Montreal Wants a Team?

[ArtVanDelay]

Hopefully, they get the Rays in some kind of realignment to the NL.

Why realign them? Keep them in the AL East. I want to see the O's play in Montreal every year! Better yet, move the Blue Jays to Montreal.

[DrungoHazewood]

The biggest issue with expanding to 32 teams is the watering down of the talent.

That's a total non-issue. You'd have the typical couple years where it's slightly apparent that each team is only 15/16ths as good as the year before, then the pool catches up and the march towards ever-higher quality continues.

[paulcoates]

Don't hold back, how do you really feel:)?

Expansion talk-my guess are the following: Mexico & Midwest (Las Vegas or Utah?)

I would agree that Vegas is a lock. I wonder if they would build a dome considering the summer heat.

I wonder if Puerto Rico would be worth a look

[DrungoHazewood]

From 2000-2002, Montreal drew a total combined 2,381,062. In 2002, attendance was 812,045, comparable to AAA baseball in that year. In 2001, Montreal drew 642,745, bested by Buffalo of the International League (The O's AAA Rochester affiliate drew 455,123)

MLB tested the Puerto Rico market for 2003-2004, and splitting time with Montreal, attendance those two years was 1,775,189. In the first year in the dump that is RFK Stadium, attendance was 2,731,993 (higher than the Orioles 2,624,740). Baseball was dead in Montreal.

The way Montreal can "show Mr. Manfred our love for the sport," is to spend almost a billion Canadian dollars on a new stadium. Olympic Stadium couldn't cut it ten years ago. They are not close to ready for prime time let alone a place Oakland or Tampa could use to extort a new stadium deal for their cities.

I changed the thread title because, as my father used to say, "it's nice to want things, doesn't mean you're going to get them."

Back before the team was gutted, Olympic stadium started to fall apart, the team didn't care to have real radio/TV affiliates... they drew quite well. In the 80s they had several years among the top attendance figures in the league. Of course the current MLB model includes a free stadium provided by local taxpayers, and Montreal has seemed very reluctant to do that. So moving at team there until that roadblock is removed seems highly unlikely.

I've long thought that baseball could support a lot more MLB teams if they so desired. The talent isn't an issue, and the fanbases could certainly support teams if they restructured the game so that the baseline wasn't NYC/LA but something less. Put lots of teams in big markets to lower the minimum revenue requirements. But MLB doesn't want that hassle. This isn't the era where most people see their favorite teams live, it's all about TV now. So they're fine with places like San Antonio, Vegas, Sacramento, Portland, Vancouver, etc being satellite markets, latching on to teams hundreds or thousands of miles away.

[DrungoHazewood]

Expansion talk-my guess are the following: Mexico & Midwest (Las Vegas or Utah?)

Mexico and Puerto Rico have issues with average incomes. As well as stadiums. There aren't any current stadiums in either place that meet MLB requirements. And the average per-capita income/wealth in San Juan, Mexico City, Monterrey has to be significantly smaller than any current MLB city. It would be interesting to have MLB played in Mexico City, which is at a higher altitude than Denver and the air is like breathing unfiltered coal dust.

[paulcoates]

Mexico and Puerto Rico have issues with average incomes. As well as stadiums. There aren't any current stadiums in either place that meet MLB requirements. And the average per-capita income/wealth in San Juan, Mexico City, Monterrey has to be significantly smaller than any current MLB city. It would be interesting to have MLB played in Mexico City, which is at a higher altitude than Denver and the air is like breathing unfiltered coal dust.

I agree about the average salary in Puerto Rico being less than say Tampa, but Puerto Rico would probably sell out for years down the road given their undying love for the game, whereas TB's stadium is constantly ~50% full, if that. At that rate, Puerto Rico's tickets could be 50% of what TB's are, and they would be on even footing. That's not to mention all the merchandise sales that the new Puerto Rico team would have. I think a team could survive there. I can't recall how merchandising works though? Is it that all online sales get split between all teams and sales at their home ball park are kept?

[Rene88]

I would agree that Vegas is a lock. I wonder if they would build a dome considering the summer heat.

I wonder if Puerto Rico would be worth a look

Oh man...smart idea on Puerto Rico. That would be HUGE there. The World Baseball Classic is HUGE there.

[Rene88]

Mexico and Puerto Rico have issues with average incomes. As well as stadiums. There aren't any current stadiums in either place that meet MLB requirements. And the average per-capita income/wealth in San Juan, Mexico City, Monterrey has to be significantly smaller than any current MLB city. It would be interesting to have MLB played in Mexico City, which is at a higher altitude than Denver and the air is like breathing unfiltered coal dust.

Flying into Mexico City is like flying into Bejing. There is no way in the world a team would go to Mexico City.

[sportsfan8703]

Montreal isn't getting a team back. Las Vegas, Brooklyn or Buffalo would be better landing spots. Buffalo basically already has a mlb ready stadium. Brooklyn just makes too much sense with tv money. TB is a really good baseball organization that just plays in the worst stadium in the league.

[Rene88]

Montreal isn't getting a team back. Las Vegas, Brooklyn or Buffalo would be better landing spots. Buffalo basically already has a mlb ready stadium. Brooklyn just makes too much sense with tv money. TB is a really good baseball organization that just plays in the worst stadium in the league.

Also very good thoughts. Big markets too.

[WNY Orioles Fan]

Montreal isn't getting a team back. Las Vegas, Brooklyn or Buffalo would be better landing spots. Buffalo basically already has a mlb ready stadium. Brooklyn just makes too much sense with tv money. TB is a really good baseball organization that just plays in the worst stadium in the league.

Buffalo getting a MLB team would be a dream come true.

[PeteU]

Don't hold back, how do you really feel:)?

Expansion talk-my guess are the following: Mexico & Midwest (Las Vegas or Utah?)

Omaha has a real nice ballpark they built for the College World Series that is woefully underutilized (the minor league team plays in another ballpark across town) and is already near MLB capacity and could be expanded fairly easily.

But it's likely way too small a market for MLB to consider.

Expansion wouldn't be the worst thing to happen to baseball, far better than some other ideas (cough cough extra playoff rounds cough cough). I don't buy the whole "diluting the game" argument. It's still incredibly difficult to make it to the majors and I doubt 50 extra roster spots is going to make it any easier. However, I just don't see expansion on MLB's radar at the moment.

[DrungoHazewood]

Montreal isn't getting a team back. Las Vegas, Brooklyn or Buffalo would be better landing spots. Buffalo basically already has a mlb ready stadium. Brooklyn just makes too much sense with tv money. TB is a really good baseball organization that just plays in the worst stadium in the league.

Montreal has roughly 4.8M TV households. Vegas has 1.8M. Buffalo has about 1.6, or fewer than Louisville, Jacksonville, Norfolk, or Albuquerque. Brooklyn has both the Yanks and Mets standing in the doorway shouting "over my dead body!" Montreal has about a million more TV households than any other non-MLB market in all of the US/Canada. Montreal is 12th in North American media market size, Vegas is 45th, Buffalo 58th.

Edit: Buffalo has a stadium designed and built in the 1980s to be expandable to MLB capacity. I'm not so sure it's still easily upgraded to MLB standards 30 years later. It predates OPACY and SkyDome and the entire stadium boom. IIRC it was one of the first HOK-designed stadiums.

[DrungoHazewood]

Omaha has a real nice ballpark they built for the College World Series that is woefully underutilized (the minor league team plays in another ballpark across town) and is already near MLB capacity and could be expanded fairly easily.

But it's likely way too small a market for MLB to consider.

Currently the smallest city in MLB by media market size is Cincy at 2.8M households. Omaha is at 1.06M, actually smaller than Green Bay or Roanoke/Lynchburg.

[DrungoHazewood]

Buffalo getting a MLB team would be a dream come true.

Buffalo had multiple MLB teams in the 1800s, and a quasi-MLB team in the Federal League in 1914-15. But then MLB got really static from 1903-50, and Buffalo lost much of its population and income by the time more obvious candidates were awarded teams in the 60s and 70s.