After 7 months of talks and 3 weeks of formal negotiations, the Boston Red Sox and the city of Sarasota were unable to come to an agreement about a proposal for the Red Sox to move their spring training operations to Sarasota.
“It seems like we have been at this for a while,” said Susan Goodenow, spokeswoman with the Boston Red Sox. “From the beginning there was a lot of enthusiasm and good faith effort.
“After an evaluation of everything the talks had not progressed to a point to where in the time frame allowed an understanding could be reached,” Goodenow added. “We were unable to reach terms that met the criteria of all the parties involved.”
“From the outset our goal has been to explore the different options to address the long term needs of the players and fans, and explore all of those options,” Goodenow said.
Given the nature of today’s economy, I’m not surprised they couldn’t reach an agreement. I find it hard to believe that the city of Sarasota would have had an easy time getting the loan that was needed to secure the funding to make a new stadium possible.
Agreement to end talks was mutual [Sarasota Herald-Tribune]
Red Sox unable to reach deal with Sarasota on spring-training move [ProJo SoxBlog]
