* 2012 – The Republican National Convention takes place in Tampa Bay, Florida.

The Falcons defeated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 20 – 10 in the final game of the season to improve their record to 9 – 7.

The Falcons finished the season at 10-6, securing the fifth seed after a Week 17 beatdown of Tampa Bay in which the Falcons pulled their starters after leading 42-0 just twenty-three minutes into the game.

They wore the combination again in 2006, against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 2.

The Falcons also wore their all-black uniform in 2007 against the New York Giants, and in 2008 against the Carolina Panthers and against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers ( for the second time ).

The Atlanta Falcons wore 1966 throwback jerseys for 2 home games in 2009 – against the Carolina Panthers on September 20 and against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on November 29.

The Tampa Bay Area was also granted a franchise, the Devil Rays ( to be based in St. Petersburg ), at the same time.

Arizona had originally been intended to join Tampa Bay in the American League.

Thus, on January 16, 1997, the Diamondbacks were officially voted into the National League while their expansion counterparts in Tampa Bay were voted into the American League.

Finally, they traded Casey Fossum to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays for José Cruz, Jr.

The award has never been presented to a member of the following five teams: Arizona Diamondbacks, Miami Marlins, New York Mets, Tampa Bay Rays, and Washington Nationals.

Craig Kimbrel of the Atlanta Braves and Jeremy Hellickson of the Tampa Bay Rays are the most recent winners.

The Ravens triumphed over the New York Giants in Super Bowl XXXV at the conclusion of the 2000 season, making them one of four NFL teams to win in their lone Super Bowl appearance, along with the New Orleans Saints, New York Jets, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Although the Orioles hovered around. 500 for much of the season, they had fallen back by September and were over 20 games behind the first place Tampa Bay Rays.

Adam Jones and Nick Markakis, Orioles v. Tampa Bay Rays, Camden Yards, April 12, 2009.

On April 12, 2010 the team set a club record for the lowest paid attendance in Camden Yards history, only 9, 129 attended the game versus the Tampa Bay Rays

Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay Rays were putting the finishing touches on their eight run comeback against the New York Yankees.

* Two additional franchises: the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, now the Tampa Bay Rays ( 1998 )

Carolina debuted the alternate light blue jersey for one game at home against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2002.

In the same suit, the Raiders challenged the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 1997 uniform design, including the pirate logo.

Although Carolina first played Tampa Bay in 1995, their rivalry did not start until 2003, when DT Brentson Buckner claimed fellow DT Kris Jenkins was the best defensive tackle in football, angering Tampa Bay DT Warren Sapp.

Their case was ultimately dismissed on May 30, 1984, by which time the owners had already established the Tampa Bay Bandits in the next professional league, the United States Football League ( which incidentally filed their own, more famous antitrust suit against the NFL in 1986 ).

In 1998, already 39, Ravelli left for the Tampa Bay Mutiny of the Major League Soccer, closing out his career the following year with his first club ; in total, he appeared in nearly 600 official matches as a professional.

Because CVS already owned 74 stores in Florida at the time, including 19 in the Tampa Bay Area, many duplicate locations were closed.

As it turned out, the Union had relatively little trouble defeating the disorganized Rebel forces in the Western Theater, and within a year of the Battle of Tampa, the capture of Vicksburg, MS, cemented Union control of the Mississippi River, severely compromising the Confederacy's already limited infrastructure far more than a successful Florida Campaign ever could.

Florida state law chapter 4265, approved May 25, 1893, incorporated the Palm Beach Railway and Power Company, owned by Edward Manrara, Candide A. M. Ybor and Emilio Pons, " to build, construct, purchase, own, maintain and operate a line or lines of street railway in the city of Tampa, on any street not already occupied by any other competing line of street railway ; and may extend said railroad from said city of Tampa to any point on Hillsborough bay, east of the Hillsborough river.

The Glazer family already owned several businesses in the United States and had purchased the Tampa Bay Buccaneers National Football League franchise in 1995.

Also, in 2006, Tampa Bay QB Chris Simms lost his spleen on a hit, and in 2009 Carolina CB Dante Wesley laid into PR Clifton Smith before he had caught the ball, knocking Smith out and getting Wesley ejected.

Glen Benton, 2009 Deicide was formed in Tampa, Florida on July 21, 1987, after guitarist Brian Hoffman called Glen Benton, replying to an advertisement the latter had placed in a local music magazine.

Within a month, they had recorded crude Feasting the Beast 8-track demo in Benton's garage and had started playing the occasional gig in the Tampa area.

The Saints failed to make the playoffs in 2001 and 2002, although in the latter year they had the distinction of beating the eventual Super Bowl XXXVII champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers in both of their regular season meetings, only the second team to do so in NFL history.

Included in the team's claims were claims that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers ' pirate logo diluted the team's California trademark in its own pirate logo and for trade dress dilution on the ground that the League had improperly permitted other teams ( including the Buccaneers and Carolina Panthers ) to adopt colors for their uniforms similar to those of the Raiders.

The team's first home was Tampa Stadium, which had recently been expanded to seat just over 72, 500 fans.

Tampa Bay did not win their first game until the 13th week of their second season, starting with a record of 0 – 26 ( though the Bucs had beaten the Atlanta Falcons 17 – 3 in a 1976 pre-season game before their first regular season ).

Iowa, Milwaukee, Tennessee Valley ( which changed its name to Alabama to reflect the state, rather than the region ), Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Bossier-Shreveport, and Spokane all seamlessly moved to the new AFL to join " old " AFL teams Arizona, Orlando, Tampa Bay, Chicago, and Cleveland, along with expansion teams in Dallas and Jacksonville, and the AIFA team in Utah which had originally been in the old AFL.

He was claimed by the Florida Panthers, then was claimed by Tampa Bay in Phase II of the draft the next day, and finally had his rights traded to the Rangers, where he was the backup.

Despite the fact that the Lightning finished first in the conference and the Islanders qualified for the playoffs as the 8th and final seed, a few journalists had picked the Islanders to win based on their strong regular season performance against Tampa Bay.

As part of the Norris Division, Tampa Bay had rivalries with teams in Chicago, Detroit, and Minnesota, similar to how the NFL's Buccaneers were in the same division as the Bears, Lions, and Vikings.

During this period, the Tampa area had only a handful of residents: Cuban and Native American fishermen.

Four years after statehood, on January 18, 1849, Tampa had also grown enough to officially incorporate as the " Village of Tampa ".

Throughout its history, Tampa had been affected by yellow fever epidemics borne by mosquitoes from the surrounding swampland, but the sickness was particularly widespread during the late 1860s and 1870s.

The population of " Tampa Town " was below 800 in the official 1870 census count and had fallen further by 1880 ( see demographics, below ).

Fort Brooke, the seed from which Tampa had germinated, had served its purpose and was decommissioned in 1883.

The once-struggling village of Tampa became a bustling boomtown almost overnight, and had grown into one of the largest cities in Florida by 1900.

Although many of the worst offenders in government and the mob were not charged, the trials helped to end the sense of lawlessness which had prevailed in Tampa for decades.