Petersburg in the U.S. state of Florida. It is the home of the Tampa Bay Rays, a major league baseball team of the American League. Currently, the stadium holds 36,048 spectators.

History

As early as the 1980s showed the city of Saint Petersburg interest in a professional sports team and began the construction of a new stadium in 1986. After the first Chicago White Sox and later the San Francisco Giants tried in vain to move to a relocation, we still had not found at the opening of the stadium in 1993 no tenant. 1993 was found with the NHL's Tampa Bay Lightning finally a tenant, who played for three years there. Then the previously known as Suncoast Dome stadium was renamed the Thunderdome.

1995 could undertake a baseball team, as the MLB has been extended. The naming rights were sold to Tropicana Products (since 1998 a subsidiary of PepsiCo fruit juice ) and the stadium was renamed in 1996 in Tropicana Field.

In 2006, the Ted Williams Museum / Hitters Hall of Fame was established in Tropicana Field after the original site was in Hernando into bankruptcy.