Author Topic: Can't the Nats get a AAA team closer to home? (YES! Rochester)  (Read 12703 times)

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Offline Elvir Ovcina

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Since the Nats lost Syracuse when the Mets bought the franchise, could the Nats buy another IL franchise? Rochester or Buffalo? How about Charlotte, which was the Old Senators' (Griffith) A franchise? They are a White Sox franchise now.

In theory, sure.  But you'd need to convince the owners to sell.  Rochester is community-owned, and they likely wouldn't sell because of fears the Nats would move the team (Syracuse had similar concerns, which is why it is likely the Mets were able to buy them but the Nats might not have had the same chance). 

Buffalo is owned by the Rich family, which used to own the Bills.  Their stadium lease is up this year, so it's a theoretical possibility, but there doesn't seem to be any chatter that the team is for sale.   Charlotte is also owned by an individual, and they have the best attendance of any minor league team anywhere and a long lease in a nearly-new downtown stadium; it's unlikely they'd be for sale at any price the Nats would consider. 

I’d like to see them buy and Indy team and compete there- it would be a fun test for the anti trust exemption

I'm not sure you'd get far enough for the antitrust exemption to play into things at all.  The problem for that would be assigning players to the independent league teams - the league agreements for those leagues don't allow players to be on contracts affiliated with a major league organization.  Nothing would prevent them from buying such a club, however.