Salt Lake City ownership group led by former Jazz owner planning to pursue an MLB expansion team

[MMC]

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[MMC]

If the Rays and A's don't move to one of these markets, who would you guys predict, of the markets rumored to be putting MLB ownership groups together would win the bidding to make up the MLB's 32?

Portland
Nashville
Las Vegas
Charlotte
Montreal
Salt Lake City

 

[LadyStanley]

Group led by ex-Jazz owner Gail Miller wants to bring MLB expansion team to Salt Lake City

Big League Utah thinks Salt Lake City is the perfect place for an MLB expansion team.

sports.yahoo.com

Yahoo Sports take

 

[KevFu]

If the Rays and A's don't move to one of these markets, who would you guys predict, of the markets rumored to be putting MLB ownership groups together would win the bidding to make up the MLB's 32?

Portland
Nashville
Las Vegas
Charlotte
Montreal
Salt Lake City

If all bids were equal -- aka, each city had an ownership group with the money, and the stadium financing and the desire to put a good product on the field -- then it would be hands down Nashville and Montreal.

As it stands, Nashville has a SERIOUS bid, and the others (before today) don't. I think Nashville is definitely getting a team barring some unforeseen change.

- Portland has a large consortium for an ownership group, but their ballpark financing is suspect.
- Montreal has a potential owner, but the stadium plans are a giant question mark given the lack of government assistance compared to US cities.
- Charlotte is very grass roots and I haven't heard of who'd be paying the $2 billion in expansion fees.
- Vegas isn't getting an expansion team. An indoor stadium is double the price of an outdoor one, so their bid requires the most expense. Getting the As is half the price: $667m each for THREE parties, expansion is $1,333m for TWO parties.

- Salt Lake I think is now very much in contention for the spot because the Winter Olympics bid... this could be part of the bid, with the MLB stadium hosting the Opening/Closing ceremonies, or it isn't part of the GAMES, but is just folded into the FUNDING for the games.

 

[KevFu]

And from a pure baseball business standpoint, Nashville and Montreal make the most sense.

Toronto has all of Canada to themselves. They need another team.
Montreal needs a team back, because it's the second-biggest city in Canada and they got screwed over by Loria. MLB should make it right.

Atlanta has a massive size of the States to themselves, so it's definitely Nashville or Charlotte.

Cincinnati and St. Louis are far better suited to "lose territory" to an expansion team than Washington/Baltimore; since Baltimore is one of the smallest regions of "closest MLB team" by population and the Nationals are the "newest team" in baseball...

 

[nickp91]

MLB expansions would enable several minor league cities that lost teams during the cutbacks to get back into the game

 

[Big Z Man 1990]

SLC is one the cities I have proposed for my 48-team MLB decades after expanding from 32 to 40.

 

[MMC]

 

[GKJ]

SLC is one the cities I have proposed for my 48-team MLB decades after expanding from 32 to 40.

Good news, they’re trying to get in sooner than that because we’ll all be dead before they get to 40 teams much less 48

 

[MMC]

 

[MMC]

 

[PCSPounder]

- Portland has a large consortium for an ownership group, but their ballpark financing is suspect.

Which is another way of saying the ownership wannabes don’t have the $$. Why are you still taking them seriously?

Maury Brown noted that Dale Murphy just decamped from the MLB2PDX group and is joining the Salt Lake effort. Murphy, um, graduated from the same Portland high school that I did.

Another thing…current Salt Lake Bees owner announced he was leaving the current ballpark for a suburban development he’s building. So I strongly suspect that the Smith’s Ballpark site could be a second choice site if the initial plan fails… though more land would probably be required and that is a residential neighborhood beyond the outfield. Hence why it’s not the first choice.

 

[No Fun Shogun]

First new team that gets in there will find a lot of success in my book.

 

[MMC]

I thought SLC might be a good expansion city for the NHL, if the MLB beats them to it, do you think it would hurt their ability to support an NHL team, or do you think the region could easily support both (in addition to the Jazz, RSL, ETC)

 

[joestevens29]

I thought SLC might be a good expansion city for the NHL, if the MLB beats them to it, do you think it would hurt their ability to support an NHL team, or do you think the region could easily support both (in addition to the Jazz, RSL, ETC)

I don't know how much MLB really impacts NHL to be honest. There just isn't a lot of overlap, by the time baseball it's starting up you are in the stretch run of the regular season going into playoffs, so I can't see people really losing interest in hockey when Baseball starts.

 

[KevFu]

MLB expansions would enable several minor league cities that lost teams during the cutbacks to get back into the game

That was one of the largest mistakes MLB has made in recent years (second to the schedule this season and will probably be surpassed by Manfred's stupid plan for alignment once they expand...)

Had they waited to re-do the minor leagues until announcing expansion to 32 MLB teams... they could have unveiled a re-organization plan for EVERY LEVEL of baseball as "Four Leagues of Eight" and everything would have MADE PERFECT SENSE to the masses, instead of upsetting EVERYONE.

 

[KevFu]

So it turns out, that the Miller group (which owns the Triple A team) was working on a new stadium idea, and where they could build it. That led them to three thoughts:

#1 - It should be an an entertainment district, like Atlanta has with their new stadium.

#2 - It should be for a Major League Team, not a Triple A team.

#3 - The ideal spot for it would the Rocky Mountain Power District, but they didn't own the land.

At a lunch meeting, the Rocky Mountain Power folks said "So glad you called, we have this land, that's adjacent to downtown, the airport, public transportation... and we think there should be an entertainment district there. With a news sports venue there.... but we had an idea: What if instead of Triple A, it was for a Major League team"

The Millers’ big pitch: Inside Utah’s push for an MLB expansion team

Salt Lake City wants a major league baseball team. The Larry H. Miller Company has convened a group of potential investors to pursue local ownership of an expansion team.

www.yahoo.com

 

[MMC]

 

[KevFu]

I think that Salt Lake has jumped up to the #1 spot in terms of seriousness of bid, ahead of Nashville, which remains well ahead of everyone else.

Nashville was the most serious, but time is always a factor.

Like if TB/OAK got stadium deals done in the 2016-18 time frame, and MLB launched an expansion process right after that, we'd probably have Nashville and Montreal in the league right about now.

But momentum hasn't been going, and Nashville has some serious stadium fatigue going: MLS stadium, they spent money bring racing circuits to town, and the Titans' new $2 billion stadium in the works.

I'm beginning to wonder if it's gone from "Nashville and everyone else, we'll see if someone steps up" to "Salt Lake and everyone else, and we'll see if someone steps up."