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Portland and other MLB expansion name possibilities


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1 hour ago, Tygers09 said:

What about Vancouver? It's has been mention many times, can it support a MLB franchise? I've heard the MiLB Canadians team has a good turnout; but again, no.stadium. Or is it too close to.Seattle or within the Mariners market?

Omit last post, couldn't get rid of quote..

 

As I posted back in February:

 

"Filtered through this thread.  Montreal is a top candidate.  Portland looks promising if there is a group of investors behind the cause.

However, after seeing the list of other cities being brought up as potential spots, I am feeling Vancouver is not getting serious respect.  Lets look at some basis to back that up:

 

http://vanmag.com/city/vancouver-mlb-team/

 

The short season Single-A club outdraws many Triple-A clubs in attendance:

 

https://theprovince.com/sports/baseball/the-canadians-are-packing-nat-bailey-with-record-numbers

 

There is still a downtown waterfront spot for a stadium (with mountain view and near a public transit hub), as there was a proposal for that site to be a new soccer stadium before BC Place was renovated in 2011.  Build it in the 40,000 seat range and throw on a retractable roof:

 

http://www.6717000.com/blog/2006/06/heavyweights-join-team-promoting-gastown-soccer-stadium/

 

Vancouver is a growing, cosmopolitan city.  There can be money found in the city if the right investors step up.  If Seattle can get an NHL team and Vancouver has one, why can that not be the same in MLB?  Vancouver got an NBA team when Seattle had the Sonics."

 

---------------------------------------------

 

Thing about this - think it could work but just not likely to happen.

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19 hours ago, Wade Heidt said:

 

As I posted back in February:

 

"Filtered through this thread.  Montreal is a top candidate.  Portland looks promising if there is a group of investors behind the cause.

However, after seeing the list of other cities being brought up as potential spots, I am feeling Vancouver is not getting serious respect.  Lets look at some basis to back that up:

 

http://vanmag.com/city/vancouver-mlb-team/

 

The short season Single-A club outdraws many Triple-A clubs in attendance:

 

https://theprovince.com/sports/baseball/the-canadians-are-packing-nat-bailey-with-record-numbers

 

There is still a downtown waterfront spot for a stadium (with mountain view and near a public transit hub), as there was a proposal for that site to be a new soccer stadium before BC Place was renovated in 2011.  Build it in the 40,000 seat range and throw on a retractable roof:

 

http://www.6717000.com/blog/2006/06/heavyweights-join-team-promoting-gastown-soccer-stadium/

 

Vancouver is a growing, cosmopolitan city.  There can be money found in the city if the right investors step up.  If Seattle can get an NHL team and Vancouver has one, why can that not be the same in MLB?  Vancouver got an NBA team when Seattle had the Sonics."

 

---------------------------------------------

 

Thing about this - think it could work but just not likely to happen.

 

 

Manfred himself brought Vancouver up as a possibility, so I'm sure it's getting respect as a candidate from the people who counts. I don't know if it'll get a team before Portland though, unless it falls through for some reason. It has about the same metro area pop as Portland, and is about the same distance from Seattle.

 

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On 10/14/2019 at 6:47 PM, 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.

 

It once took me about four hours to get from St. Pete to Orlando myself, and it would've been during the same time of the day that you're talking about. Traffic on I-4 in the middle of the day is awful.

 

I think the fastest I've ever made that drive, in either direction, was in about 1 1/2 hours...I had locked myself out of my car the previous night, had to be at work around noon, and wasn't able to leave Orlando until about 8:45am and got into St. Pete around 10:15. I was also going 95+ mph for much of that drive, which I don't advise doing on a regular basis. 

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17 hours ago, ZapRowsdower8 said:

Drove from St. Pete to Orlando 100+ times in the seven years I lived there. Outside of the normal slowdowns between Disney and Universal, I never experienced this famously terrible I-4 traffic. 1.5 hours sounds pretty normal to me. 

 

 

The distance calculator has it at 1H 47M:

 

https://www.distance-cities.com/distance-saint-petersburg-fl-to-orlando-fl

 

 

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I looked on Google Maps, and there just doesn't look like a suitable place for a stadium within the Portland city limits. Does anyone else know where one can be built or does everyone just assume that Providence Park is going to be stadium when a new professional team is suggested?

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9 hours ago, Tygers09 said:

I looked on Google Maps, and there just doesn't look like a suitable place for a stadium within the Portland city limits. Does anyone else know where one can be built or does everyone just assume that Providence Park is going to be stadium when a new professional team is suggested?

 

Providence Park is a no go as it was completely renovated into a soccer only venue. The initial area that the Portland Diamond Project has looked at is a 45.5 acre site called Terminal 2, just north of downtown on the Willamette River. It's controlled by the Port of Portland. 

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9 hours ago, Tygers09 said:

I looked on Google Maps, and there just doesn't look like a suitable place for a stadium within the Portland city limits. Does anyone else know where one can be built or does everyone just assume that Providence Park is going to be stadium when a new professional team is suggested?

there’s a few things they have to tear down to build a stadium but i can assure you theres places that’s possible i live here i can confirm

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On 11/3/2019 at 1:29 PM, Tygers09 said:

I looked on Google Maps, and there just doesn't look like a suitable place for a stadium within the Portland city limits. Does anyone else know where one can be built or does everyone just assume that Providence Park is going to be stadium when a new professional team is suggested?

For months, the prospective management group has been exploring the viability of leasing the Port of Portland's Terminal 2 site, on the waterfront in Northwest Portland. 

https://www.bizjournals.com/portland/news/2019/05/28/mlb-to-portland-team-signs-extension-for.html

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10 hours ago, gosioux76 said:

For months, the prospective management group has been exploring the viability of leasing the Port of Portland's Terminal 2 site, on the waterfront in Northwest Portland. 

https://www.bizjournals.com/portland/news/2019/05/28/mlb-to-portland-team-signs-extension-for.html

Yeah its been posted on Ballpark Digest and on Ballparksofbaseball.com too.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 10/26/2019 at 12:28 AM, ZapRowsdower8 said:

Drove from St. Pete to Orlando 100+ times in the seven years I lived there. Outside of the normal slowdowns between Disney and Universal, I never experienced this famously terrible I-4 traffic. 1.5 hours sounds pretty normal to me. 

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2 hours ago, ZapRowsdower8 said:

Not sure why my driving time post was quoted for this, but OK. 

 

So you don't care about expansion/relocation in Florida, but just wanted to add your two cents about driving time? Cool. Sums up interest in Florida baseball. lol. I wanted to tag everyone in this discussion, but I was on my phone and just quoted the last post because it's easier. My bad.

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This is really odd...unless he's trying to consider the Rays somehow.

 

One thing to consider, the Orlando metro area no longer has a spring training team after the Braves left Disney after 2019.  Orlando's tourism will always make it a transient market and even the spring training teams think it's best to be elsewhere and not compete for the $$$

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On 2/17/2019 at 7:43 PM, Wade Heidt said:

Montreal is a top candidate.  Portland looks promising if there is a group of investors behind the cause.

However, after seeing the list of other cities being brought up as potential spots, I am feeling Vancouver is not getting serious respect.  Lets look at some basis to back that up:

 

http://vanmag.com/city/vancouver-mlb-team/

 

The short season Single-A club outdraws many Triple-A clubs in attendance:

 

https://theprovince.com/sports/baseball/the-canadians-are-packing-nat-bailey-with-record-numbers

 

There is still a downtown waterfront spot for a stadium (with mountain view and near a public transit hub), as there was a proposal for that site to be a new soccer stadium before BC Place was renovated in 2011.  Build it in the 40,000 seat range and throw on a retractable roof:

 

http://www.6717000.com/blog/2006/06/heavyweights-join-team-promoting-gastown-soccer-stadium/

 

Vancouver is a growing, cosmopolitan city.  There can be money found in the city if the right investors step up.  If Seattle can get an NHL team and Vancouver has one, why can that not be the same in MLB?  Vancouver got an NBA team when Seattle had the Sonics.

 

Let's go with:

 

Vancouver Kodiaks

Vancouver Black Bears

Vancouver Spirit Bears

I remember some discussion of Vancouver as a potential site for an MLB club during the late 1980s and early 1990s.  If what I have read about BC Place is correct, that stadium hosted a handful of PCL Vancouver Canadians games and occasional preseason exhibition games between MLB clubs during its first twelve years of existence.  (At the very least, if BC Place has retained an ability to accommodate a full-size baseball field since the venue's 2010-11 rebuild, then a Vancouver MLB team should be able to use that stadium as at least a temporary home.)  Also, I definitely remember Vancouver's profile going through an upward surge during and after the World's Fair that the city hosted in 1986 (Expo 86).  During that era, the criticisms of the idea of placing an MLB franchise in Vancouver seemed to stem from both a concern that the Canadian dollar was too weak to enable an easy profit for a Vancouver MLB team and a general skepticism of the ability of an MLB team based anywhere in Western Canada to amass a fanbase comparable in size to the followings of the Blue Jays, the Expos, or especially most of the US-based MLB clubs. 

 

As for a nickname for a Vancouver MLB franchise, if an ursine theme is desired, then I think that Kodiaks is definitely the choice that has the most professional look and sound.

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2 hours ago, Walk-Off said:

I remember some discussion of Vancouver as a potential site for an MLB club during the late 1980s and early 1990s.  If what I have read about BC Place is correct, that stadium hosted a handful of PCL Vancouver Canadians games and occasional preseason exhibition games between MLB clubs during its first twelve years of existence.  (At the very least, if BC Place has retained an ability to accommodate a full-size baseball field since the venue's 2010-11 rebuild, then a Vancouver MLB team should be able to use that stadium as at least a temporary home.)  Also, I definitely remember Vancouver's profile going through an upward surge during and after the World's Fair that the city hosted in 1986 (Expo 86).  During that era, the criticisms of the idea of placing an MLB franchise in Vancouver seemed to stem from both a concern that the Canadian dollar was too weak to enable an easy profit for a Vancouver MLB team and a general skepticism of the ability of an MLB team based anywhere in Western Canada to amass a fanbase comparable in size to the followings of the Blue Jays, the Expos, or especially most of the US-based MLB clubs. 

 

As for a nickname for a Vancouver MLB franchise, if an ursine theme is desired, then I think that Kodiaks is definitely the choice that has the most professional look and sound.

 

True about the prior baseball at BC Place.  Here was BC Place set up for baseball back in the day:

 

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To put a baseball game in there now, they would need to bring down the huge hanging scoreboard.  Not sure how possible that is.  You could still fit a field in as lower seat can still move if needed:

 

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Another article mentioning Vancouver's potential as an MLB city:

 

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/mlb-team-vancouver-viability

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I'm far more bullish on Vancouver in the majors than I am on Montreal, and I'm actually all sentimental about Montreal in general and definitely not about Glasshighriseopolis out there.

♫ oh yeah, board goes on, long after the thrill of postin' is gone ♫

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