Portland and other MLB expansion name possibilities

[kroywen]

27 minutes ago, QueenCitySwarm said:

The problem is those lasting repercussions have kept Montréal from reaching the heights it could. Lots of businesses moved out to Toronto, leaving any big-money business support out. Plus, baseball just doesn't appeal to the francophones that stayed as much as other sports like hockey. Again, @SFGiants58 has listed all these things, but I'm too lazy to go find the post right now. Plus, the Rays will probably move full-time to Montréal, realize it was a mistake in 20-ish years, and move again to wherever.

 

Exactly.

 

Back in 1969, Montreal had a thriving business community, welcomed both English and French speakers, and was in the middle of a cultural renaissance that led to hosting a World's Fair and the Olympics, amongst other events. It was a natural choice over Toronto for Canada's first major league team.

 

Bill 101 killed that all. The business community is a shadow of what it was (in relative terms, compared to Toronto and Vancouver) back in 1969. Anglophones have been driven out in droves over the past 4 decades. The economic and social situation in Montreal today is radically different than it was in 1969, and not in a way that would work in an MLB team's favor.

 

Had Bill 101 never happened and Montreal maintained its position as Canada's preeminent business center (or at least was on par with Toronto for that title), I don't think the Expos would've ever had to move in the first place. But the ingredients are just no longer there for supporting a major league team. And Montreal is never going to be a growing, upwardly mobile city like Vancouver, Charlotte, Nashville, Portland, Austin, etc., are today. (Perhaps unless they repeal Bill 101 and welcome back Anglophones and their commerce, but fat chance of that ever happening.)

[Tygers09]

Ballpark Digest recently posted an article that there is a former Premier looking at purchasing some land for some commerical real estate and a future ballpark down in the Bassin Peel area of Montreal riverfront.

[selgy]

57 minutes ago, QueenCitySwarm said:

The problem is those lasting repercussions have kept Montréal from reaching the heights it could. Lots of businesses moved out to Toronto, leaving any big-money business support out. Plus, baseball just doesn't appeal to the francophones that stayed as much as other sports like hockey. Again, @SFGiants58 has listed all these things, but I'm too lazy to go find the post right now. Plus, the Rays will probably move full-time to Montréal, realize it was a mistake in 20-ish years, and move again to wherever.

Toronto? Misquoted city?

Montreal has certainly reached heights just as high as Portland, Vegas, Charlotte. 

I am not speaking as a homer. But I really hope that the Rays don't leave Tampa. I feel as though this is all a negotiation tactic. The Tampa area (and Florida) is a growing market and Tampa will be top 10 in population probably within 10-15 years. If/When the Rays move to Tampa and market better to central Florida (which is extremely difficult when they are in St. Pete due to the extra hour drive), they will expose themselves to another 3-5 million fans in the Orlando market. 

Right now due to the stadiums location (on a peninsula), the Rays rank last with fans within a 30 minute driving radius. 

I am doing the MLB stadium tour and have been to 21 MLB stadiums, and other than KC, the Rays stadium is the furthest away from the core population. Once this is fixed with a new stadium and better location, things will be better. 

The Rays were dealt a bad hand with two sister cities (St. Pete/Tampa) who wanted baseball and one sister city who shouldn't have financially built the stadium jumped the gun. 

So the Rays inherited an already out of date stadium (go watch old videos of Von Hayes hitting balls to see if he could hit the catwalks). An owner Naimoli who didnt believe in spending money on email addresses so that the marketing department could email ticket holders to try and sell tickets (that should summarize him), a stadium that is last in the league with fans within a 30 minute radius of the stadium, and we have all of these outsiders online who aren't familiar with the hurdles that the area needs to deal with telling us how we don't deserve a team. 

How about let this right this time. Build the stadium in the right spot, where the fans actually are. Then you tell us later and see what happens. (not calling you the previous poster out, just years of posters in general). 

As for Charlotte. I think the only thing holding them back from getting expansion (after Oakland and TB settle their stadium situations) is the number of teams in the Eastern timezone. I do think that MLB wants some more west coast to balance out the scheduling. So Portland possibly. But Charlotte to me is a better all around pick as a expansion city. 

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

4 hours ago, kroywen said:

The economic and social situation in Montreal today is radically different than it was in 1969, and not in a way that would work in an MLB team's favor.

 

If the Montreal francophones can get behind a football team, they can probably do likewise for a baseball team.

 

 

4 hours ago, kroywen said:

And Montreal is never going to be a growing, upwardly mobile city like Vancouver, Charlotte, Nashville, Portland, Austin, etc., are today.

 

Don't look now, but it already is.

 

 

4 hours ago, kroywen said:

Perhaps unless they repeal Bill 101 and welcome back Anglophones and their commerce, but fat chance of that ever happening.

 

And rightfully not.

 

Without Bill 101, Montreal would be predominantly English-speaking, and so would effectively not be part of Quebec. By ensuring that education, entertainment, and commerce take place mainly in French, Bill 101 has prevented what would have been a tragic cultural death.

 

If being a francophone city does indeed rule out having Major League Baseball, well, that's just fine, as protecting the French language and strengthening Quebecois identity are far higher goals. Becoming a Major League city is a lot less important to the life and health of Montreal than is remaining a predominantly French-speaking city.

[The_Admiral]

I think it rocks that Canada's most important city has shifted from a truly unique place in North America to a second-rate Chicago that thinks it's a second-rate New York.

 

Could have preserved French culture just fine without purging everybody else's...

 

 

 

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

10 minutes ago, the admiral said:

Could have preserved French culture just fine without purging everybody else's.

 

No other cultures have been purged; rather, they have been appropriately relegated to a subordinate status.

 

If protection of the French language was going to work, it had to take the form of binding legislation, rather than, let's say, polite suggestion.

[The_Admiral]

The Jews have been there almost as long as the French have; what's appropriately subordinate about them?

[SFGiants58]

No culture should have to be relegated to “subordinate” status, especially the Jews. 

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

 

1 hour ago, the admiral said:

The Jews have been there almost as long as the French have; what's appropriately subordinate about them?

 

As long as they keep French most prominent on public-facing signs, nothing.

[sky1324]

18 hours ago, selgy said:

Toronto? Misquoted city?

Montreal has certainly reached heights just as high as Portland, Vegas, Charlotte. [1]

I am not speaking as a homer. But I really hope that the Rays don't leave Tampa. I feel as though this is all a negotiation tactic. [2] The Tampa area (and Florida) is a growing market and Tampa will be top 10 in population probably within 10-15 years. [3] If/When the Rays move to Tampa and market better to central Florida (which is extremely difficult when they are in St. Pete due to the extra hour drive), they will expose themselves to another 3-5 million fans in the Orlando market. 
 [4]
Right now due to the stadiums location (on a peninsula), the Rays rank last with fans within a 30 minute driving radius. 

I am doing the MLB stadium tour and have been to 21 MLB stadiums, and other than KC, the Rays stadium is the furthest away from the core population. Once this is fixed with a new stadium and better location, things will be better. [5]

The Rays were dealt a bad hand with two sister cities (St. Pete/Tampa) who wanted baseball and one sister city who shouldn't have financially built the stadium jumped the gun. [6]

So the Rays inherited an already out of date stadium (go watch old videos of Von Hayes hitting balls to see if he could hit the catwalks). An owner Naimoli who didnt believe in spending money on email addresses so that the marketing department could email ticket holders to try and sell tickets (that should summarize him), a stadium that is last in the league with fans within a 30 minute radius of the stadium, and we have all of these outsiders online who aren't familiar with the hurdles [7] that the area needs to deal with telling us how we don't deserve a team. 

How about let this right this time. Build the stadium in the right spot, where the fans actually are. Then you tell us later and see what happens. (not calling you the previous poster out, just years of posters in general). [8]

As for Charlotte. I think the only thing holding them back from getting expansion (after Oakland and TB settle their stadium situations) is the number of teams in the Eastern timezone. I do think that MLB wants some more west coast to balance out the scheduling. So Portland possibly. But Charlotte to me is a better all around pick as a expansion city. [9]

[1] The problem is that Montréal's heights were in the 1960s and '70s, while the Olympics and World's Fair were being held. As has been stated Bill 101 killed all momentum Montréal had. The Québecois were so determined to make sure that French culture remained dominate in Québec that they crippled Montréal and ruined any chance of baseball taking permanent root. Why do you think that BMO (Bank of Montréal) is headquartered in Toronto? Bill 101 is the answer. Montréal just does not have the local business support that a baseball team requires. While exhibition games sell out, how well do you think that will translate over an 81-home game schedule with a team that may or may not be good? The nostalgia will fade and the neo-Expos will be stuck in the same situation the old ones were.

 

[2] I agree that is sounds like a negotiating tactic, but I think this one will play out. Has Tampa really shown willingness to build a new stadium for the Rays? Plus, attendance will probably decline as the split-season Montréal move takes place, leading ownership to claim "There just isn't enough support in Tampa to make the team long-term viable". When the Rays went to the World Series in 2008, they had to give away tickets. That's pathetic. I will maintain that placing an expansion team in Tampa Bay was a mistake in the first place (if they wanted another Southeast team, Charlotte or Nashville would've pick up the slack), and not just because of their stadium situation. 

 

[3] No it won't.

 

[4] How many Orlando fans will make the drive, even without the extra hour from St. Pete? An 1:30 drive is not something a ton of people will do to support a baseball team. I agree that a stadium in Tampa proper will help, but it wouldn't be enough. 

 

[5] How'd that work for Miami?

 

[6] So maybe Tampa Bay shouldn't have been the expansion city.

 

[7] I may not be intimate with the Tampa Bay area, but I know smart sports marketing and I like to think that I have an extensive knowledge of circumstances surrounding each team's expansion/relocation to say that the Rays were a mistake. Poor stadium in a terrible location, fans that won't even support the team when they're winning, and a transplant market that's filled with people that will just support their old teams.

 

[8] Again, cause a downtown stadium helped out Miami so much.

 

[9] I think that's not a problem. The problem is that the city just dumped a ton of money into a non-expandable MiLB stadium (that's beautiful, by the way). So we'll wait for 20 years until the MLB expands again and build another stadium as long as Tepper doesn't steal public funds for a domed football stadium. In my mind, Charlotte would be an excellent relocation spot for the Rays (no realignment required), and is far and away the best spot for the next MLB relocation/expansion.

[dont care]

Just one thing, Orlando is not 1.5 hours from Tampa, maybe if you are the only car on the road but it can easily be a 3 hr ordeal. I went to one rays game and it took 4. I’m never going again after that.

[sky1324]

2 hours ago, dont care said:

Just one thing, Orlando is not 1.5 hours from Tampa, maybe if you are the only car on the road but it can easily be a 3 hr ordeal. I went to one rays game and it took 4. I’m never going again after that.

Gotcha. I was working with what Google Maps said at the time, but that proves my point even more. 3 hours isn't a drive most people will regularly make.

[selgy]

6 hours ago, QueenCitySwarm said:

[1] The problem is that Montréal's heights were in the 1960s and '70s, while the Olympics and World's Fair were being held. As has been stated Bill 101 killed all momentum Montréal had. The Québecois were so determined to make sure that French culture remained dominate in Québec that they crippled Montréal and ruined any chance of baseball taking permanent root. Why do you think that BMO (Bank of Montréal) is headquartered in Toronto? Bill 101 is the answer. Montréal just does not have the local business support that a baseball team requires. While exhibition games sell out, how well do you think that will translate over an 81-home game schedule with a team that may or may not be good? The nostalgia will fade and the neo-Expos will be stuck in the same situation the old ones were.

 

[2] I agree that is sounds like a negotiating tactic, but I think this one will play out. Has Tampa really shown willingness to build a new stadium for the Rays? Plus, attendance will probably decline as the split-season Montréal move takes place, leading ownership to claim "There just isn't enough support in Tampa to make the team long-term viable". When the Rays went to the World Series in 2008, they had to give away tickets. That's pathetic. I will maintain that placing an expansion team in Tampa Bay was a mistake in the first place (if they wanted another Southeast team, Charlotte or Nashville would've pick up the slack), and not just because of their stadium situation. 

 

[3] No it won't.

 

[4] How many Orlando fans will make the drive, even without the extra hour from St. Pete? An 1:30 drive is not something a ton of people will do to support a baseball team. I agree that a stadium in Tampa proper will help, but it wouldn't be enough. 

 

[5] How'd that work for Miami?

 

[6] So maybe Tampa Bay shouldn't have been the expansion city.

 

[7] I may not be intimate with the Tampa Bay area, but I know smart sports marketing and I like to think that I have an extensive knowledge of circumstances surrounding each team's expansion/relocation to say that the Rays were a mistake. Poor stadium in a terrible location, fans that won't even support the team when they're winning, and a transplant market that's filled with people that will just support their old teams.

 

[8] Again, cause a downtown stadium helped out Miami so much.

 

[9] I think that's not a problem. The problem is that the city just dumped a ton of money into a non-expandable MiLB stadium (that's beautiful, by the way). So we'll wait for 20 years until the MLB expands again and build another stadium as long as Tepper doesn't steal public funds for a domed football stadium. In my mind, Charlotte would be an excellent relocation spot for the Rays (no realignment required), and is far and away the best spot for the next MLB relocation/expansion.

1.  Montreal Continues to grow in population. They great Montreal area is now at 4.2 million, whereas when the Expos left they were at 3.6 million. By that time their economy was and team was left for scraps and you are going to fault their fans? To say that the heights were the 60-70s when their population has erupted since then just doesnt make sense. 

2. The Rays did not give away tickets to the World Series in 2008. You are just making stuff us. Nice try. 

3. You say that moving the stadium off of a peninsula won't make a difference. Way to bring the analytics. Facts are the Rays have the lowest amount of fans within a 30 minute drive radius. That is a very import figure. You can ignore that, but I am seeing a trend with your post and your posting style. 

4. Your lack of knowledge of the area is showing (you admit it later with googling). I mention that having a more centrally located stadium will help with attendance and with pulling in fans. I never once mentions Orlando. But you immediately went there cause you read what you wanted to. Right now due to where the stadium is located it is on the furthest west part of the Tampa Bay area. Making the Northern and eastern parts of the bay very difficult for them to get to the game regularly. Those areas are ALSO two of the fastest growing parts of THE COUNTRY. Not just COUNTY, or FLORIDA, BUT THE COUNTY. These regions are where not only families are moving. But very high family incomes will be. But they are currently 2 hour driving distance from Tropicana Field due to it's location. If the Stadium was centrally located in the bay area (Tampa and not St. Pee) the ride would be 45 minutes to 1 hour). Calculate this over a round trip and this adds up over a year with getting people out to the game. 

4+. As for Orlando. Since you mentioned it I will bring it up. We have decent fanbase growing over there. A ride through Tampa to St. Pete adds and extra 45 minutes to that trip. Bringing the stadium to Tampa will only help with that fanbase and the GROWING i4 corridor growth (the busiest in the nation). Virgin Rail will be building a line from Orlando to Tampa which will assist with bringing fans to games if/when the stadium is built. 

5. Have you been to the Marlins Stadium? I have and it is in a terrible location. It isnt in Downtown like you say. It is in a residential neighborhood. Don't lie to make your point. Public transportation/rail is 0.5 miles a way. There is nothing to do around the stadium. There is a Wendy's across the street! I am trying to figure out your point with bringing up the Marlins Stadium? Is it cause one ownership did something extremely stupid, that the Rays should move? I am not sure how those go hand in hand. 

6. Tampa should have been given a MLB stadium. MLB was afraid of lawsuits from St. Pete due to the St. Pete Giants debacle that they gave in. If you don't know this, then you aren't prepared for this topic and need to step away from this topic. 

7. Then you wont support Charlotte or Vegas as expansion cities cause both of those cities are loaded with transients who will keep their allegiances to their "home" cities. The Tampa area has a leg up on those cities cause we are on to the second generation of those fans where they are raising their children and starting to let their children chose what team they want to root for. 

8. Again you lie cause the Marins stadium is not Downtown and is in a residential neighborhood. You clearly have never been there. 

 

9. I have stated I think Charlotte is one of the three viable expansion cities. But for every reason you have said that the Rays don't deserve a team...I hope you realize that Tampa is stronger in every category except corporate support (which is big). So don't go insulting the person ahead of you.    

[The_Admiral]

I think he meant downtown relative to Dolphin Stadium, which is all the way up on the county line. But no, it's not downtown downtown, you're right.

[Walk-Off]

I lived in the Nashville metropolitan area during the last few years of my childhood and all of my adolescence, and my time as a teenager happened to overlap with the first serious attempt (in the late 1980s and early 1990s) to bring a Major League Baseball franchise to Nashville, so, naturally, I have long wanted and still want to see Nashville have its own MLB team.  Here, then, are my views regarding Nashville's and other cities' potential futures as homes of MLB clubs:

 

Nashville's latest bid

I think that the Music City Baseball initiative is off to a good start with its proposals and is composed of a solid team of leaders and advisors (former United States Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as the chairman, respected MLB figures Tony La Russa and Dave Stewart as advisors, the participation of at least one local music industry executive and a few commercially successful country music artists, etc.).  More specifically, I admire the organization for its realistic outlook on how much time and effort will need to be spent on luring an MLB team to Nashville, its ambitious proposal to build a major-league-capacity ballpark with a retractable roof and without using any tax money, its desire to brand an MLB club under its control as the Nashville Stars so as to pay tribute to at least one of the Negro League baseball teams that played home games in Nashville, and its goal of partnering actively with the Kansas City-based Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.  However, I think also that we need to keep a very careful eye on (a) whether or not those in charge of Music City Baseball can and will follow through on their stated goals of helping the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum substantively and especially spending only private funds on a venue for a Nashville MLB team (particularly one with a retractable roof or even a fixed full roof) and (b) how well the powers that be at Music City Baseball can attract investors with both enough money and a strong enough desire to bring an MLB franchise to Nashville (through either a move of an existing club or a successful expansion bid) and especially to build the proposed MLB park with their own money.

 

Furthermore, I can think of two ways that Music City Baseball's "master plan" (as I would describe it) could be even better.  First, while Stars is a catchy nickname and a good allusion to the many music "stars" based in and around Nashville and to the Tennessee flag's three stars, my preferred name for a Nashville-based MLB team is the Nashville Elites -- an identity that pays homage to Negro League baseball's Nashville Elite Giants of the 1920s and 1930s, avoids sharing a nickname with a divisional rival of an existing Nashville professional sports team, and would certainly be more unique than a Nashville Stars brand.  Second, the MCB group is currently proposing an MLB venue that would be east-northeast of downtown Nashville (next to the Titans' Nissan Stadium) and have a field whose line from home plate to center field would run south-southwest -- a recipe for the sun getting in the eyes of most spectators, the home plate umpire, the catcher, and the batter, even when a retractable roof above the stadium is fully closed.  Therefore, I believe strongly that if, for whatever reason, the ballpark absolutely must be built at the presently proposed location and have a south-southwest or other westerly field orientation, then a tall, retractable, partially transparent "sunglass" wall behind the outfield stands -- which, if I had my way, could be extended or retracted either concurrently with or independently of any retractable roof -- would go a long way toward reconciling a great view of downtown Nashville from the stands with a minimization of glare from the sun during day games and the early innings of many night games.

 

Montréal

As I see it, the best hope for a future Montréal MLB franchise to flourish over the long term is if (a) the economy of the Montréal metro area and of Québec as a whole is generating demonstrably more wealth per capita now than in 1995 (when a slight majority of voters in Québec answered "non" in a referendum on independence from Canada), (b) a high enough percentage of the French-speaking residents of Québec who were alive during the Expos' existence have come to regret not supporting the team more than they did*, and (c) a large enough number and percentage of those Francophones in Québec who are too young to remember the Expos are interested enough in baseball to want Montréal to have an MLB club again and to be willing to support such a team financially.

 

* With regard to the possibility of older Francophone residents of Québec lamenting how little support they might have given to the Expos, just imagine Peabo Bryson's 1984 hit ballad "If Ever You're In My Arms Again" if its lyrics were in French and the song were directed at Major League Baseball instead of at a former significant other.

 

The Rays' future in the Tampa Bay area

I concur with anyone and everyone who believes that the Rays' chances of long-term success in the Tampa-St. Petersburg metro area are far higher if they can gain a suitable home ballpark in Tampa -- or at least in a part of the region that is closer to the largest possible concentration of residents than St. Petersburg seems to be.  Unfortunately for anyone wanting the Rays to stay in their current market, I do not envision St. Pete's government becoming more merciful toward the Rays than it has been with regard to the team's lease of Tropicana Field, the government of any jurisdiction on or near Tampa Bay being willing or able to commit hundreds of millions of tax dollars on a new venue for the Rays, or any obvious cadre of private investors in the Tampa Bay region who are willing and able to try to buy the Rays from Stuart Sternberg and then spend their own money on a new home for the team within the Tampa-St. Pete area.

 

Charlotte vs. Nashville

As much as I crave a Nashville-based MLB club, I am willing to recognize that Charlotte has at least a few tangible advantages over Nashville as the home of an MLB franchise.  When I look at Charlotte's and Nashville's respective drawbacks as MLB host cities, I get the impression that the two cities have more or less the same downsides, but Charlotte seems to have less extreme versions of most of those flaws than does Nashville.  Meanwhile, the Charlotte area's current upsides over the Nashville area are a more populous metro area (if not a more populous central city), a large banking industry that would seem to provide a steadier source of heavy financial support than do the industries that appear to dominate the Nashville area's economy, the Charlotte area's lack of a Major League Soccer team (for now), and the fact that, according to certain studies, an NBA team can be profitable with a lower amount of total personal income than what an NHL team needs.

 

If Nashville has any tangible edge over Charlotte regarding an ability to support an MLB club, it is -- to my surprise -- a higher income per capita; however, even as a Nashville partisan, I have been taking that finding with a grain of salt, as I have seen that statistic only in a study commissioned apparently for Raleigh's MLB campaign group.  What cannot be denied, though, is that Nashville now has a group campaigning actively, and trying a lay a tangible and feasible groundwork, for an MLB team in that city to the point of proposing a new major-league-specification ballpark because of the supposed lack of expandability -- and despite the newness -- of the current home of the local Minor League Baseball team.  Are those desiring a Charlotte-based Major League Baseball club able to claim to have such a group yet?

 

Charlotte vs. Raleigh ... vs. Baltimore ... and D.C.

If the Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill metro areas had the exact same number and kind of major-league professional sports teams -- or at least if those two areas had portfolios of major-league pro teams that each required the same amount of total personal income to support -- then the Charlotte area's edge in population (if not in any other metric) over the metro area that contains Raleigh would enable a Charlotte-based major pro team to earn more money than would a Raleigh-based major pro team in the same sport.  However, as long as Raleigh and its metro area are represented in the realm of major-league pro team sports by only an NHL franchise while the Charlotte area hosts teams in both the NBA and the NFL (and especially also as long as Charlotte is likely to land an MLS club before Raleigh does), then people living in Raleigh and nearby cities and towns might be collectively able to spend more money on tickets to a local MLB team's home games than could those residing in and around Charlotte.  I say "might" only because my impression is that studies comparing metro areas' collective abilities to spend money on tickets to major-league pro team sports events rarely, if ever, take competition from the athletic programs of local colleges and universities into consideration ... and Raleigh's NHL club has to contend with more nearby universities with more popular sports teams than do Charlotte's major pro sports franchises.

 

Unfortunately for MLB backers in both Charlotte and Raleigh, the Baltimore Orioles and the Washington Nationals could prove to be formidable foes of a campaign to bring an MLB franchise to anywhere in North Carolina -- the southernmost area in those two teams' mutual, MLB-commissioner's-office-defined television territory.  I can see the Orioles objecting to a North Carolina MLB club for at least some of the reasons why they did not want MLB to have a team in Washington, D.C. again -- or even in any part of Virginia that lies within the same Nielsen-defined TV market as the District -- in the decades after the American League's second Washington Senators team became the Texas Rangers.  Meanwhile, I would not be surprised at all if the Nationals are still insecure enough about their popularity in general and their games' TV ratings in particular that they would be reluctant at best to tolerate an MLB franchise in the Old North State.  Finally, I suspect that both the O's and the Nats have long been livid over the refusal by both Time Warner Cable (which was North Carolina's largest cable TV provider) and Charter (who bought Time Warner Cable and thus, via the Spectrum brand, became that state's predominant cable company) to carry those two teams' common TV outlet, the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, on systems anywhere in North Carolina.

 

The Raleigh MLB advocacy group, via its website, has been playing up MASN's absence from Spectrum systems in Raleigh and nearby areas -- in contrast to the ability of Spectrum subscribers in and around Charlotte to see regional cable telecasts of Atlanta Braves games -- as evidence that (a) Raleigh and its metro area are together the most populous part of the United States without regional TV coverage of any MLB team and (b) such a situation thus strengthens the case for a Raleigh MLB club.  However, what the Raleigh group does not seem to want to admit is that the city of Charlotte proper and the rest of the North Carolina segment of the Nielsen-defined Charlotte TV market are in-market for both the Orioles and the Nationals as well as for the Braves, so Spectrum subscribers throughout the North Carolina part of the Charlotte market are every bit as contractually and legally unable as their peers in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill market to circumvent their lack of access to MASN by watching regional telecasts of either O's games or Nats games via MLB Extra Innings or MLB.tv.  To make matters worse for either that Raleigh group or any actual or hypothetical group calling for a Charlotte MLB team, I would not put it past the Orioles or even the Nationals to have the gall to argue that MLB would be rewarding Charter/Spectrum's unwillingness to carry MASN in North Carolina by putting an expansion franchise in North Carolina and/or allowing an existing club to move to anyplace in that state.

 

Las Vegas

Seriously ... an MLB team in the Las Vegas metro area ... in addition to the NHL team playing there now, the NFL team with a deal to move there next year, and maybe an MLS team in that region in the future?  Even setting aside whether or not the Las Vegas area is environmentally sustainable at its current level of development or even at its present number of human residents, I doubt very strongly that the region has enough human residents and/or a high enough income per capita to enable an MLB franchise -- let alone one that would compete directly with at least two other major-league pro sports teams -- to be a sustainable enterprise financially.  Sure, some people in high places may be thinking that the many travelers that the Las Vegas area attracts annually and all of the money that those visitors shell out during those trips add up to a local MLB club being able to induce lots of those tourists to spend time and (especially) money at the old ball game in Sin City.  However, along with the issues that I have already mentioned, I fear that such would-be owners of a Las Vegas MLB club are underestimating both the degree to which local casinos might discourage their respective patrons from going off property -- particularly for something as potentially expensive as a major pro sports team's home game -- and the percentage of tourists in and around "Lost Wages" who end up gambling away too much money during their vacations to be able to afford even the least costly of tickets to a local major pro team's home game.

 

Portland

All that I can think of saying about Portland's MLB prospects for now are that (a) I think that the Portland Diamond Project's leaders are taking a smartly methodical approach to putting their city in a favorable position to secure an MLB franchise; (b) to me, the PDP's overall vision for a major-league-level ballpark in the City of Roses is well thought out; (c) either Beavers or Pioneers might be a great nickname for a Portland-based MLB team in a vacuum, but both of those nicknames are tainted by being used already by institutions of higher learning within the state of Oregon; and (d) I therefore think that Herons would be the best choice for a nickname for a Portland MLB club, with Stags being a close second and Pines being a surprising -- and surprisingly close -- third.

[B-Rich]

15 hours ago, dont care said:

Just one thing, Orlando is not 1.5 hours from Tampa, maybe if you are the only car on the road but it can easily be a 3 hr ordeal. I went to one rays game and it took 4. I’m never going again after that.

 

 

Dude, I have been to Tropicana Field four times in the last 15 years, always driving as a side trip from Walt Disney World or Universal Studios.

 

NOT ONCE was either the trip there (or back) even CLOSE to 3 or 4 hours. 

 

Always about an hour and a half via I-4; the half hour was usually getting from downtown Tampa to the stadium in St. Pete on I-275. 

 

 

Not sure what kind of unusual traffic situation you might have had (accident?, construction?) but there's no way that trip should have been 4 hours. 

 

Did you take a detour to Sebring or Ocala? Were you driving this?:

 

 

 

 

[IceCap]

On 10/14/2019 at 9:37 AM, the admiral said:

The Jews have been there almost as long as the French have; what's appropriately subordinate about them?

 

On 10/14/2019 at 10:59 AM, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

As long as they keep French most prominent on public-facing signs, nothing.

 

Let me tell you the story of Jacques Parizeau...

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

1 hour ago, Ice_Cap said:

Let me tell you the story of Jacques Parizeau...

 

I know all about that drunken sot, whose racist comments about "the ethnic vote" (which was a slap not only at Jews, but also at Italians and people of other ethnicities) after the loss in the 1995 referendum led to his ouster as PQ leader and Quebec premier.  No movement should be judged by its worst distorters.  In fact the Quebecois identity is broad and pluralistic, embracng francophones of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. 

 

By the way, if Montreal could not support a Major League team, it might be a good location for a Blue Jays minor league affilliate.  The Jays' fit with AAA Buffalo is too perfect to mess with.  But a AA team named the Montreal Expos and owned outright by the Blue Jays would have a much lower bar for success.

[The_Admiral]

Expecting Montreal to go from league membership to Toronto's farm club is like when people expected Quebec City to go from league membership to Montreal's farm club. It's a setup for failure and the blame always goes to the people at bottom of the chain.

[Walk-Off]

3 hours ago, the admiral said:

Expecting Montreal to go from league membership to Toronto's farm club is like when people expected Quebec City to go from league membership to Montreal's farm club. It's a setup for failure and the blame always goes to the people at bottom of the chain.

That is precisely why I hope that a Nashville-based MLB team resists the temptation to have a minor-league affiliate in the Memphis area, why I am glad that the Predators do not have any of their farm teams in or near Memphis, and why I think that the Memphis Grizzlies have been wise to keep their G-League team well away from Nashville.