Tampa Bay Rowdies: Where They Play and Getting There from Tampa

The Tampa Bay Rowdies play home matches at Al Lang Stadium, 230 1st Street SE in downtown St. Petersburg, across Old Tampa Bay from the City of Tampa (Tampa Bay Rowdies).

Al Lang Stadium is a City of St. Petersburg facility. The city's Enterprise Facilities Department oversees its management and operation, and lists the stadium phone as 727-222-2000 (City of St. Petersburg). The Rowdies have called Al Lang home since the 2011 season (Tampa Bay Rowdies).

The club announced that on August 6, 2026, the St. Petersburg City Council unanimously approved a one-year extension of the Rowdies agreement to manage and operate Al Lang Stadium as its primary tenants through November 2027, and the club said it is looking ahead to its 17th season there in 2027 (Tampa Bay Rowdies). The extension covers one year, and the agreement is with the City of St. Petersburg, not with Tampa or Hillsborough County.

For a Tampa reader, that is the key point: despite the Tampa Bay name, there is no Rowdies match venue in Tampa today, and tickets, parking and stadium rules all run through the club and downtown St. Petersburg (Tampa Bay Rowdies).

Yes: the original Tampa Bay Rowdies played their first season, 1975, at Tampa Stadium, and the revived club played its first season, 2010, at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa before moving to Al Lang Stadium in 2011 (Rowdies history).

The 1975 club finished 16-6 and won the NASL Soccer Bowl in San Jose, beating the Portland Timbers 2-0 on second-half goals by Arsene Auguste and Clyde Best (Tampa Bay Rowdies). In 1978 the Rowdies reached another Soccer Bowl, which 74,901 fans watched the New York Cosmos win 3-1 at Giants Stadium (Rowdies history). Tampa Stadium itself is covered in the Digital Towns Tampa Stadium (Big Sombrero) guide.

After the 1990 to 1993 seasons the name left the field for nearly two decades. A new group founded FC Tampa Bay Rowdies in 2008, played the 2010 season at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, then temporarily dropped the Rowdies name and moved to Al Lang Stadium in 2011; in 2012 the club won the NASL Soccer Bowl in a shoot-out before a sold-out Al Lang crowd (Tampa Bay Rowdies).

From Tampa, the direct drive to Al Lang Stadium is I-275 west across the Howard Frankland Bridge into St. Petersburg, then parking in a downtown garage, since the stadium's Lot A is VIP permit parking only (Tampa Bay Rowdies).

The Howard Frankland crossing changed in 2026. FDOT has opened express lanes in the I-275 median from 4th Street North in St. Petersburg to just north of the bridge in Tampa, and since August 22, 2026 tolls on them are collected electronically 24 hours a day through the SunPass Prepaid Toll Program; only passenger vehicles, registered vanpools and buses may use them (FDOT Tampa Bay). The express lanes are separated from the general-use lanes by barrier walls and flexible plastic poles, so a match-night driver from Tampa uses either the tolled express lanes or the separate general-use lanes (FDOT Tampa Bay).

The Tampa end of that drive is a work zone. FDOT began rebuilding the Westshore Interchange (I-275 and SR 60) in January 2026, with construction limits on I-275 from the Howard Frankland Bridge to east of Lois Avenue and on SR 60 from I-275 to north of Spruce Street, at a construction cost of $653.3 million for Phase I; the first construction phase, Priority 1A, includes a new flyover ramp from the Howard Frankland Bridge to SR 60 and Tampa International Airport (FDOT Tampa Bay). On weekday match nights, fans leaving downtown Tampa, Westshore or Hillsborough County suburbs for a 7:30 p.m. Rowdies kickoff cross that zone near the evening commute, so leaving earlier than a map estimate suggests is the practical choice; the I-4 and I-275 construction guide covers the Tampa interchanges in detail.

The Rowdies say rates and operating hours at these garages are set by the garage operators, and point general-parking fans to the downtown St. Petersburg partnership's recommended parking page (Tampa Bay Rowdies). Tampa drivers who leave after a 7:30 p.m. kickoff should check a garage's closing time before parking, because the club does not publish one.

Yes, partly: once in Pinellas County, a Tampa fan can park along the SunRunner line and ride it downtown, or use the free Downtown Looper trolley, both of which the club lists on its matchday parking and transportation page (Tampa Bay Rowdies).

The SunRunner, PSTA's bus rapid transit line between St. Pete Beach and downtown St. Petersburg, runs seven days a week from 6 a.m. to midnight, every 15 minutes until 8 p.m. and every 30 minutes until midnight; SunRunner After Dark, funded by the City of St. Petersburg, keeps 15-minute service until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. The fare is the regular PSTA fare of $2.25 per ride (PSTA). The Rowdies also link a Park and Ride page for the SunRunner from their transportation page (Tampa Bay Rowdies).

The Downtown Looper trolley route around downtown St. Petersburg is free to ride and connects to the city's major museums and attractions, and PSTA's Central Avenue Trolley connects to the Looper on Bayshore Drive, close to the Pier approach (Downtown Looper). For a Tampa group with one car, the Looper makes a cheaper garage farther from the waterfront workable for a Rowdies match.

For a 7:30 p.m. Rowdies kickoff, the Al Lang box office opens at 4:00 p.m., the fan zone at 5:30 p.m. and the gates at 6:30 p.m., and the stadium is cashless (Tampa Bay Rowdies).

Al Lang Stadium has a strict bag rule: no bags are allowed except diaper bags, medical bags and bags smaller than 5 by 8 by 1 inches, and questions go to [email protected] (Rowdies matchday guide). The club's matchday page also maps sections to gates, including Gate 8 on Bayshore Drive for the Bayshore Lounge, and notes that warmups begin at 6:50 p.m. for a 7:30 p.m. kickoff (Tampa Bay Rowdies).

For a fan driving from Tampa, the timeline matters more than for a downtown resident: allowing for the Howard Frankland crossing, garage entry and the walk, arriving around the 6:30 p.m. gate opening avoids the line at kickoff. The club's guide lists the cashless rule under concessions, so cards or a phone wallet are needed for food and drink (Rowdies matchday guide).

Al Lang Stadium belongs to the City of St. Petersburg, and the Tampa Bay Rowdies manage and operate it as its primary tenants under the city agreement (Tampa Bay Rowdies).

The city lists Al Lang Stadium in the directory of its Enterprise Facilities Department, which provides oversight of the management, operation and contract management of city facilities (City of St. Petersburg).

The Rowdies played their first match at Al Lang on April 9, 2011, when Takuya Yamada scored the first goal in a 1-0 result over the Montreal Impact (Tampa Bay Rowdies). In 2013 the club flipped the field inside Al Lang Stadium, reorienting it to run east to west (Rowdies history).

Ownership of the club and the stadium are separate: Bill Edwards announced on October 2, 2018 that he had sold the Tampa Bay Rowdies to the Tampa Bay Rays (Tampa Bay Rowdies), while the stadium stays with the City of St. Petersburg. The city's 2026 State of the City address listed storm-related repairs at Al Lang Stadium among the projects completed within budget (City of St. Petersburg).