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

Pelle Lindbergh

Registered User
Sep 9, 2006
199
0
Montreal
Every year , the weekend that we sold out the stadium for the 2 Blue Jays games, the mayor said that he will have big news for us this year, but everytime : nothing !
I dont ask for a news like the return of the team, but at least something positive like, presenting the future owners, the day when they will start to built the new stadium, an official announcement about the location of the new stadium even if we all know the answer etc...

I dont know of it will be sold out for 2 games vs Pirates this year, bit im afraid that the people will lost patience with these kind of games, and no announcement every year. Its easy to sold out like last year with the Red Sox, pirates is middly ok, but of next year is versus Milwaukee or Colorado, i really dont know.
 
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Fenway

HF Bookie and Bruins Historian
Sponsor
Sep 26, 2007
68,589
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Every year , the weekend that we sold out the stadium for the 2 Blue Jays games, the mayor said that he will have big news for us this year, but everytime : nothing !

I dont ask for a news like the return of the team, but at least something positive like, presenting the future owners, the day when they will start to built the new stadium, an official announcement about the location of the new stadium even if we all know the answer etc...

I dont know of it will be sold out for 2 games vs Pirates this year, bit im afraid that the people will lost patience with these kind of games, and no announcement every year. Its easy to sold out like last year with the Red Sox, pirates is middly ok, but of next year is versus Milwaukee or Colorado, i really dont know.

I wish MLB had considered Montreal for some World Baseball Classic games but the next step should be a couple of REGULAR season games.

Bell Media is the only entity that can pull this off as RDS/TSN need summer programming badly. But unlike Rogers who bought Skydome for only $25M (CDN) a new stadium will cost at least $500M and then you need a team which makes the nut well over a BILLION dollars. :help:

Nobody knows why Charles Bronfman walked away from the Expos in 1990. Some speculate he wanted to focus on Seagram's and was worried about how his nephew might put the company at risk which indeed happened.

There are only 2 teams that are canidates for relocation, Tampa Bay and Oakland, and Tampa Bay moving to Montreal would be a huge success with natural rivals with Toronto, Yankees and Boston which is something the Expos never had. If MLB expands they are going to be looking for a BILLION dollars as a fee given what the NHL got for Las Vegas.

I want to see baseball back in Montreal but that is a big nut for a city that doesn't have the corporate clout it once had decades ago.
 

Voight

#winning
Feb 8, 2012
40,356
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Mulberry Street
There is 0 chance of them getting a team or there even being talk of one until an owner with a plan to build a stadium steps up. MLB might be OK with Olympic Stadium as a part time venue but they can be very picky at times.
 

Bjorn Le

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May 17, 2010
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There is 0 chance of them getting a team or there even being talk of one until an owner with a plan to build a stadium steps up. MLB might be OK with Olympic Stadium as a part time venue but they can be very picky at times.

Obviously they are not coming back if Olympic Stadium is the venue. But the discourse is wrong to suggest that an ownership group, the province, or the city, would announce the construction of a venue that is as limited for holding events outside it's primary tenant as a baseball stadium is.

We will hear very little (if anything) concrete about a new stadium/ownership group until the move/expansion to Montreal is imminent.

Unless people believe that the MLB will contract, Montreal will get a team. Whether that's in 5 years, 10 years, or 15 years, it'll depend on the time table prospective owners in Montreal have. The kind of money it takes to build a stadium requires significant work to generate. You have to grease palms and get political support, as well as ensure you can legitimately afford it without compromising other aspects of your operations. All of these take time, especially given the political climate in Canada is not exactly conductive to mass public funds being used for projects like these. I'd put the chances of a joint Molson family/BCE Inc. project into getting a stadium built is fairly high.

The reason I say unless you believe the MLB will contract is the situation in St. Petersburg. Tropicana is not fit to hold an MLB team today, it will be a worse situation in the late 2020s when the lease expires. Unless something substantially changes, the chances of a new stadium getting built in the Tampa Bay region are next to nil. There is zero political will to build a stadium, and significant political will to oppose the building of one. Tampa gave away the best (and really, the only) location to a medical school. Sternberg isn't even hiding his cynicism towards the market anyway. If you believe the relatively recent reports, he himself is actively looking at Montreal.

People need to have all the facts before they make blanket claims about baseball in Montreal.
 

Pelle Lindbergh

Registered User
Sep 9, 2006
199
0
Montreal
When do you think is the deadline for the tampa bay rays. Today on radio, Warren Cromartie said thwt the money is not a problem, the new stadium is not a problem, they have the money. They just wait to know if the Rays are for sale or when the announcement of the expansion will be done. So the money is not the problem, they wait after the league
 

robert terwilliger

the bart, the
Nov 14, 2005
24,059
511
sw florida
i'm sure if montreal wanted to pay the rays relocation fee that this would be done by now.

these threads pop up every now and then and it always becomes the same thing.

person 1 said:
why aren't the expos back? montreal has a rich baseball history and tonnes of money and would welcome the expos back with open arms.

person 2 said:
they need a stadium to welcome them back with open arms. olympic stadium is bordering on inhospitable by the geneva convention. if they are serious about having a team, that's the discussion that they should be having.

person 1 said:
they'll build the stadium once they get a team.

person 2 said:
mlb isn't going to just move a team there.

person 3 said:
well they should move the rays. people in florida are a joke when it comes to supporting their teams, nobody comes to the rays' games

person 1 said:
exactly, montreal always supported its team!

the handsomest poster on the website said:
actually, montreal was barely supporting the expos by the end of their time in montreal. there are minor league teams that actually have higher turnouts.

person 3 said:
well if you look at where olympic stadium is, it's really hard to get there for games. they need a park near downtown. there's tonnes of money!

person 4 said:
it's pretty hard to get to tampa's stadium too and they still outdraw what the expos were down to. and tropicana field is like someone mixed an airport with a high a field

person 1 said:
well they still don't come out to games in tampa.

person 2 said:
mlb has to address actual teams with actual stadium issues before they can start to entertain montreal's pipedream

/thread gradually fades back a few pages before this is all repeated again.

did i miss anything?
 
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Mightygoose

Registered User
Nov 5, 2012
5,586
1,382
Ajax, ON
Yeah this thing is spinning it's wheels so it seems.

With these pre season games coming up, I'm thinking it will make the media rounds but there really needs to be something more concrete in terms of the owners and the stadium plans.

Otherwise, people will lose interest. Looking at the seating map on Evenko's site, Saturday's game is almost full, still lots of seats for Friday night. They'll still get a good turnout unless there's a carrott to follow, people will only watch other city's teams for so long.

I think there's a catch 22 going on. Baseball won't expand until the stadium situations are settled in OAK and TB. Both have leases that run into mid next decade so no urgency there and no big rush for the powers that be in Montreal to move things forward either.
 

Bjorn Le

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May 17, 2010
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When do you think is the deadline for the tampa bay rays. Today on radio, Warren Cromartie said thwt the money is not a problem, the new stadium is not a problem, they have the money. They just wait to know if the Rays are for sale or when the announcement of the expansion will be done. So the money is not the problem, they wait after the league

Cromartie is full of **** and needs to calm down and stop talking to the media so much about it. Anyways, Manfred is really new, so don't expect anything for a little bit. No commissioner wants a relocation on the table so soon after they start their job. Manfred will give the Rays a little more time (but not much more time). Maybe 2020 at the earliest. But it could be 2025 or 2030. The prospective owners can wait, they're not going anywhere. The value will be there for them still in 15 years (every team in MLB can make money if it wants due to revenue sharing, and Montreal being a medium-sized market with two potential TV deals means they'll make money and be a good asset for Molson/BCE no matter what). Still, the sooner the better, interest is good now. But you can't rush it if the league isn't ready to relocate one of their teams yet.\

Not sure why people think Montreal has a chance at getting a team back. There's virtually none IMO.

Justify this opinion. It's not grounded in reality. Montreal has a better chance at getting a team back then both Oakland and Tampa getting new stadiums. Given no major sports league will contract unless there's some serious economic collapse, they have to go somewhere. Montreal is the only option right now. Monterrey, Charlotte, Portland, Las Vegas, Vancouver?? all have some potential but certainly aren't better or more feasible areas than Montreal.
 
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Bjorn Le

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May 17, 2010
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manfred may be new but he's already broken the pa. i can see him getting stadia for tampa and oakland.

I don't see how. Oakland is a better option if he could just convince San Fran to stop being ****** and allow San Jose to build the stadium they want to build. Tampa on the other hand I just can't see it. Whose going to build it? Sternberg won't pay. They won't build another in St. Petersburg. Tampa doesn't care. Taxpayers in Florida won't get hoodwinked after what Loria did. Tampa is as dead in the water as Montreal was in the late 1990s. There is low fan interest, an owner who doesn't really care about keeping them there, and taxpayers/politicians who won't fund a new stadium. Manfred isn't solving that, especially for probably the worst market in baseball.
 

le_sean

Registered User
Oct 21, 2006
39,543
38,935
The problem in Montreal really is the political climate. While they have the backing from the city mayor (in fact he's the one pushing for it), provincially they cannot justify it. With the way the Liberal government is cutting all kinds of services, like healthcare and education, if they turn around and provide provincial funding towards a sports team in a city that always has their attention, it'll be a nail in the coffin. Especially after funding a new hockey arena in Laval.
 

robert terwilliger

the bart, the
Nov 14, 2005
24,059
511
sw florida
I don't see how. Oakland is a better option if he could just convince San Fran to stop being ****** and allow San Jose to build the stadium they want to build. Tampa on the other hand I just can't see it. Whose going to build it? Sternberg won't pay. They won't build another in St. Petersburg. Tampa doesn't care. Taxpayers in Florida won't get hoodwinked after what Loria did. Tampa is as dead in the water as Montreal was in the late 1990s. There is low fan interest, an owner who doesn't really care about keeping them there, and taxpayers/politicians who won't fund a new stadium. Manfred isn't solving that, especially for probably the worst market in baseball.

it's funny how you say all of that but think that montreal is the answer.

montreal already lost their team for actually being demonstrably worse than tampa, your professed "worst market in baseball", has ever been.
 

Bjorn Le

Hobocop
May 17, 2010
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it's funny how you say all of that but think that montreal is the answer.

montreal already lost their team for actually being demonstrably worse than tampa, your professed "worst market in baseball", has ever been.

Except Montreal's downfall was constructed not a natural reaction of the market. They didn't set the world on fire but they did fine before the strike. A combination of the strike, Loria essentially sabatoging the team, and Selig/MLB essentially colluding with Loria to do it. I refer you to the larger Montreal thread for a better breakdown of this. Tampa on the other hand has never supported the team.
 

Bjorn Le

Hobocop
May 17, 2010
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Is Montreal the MLB's version of Los Angeles for the NFL?

Not really. Los Angeles for the NFL really doesn't have any comparisons. It's the largest market in your league and it had no teams. Now it has two. Montreal is probably in the middle pack of markets in terms of size, and really only because of factors unique to Canada. The teams they might attract to relocate are in really rough shape. They're not simple OK areas where the owner is greedy enough to say "not enough!".
 

Pelle Lindbergh

Registered User
Sep 9, 2006
199
0
Montreal
If cromartie said is true about they already owned the money for the new stadium and the team. They should show is partners, and having the mayor showing the area where the stadium will be built, we all know the answers but it could help the population to have hope. Because its not easy to sold out a game versus pittsburgh, when we all know that the starting players will be playing maybe 3 inings and they its all unknow players. Me , i love baseball, and i like to follow future prospect or old timers trying to get a job, but im maybe a rare bird about this !
It was easy to sold out with the red sox because a lot of people like boston here, versus the reds it was easy also, become it was the return of baseball in montreal.
In 2016 Manfred said that he wants regular games in montreal, but instead we got the pirates...
Versus yankees, was the way to do it, to help the tickets, or versus washington, or ever better versus tampa bay ! The mlb are afraid to put tampa in that kind of situation, because the crowd wont let the players to go back to Tampa !
 

cutchemist42

Registered User
Apr 7, 2011
6,705
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Winnipeg
Nothing happens except for behind the scenes talk until Oak/TB are figured out. Until then, Rogers will keep putting out cringey commercials about baseball in Canada and further owning their home as baseball in Canada.

The thing is, if I live in Montreal even I think Id be bored of these Jays ST games eventually. At the same time, some say these Jays' game had the opposite effect of what they wanted. They wanted the Jays to own Montreal/Quebec, but the conversation always turns to when the Bell/Expos thing happens which they didnt want when initially starting this.
 

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