Stadium/Arena Saga Omnibus

[Jimmy!]

22 hours ago, Cujo said:

 

No MLB expansion.

 

A's Las Vegas

Rays Nashville

 

Portland, Salt Lake City (needs a roof) and especially Montreal are all pipedreams.

How many teams has Portland lost?

[Cujo]

3 hours ago, Jimmy! said:

How many teams has Portland lost?

 

Zero.

 

Don't you live up that way? You should know this.

[Walk-Off]

On 4/12/2023 at 4:27 PM, GDAWG said:

So the rule is not state law, but it's out of respect for the Mormon religion.  Which is why the Jazz and Real Salt Lake play road games on Sundays and why the NFL would never work in Utah (among other reasons).

 

Games in the NBA and especially in MLS are spread out enough that both the Jazz and Real Salt Lake seem to have a luxury of declining to play home games on Sundays.  (The average NHL team's schedule tends to be more or less as spread out as that of an NBA team, so a Salt Lake City NHL franchise would be likely to enjoy that same privilege.)  By contrast, during a typical MLB regular season, calendar weeks in which a given team has two or more days off are rare, and, every now and then, a team will need to play at least one game on every day within a given calendar week.

 

As I think about this issue, I would not be surprised at all if an MLB club based in the SLC market were to want as many of its home stands as possible to contain Sunday off days and Monday-through-Saturday game schedules.  However, that would then raise the question of what MLB and the SLC team would do whenever a home stand starts directly after a Sunday road game.  The team could hit the ground running right after a Sunday away tilt with home games from Monday through Saturday and wait until the next Sunday for a break, but the MLB Players Association might then allege that such a schedule would wear out the SLC team's players too much.  Another possibility is that a home off day in the week following a Sunday away game could be salvaged with a Saturday home doubleheader, but the MLBPA might then object to its members (on both the home team and any and every visiting team) spending so many hours at work on so many Saturdays in SLC.

Edited April 14, 2023 by Walk-Off
found and removed a duplicate "that"

[who do you think]

36 minutes ago, Walk-Off said:

As I think about this issue, I would not be surprised at all if an MLB club based in the SLC market were to want as many of its home stands as possible to contain Sunday off days and Monday-through-Saturday game schedules.  However, that would then raise the question of what MLB and the SLC team would do whenever a home stand starts directly after a Sunday road game.  The team could hit the ground running right after a Sunday away tilt with home games from Monday through Saturday and wait until the next Sunday for a break, but the MLB Players Association might then allege that such a schedule would wear out the SLC team's players too much.  Another possibility is that a home off day in the week following a Sunday away game could be salvaged with a Saturday home doubleheader, but the MLBPA might then object to its members (on both the home team and any and every visiting team) spending so many hours at work on so many Saturdays in SLC.

 

And at some point somebody in baseball with clout might ask if it's really worth blowing up their entire schedule just to be in Utah.

[McCall]

1 hour ago, Walk-Off said:

 

Games in the NBA and especially in MLS are spread out enough that both the Jazz and Real Salt Lake seem to have a luxury of declining to play home games on Sundays.  (The average NHL team's schedule tends to be more or less as spread out as that of a NBA team, so a Salt Lake City NHL franchise would be likely to enjoy that that same privilege.)  By contrast, during a typical MLB regular season, calendar weeks in which a given team has two or more days off are rare, and, every now and then, a team will need to play at least one game on every day within a given calendar week.

 

As I think about this issue, I would not be surprised at all if an MLB club based in the SLC market were to want as many of its home stands as possible to contain Sunday off days and Monday-through-Saturday game schedules.  However, that would then raise the question of what MLB and the SLC team would do whenever a home stand starts directly after a Sunday road game.  The team could hit the ground running right after a Sunday away tilt with home games from Monday through Saturday and wait until the next Sunday for a break, but the MLB Players Association might then allege that such a schedule would wear out the SLC team's players too much.  Another possibility is that a home off day in the week following a Sunday away game could be salvaged with a Saturday home doubleheader, but the MLBPA might then object to its members (on both the home team and any and every visiting team) spending so many hours at work on so many Saturdays in SLC.

Everybody plays on Saturdays AND Sundays. Weekend series are at least Friday through Sunday. Wraparound series are very rare, maybe one or two a year total, leaguewide. To allow an SLC team to not play on Sundays, even just at home, would, in fact, cause them to completely alter the schedule. And given how many games MLB plays, that could be a very tall task with implications across the league.

[Bmac]

I don't mean to be insensitive to anyone's beliefs, but an entire major sports league certainly should not alter its entire schedule structure on account of one group's religion. Either every religion gets to influence this or none of them do, and I don't see MLB altering schedules to align with any other religion's days of rest. Just ask Sandy Koufax.

[McCall]

Honestly, the only way around it would be to schedule every home weekend series Thursday through Saturday. Now that may not be undoable. However, it still has a leaguewide effect on scheduling. But a team playing there on the weekend would be guaranteed Sunday off as well since no series begins on a Sunday.

[BBTV]

Any talk of SLC is just silly.  I'll change my forum name to "I_am_a_flaming_d-bag" if they're even a finalist for expansion... which itself won't even be seriously discussed seriously till 2028.  Expansion talk is extremely premature (though I understand it can be fun) and SLC is absurd.

[Jimmy!]

8 hours ago, Cujo said:

 

Zero.

 

Don't you live up that way? You should know this.

How many versions of the Beavers, Mavericks, and Rockies have they lost? If they can’t keep interest in minor league baseball, why would MLB be any different?

[McCall]

1 hour ago, Jimmy! said:

How many versions of the Beavers, Mavericks, and Rockies have they lost? If they can’t keep interest in minor league baseball, why would MLB be any different?

Well, to be fair, people tend to be more interested in Major League teams than Minor League teams.

[WestCoastBias]

The Salt Lake Bee's play on Sundays and they have a top 20 attendance in MiLB. Utah's athletics also have no problem playing on Sundays. 

 

I don't think playing on Sunday would be that big of an issue. 

[Cujo]

2 hours ago, Jimmy! said:

If they can’t keep interest in minor league baseball, why would MLB be any different?

 

My bad. I was talking about how Portland has no chance at an expansion MLB team. I'm sure they could score a minor league team if they wanted.

[Jimmy!]

16 minutes ago, Cujo said:

 

My bad. I was talking about how Portland has no chance at an expansion MLB team. I'm sure they could score a minor league team if they wanted.

They have the Hops, a Single A team, and the Pickles, a sub-minor league team.

 

 

[gosioux76]

1 hour ago, Jimmy! said:

How many versions of the Beavers, Mavericks, and Rockies have they lost? If they can’t keep interest in minor league baseball, why would MLB be any different?

 

And the Hops, meanwhile, are investing $120 million to build a new baseball stadium in the Portland suburbs. 

 

There are a lot of reasons to be skeptical about Portland as a MLB market, but having a long history of departed minor league franchises isn't one of the big ones. That city, as a fanbase, could ably support a MLB team, but it's bigger issue is whether there's an ownership group that could secure an adequate stadium location and finance it themselves. 

[Cujo]

Oh yikesssss

 

Still. All that being said, Portland would still be a better home for the Rays than Tampa.

[BBTV]

I've always thought that minor-league success or failure has no bearing on a market's viability as a home for a major-league team, in the same way that exhibitions at neutral sites are in no way a "test" for that market.

 

Like if Skydome doesn't sell out for a neutral site NFL game, that absolutely cannot be held against Toronto.  If nobody goes to Portland Beavers games, while it's worth looking into, it's not necessarily indicative of how a major-league team would be received.

 

Even past major-league failures need to be fully dissected before being held against any market, as the reasons for failure may be completely independent of the actual location.

 

(by "major league", I mean "top tier", like MLB, NFL, NBA).

[Ridleylash]

18 minutes ago, BBTV said:

I've always thought that minor-league success or failure has no bearing on a market's viability as a home for a major-league team, in the same way that exhibitions at neutral sites are in no way a "test" for that market.

 

Like if Skydome doesn't sell out for a neutral site NFL game, that absolutely cannot be held against Toronto.  If nobody goes to Portland Beavers games, while it's worth looking into, it's not necessarily indicative of how a major-league team would be received.

 

Even past major-league failures need to be fully dissected before being held against any market, as the reasons for failure may be completely independent of the actual location.

 

(by "major league", I mean "top tier", like MLB, NFL, NBA).

Exactly; oftentimes, a failed team isn't just "this place isn't a major-league market", but more "the owner failed this market"; it's not coincidence that the teams that get moved are generally the teams with bad ownership, low attendance, bad ballparks and poor historical success.

 

The Expos are a great example of this; they were generally pretty decent in terms of support, but a lack of success, poor Canadian dollar and an aging ballpark combined with the scum of Loria combined helped doom the franchise to relocation.

[The_Admiral]

On 4/12/2023 at 3:15 PM, GDAWG said:

Isn't there some sort of state law where no Utah teams play at home on Sundays?  

The Mormon Church is a moneymaking enterprise; they'll raise no stink about it if they run the numbers on a SLC baseball team and can find a way that they'd come out ahead. They're against gambling but built Las Vegas. They're against homosexuality but profited from radio stations that played Elton John and Joan Jett. The church owns a mall. They don't have actual principles that the rest of baseball would have to acquiesce to.

[Jimmy!]

5 hours ago, BBTV said:

If nobody goes to Portland Beavers games, while it's worth looking into, it's not necessarily indicative of how a major-league team would be received.

 

 

I could get behind that if it was a one-off instance. But when that city has had multiple relocations, I can’t subscribe to Portland being MLB ready. But that’s just one old man’s opinion.

[BBTV]

On 4/14/2023 at 9:12 PM, Jimmy! said:

I could get behind that if it was a one-off instance. But when that city has had multiple relocations, I can’t subscribe to Portland being MLB ready. But that’s just one old man’s opinion.

 

I have Phillies season tickets.  Even when they blow.  If they didn't exist and we had only a minor-league team, I would probably go to a game or two just for fun, but they wouldn't be the "event" that a major-league game is.  I cannot hold it against people that they don't want to spend their time at minor-league games. 

 

That's not to say that there aren't reasons that would carry over to a ML team - but sometimes it's just that people want major-league sports and not minor league.  I know neither Portland nor it's situation with the Beavers (assuming that's it's MiLB team still) - but I have a hard time equating minor-league support to major-league support.