Tampa Bay Rays in talks to sell team

State of play: The discussions, first reported by Sportico, are with a group led by Patrick Zalupski, a Jacksonville home builder; Ken Babby, who owns the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp minor league baseball team; and Bill Cosgrove, the CEO of an Ohio-based mortgage firm.

• Unnamed "prominent Tampa Bay investors" are also part of the group, per the Rays' statement.
• "Neither the Rays nor the group will have further comment during the discussions," it goes on to say.

The intrigue: The potential deal values the team at $1.7 billion, per the Sportico report. The sports business news outlet also reported that Zalupski had signed a letter of intent to buy the team.

• Current owner Stuart Sternberg bought the team in 2004 for $200 million.

Between the lines: The stadium plan's unraveling put Sternberg at odds with local elected officials, making the odds of a deal revival appear slim to none.

• "I have no interest in working with this ownership group. That bridge has been burned," Mayor Ken Welch said in March.
• Pinellas County Commissioner Chris Latvala has turned to X to repeatedly pressure Sternberg to sell the team. "Thank You Stu," he wrote Wednesday afternoon, after news broke of the potential sale.