Team Tampa Bay's Take: Tampa's Time

By: Tyler Graddy Senior Writer and Editor The Identity Tampa Bay @TylerGraddy

Tampa Bay is at the center of the sports universe. The Tampa Bay Lightning win the 2020 Stanley Cup, the Tampa Bay Rays are making waves in the MLB Playoffs, the Rowdies are advancing in the USL Championships and the Buccaneers have a chance to make history by being the first team to play in it’s host community’s Super Bowl.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF IMAGN

For a long time, Tampa Bay felt like a transient sports town.

People once moved here from far and wide, bringing their allegiances and traditions along with them. Sure, we’ve had teams in the bay area for decades—only it often felt like Tampa Bay’s sports were relegated to second-favorite fandom.

But not now, no way. Now, things feel different. This is Tampa Bay’s time.

Our rising bay area has become a place where championships can be born, a region that doesn’t ask for your respect and loyalty: it demands it.

The Lightning are Stanley Cup Champions for the second time since 2004, fresh off a six-season run that includes two Stanley Cup Final appearances, three trips to the Eastern Conference Final and five playoff berths. Not even one of 2020’s most taxing sports quarantines could slow down the Lightning. Forget about surviving the Stanley Cup playoff bubble in Canada; the Bolts busted it open with the loveable talent it nourished from day one.

Nikita Kucherov finally evolved from unmatched regular-season greatness to playoff savant. Victor

Hedman, regarded as the best offensive defenseman in the league, elevated his leadership chops to levels that would have made General George S. Patton look like a middle-school coach. The entire team came together for the greatest celebratory boat parade that this country has ever seen—a regard normally reserved for Tampa Bay’s own Gasparilla Invasion. These personalities, often blanketed in the humble temperature of hockey culture, couldn’t be contained in the wake of their historic Cup run. 11 TAMPABAYLV.COM

No team in major league baseball maximizes talent like the Tampa Bay Rays, who are currently battling in the American League Championship Series after once again shocking the baseball world (and doing it an overall solid by eliminating the Yankees). This team revolutionized the game under manager Kevin Cash, introducing us all to The Opener, an often-used four-man outfield and the never-say-die attitude that laughs in the face of baseball’s most expensive payrolls.

The Buccaneers pushed all their chips into the center this season, landing legendary quarterback Tom Brady and vaulting Tampa Bay into the nation’s spotlight. Leonard Fournette and Rob Gronkowski leapt at the chance to join the likes of Ndamukong Suh, Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. The roster reads like a fantasy draft straight out of Madden 21.

Brady, the greatest quarterback of all time, didn’t just come here for a fat two-year contract. He saw the potential that we’re all living day in and day out.

“There were a lot of things that really were intriguing to me about the organization – the players, and the coaches, and the willingness of everyone to try to accomplish the goal of what playing football is, which is to win,” he said when explaining the decision to move down south.

And that’s it, isn’t it? This entire area is on the same page, a throbbing mass of cohesive energy that dares you to overlook its magnificence. The days of playing little sibling to sister cities like Chicago, New York and Boston are long gone.

Hell, even the Rowdies, pride of the USL and origin of the year’s best Florida Man story—in which a man lived in the luxury suites of AL Lang for more than two weeks—are crushing it. The team took down the Birmingham Legion in the first round of the USL Championship Playoffs and hosts Charleston this Saturday in the Eastern Conference Semifinal.

It’s a good time to live by the bay.

Even more, it’s a good time to be loyal to the bay. With Super Bowl LV speeding towards our little slice of sports heaven, it feels like nothing can stop the trajectory of Tampa Bay sports.

This is a world class title town, one that can go toe-to-toe with any culture in the country; one that will shine in the high beams of Super Bowl week and beyond.

You want championship pedigree? We’ve got it in spades. Bona fide Hall of Famers? It would be tough to throw a rock around here without hitting one—to say nothing of future immortals like Tom Brady and Steven Stamkos.

The Super Bowl, the crown jewel of American sports phenomena, no longer feels like imposter syndrome. It doesn’t just fit in here. It belongs here. And the good people of Tampa Bay can welcome it with open arms, as they have so graciously leaned into the juggernaut that is Tampa Bay sports culture.

Our region, our spotlight, our era atop the totem pole of professional sports—on every level.

This is Tampa Bay’s time.