I agree with this. But look, the majority of history, Montreal was there. The ony reason why Toronto made more money was that the Expos lost their english TV rights, that won't happen again. The Blue Jays are going to have to learn how to w/o a huge advantage.
No doubt. If the Expos STAYED and they added Vancouver and Washington DC now via expansion, the end result is the same. But I just don't think they're going to add TWO TEAMS that each carve out pieces from the same team's TV territory in one expansion, regardless of what it used to be.
It's too much of a drastic alteration of TV territory at one time. ANY TEAMS. Like, they might add Montreal and Vancouver, Sacramento and Fresno; Austin and San Antonio; Charlotte and Hampton Roads, VA; Orlando and Jacksonville with their next 10 teams... but they're not adding them in pairs like that. They'd mix it up so there's 10-20 years between teams invading an existing teams old TV territory.
Frankly I think an NL team in Dallas would also help the cause for Travel. I think the acela corridor teams should be together and the great lakes teams should be together. Get Toronto out of the AsL east so their fans can stop saying they can't compete.
I hate to be repetitive, but "Travel" is more about the ORDER of games and less about the division make up. Yes, your travel would be shorted if you're in a division with teams nearby. But that's really only going to affect HOU, TEX (leaving the AL West), or TB/MIA if they join the same division.
In the Expansion thread (that got moved over from BOH to baseball forum), I did a lengthy breakdown dismissing the "reduce travel" claims of "The Plan" that Baseball America had (radical realignment).
The overall point is: If you wanted to reduce travel, make a clean schedule matrix and increase local TV times... you don't need radical realignment to achieve it. It can be done within AL/NL. And it can be done BETTER than their plan.
For starters if you want to drastically reduce travel: Play only four-game series. That's 40 series per year instead of 52, 30 flights instead of 38.