Montreal Expos, what's next? UPDATE 3/25 - Stephen Bronfman says “I think we’re close.”

[Melrose Munch]

Yes. Although I would be fine with 3/5/7/7 as series lengths.

I guarantee that baseball would want the revenue. Also yet again were seeing how dumb the city of Vancouver is. They should be the 32nd team and not Portland.

 

[Bjorn Le]

I guarantee that baseball would want the revenue. Also yet again were seeing how dumb the city of Vancouver is. They should be the 32nd team and not Portland.

I'm not sold on Portland being the 32nd team yet.

Baseball would want the revenue but NHL playoffs starts in April and takes till the middle of June with four rounds of seven games series. It's just not feasible even with 156 games unless they move up the start of the season to mid-March. You could get the playoffs done in baseball in six weeks as opposed to eight or nine for the NHL but that's putting you into mid-November.

 

[Melrose Munch]

I'm not sold on Portland being the 32nd team yet.

Baseball would want the revenue but NHL playoffs starts in April and takes till the middle of June with four rounds of seven games series. It's just not feasible even with 156 games unless they move up the start of the season to mid-March. You could get the playoffs done in baseball in six weeks as opposed to eight or nine for the NHL but that's putting you into mid-November.

Agreed, but would you not trade a longer season for more playoff revenue? I would. And I'm not sold on Portland either. Which is why Vancouver should be all over this. But their city leadership is awful.

 

[Bjorn Le]

Agreed, but would you not trade a longer season for more playoff revenue? I would. And I'm not sold on Portland either. Which is why Vancouver should be all over this. But their city leadership is awful.

Yeah, it is about the money after all. But I don't think Manfred would support it, and in principle the owners don't want a longer season either. If Manfred opposes it and doesn't table it for discussion (hence why I think the Baseball America writer suggests more 1-game playoffs), I don't know if owners will push it themselves.

Vancouver is tricky because BC Place was recently and extensively renovated, with public money. If I'm correct, BCE is a part of the Montreal group (if not the lead investor), and I'm not sure any other Canadian corporation is interested in owning and operating a baseball franchise. I'm no fan of Aquilini and don't imagine he has the liquidity to get a team on his own. Of the other obscenely wealthy in Vancouver, I think only Gaglardi would have any interest in owning a baseball team. Just as with Aquilini, he can't do it on his own, and any chance of working with Aquilini are ruined by the fact that he would sooner strangle Aquilini than work with him. They're be an excellent market but I don't know who would own the team.

 

[Melrose Munch]

Yeah, it is about the money after all. But I don't think Manfred would support it, and in principle the owners don't want a longer season either. If Manfred opposes it and doesn't table it for discussion (hence why I think the Baseball America writer suggests more 1-game playoffs), I don't know if owners will push it themselves.

Vancouver is tricky because BC Place was recently and extensively renovated, with public money. If I'm correct, BCE is a part of the Montreal group (if not the lead investor), and I'm not sure any other Canadian corporation is interested in owning and operating a baseball franchise. I'm no fan of Aquilini and don't imagine he has the liquidity to get a team on his own. Of the other obscenely wealthy in Vancouver, I think only Gaglardi would have any interest in owning a baseball team. Just as with Aquilini, he can't do it on his own, and any chance of working with Aquilini are ruined by the fact that he would sooner strangle Aquilini than work with him. They're be an excellent market but I don't know who would own the team.

That's a good point about the owners. Something will have to give.

For vancouver, heres a list of billionaires from 2015 http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2015/03/richest-people-vancouver/ maybe someone from this list?

 

[garnetpalmetto]

Sure, they could do that, but that's still more than "simply adding two teams." That is, as I mentioned, at least doing a realignment. I think the Commissioner's Office is thinking if they have to realign again, why not look into taking other steps they may have been spitballing for who knows how long?

 

[Melrose Munch]

Sure, they could do that, but that's still more than "simply adding two teams." That is, as I mentioned, at least doing a realignment. I think the Commissioner's Office is thinking if they have to realign again, why not look into taking other steps they may have been spitballing for who knows how long?

Yup... this has been in the works for a while.

 

[tony d]

MLB expansion is starting to gain some traction again. Would love baseball in Montreal again, does it happen again though? We shall see. Charlotte or Nashville could be more attractive east coast cities. Portland and Las Vegas on the west coast.

 

[Bjorn Le]

MLB expansion is starting to gain some traction again. Would love baseball in Montreal again, does it happen again though? We shall see. Charlotte or Nashville could be more attractive east coast cities. Portland and Las Vegas on the west coast.

Charlotte and Nashville definitely aren't more attractive east coast choices.

 

[garnetpalmetto]

Charlotte and Nashville definitely aren't more attractive east coast choices.

Definitely not Charlotte. BB&T Ballpark can't be expanded to accommodate MLB. I'm not sure about First Tennessee Park, but I'd assume it's the same. Beyond that, both are excellent markets in terms of attendance (top 5 this past year among all affiliated MiLB teams) and for a couple years Charlotte actually led all affiliated MiLB teams in average attendance.

 

[SSF]

Yea, Nashville's park would be expensive to expand and defeat the purpose of the site selection in the first place.

 

[CokenoPepsi]

I guarantee that baseball would want the revenue. Also yet again were seeing how dumb the city of Vancouver is. They should be the 32nd team and not Portland.

Lol you think Vancouver could support an MLB team? I don't see it.

Toronto barely can when the Jays suck and the city is what? 3x as large?

Vancouver has the best weather and the best grass roots in the country but just to small and nowhere to play.

 

[Melrose Munch]

Lol you think Vancouver could support an MLB team? I don't see it.

Toronto barely can when the Jays suck and the city is what? 3x as large?

Vancouver has the best weather and the best grass roots in the country but just to small and nowhere to play.

Toronto has large corporations. Those seats may be empty, but some of them are sold. Vancouver has more money and would be a better fit then portland which could easily not sellout when Seattle or the Dodgers aren't in town.

 

[Mightygoose]

Not 100% related but Hillsborough Co. has given it's offer in terms of location to the Rays

http://www.fox13news.com/news/local-news/commissioner-pitches-ybor-spot-for-rays-stadium

No word on dollars yet or even if the team is accepting. They want to see what Pinellas county can offer...and play them off each other I would think.

Rays have 9 months to accept as county's option the land will expire.

If this moves forward and things happen in Oakland, expansion may get closer to the front burner

 

[Melrose Munch]

she wants a vote on public money for a baseball stadium

 

[Nordskull]

RIP Expos 2.0, that thing will never happen with the new mayor who against a single taxpayer cent in a stadium. Plante is the far left candidate, Quebec solidaire and NDP linked mayor, bet your shirt city wont put a penny now.

Despite former mayor was all for it, we did not have the feeling consensus prevailed in the population.

Lets not forget naysayers will give Qc new arena as the perfect example of an error (at least until now)

A mayor asking taxpayers their consent is a mayor who is against.

Yep, it happened that quick.

 

[Scandale du Jour]

Yeah, with the lady in charge, the dream will slowly die.

 

[Mightygoose]

And apparently, Mitch Garber - one of the investors of the proposed MLB team was a donator to Coderre.

The term is 4 years and I think this process is still a long ways away and likely would have never been decided by this council anyways....next election will be more telling IMO.

 

[Bjorn Le]

I don’t think it’s dead at all, but it’ll be a little more tricky. She clearly doesn’t want public money for a stadium but to be honest I could see a referendum succeeding. I never thought a stadium deal would fleece Quebec and Montreal anyway.

I also wouldn’t look too into Expos investors donating to Coderre. Businessmen regularly donate to a pro-business politician and it doesn’t mean it’s directly related to their projects.

 

[Melrose Munch]

RIP Expos 2.0, that thing will never happen with the new mayor who against a single taxpayer cent in a stadium. Plante is the far left candidate, Quebec solidaire and NDP linked mayor, bet your shirt city wont put a penny now.

Despite former mayor was all for it, we did not have the feeling consensus prevailed in the population.

Lets not forget naysayers will give Qc new arena as the perfect example of an error (at least until now)

A mayor asking taxpayers their consent is a mayor who is against.

Yep, it happened that quick.

Not the same. The NHL is playing games with QC and the mulitple fires it has to put out. MLB wants Montreal. The commishoner said so. Jeremy Jacobs doesnt want QC just yet.

And apparently, Mitch Garber - one of the investors of the proposed MLB team was a donator to Coderre.

The term is 4 years and I think this process is still a long ways away and likely would have never been decided by this council anyways....next election will be more telling IMO.

I don’t think it’s dead at all, but it’ll be a little more tricky. She clearly doesn’t want public money for a stadium but to be honest I could see a referendum succeeding. I never thought a stadium deal would fleece Quebec and Montreal anyway.

I also wouldn’t look too into Expos investors donating to Coderre. Businessmen regularly donate to a pro-business politician and it doesn’t mean it’s directly related to their projects.

But how is it going to be funded 100% private, thats the issue. And why a 2021 referendum?

 

[Bjorn Le]

But how is it going to be funded 100% private, thats the issue. And why a 2021 referendum?

The province can contribute money as well. I also don’t believe Plante on her own can block city money. I don’t know that much about municipal politics in Quebec but I’ve seen it plenty in Ontario where public funding for projects has been opposed (sometimes vehemently) by mayors and it’s been overruled.

I don’t think the referendum will be in 2021. It’ll happen (if it does at all) when the ownership group announces publically what they’re doing. I suspect Plante may be swayed by the realities of the situation and invest a certain amount into the project, especially if it’s money they can recoup through parking fees/royalties.

 

[KevFu]

And I'm not sold on Portland either. Which is why Vancouver should be all over this. But their city leadership is awful.

I would think that MLB (and Toronto) isn't too excited about adding two Canadian cities at once.

Yes, Montreal is a slam-dunk, and yes, Vancouver is a bigger market than Portland -- and yes, there's never been a Canadian MLB team west of Toronto. And no, it's not a problem for all of us in the USA to add two teams north of the border.

It's bad for Toronto. The Blue Jays would really hate seeing their TV shrink from "all 37 million people in Canada" to 17 million. Divide it up: Expos would be in Quebec and the provinces to the East (10 million), Vancouver would get BC, Alberta, NW/Yukon territories (about 10 million)

Add Portland and if anyone in the future has to move, steer them to Vancouver? Absolutely. But I can't imaging MLB is going to be expanding PAST 32 anytime soon. They'd have to come up with a pretty creative TV deal with TOR-MON-VAN, and doing so would probably cut into what the rest of the teams share, which certainly wouldn't make them want to pick Vancouver over Portland.

Because you can't add two teams to the existing structure without, at minimum, a division realignment and even then you'd have uneven divisions which was what moving the Astros to the AL was supposed to solve.

Yes, but the reason they moved the Astros was to make the schedule MATRIX easier on the schedule makers. With interleague and matching up all the series blocks on the master schedule, it was hell to work with 4-5-5, 5-6-5. 5-5-5, 5-5-5 was a lot easier for them.

The point of expansion -- regardless of their misleading claims -- is to make scheduling even easier with a very balanced matrix.
20 interleague games: 7 series, 2/3/4 games
20 league but non-division seasons, 3/4 games
24 divisions series, 3/4 games each (occasionally splitting the 4s into two 2-game series)

It's messy.

But if they followed a smart, common sense approach (Which IS NOT what was in the leaked proposal Baseball American posted).
4-4-4-4, 4-4-4-4. 16 vs division, 8 vs rival division, 8 vs rest of league. All four-game series.
That ACTUALLY reduces travel, while making every single schedule block the same. You don't NEED interleague, but you have it to improve TV time starts for West vs West, Central vs Central; and maintaining the high-interest rivalry series.

 

[KevFu]

And I'd argue that those who cling to the AL/NL names like they really mean anything at this point are the ones living in a time warp. Again, at this point, the AL and NL are just names and aside from the DH rule, they're little more than conferences.

...(keen observations)...

Where are the legions of Brewers fans and Astros fans who've permanently given up on MLB now that their teams are in the other League? I'd say right now that, aside from complicating my fandom with the Tampa Bay Rays, I'd have no problem with the Pirates being moved to the AL.

You're not WRONG with any of that. But I disagree on the overall mood of baseball fans, and the very sane, smart reason to retain the NL/AL split.

Yes, baseball fans gripe when you miss with tradition... then they get over it. DH, expansion, Interleague, Milwaukee, Houston. It's WRONG at first, then still a little weird after five years, and after 10 you get used to it, and after 20 it's the comfortable normal and don't change what it IS NOW. So if they destroy AL/NL, people will complain and act like grumpy old men yelling at kids to get off their lawn... and in 20 years, it'll be fine and normal.

But that isn't the point. The two points are:

#1 - Baseball has always sold "history" and "Tradition" and "The National Pastime" as part of it's appeal.
Fans - in all sports - are nostalgic for the time they think the sport was the best. Usually your formative years. My generation wants the Expos back in baseball, just like we wanted the Winnipeg Jets back; and still want the Nordiques and Whalers, Adams, Patrick, Norris and Smythe back.

Attendance data for the NHL shows fans less interested when the visiting team is a newer market (TB, OTT, FLA, ANA, DAL, COL, CAR, NASH, CBJ, and the Minnesota Wild). Winnipeg's road attendance was a big bump around the league when they came back. The same thing didn't happen with the Wild. Because Winnipeg was the JETS AGAIN, and "Minnesota Wild" didn't restore nostalgia.

In baseball, the same thing is true. The newest eight teams don't really move the needle like the historical ones you grew up with.

I'm a Mets fan, we had a good rivalry with the Braves since they joined the division because we were both good from 1996 to 2002 and having huge battles. But I wish we played the Cardinals, Cubs and Pirates more, because I remember THOSE rivalry battles from when 2 or 3 of those four were all good from 1984-1992.

#2 - and FAR MORE IMPORTANT: 30 to 32 team leagues are simply too big to "Play everyone in the league, since it's one league" while also playing the traditional rivals you had back when the league was 16 to 24 teams.

The NHL loves those Rivalry Night matchups: MON-TOR, NYR-NYI, CHI-STL, DET-CHI, PHI-PIT, TOR-BUF, BOS-MON, WAS-PIT, ANA-LA, SJ-LA. But playing everyone in the league home & away has slashed those games from 8 to 6 to 5 since the 1980s.



So combine those two items:
Most MLB teams have been playing the same 11 or 12 teams in their league between 9 and 18 times for the last 50 years. It started at 148 to 162 games against the same teams.



They lost MIL, added interleague, added TB, added Houston. So this season, those AL teams are playing their traditional 12 opponents between 116 and 128 times. Then it started dropping to make room for adding TB, ARZ, COL, MIA, swapping MIL and HOU, and adding 20 interleague games against teams you never played before.

Now you're going to play 6 games each vs EVERYONE IN BASEBALL after radically realigning.

Baseball isn't like NHL or NBA. It's actually harder to allocate games to the teams you feel you should be playing compared to NHL/NBA. Even through they have almost DOUBLE the games and NHL/NBA, they play 52 SERIES. So you're trying to allocate 52 series among 31 other teams.

It's extremely difficult to manage "playing everyone" vs "maintaining rivalries" and this new alignment -- which seemingly creating "regional rivalries" (which few actually care about), it eliminates baseball's built in excuse to SCHEDULE like you could when you had a 20-team league.

Let's be honest, fans mostly want to see about 20 teams max and don't really care that much about the other 10. The problem is that in MLB and NHL, everyone's group of 20 is mostly the same group of 20. So you give teams 16 of the 20, force 4 on them, and everyone gets most of what they want.

Or you water down the schedule by forcing ALL the unwanted opponents on each team each season.

Everyone who claims they like seeing every team in the league will always point to things like "I want to see Crosby, Ovechin, Montreal, Toronto, Detroit visit us in Vancouver each year!" while ignoring that they really don't give much of a crap about FLA, TB, CAR, CBJ, OTT, BUF, NJD, or NYI.

Most fans don't have full season tickets to 41 NHL or 81 MLB games. Why do they need every team in the league visiting once a year? It's 2017, you can get the entire MLB or NHL regular seasons in HD for $160. I've got both MLBTV/NHLTV and it's more hours of regular season games than there are total hours in a year. And that's not counting the playoffs.

Playing everyone at least once home/away is a really stupid thing to try to do in a league that big. And MLB has an excuse to avoid it, and they want to do away with it?

 

[Nordskull]

The 7 000 000 people market in Quebec is not occupied by te Blue Jays, theres no interest. They would loose maybe 100 000 fans, but do not think everybody here cheers for Toronto.

Its the exact same Nordiques situation, where a market is simply not receptive.

 

[Melrose Munch]

I would think that MLB (and Toronto) isn't too excited about adding two Canadian cities at once.

Yes, Montreal is a slam-dunk, and yes, Vancouver is a bigger market than Portland -- and yes, there's never been a Canadian MLB team west of Toronto. And no, it's not a problem for all of us in the USA to add two teams north of the border.

It's bad for Toronto. The Blue Jays would really hate seeing their TV shrink from "all 37 million people in Canada" to 17 million. Divide it up: Expos would be in Quebec and the provinces to the East (10 million), Vancouver would get BC, Alberta, NW/Yukon territories (about 10 million)

Add Portland and if anyone in the future has to move, steer them to Vancouver? Absolutely. But I can't imaging MLB is going to be expanding PAST 32 anytime soon. They'd have to come up with a pretty creative TV deal with TOR-MON-VAN, and doing so would probably cut into what the rest of the teams share, which certainly wouldn't make them want to pick Vancouver over Portland.



Yes, but the reason they moved the Astros was to make the schedule MATRIX easier on the schedule makers. With interleague and matching up all the series blocks on the master schedule, it was hell to work with 4-5-5, 5-6-5. 5-5-5, 5-5-5 was a lot easier for them.

The point of expansion -- regardless of their misleading claims -- is to make scheduling even easier with a very balanced matrix.
20 interleague games: 7 series, 2/3/4 games
20 league but non-division seasons, 3/4 games
24 divisions series, 3/4 games each (occasionally splitting the 4s into two 2-game series)

It's messy.

But if they followed a smart, common sense approach (Which IS NOT what was in the leaked proposal Baseball American posted).
4-4-4-4, 4-4-4-4. 16 vs division, 8 vs rival division, 8 vs rest of league. All four-game series.
That ACTUALLY reduces travel, while making every single schedule block the same. You don't NEED interleague, but you have it to improve TV time starts for West vs West, Central vs Central; and maintaining the high-interest rivalry series.

I don't disaree with. But I have heard that the MLB is not thrilled the blue jays own all of Canada. And if Rogers won't play fair, they deserve a boycott. If they are the best, they should have no problem getting viewers. The Expos will also be on english TV so there will be a battle.
here's a writer that agrees with you,

https://tipofthetower.com/2017/10/03/toronto-blue-jays-return-montreal-expos-bad-business/