ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — The Orlando City Baseball Dreamers were not surprised by reports that the Tampa Bay Rays are in "advanced talks" to sell the team to a group led by a North Florida home developer, and that disclosure does not change the Dreamers' plans to move forward with plans to bring a Major League Baseball team to Orange County, according to Barry Larkin, the MLB ambassador for the Dreamers.

"We have been aware of various groups indicating interest in potentially acquiring the franchise," Larkin said in a statement released by the Dreamers. "Multiple prospective groups have reached out to more than one of the key people affiliated with the Dreamers over recent months. This does not complicate our mission, nor does it change our plans for aggressively moving forward to the next phase of our initiative.

"We plan to open our downtown office in the very near future, and we are laser-focused on finalizing the public side of the public/private partnership. We continue to see Orange County and the greater Orlando area as an unsurpassed market for the next MLB location."

On Monday, the four key players working to make the team possible made their first public appearance at the International Drive Chamber of Commerce’s June 2025 luncheon. They are Larkin, who is a baseball Hall of Famer, Orlando Dreamers Chief Operating Officer Jim Schnorf, Morgan & Morgan law firm founder John Morgan and Heartland Dental founder Rick Workman.

On Wednesday, multiple reports indicated that Jacksonville-based businessman Patrick Zalupski and his group are in "advanced talks" for a $1.7 billion purchase of the Rays and that Zalupski has signed a letter of intent to buy the team. That letter does not hold a binding legal agreement, according to the reports.

The Rays issued a statement Wednesday confirming that the franchise has recently entered into exclusive negotiations with Zalupski's group — which includes Bill Cosgrove, Ken Babby and prominent Tampa Bay investors — about a possible sale of the team. The statement added that neither of those parties would have further comment during the negotiations.

In the Dreamers' statement Thursday, Workman, the anchor investor in the control ownership group for the Dreamers, is quoted as saying, "The enthusiasm for bringing MLB to our designated 35.5-acre site in the middle of the tourist corridor in Orange County is clearly at a fever pitch. We have put in place all of the key team-side pillars that Major League Baseball requires for an area to qualify for a franchise. Orlando is undeniably the top market in the country without a franchise. We have an unparalleled site for our venue, right in the middle of 80 million tourists this year, and our stadium design will be the most impressive in all of baseball. With my partner, John Morgan, in the ownership group, we are local owners committed to delivering transformative benefits to Orange County and Central Florida with this initiative."

John Morgan, the other primary investor in the Dreamers control ownership group, has operations in the International Drive area near the site in Orange County where the Dreamers have said they would like a stadium to be built on a 35.5-acre parcel of land next to Aquatica and near the Orange County Convention Center.

In Thursday's statement, Schnorf reconfirmed Larkin's comments at Monday's luncheon that the Dreamers have multiple "trips to the plate" in regards to opportunities to attain an MLB team. "Pat Williams and I launched this mission when Major League Baseball announced the intent to expand by two teams," Schnorf said in the statement. "It was coincidental that the Rays encountered insurmountable challenges with the unexpected damage to Tropicana Field last fall and the subsequent inability to satisfactorily conclude a new stadium solution."

Schnorf said multiple other MLB teams besides the Rays also have stadium challenges, in addition to two anticipated expansion slots.

So far, the team’s request for Tourism Development Tax (TDT) dollars to go toward a stadium has yet to be approved by the Orange County. Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings has said he still must learn more about the proposal and that the Board of County Commission "has not really had a broad conversation about it because it’s premature at this time."