Would love to see MLB return to Montreal.
I've spoken with several guys who played in Montreal. To a man, each one of them said that their time in MTL was their favorite part of their professional baseball career.
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Skeptics will say Major League Baseball is struggling in Tampa/St. Petersburg, Oakland, and Cleveland, so why would it think it could expand?
“Maybe one of the reasons I got this job is I’m bullish on this game,” commissioner Rob Manfred said last week. “I think we are a growth business, broadly defined. And over an extended period of time, growth businesses look to get bigger. So yeah, I’m open to the idea that there will be a point in time where expansion may be possible.”
Why not? New cities, fresh excitement about baseball. New enthusiasm. New fan bases. Maybe they were fans of other teams. Maybe they want their own team.
“I think it’s very important for us to look for markets out there that are interested in baseball — and there are markets interested in baseball — examine their viability and make them viable so we have business alternatives available to us,” Manfred added.
Maybe he’s saying that because you always want to think your sport would be popular in those cities where it isn’t being played. The NFL knows that despite many years of not having a team in Los Angeles, that city could easily support a team or two. There is no such obvious city for baseball, but there are viable ones.
The last time baseball expanded was in 1998 with the additions of Tampa Bay and Arizona. In 1993, Colorado and Florida were added.
More than a dozen years ago, the Kraft family envisioned a ballpark next to Gillette Stadium to lure the Montreal Expos. It would have been a much different baseball experience than Fenway and the Red Sox with tailgating and wide-open spaces away from the city. However, the Red Sox holding territorial rights to the region would have made it nearly impossible to execute.
Manfred acknowledged there’s been recent interest in MLB by a few cities, including Montreal, Charlotte, N.C., and Portland, Ore.
The Expos were in business from 1969-2004, after which the franchise moved to Washington and was bought by the Lerner family.
Montreal, through the efforts of Mayor Denis Coderre, other city officials, as well as ex-major leaguer Warren Cromartie, has gone ahead with a financing plan after conducting millions of dollars in feasibility studies that point toward success if expansion, or relocation of a floundering franchise, occurs.
Cromartie said the Montreal Baseball Project is closing in on a stadium plan that MLB would need to consider the city a serious contender.
“The mayor [of Montreal] is an enthusiastic supporter of bringing baseball back to Montreal,” Manfred said. “I happen to believe that Montreal has a great baseball history, which is a nice thing. And the market wildly supported two exhibition games in each of the last two years. I believe they’ve drawn over 90,000 fans for those three-day events. Having said all that, it’s a long ways from two exhibition games to 81 home games in a facility that is consistent with major league standards.”
Manfred remains optimistic that the Tampa Bay and Oakland situations are stadium-related. He believes the Rays could draw more with a new facility. The Athletics would benefit if they could move to San Jose and take advantage of a more affluent market, but there’s the issue of territorial rights belonging to the Giants.
The Rays’ attendance is a baseball-worst 14,637 per home game, down almost 2,400 from 2014. The Indians are also slightly down (fewer than 300 per game) and average only 17,514, while the A’s are down about 1,000 per game from last season, at 22,369 per game.
There’s no indication the Indians would ever move, but there has to be concern in a city with slightly more than 13,000 downtown residents.
So, you have these cities in which baseball is dying, and others that believe baseball could thrive. Charlotte, despite building a beautiful Triple A stadium downtown (BB&T Ballpark, pictured above), is all in on being considered. Portland is also clamoring for a team.
Other locations that feel they could support a franchise include Vancouver, Las Vegas, Nashville, Memphis, San Antonio, Indianapolis, northern New Jersey, Brooklyn, the aforementioned San Jose, Sacramento, and Oklahoma City.
There are obvious territorial issues with northern New Jersey and Brooklyn (which once had the Dodgers) that make those areas tougher to consider.
Internationally, Mexico City and Monterrey, Mexico, would be enthusiastic for baseball and be able to draw from a massive population that loves the game. Mexico City has roughly nine million residents, but the two major issues would be the lack of a new stadium, and the altitude.
There also would be a problem with the distance from the majority of major league cities, as well as safety issues given organized crime, particularly in Monterrey.
There would likely have to be more tweaks to division alignments and the playoff format, but the new energy expansion would create would be good for baseball.
I've spoken with several guys who played in Montreal. To a man, each one of them said that their time in MTL was their favorite part of their professional baseball career.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2...ml?s_campaign=bostonglobe:socialflow:twitter#
Skeptics will say Major League Baseball is struggling in Tampa/St. Petersburg, Oakland, and Cleveland, so why would it think it could expand?
“Maybe one of the reasons I got this job is I’m bullish on this game,” commissioner Rob Manfred said last week. “I think we are a growth business, broadly defined. And over an extended period of time, growth businesses look to get bigger. So yeah, I’m open to the idea that there will be a point in time where expansion may be possible.”
Why not? New cities, fresh excitement about baseball. New enthusiasm. New fan bases. Maybe they were fans of other teams. Maybe they want their own team.
“I think it’s very important for us to look for markets out there that are interested in baseball — and there are markets interested in baseball — examine their viability and make them viable so we have business alternatives available to us,” Manfred added.
Maybe he’s saying that because you always want to think your sport would be popular in those cities where it isn’t being played. The NFL knows that despite many years of not having a team in Los Angeles, that city could easily support a team or two. There is no such obvious city for baseball, but there are viable ones.
The last time baseball expanded was in 1998 with the additions of Tampa Bay and Arizona. In 1993, Colorado and Florida were added.
More than a dozen years ago, the Kraft family envisioned a ballpark next to Gillette Stadium to lure the Montreal Expos. It would have been a much different baseball experience than Fenway and the Red Sox with tailgating and wide-open spaces away from the city. However, the Red Sox holding territorial rights to the region would have made it nearly impossible to execute.
Manfred acknowledged there’s been recent interest in MLB by a few cities, including Montreal, Charlotte, N.C., and Portland, Ore.
The Expos were in business from 1969-2004, after which the franchise moved to Washington and was bought by the Lerner family.
Montreal, through the efforts of Mayor Denis Coderre, other city officials, as well as ex-major leaguer Warren Cromartie, has gone ahead with a financing plan after conducting millions of dollars in feasibility studies that point toward success if expansion, or relocation of a floundering franchise, occurs.
Cromartie said the Montreal Baseball Project is closing in on a stadium plan that MLB would need to consider the city a serious contender.
“The mayor [of Montreal] is an enthusiastic supporter of bringing baseball back to Montreal,” Manfred said. “I happen to believe that Montreal has a great baseball history, which is a nice thing. And the market wildly supported two exhibition games in each of the last two years. I believe they’ve drawn over 90,000 fans for those three-day events. Having said all that, it’s a long ways from two exhibition games to 81 home games in a facility that is consistent with major league standards.”
Manfred remains optimistic that the Tampa Bay and Oakland situations are stadium-related. He believes the Rays could draw more with a new facility. The Athletics would benefit if they could move to San Jose and take advantage of a more affluent market, but there’s the issue of territorial rights belonging to the Giants.
The Rays’ attendance is a baseball-worst 14,637 per home game, down almost 2,400 from 2014. The Indians are also slightly down (fewer than 300 per game) and average only 17,514, while the A’s are down about 1,000 per game from last season, at 22,369 per game.
There’s no indication the Indians would ever move, but there has to be concern in a city with slightly more than 13,000 downtown residents.
So, you have these cities in which baseball is dying, and others that believe baseball could thrive. Charlotte, despite building a beautiful Triple A stadium downtown (BB&T Ballpark, pictured above), is all in on being considered. Portland is also clamoring for a team.
Other locations that feel they could support a franchise include Vancouver, Las Vegas, Nashville, Memphis, San Antonio, Indianapolis, northern New Jersey, Brooklyn, the aforementioned San Jose, Sacramento, and Oklahoma City.
There are obvious territorial issues with northern New Jersey and Brooklyn (which once had the Dodgers) that make those areas tougher to consider.
Internationally, Mexico City and Monterrey, Mexico, would be enthusiastic for baseball and be able to draw from a massive population that loves the game. Mexico City has roughly nine million residents, but the two major issues would be the lack of a new stadium, and the altitude.
There also would be a problem with the distance from the majority of major league cities, as well as safety issues given organized crime, particularly in Monterrey.
There would likely have to be more tweaks to division alignments and the playoff format, but the new energy expansion would create would be good for baseball.
