Calgary as a MLB or NBA city

Fenway

HF Bookie and Bruins Historian
Sponsor
Sep 26, 2007
68,589
98,267
Cambridge, MA
Is there any chance Calgary could support a MLB or NBA team?

Very unlikely

MLB will at some point return to Montreal and there are larger markets than Calgary in the US interested.

The NBA knows they pulled out of Vancouver too soon and there is interest in Montreal.


upload_2020-1-4_6-42-21.png
 

Centrum Hockey

Registered User
Aug 2, 2018
2,089
727
Very unlikely

MLB will at some point return to Montreal and there are larger markets than Calgary in the US interested.

The NBA knows they pulled out of Vancouver too soon and there is interest in Montreal.


View attachment 302345
The NBA has been far more vocal on regretting Vancouver to Memphis then they ever where about Seattle to OKC David Stern's Biggest Regret Revealed, It's A Stunner NBA commissioner says 'it would be nice to have a team in Vancouver' | Offside NBA commissioner says 'it would be nice to have a team in Vancouver' | Offside
 

Hoser

Registered User
Aug 7, 2005
1,846
403
"Is there any chance Calgary could support a MLB or NBA team?" Short answer: no.

Quoting myself from another thread, "What other Canadian cities could support NBA teams?":

Ultimately I think the answer to this question—"What other Canadian cities could support NBA teams?"—is less relevant than which ones would. Montreal and Vancouver have the requisite population base, and you could maybe even argue Calgary, Ottawa and Edmonton do too. In that respect Montreal and Vancouver could support NBA teams. Would Vancouver and Montreal support NBA teams? I'm very skeptical, Montreal out of sheer apathy and Vancouver having both apathy and still harbouring a little "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me" resentment with respect to the Grizzlies.

(Calgary I can tell you right now, even if there was the requisite population base and corporate dollars, would still be far, far down the totem pole due to apathy.)

Same goes for MLB, except it's even less likely given Calgary doesn't have a baseball stadium anywhere near large enough and crappy weather precludes the use of an outdoor stadium.
 

Fenway

HF Bookie and Bruins Historian
Sponsor
Sep 26, 2007
68,589
98,267
Cambridge, MA

Vancouver has changed greatly in 19 years and today the loonie has settled into a stable rate compared to 20-25 years ago - plus TV viewers in Canada are watching basketball in far larger numbers.
 

Barclay Donaldson

Registered User
Feb 4, 2018
2,531
2,058
Tatooine
As everyone else said, it's an easy no. There are far larger markets both leagues would want to get into should they expand to 32 (the MLB has been vocal about expanding and the NBA has been vocal about not expanding) and Calgary is probably on page 4 of any expansion target list. They aren't even the top Canadian expansion market for either league.
 

qwerty

Registered User
Feb 4, 2007
3,001
994
Calgary
As a born and raised Calgarian, I’d say not a chance the NBA or MLB would survive here especially with the city’s sudden economic downturn.

Also, along with the NHL, this city is also successfully supporting an NLL team, CFL team, WHL team and even a soccer team in the CPL. The city is already a little over stretched out at this point.

Plus, I see the NBA going back to Seattle and/or Mexico before they come back north of the border. Perhaps even in Europe as well.
 

Voight

#winning
Feb 8, 2012
40,360
16,642
Mulberry Street
NBA wouldn't work in CGY or MTL.

MLB as well would not work in CGY, its a nice city and their support of the Flames is great from what I have seen, but I just don't think there is a big baseball following there.
 

Hoser

Registered User
Aug 7, 2005
1,846
403
Same goes for MLB, except it's even less likely given Calgary doesn't have a baseball stadium anywhere near large enough and crappy weather precludes the use of an outdoor stadium.

Quoting myself to bump the thread and reinforce this point. I went back in ye olde archives, reviewing the AAA Cannons' final season (2002), to get an accurate count of how many home games were postponed or cancelled. I want to emphasize just how practically impossible it would be to have pro baseball in Calgary without an enclosed stadium. Which ain't happenin'. Let's do the post-mortem:

In 2002 the PCL teams nominally played a 144-game season, 72 at home and 72 on the road. Only 9 of the 16 teams in the league ended up playing their full schedules; the rest played abbreviated ones. The Cannons only played 138, fewest in the league.

Their home opener on April 12 against the Iowa Cubs was postponed due to weather, but made up the next day with a doubleheader. Same with games on the 16th and 18th against Tucson.

In May the Cannons had 16 scheduled home games, and they only played five. Games on the 3rd and 4th against Memphis were postponed; games on the 5th and 6th were straight-up cancelled. They were supposed to play a home stand against Omaha from the 7th through 10th, but the league moved the games to Omaha instead. They made up the postponed games from the 3rd and 4th in Memphis on the 12th and 14th. They played their first contiguous, uninterrupted four-game home stand from the 16th to 19th against Oklahoma (SIX WEEKS after the season began...). They began their next series against Tacoma on the 20th, but the final three games were postponed.

June they actually played all 17 of their home games, with only one game (against the Trappers on June 2) postponed until the next day. One of the postponed games from May against the Tacoma Rainiers was made up in Tacoma, the other two were retroactively cancelled.

In July they played all 15 of their scheduled home games, no postponements or cancellations.

In August a game against Tacoma on the 2nd was postponed and made up with a DH the next day, while another on the 4th was cancelled altogether. Their game on the 30th against Edmonton was also cancelled. They finished out their season September 2 at home against the Trappers.

So, to recap:

April: 3/8 home games postponed
May: 7/16 postponed and played on the road instead, 4/16 cancelled outright
June: 1/17 postponed
July: 0/15 postponed or cancelled (!!)
August/September: 1/16 postponed, 2/16 cancelled

That's a total of 18/72 home games postponed or cancelled, resulting in only 59/72 having been played. And that doesn't even count games that were delayed but still went ahead the same day, of which there were usually a few every season.
 

PCSPounder

Stadium Groupie
Apr 12, 2012
2,852
564
The Outskirts of Nutria Nanny
MLB is dependent on both a rather large local population and a large regional population.

For instance, Portland is getting close to 3 million in the "statistical" metro area and is over 3 million when you include the "consolidated" region (basically Salem and reaching out to the coast). The "television market," however, is the state of Oregon and Southwest Washington and that probably doesn't even reach 5 million yet. We're helping Seattle jet well over 10 million, and that's in line with most of the markets (even the smaller ones) in MLB.

The estimates say Alberta has about 200,000 more people than Oregon... in a far larger area, of course. Considering MLB won't consider Calgary over Vancouver anyway, that's probably the end of the subject.
 

DaveG

Noted Jerk
Apr 7, 2003
51,016
47,853
Winston-Salem NC
I'd say no to either. I can see the NBA going back to Vancouver soonish and I see the mistake of killing the Expos fixed some time in the next decade if Montreal can build a stadium downtown (to be fair I've been saying that for a decade now and still nothing) but I just can't see Calgary being a factor for either sport.
 

Jumptheshark

Rebooting myself
Oct 12, 2003
99,857
13,840
Somewhere on Uranus
Is there any chance Calgary could support a MLB or NBA team?


LOL

Well if the NBA could not last in Vancouver and MLB died a slow death in Montreal, I imagine both would be beating down the door to Calgary. I imagine most of the NFL teams would be looking at Calgary

so no. Like Edmonton, Calgary is a hockey town (sic) and the NBA would be scrambling for money when the Flames are good
 

No Fun Shogun

34-38-61-10-13-15
May 1, 2011
56,091
12,750
Illinois
I would be pretty surprised if Calgary, Edmonton, or Winnipeg got any serious consideration from any of the big leagues for a team. Not knocking them, I just think that they'd be viewed as extremely low ceiling markets for MLB, NBA, or especially the NFL.

I could foresee a future where Toronto gets an NFL team and Montreal and Vancouver both eventually get NBA and/or MLB teams (back), but barring a prairie province explosion in population I'm not expecting more than that.
 
  • Like
Reactions: garbageteam

Big Z Man 1990

Registered User
Jun 4, 2011
2,535
353
Don't say anything at all
I think if the NBA expands into Western Canada, it will be another shot at Vancouver. The NBA could very well add them and a revival of the Seattle SuperSonics to the Northwest Division, so that Minnesota can go to the Central and OKC to the Southwest. Minnesota and OKC don't make sense in the Northwest Division, and I think the NBA knows it. I'm sure many fans of those teams want them to be in divisions with geographically closer teams.
 

Ad

Upcoming events

Ad

Ad

-->