MLB Expansion

[KnorrForYourMoney]

Portland has the largest TV market in the US without a major league team. Seattle would fight it though.

Not sure.  I watch Mariners games here and there (favorite AL team), and they don't put that much emphasis on their Oregon/PDX footprint.  They specifically have a segment where they give shoutouts to their fans and provide the name and hometown of some fan who gave them a Twitter mention, and it feels like they acknowledge their fans in Alaska just as much if not more than the Oregon folks.  Maybe it's because their ownership is seeing the writing on the wall in terms of the inevitability of a Portland team.

In any event, it feels very different from when I grew up watching the AngelOs on HTS and they did a lot of promotion in the DC area.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

I wonder about the wealth of the markets and how that fits in in addition to the TV market.  For example, if a team were to locate in Austin or San Antonio, would the population of San Antonio matter more than the wealth of Austin as a tech center?

[Dave in Fairfax]

I don't know how much of a factor it is in gauging the depth of baseball interest in a particular city, but the Portland Sea Dogs are 20th in MILB attendance, which is good for an AA club, but doesn't necessarily point to a deep interest in baseball in Portland.

Among teams in larger markets, the Nashville Sounds are 4th in attendance (29th largest TV market), the Indianapolis Indians are 5th (27th largest TV market), the Charlotte Knights are 7th  (22nd largest TV market) and the Las Vegas Aviators are 9th (40th largest TV market).

[Kevrock]

Or they’d use the MASN precedent to claim the team’s media rights

No way MLB allows this disaster another time.

They also shouldn't expand until they can settle the market issues with their last new team.

[HalfSmokes]

If media market rights didn't matter, I'd think that North Jersey and Westchester country would be able to support teams better than any of the candidates

[JCA-CrystalCity]

I don't know how much of a factor it is in gauging the depth of baseball interest in a particular city, but the Portland Sea Dogs are 20th in MILB attendance, which is good for an AA club, but doesn't necessarily point to a deep interest in baseball in Portland.

Wrong Portland. Sea Dogs are in Maine and a Red Sox affiliate

[Natsinpwc]

Dayton Dragons are number one in MILB attendance and have sold out all their games for years. They should obviously be the next MLB expansion team.

[Five Banners]

Wrong Portland. Sea Dogs are in Maine and a Red Sox affiliate

I recall looking at the Portland AAA numbers back in the pre-relocation days, and the Portland AA team in Maine would sometimes outdraw them

[English Natsie]

My sense of rooting for the underdog leads me to wish that the game could go truly national, and locate a team somewhere like Montana or the Dakotas...

(as I type, there's 133 guests on the board!)

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Something goofy with the counts the past week. There have been > 1000 on line several days

[Natsinpwc]

Something goofy with the counts the past week. There have been > 1000 on line several days

Makes sense to me with all the stimulating conversation we provide.

[dracnal]

Something goofy with the counts the past week. There have been > 1000 on line several days

We had the most online ever a couple days ago. I doubt it's a spurious count. I'm guessing there's a new botnet, or at least a new data scraping technique, and they're just getting what info they can off the web server.

[imref]

It must be all the interest in the Robles arbitration battle.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

I watch the post count. I like to see 50+ daily in the offseason now. That's close to the average the past 3 years, uncensored & politics excluded

[HalfSmokes]

I’d assume it will expand when sales rumors start. The nats subreddit is pretty dead too

[JCA-CrystalCity]

I’d assume it will expand when sales rumors start. The nats subreddit is pretty dead too

we are off about 70% from 2017, our pre covid low

[Slateman]

Something goofy with the counts the past week. There have been > 1000 on line several days

Just me with my ghost accounts

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Slateman, slatedog, slatewoman, slatemountainbike, slategym, ...

[Slateman]

Slateman, slatedog, slatewoman, slatemountainbike, slategym, ...

Slatebeing, the non-binary alterego.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Slatebeing, the non-binary alterego.

then there's Slatex, who's banned in Arkansas

[Slateman]

then there's Slatex, who's banned in Arkansas

Really that was just a misunderstanding at the zoo and I'm only banned through 2025

[Natsinpwc]

Really that was just a misunderstanding at the zoo and I'm only banned through 2025

Do we have to call you by plural pronouns?

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Do we have to call you by plural pronouns?

like yunz?

[KnorrForYourMoney]

I wonder about the wealth of the markets and how that fits in in addition to the TV market.  For example, if a team were to locate in Austin or San Antonio, would the population of San Antonio matter more than the wealth of Austin as a tech center?

From an on-the-ground perspective having lived in this area a while, I feel like both markets would be kind of weak for MLB.

Austin is too full of tech bro transients who either don't care about sports or already have some loyalty toward whatever team they grew up with.  San Antonio is just apathetic toward baseball.

I could see either market just barely holding down a team, but it would be a lot like DC/Tampa/Miami in that there would be major problems with cultivating a decent fanbase that reliably attends games in both good and bad times (and against non-big ticket opponents).

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Thanks. I sort of wondered why the areas weren't brought up as much as smaller and less wealthy areas. SA isn't wealthy, but it's top 10 in population I think, and Austin has had UT's baseball for years.