Next Big 4 league to expand

Next league to expand?


  • Total voters
    46

93LEAFS

Registered User
Nov 7, 2009
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Toronto
I disagree with your overall assessment.

1. If "how they can keep certain franchises alive" is an actual issue (it's not), a huge cash payment from an expansion team would be how, so not sure how you're using that to argue against expansion.

2. New teams do grow the revenue streams. They bring in TV viewers to the national contracts and therefore more TV revenue joins the league; and the big one is the merchandise sales. Expansion teams are usually massive additions to merch sales for the first few years because no one owns anything with the logo they unveiled yesterday on it. Vegas has been Top 4 in merch the last three years.

While the expansion fees and initial merch boom aren't sustainable, every subsequent sale is. Just like every league-wide sponsorship includes another team, every TV deal includes another team.

3. So many teams live by the gate is silly. Yes, 1.89 billion of 5.09 billion (37.1%) is gate revenue. But the cheap seats account for the smallest share of revenues. If suites and premium seating are sold, the team is fine and Joe Sixpack seats are drops in the bucket. Everyone argued Vegas would be giving away hundreds of upper bowl tickets as comps, Florida and Arizona stopped giving comps because the value of STH was so significantly higher and comps devalue that purchase for fans; so they had to eliminate comps to maintain their STH.

Look at the Islanders revenue growth moving from NVMC to Barclays. Fewer seats, fewer cheap seats, more suites = huge jump in revenues.

The people buying premium tickets aren't the people bearing the burden of the pandemic. They are corporations, not Joe Sixpack. Joe Sixpack can't afford to go to an NHL game anymore, which is a shame, but the corporate world has long left those people behind anyway. Look at your TV, all the people who were advertising before the pandemic are still advertising during the pandemic. And that's where the NHL gets the other 62.9% of its revenue from.
Its the fact they may not be able to sell seats for the foreseeable future. We are far away from figuring out when it will be okay to get 19,000 people in one arena. So, until this is clearly sorted, figuring out how to keep these franchises alive is an important issues. Most teams will have issues with dramatically reduced gate, and the wealthier clubs aren't going to be too inclined to increase revenue-sharing.

Every new team added further divides the current national TV deals. Do you think Rangers, Leafs, Flyers, etc like the idea of further dividing the pie.

You also ignored the second part, which is how many people want to buy a sports franchise right now with so much uncertainty at premium expansion prices.
 

KevFu

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May 22, 2009
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Its the fact they may not be able to sell seats for the foreseeable future. We are far away from figuring out when it will be okay to get 19,000 people in one arena. So, until this is clearly sorted, figuring out how to keep these franchises alive is an important issues. Most teams will have issues with dramatically reduced gate, and the wealthier clubs aren't going to be too inclined to increase revenue-sharing.

Every new team added further divides the current national TV deals. Do you think Rangers, Leafs, Flyers, etc like the idea of further dividing the pie.

They don't want to divide the pie further, and they don't want to share revenue to help the poor clubs, they want as much for themselves. That's your argument.

1. To create two more equal USA shares of the CURRENT contracts, the other teams would have to give up $1.03 million per season in revenue.

Each team got $32.32 million from expansion fees for Vegas/Seattle.

At $640 million per team, just for easy math, $40 million ONCE vs $1.03 million ANNUALLY is a good deal as long as the term isn't 39+ years.

2. The term isn't 39+ years. Yes, the expansion team exists forever going forward, but the NBC deal ends after 2020-21, and the Canada deal after 2025. They just ask for MORE MONEY from TV, touting the additional markets they're adding as justification.

3. You don't have to share more revenue to help the poor teams when they get an expansion fee cash injection.


Expansion fees are free money to the owners. They're down revenues now. This makes it more likely they vote to expand further (Remember how MLB voted to expand in 1995? What happened the year before that?).
 

KevFu

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May 22, 2009
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You also ignored the second part, which is how many people want to buy a sports franchise right now with so much uncertainty at premium expansion prices.

"How many people want to buy the ____" is limited by the fact that there's simply not that many humans in North America with $650 million.

Franchise values have gone up at a 6x over 20 years increase. Sports isn't a dangerous proposition at all.

The idea that the "uncertainty of the pandemic" would make potential pro sports franchise owners flee is silly. These people didn't get rich by being dumb. There's probably been more potential owners calling leagues during this pandemic to see if they can get an expansion team on the cheap when the owners need cash.

Once it's safe to have fans in stands, pro sports teams will be rolling in dough yet again. People aren't going to avoid large crowds on the OTHER SIDE of this ordeal. And I say that as someone who is legally now allowed to go out in public and still refuses to do so. Once there's a working vaccine, I'll be out again.

Yes, the economy is bad for Joe Sixpack (which is a lot of people). But that's not where pro sports teams make their money. The people cutting tickets out of their budget will (a) watch on TV and (b) be drops in a bucket compared to the suites/premium seating.
 

No Fun Shogun

34-38-61-10-13-15
May 1, 2011
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Illinois
The NBA has more than enough talented basketball players to expand. College basketball is a quality product with 353 teams.

The reason the NBA and NHL APPEAR to have talent issues (but really don't) is because of the cap structure and how people build their teams.

There's no parity in the NBA and a lot of garbage teams because every team has their Alpha Star, their Secondary Guy, Their Third Guy, and then a bunch of cheap dudes. The top 3 make 75% of their cap and the rest of the guys make peanuts. So every team is thin. Except when a free agent who's a Top 60 player decides to join up with as the third guy on a team so they can win.

The small market teams can't get enough talent around their top draft pick future face of the franchise by the time that guy is a free agent. Partly because of how they draft players. So they cycle through "franchise guys" and any draft miss means they're doomed to suck.

Making a team of seven "third guys" that was deep and balanced is how the Warriors ran through the league. Of course, by winning and being good, their guys BECAME superstar Top 60 players. But few teams actually operate that way.

Milwaukee drafted Bogut 1st overall. He wasn't a franchise guy, so he became a role player with the Warriors, same with David Lee. Surround them with guys the Warriors hit home runs with (Curry, Thompson, Green) and they became a powerhouse because they were crazy deep.

In hockey, Vegas was good in year one because they were crazy deep. Via the expansion draft, they were all second line forwards and second pair defensemen.

The shortage in pro sports when it comes to expansion is actually talent EVALUATORS and not the talent.

The NCAA is a quality product because it's segmented and very watered down thereby raising the bar for various levels of competitiveness and parity. Talent is spread out across among hundreds of programs battling for dozens of regional conferences and multiple post-season tourneys.

So, you have loads and loads of degrees of success that you can aim for and celebrate at the NCAA level.

In the NBA, none of that is the case. Everybody's battling for the same crown, and everybody knows the handful of teams with legit title chances with everyone else really not having any semblance of a chance.

That's not really the case for other sports, where the field is usually much more wide open (due to the lesser impact that individual superstars have versus team systems). From a purely competitive standpoint, multiple teams could be added to the other three leagues and you'd still have a great deal of competition top to bottom within a few years. In the NBA though, all you'd really be doing is adding more bottom-feeders and ankle-biters while still having approximately the same number of teams with legitimate ambitions in a given year.
 

KevFu

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May 22, 2009
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The NCAA is a quality product because it's segmented and very watered down thereby raising the bar for various levels of competitiveness and parity. Talent is spread out across among hundreds of programs battling for dozens of regional conferences and multiple post-season tourneys.

So, you have loads and loads of degrees of success that you can aim for and celebrate at the NCAA level.

In the NBA, none of that is the case. Everybody's battling for the same crown, and everybody knows the handful of teams with legit title chances with everyone else really not having any semblance of a chance.

That's not really the case for other sports, where the field is usually much more wide open (due to the lesser impact that individual superstars have versus team systems). From a purely competitive standpoint, multiple teams could be added to the other three leagues and you'd still have a great deal of competition top to bottom within a few years. In the NBA though, all you'd really be doing is adding more bottom-feeders and ankle-biters while still having approximately the same number of teams with legitimate ambitions in a given year.

My disagreement is with the root cause of the NBA's lack of parity. It's not that there is "not enough talent to go around."

Look at the NBA standings, and you have a clear case of "Haves" and "Have Nots." There isn't a SINGLE NBA TEAM with a win percentage between .493 and .596. There's enough talent to go around, it just DOESN'T go around, it bunches together.


I'd also say that adding NBA teams would not create more bad teams, it would create more mediocre teams.

You can really see this in college hoops, because conferences have realigned constantly. The three "Best members" of the Atlantic 10 left (Xavier, Butler, Temple) and VCU, Davidson, George Mason took their place. Everyone thought it would be the death of the A-10 getting multiple NCAA bids. They continued to average 3.25 bids per year, just like before, and set their all-time record of SIX BIDS without those schools.

Because a conference is guaranteed to go .500 against itself, replacing good Butler/Temple teams with VCU/Davidson was no difference, but instead of losing to Xavier, everyone else was beating George Mason. The standings looked the same as before in the sense that the champ was still 15-3 (VCU instead of Xavier), second place 14-4 (Dayton instead of Temple), and so on.

Adding NBA teams, they're still going to be .500 against themselves, so for every loss in the standings a new team team has, someone else gets an extra win.

The good teams at the top will still be the favorites, and might win MORE because there would be more mid-level teams beating the crap out of each other. More parity in the middle means wilder first rounds, and then the favorites have an easier time after that (I.E. if 6 beats 3, 2 wipes the floor with 6).


The NBA's parity issue is like the Islanders NIMBY fight for an arena/development project: They didn't want to build a development project that created jobs and grew the economy because the roads couldn't handle the traffic of all the people who would work/spend their money at it on roads that already were too congested. So fix the roads!

Saying the NBA can't expand because of their parity problem is like that. They need to find a way to fix the parity problem, PERIOD. Whether they expand soon or not, it's a problem.
 

No Fun Shogun

34-38-61-10-13-15
May 1, 2011
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Illinois
Talent bunches because talent wins, and one or two quality guys can make a team a top-tier contender. So why join a bad team in free agency and hope others join when you can get paid as much or almost as much with a team already on their way there or team up with another free agent and join a new team with your bud?

That ain't changing, and truth be told will probably be accelerating. We're going to see more examples of last year's free agency scramble, I guarantee it.

And I didn't say they can't expand, I'm saying from a competitive standpoint they shouldn't while from an economic standpoint they should. There's simply put no way to fix the parity issue without likely massive degrees of change and that nobody would support, as even bad teams are awash in cash.

But even if you could expand the middle, it'd still be the same old story of a few teams having the real chances to win and everybody else not really being good enough, whether they're well-below .500, hovering around .500, or even a decent amount above .500. That's the nature of the game and adding teams wouldn't help that as you're not going to suddenly see an uptick of excellent guys joining the league merely because there are more roster spots available. You'll just be increasing the number of teams that don't have a guy of that caliber.
 

Big Z Man 1990

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Jun 4, 2011
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Don't say anything at all
The NBA should expand soon because the new arena in Seattle, a necessity for bringing the SuperSonics back, is finally coming to fruition (though it will retain the roof from the old one). The arena is primarily being built for the NHL team, but the NBA can use it too.

Thing is, the NBA won't just add Seattle because it would produce an odd number of teams which would create scheduling issues.

From a divisional alignment standpoint, it makes the most sense to give Vancouver a second chance as the 32nd franchise. A Vancouver team would likely be a fan-owned enterprise like the NFL's Green Bay Packers, ensuring the team's survival.

Both Seattle and Vancouver would join the Northwest Division, causing Minnesota to move to the Central Division, and Oklahoma City to move to the Southwest Division, in both cases to be with geographically closer teams.

Ideally, to reduce travel costs, the NBA would adopt a schedule format where every team plays all the teams outside their division twice each (H/A), even those in the same conference. Teams in the Central and Southwest Divisions would play their division rivals 6 times each for a total of 30 games (+52 games against the rest of the league), and the remaining teams would play their division rivals 7 times each for a total of 28 games (+54 games against the rest of the league).

As for Major League Baseball, I think the next 2 teams should be in Charlotte and New Orleans.

The MLB would make some major changes to the divisional alignment under this proposal to add those cities to the league.

New South Divisions would be created in each league: Houston, Kansas City, New Orleans and Texas in the AL South, and Atlanta, Charlotte, Miami, and Tampa Bay in the NL South.

The Central Divisions would be renamed North Divisions.

Colorado would switch leagues as well, joining the AL West.

Pittsburgh would move back to the NL East.
 

CHRDANHUTCH

Registered User
Mar 4, 2002
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Auburn, Maine
The NBA should expand soon because the new arena in Seattle, a necessity for bringing the SuperSonics back, is finally coming to fruition (though it will retain the roof from the old one). The arena is primarily being built for the NHL team, but the NBA can use it too.

Thing is, the NBA won't just add Seattle because it would produce an odd number of teams which would create scheduling issues.

From a divisional alignment standpoint, it makes the most sense to give Vancouver a second chance as the 32nd franchise. A Vancouver team would likely be a fan-owned enterprise like the NFL's Green Bay Packers, ensuring the team's survival.

Both Seattle and Vancouver would join the Northwest Division, causing Minnesota to move to the Central Division, and Oklahoma City to move to the Southwest Division, in both cases to be with geographically closer teams.

Ideally, to reduce travel costs, the NBA would adopt a schedule format where every team plays all the teams outside their division twice each (H/A), even those in the same conference. Teams in the Central and Southwest Divisions would play their division rivals 6 times each for a total of 30 games (+52 games against the rest of the league), and the remaining teams would play their division rivals 7 times each for a total of 28 games (+54 games against the rest of the league).

As for Major League Baseball, I think the next 2 teams should be in Charlotte and New Orleans.

The MLB would make some major changes to the divisional alignment under this proposal to add those cities to the league.

New South Divisions would be created in each league: Houston, Kansas City, New Orleans and Texas in the AL South, and Atlanta, Charlotte, Miami, and Tampa Bay in the NL South.

The Central Divisions would be renamed North Divisions.

Colorado would switch leagues as well, joining the AL West.

Pittsburgh would move back to the NL East.
Charlotte is a no, Z
 

ponder719

Haute Couturier
Jul 2, 2013
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Philadelphia, PA
My suspicion is that MLB will announce Montreal and their Team 32 before the NBA announces Seattle and their Team 32 (be it LV, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Virginia, or whatever), mainly because Manfred seems to be publicly receptive to the idea in a way Silver is not.
 

CHRDANHUTCH

Registered User
Mar 4, 2002
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Auburn, Maine
My suspicion is that MLB will announce Montreal and their Team 32 before the NBA announces Seattle and their Team 32 (be it LV, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Virginia, or whatever), mainly because Manfred seems to be publicly receptive to the idea in a way Silver is not.
depends on if Tampa Bay Rays will be allowed to split territory
 

KevFu

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May 22, 2009
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Talent bunches because talent wins, and one or two quality guys can make a team a top-tier contender. So why join a bad team in free agency and hope others join when you can get paid as much or almost as much with a team already on their way there or team up with another free agent and join a new team with your bud?

That ain't changing, and truth be told will probably be accelerating. We're going to see more examples of last year's free agency scramble, I guarantee it.

And I didn't say they can't expand, I'm saying from a competitive standpoint they shouldn't while from an economic standpoint they should. There's simply put no way to fix the parity issue without likely massive degrees of change and that nobody would support, as even bad teams are awash in cash.

But even if you could expand the middle, it'd still be the same old story of a few teams having the real chances to win and everybody else not really being good enough, whether they're well-below .500, hovering around .500, or even a decent amount above .500. That's the nature of the game and adding teams wouldn't help that as you're not going to suddenly see an uptick of excellent guys joining the league merely because there are more roster spots available. You'll just be increasing the number of teams that don't have a guy of that caliber.

I agree with this, except for the "there's no way to fix the parity issue." There's adjustments that could be made, like remove cap exemptions for players who are coming in from other teams. They've had the "hometown exemption" for years -- It's so old, it's called the Larry Bird rule.

And minor nitpick, but expansion would grow the middle, period, because it has to. If you grow the league by 2 teams, the combined record of the league will increase by 82-82 and remain at .500. It has to, there's no other way.
 

KevFu

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May 22, 2009
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so MLS dosent count?

MLS is difficult to include with the other Big Four because of the salary structure of the league. We're talking about "markets being able to support teams when it comes to expansion..." it's apples and oranges.

Finding a new MLB market capable of supporting a team over 81 home games so they can have a $120 million payroll... that requires a market that can generate $300 million in revenue.

The entire MLS payroll is $287 million. Toronto FC has a payroll of $22.2 million. The Toronto Blue Jays 5-man pitching rotation makes $45.2 million. The entire MLS payroll is about $40 million more than the Yankees payroll.

As we talk about expansion markets and how many teams a city can support, a simple 1-1-1-1-1 addition of the five leagues makes little sense. It's really more like:
NFL = 1.25
MLB / NBA = 1
NHL = 0.75
MLS = 0.25

So finding a new MLS market capable of supporting their payroll is easy. MLS could expand to 72-96 teams if they wanted. And actually, it would be smart to do that, and then once some teams grow and others do not, add a tier for the big spenders above MLS (then repeat). But I digress.


The NBA should expand soon because the new arena in Seattle, a necessity for bringing the SuperSonics back, is finally coming to fruition (though it will retain the roof from the old one). The arena is primarily being built for the NHL team, but the NBA can use it too.

Thing is, the NBA won't just add Seattle because it would produce an odd number of teams which would create scheduling issues.

From a divisional alignment standpoint, it makes the most sense to give Vancouver a second chance as the 32nd franchise. A Vancouver team would likely be a fan-owned enterprise like the NFL's Green Bay Packers, ensuring the team's survival. Both Seattle and Vancouver would join the Northwest Division, causing Minnesota to move to the Central Division, and Oklahoma City to move to the Southwest Division, in both cases to be with geographically closer teams.

Ideally, to reduce travel costs, the NBA would adopt a schedule format where every team plays all the teams outside their division twice each (H/A), even those in the same conference. Teams in the Central and Southwest Divisions would play their division rivals 6 times each for a total of 30 games (+52 games against the rest of the league), and the remaining teams would play their division rivals 7 times each for a total of 28 games (+54 games against the rest of the league).

As for Major League Baseball, I think the next 2 teams should be in Charlotte and New Orleans.
The MLB would make some major changes to the divisional alignment under this proposal to add those cities to the league.
New South Divisions would be created in each league: Houston, Kansas City, New Orleans and Texas in the AL South, and Atlanta, Charlotte, Miami, and Tampa Bay in the NL South.
The Central Divisions would be renamed North Divisions.
Colorado would switch leagues as well, joining the AL West.
Pittsburgh would move back to the NL East.

Personally, I think the no brainers for the NBA are Seattle and Montreal. Unfortunately, that would keep Minnesota stuck in the Northwest.

As for baseball, New Orleans is a no go. They renovoated the Superdome and REMOVED the baseball press box. Their Triple A left due to lack of attendance.
Montreal is coming back to MLB relatively soon.

The other two candidates are really Nashville and Portland. I like Nashville as the choice.

I could do 10,000 words on this topic, but the main issue with MLB realignment when they go to 32 is the same issue the NHL has: 16 East / 16 West looks balanced, but that's when drawing an artificial line separating East/West through Indianapolis. FINANCIALLY, the line is in Nebraska. These leagues really have 8 West, 22 East.

Any model which puts the Central teams in the West is bad business and gets no votes from them. Which every Radical Realignment does East/West conferences puts the Central with the West. Keeping AL/NL and going to 8-team divisions does. Going to 4 divisions of 4 might not, but also increases the amount of non-division games, therefore increasing travel to everywhere, so that's worse too.

Except this:
WL: OAK, SF, LAD, LAA, SD, SEA, COL, ARZ
AL: BAL, NYY, BOS, TOR, CLE, DET, CWS, MIN,
NL: STL, CHC, MIL, PIT, CIN, NYM, PHI, Montreal
SL: WAS, ATL, MIA, TB, HOU, TEX, KC, Nashville

Everyone gets what they want.


My suspicion is that MLB will announce Montreal and their Team 32 before the NBA announces Seattle and their Team 32 (be it LV, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Virginia, or whatever), mainly because Manfred seems to be publicly receptive to the idea in a way Silver is not.

Yeah, Manfred basically talks about expansion every six months. It's going to happen. I just hope he doesn't fall for the stupidity of radical geographic realignment, which would be terrible for baseball. Also, I'm guessing NL pitchers never bat again.
 

No Fun Shogun

34-38-61-10-13-15
May 1, 2011
56,097
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Illinois
I agree with this, except for the "there's no way to fix the parity issue." There's adjustments that could be made, like remove cap exemptions for players who are coming in from other teams. They've had the "hometown exemption" for years -- It's so old, it's called the Larry Bird rule.

And minor nitpick, but expansion would grow the middle, period, because it has to. If you grow the league by 2 teams, the combined record of the league will increase by 82-82 and remain at .500. It has to, there's no other way.

But even if that's the case, it really doesn't matter. The new .500ish teams would still be also-played teams that everybody knows weren't actual title contenders and only contibute to the overall number of fanbases knowing entering a season to have to no real shot at wining.
 

Big Z Man 1990

Registered User
Jun 4, 2011
2,535
353
Don't say anything at all
MLS is difficult to include with the other Big Four because of the salary structure of the league. We're talking about "markets being able to support teams when it comes to expansion..." it's apples and oranges.

Finding a new MLB market capable of supporting a team over 81 home games so they can have a $120 million payroll... that requires a market that can generate $300 million in revenue.

The entire MLS payroll is $287 million. Toronto FC has a payroll of $22.2 million. The Toronto Blue Jays 5-man pitching rotation makes $45.2 million. The entire MLS payroll is about $40 million more than the Yankees payroll.

As we talk about expansion markets and how many teams a city can support, a simple 1-1-1-1-1 addition of the five leagues makes little sense. It's really more like:
NFL = 1.25
MLB / NBA = 1
NHL = 0.75
MLS = 0.25

So finding a new MLS market capable of supporting their payroll is easy. MLS could expand to 72-96 teams if they wanted. And actually, it would be smart to do that, and then once some teams grow and others do not, add a tier for the big spenders above MLS (then repeat). But I digress.




Personally, I think the no brainers for the NBA are Seattle and Montreal. Unfortunately, that would keep Minnesota stuck in the Northwest.

As for baseball, New Orleans is a no go. They renovoated the Superdome and REMOVED the baseball press box. Their Triple A left due to lack of attendance.
Montreal is coming back to MLB relatively soon.

The other two candidates are really Nashville and Portland. I like Nashville as the choice.

I could do 10,000 words on this topic, but the main issue with MLB realignment when they go to 32 is the same issue the NHL has: 16 East / 16 West looks balanced, but that's when drawing an artificial line separating East/West through Indianapolis. FINANCIALLY, the line is in Nebraska. These leagues really have 8 West, 22 East.

Any model which puts the Central teams in the West is bad business and gets no votes from them. Which every Radical Realignment does East/West conferences puts the Central with the West. Keeping AL/NL and going to 8-team divisions does. Going to 4 divisions of 4 might not, but also increases the amount of non-division games, therefore increasing travel to everywhere, so that's worse too.

Except this:
WL: OAK, SF, LAD, LAA, SD, SEA, COL, ARZ
AL: BAL, NYY, BOS, TOR, CLE, DET, CWS, MIN,
NL: STL, CHC, MIL, PIT, CIN, NYM, PHI, Montreal
SL: WAS, ATL, MIA, TB, HOU, TEX, KC, Nashville

Everyone gets what they want.




Yeah, Manfred basically talks about expansion every six months. It's going to happen. I just hope he doesn't fall for the stupidity of radical geographic realignment, which would be terrible for baseball. Also, I'm guessing NL pitchers never bat again.

Toronto won't allow Montreal in the NBA. They want Eastern Canada to themselves. They'd be fine with Vancouver though.
 

CHRDANHUTCH

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Mar 4, 2002
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Toronto won't allow Montreal in the NBA. They want Eastern Canada to themselves. They'd be fine with Vancouver though.
Vancouver won't happen unless it's the Aquiliini's and Orca Bay, aka the Canucks......AND that's been done and didn't work hence why Memphis, TN/Southhaven, MS... now has the Grizzlies, Z.
 

KevFu

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May 22, 2009
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Using a simple "population required" formula....

NFL: Riverside*, Montreal, San Diego, Austin, Virginia Beach, Toronto
MLB: Riverside*, Montreal, Austin, Virginia Beach, Providence*

NBA: Riverside*, Montreal, San Diego, Austin, Virginia Beach, Providence*, Los Angeles*, Louisville

NHL: Riverside*, Houston, Toronto*, San Diego, Austin, Quebec, Hamilton*, Virginia Beach, Providence*, Hartford, San Antonio, Atlanta, Rochester*

MLS: Riverside, San Diego, Virginia Beach, Providence, Richmond, Louisville, Hartford, San Antonio, Birmingham, Rochester, Tucson, Fresno, Tulsa, Omaha, Albuquerque, Baton Rouge, El Paso, Quebec, Hamilton, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Oklahoma City, Las Vegas, Phoenix

* - possible proximity issue
 
Last edited:

KevFu

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May 22, 2009
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Toronto won't allow Montreal in the NBA. They want Eastern Canada to themselves. They'd be fine with Vancouver though.

They don't have veto rights, they'd need to build a coalition. They could get Portland and Boston on board, I'm sure, but the NBA vote to add Seattle/Montreal would be like 27-3 to 25-5 (CLE, PHX would be on board based on the future alignment, probably).
 

CHRDANHUTCH

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Mar 4, 2002
35,232
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Using a simple "population required" formula....

NFL: Riverside*, Montreal, San Diego, Austin, Virginia Beach, Toronto
MLB: Riverside*, Montreal, Austin, Virginia Beach, Providence*

NBA: Riverside*, Montreal, San Diego, Austin, Virginia Beach, Providence*, Los Angeles, Louisville

NHL: Riverside*, Houston, Toronto*, San Diego, Austin, Quebec, Hamilton*, Virginia Beach, Providence*, Hartford, San Antonio, Atlanta, Rochester*

MLS: Riverside, San Diego, Virginia Beach, Providence, Richmond, Louisville, Hartford, San Antonio, Birmingham, Rochester, Tucson, Fresno, Tulsa, Omaha, Albuquerque, Baton Rouge, El Paso, Quebec, Hamilton, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Oklahoma City, Las Vegas, Phoenix

* - possible proximity issue
how many of those have existing franchises in existing leagues at the present time, Kev.....

Norfolk blocks any incursion into VA Beach..... Hartford is owned by the Rangers/MSG; San Antonio, not after how SSE sold off the Rampage..... Louisville is a power 5 school and hockey tried and failed miserably there under corrupt ownership, enough that Florida itself bailed on the market;

Atlanta.... again, the Gladiators and good luck convincing the Hawks to split dates at State Farm Arena again, after the Thrashers tenure....

as to the MLS piece: Providence/Hartford are served by the NE Revolution;

and that's just for starters
 

Big Z Man 1990

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Jun 4, 2011
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Don't say anything at all
Vancouver won't happen unless it's the Aquiliini's and Orca Bay, aka the Canucks......AND that's been done and didn't work hence why Memphis, TN/Southhaven, MS... now has the Grizzlies, Z.

Vancouver would be a fan-owned team under my proposal. That alone would keep the franchise in the city.

They don't have veto rights, they'd need to build a coalition. They could get Portland and Boston on board, I'm sure, but the NBA vote to add Seattle/Montreal would be like 27-3 to 25-5 (CLE, PHX would be on board based on the future alignment, probably).

Minnesota won't be on board with Montreal. They want to be in the Central Division. They will fight tooth and nail to make sure that the next two teams are in Seattle and Vancouver.
 

CHRDANHUTCH

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Mar 4, 2002
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Auburn, Maine
Vancouver would be a fan-owned team under my proposal. That alone would keep the franchise in the city.



Minnesota won't be on board with Montreal. They want to be in the Central Division. They will fight tooth and nail to make sure that the next two teams are in Seattle and Vancouver.
nope, good luck getting an arena lease, Z..... even for a prospective owner who's a fan-centric.....
 

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