Your first point is valid in the sense it depends on the circumstance. I doubt though anyone is driving hours on a weeknight consistently for any sports game.
I started watching baseball only at the beginning of the 90ies and back then the Expos always had one of the 3 lowest payrolls in the league. Even in 94 i think the had the 2nd lowest payroll in the league. Before the lockout people were starting to go back to the games. The payroll was often like 4-5 times lower than the top teams and they would let good players walk all the time. 94 was the final straw. There was no recovery from that.
Similar to the A's, its unreasonable to expect fans to come to games in large numbers if ownership is not showing any commitment to winning and the reality is, after Bronfman, the Expos never had a ownership group winning to invest in the team. Now there's many factors that play into that but that's what happened. Add that in with the location which makes a big difference (as shown by the Rays) and the reasons for the demise of the Expos is clear. People forget, the Jays were also struggling in the late 90s/2000s too. But in that case, they found a ownership group that would invest and had a downtown stadium.
The NFL is never coming to Montreal.
The NFL is popular, but it won't ever have a team in Montreal. Baseball still has a shot (in theory) in Montreal. It isn't super popular now, but that's also because there hasn't been a team in nearly 20 years. I'm sure that would change if people had a team to cheer for. I don't expect it to happen any time soon, if at all, though.
So what was the excuse for the last 8-years of Bronfman’s ownership tenure? Charlie ALWAYS invested in the team, and they WERE competitive, yet attendance was bottom tier from 1984-1990.
It's hard to follow you honestly. So if i follow you all teams behind the expos in attendance from 84 to 90 should be out of the MLB because those are not baseball cities. This includes regularly Houston, Braves, Texas, Seattles, Indians.
It's true that the baseball culture doesn't exist in Quebec anymore. Not sure if it was fading in the 80ies though i was too young. But i was a teenager in the early 90ies and people were still playing baseball a lot. There was a junior game every night at the public park near my home and there was always kids playing baseball on it almost every day in the summer when there was no game. Now most public park are gone and the few ones remaining there's never anybody on it. I'd say it really started to fade in a significant way in the middle of the 90ies.
Sure, but then baseball came here, the team was beloved and then had owners who didn't want to spend money to support the team, especially one in a shitty stadium. People cared less and less about the sport. I have no doubt that a team would rejuvenate the province's love for baseball, but as I said, I doubt anything will be happening any time soon. Our chance was a few years ago, but we couldn't get a stadium and Tampa / Oakland were screwing with their own fans. Oakland are now moving to Las Vegas, and Tampa, who knows... but without a stadium, we have no chance. The split season thing was always a horrible idea, too.
1984 - Expos started fading in Sept, due to Bill Virdon’s mismanagement
I was in university at that time up in Bruce Peninsula so I missed out on the chaos in the city...lol
That’s not accurate, in the 80s -
