Okay, let’s say for the sake of argument that they would have something to say when the time came, and that something is that they would prefer that there not be a team in Charlotte.
Okay. So now what? They can certainly vote no if they want to. But I’m not seeing how the Braves’ feelings about this would be any kind of an issue. Clearly, Rob Manfred, who is very well positioned to know these things, doesn’t think it’s going to be any sort of an issue.
You seem to be digging down deep on this Charlotte conjecture and I’m really unsure why.
This is going to be a very slowly developing story, so there’s going to be a lot of time to dig down deeply into every possible facet of this over the next decade. But Charlotte is the only candidate city that would be in direct competition with Raleigh, so it’s certainly the one that would merit the most analysis. I mean, I could absolutely and enthusiastically do a deep dive on any one of the frequently discussed candidate cities, but I feel like that would be getting pretty far beyond the purpose of this website.
Again, while one club cannot unilaterally block an expansion/relocation bid, it can certainly make things messy. Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos’ fought the Expos’ relocation to Washington, resulting in the creation of MASN—a network created with Baltimore getting a majority stake to indemnify the O’s. This, in turn, created more problems down the road with the Nationals fighting for a greater share of that money. So, while the Washington Nationals did in fact become a reality over his objections, it wasn’t easy.
As for Manfred, it’s impossible—even for him—to know exactly what the Braves would do in 2028 about the prospects of MLB in Charlotte. There are too many variables, too many dominoes to fall in the next 8 years to know what the expansion/relocation landscape looks like then. Perhaps, given (hypothetically) equally strong bids from Raleigh, Charlotte, and heck, let’s throw in Nashville, Braves ownership persuades enough club owners to approve Raleigh’s bid over the others? Who knows?
It’s still a valid concern for Charlotte’s—and even Nashville’s—MLB prospects that I think is less of a concern for ours.
I don’t think the situation with Baltimore is remotely analogous. Washington D.C. is much closer to Baltimore than Charlotte is to Atlanta and a very significant portion of the Orioles fan base was in and around D.C., Peter Angelos (who made his money as a trial lawyer) took an extremely aggressive negotiating posture, there were legitimate concerns about whether you could have franchises in both Baltimore and D.C. and have them both be viable, and there were no expansion fees to dole out to smooth everything over. And, even after all that, the team still moved to D.C. anyway.
Rob Manfred is just a very highly paid employee of the owners. (The relationship is highly analogous to a CEO and a corporate board.) There are only 30 teams, so he’s in close contact with every one of them, and expansion is one of the most important items on MLB’s agenda. It’s just not conceivable that Manfred would be in the dark about how teams would react to a particular proposal. He’s literally the best-informed person on the entire planet on this topic. When you ask “Who knows?”, the correct answer to that question is, in fact, almost certainly going to be, “Rob Manfred knows, that’s who.” It seems kind of unlikely that he would be wrong about this, and, conveniently enough, wrong in a way that would just so happen to coincide with the way that we would prefer the reality to be.
Edit: Also, the Nationals and the Orioles would no doubt prefer a Charlotte location to a Raleigh location. So I’m really not sure how one team (the Braves) would be able to persuade the rest of the owners to make a change in course that two other teams would oppose on similar grounds.
I doubt the Nationals even know we are here. I can tell you we don’t know them.
I’ve actually met a few Nationals fans here. (They all seemed to come out of the woodwork this October. I can’t imagine why.) Every single one of them had moved to this area from the D.C. area. I don’t imagine that the Nats or Orioles would be concerned about Raleigh itself, but might have some concerns about how a Raleigh-based team might compete with them on the margins in southern Virginia. At a minimum, from their perspective, putting a team in Charlotte as opposed to Raleigh is nothing but upside, so I’m sure that would be their preference, if it ever came down to a binary choice (which is actually not that likely, honestly).
I guess circling back to my original question. You are spending a lot of time on hypotheticals, which is fine such as it is. But all your hypotheticals, and even hypotheticals inside your hypotheticals, have nary a dent of sunshine. Dream a little happier.
[Heavy sigh] This is exhausting, so I’ll try once more to restate. My original remark, quoted above, was a comparative one. I simply made the case that Atlanta would likely have more of an issue with a supposed Charlotte franchise than one in Raleigh, as evidenced by their overtures to cultivate it as a fanbase. We just don’t see much outreach here from the Nats/O’s.
As for the “who knows” comment, Manfred knows a lot, but he doesn’t know what he can’t possibly know. (I suddenly feel like VP Cheney). Neither Charlotte nor Raleigh currently have potential ownership groups. In the next 8 years, does that happen? We’ll have to wait and see. That was my point there: that there are certain things—like the emergence of an unforeseen bid from an up-and-coming market, ahem—that can’t possibly be known by anyone.
Yeah, it’s all hypothetical at the moment. None of this is to say that Charlotte is definitely getting a franchise or Raleigh isn’t. I could easily see a Charlotte bid getting tripped up over a lack of a viable ownership group or an inability to put a stadium deal in place. (But I can’t see it getting tripped up because the Braves have an issue with it.) And if Charlotte can’t put a viable bid together, that opens the door wide open for the Triangle to compete for a team.
As we’ve acknowledged from the beginning, on the handful of occasions when Manfred (who speaks for the owners) has discussed expansion locations, he’s always mentioned Charlotte, and never once mentioned Raleigh, or even the more generic “North Carolina.” I’d be really, really curious to know what the reason for that is. But clearly there’s a reason, and I’m really, really skeptical that a lack of awareness of the region is the reason, because this is something that’s clearly been thought about a lot. For instance, @wmgadd called Vancouver an unlikely choice, and for stadium-related reasons, it probably is unlikely that you’d ever get a team placed there, but I don’t think Manfred was just randomly spouting off cities. I think MLB probably has access to a wealth of data that indicates that Vancouver would be a very viable market, and its inclusion suggests that MLB is thinking very seriously about this and looking at a wide range of possibilities. (Las Vegas is the one that’s the real head-scratcher to me, although even there I can certainly understand why it would be an appealing idea.)
I would love to know what MLB sees when it looks at the data for this region. I’d have to think they’ve looked into it seriously. I have my guesses, and you’ve seen some of there here, but I’d love to see what they’re seeing and really dive into it.
Circling back to comment on that USA Today article that was run, titled “21 cities that could possibly get an MLB team.”
If you didn’t end up reading it, while it was short on any real data or information we haven’t heard, they had Raleigh/Durham 5th overall. They started the section on Raleigh with…
Perhaps if there’s too much reconfiguring needed to make the MLB work in Charlotte, then the Raleigh/Durham area would be a solid fit. In fact, it might be the best fit.
Now again, this is far from an in-depth look at the potential markets, but at this point, it’s more chipping away at the notion that our region should be in the mix and the nation should be aware. This was a large hurdle in the ‘MLB Raleigh’ Phase 1 initiative.
For years MLB in Raleigh/Triangle was a non-starter thanks to myths and lack of real statistical analysis. Today you have Forbes, CBS, NBC, USA Today recognizing the region as a player (if investment were to get involved). While most noted the fact that there would be numerous dominoes that would need to fall for it to happen, none of them shut it down. In fact, the fact that these publications actually took the time to look into our potential market and then go to print with it, at least says something.
This is a long game with a lot of factors involved. However, just 8 1/2 months in, Raleigh has gone from a complete afterthought, to at least a worthy mention. Still lots of work to be done…
Very cool and good to get talked about in the same breath as serious expansion candidates like … [clicks link] … Birmingham, Alabama … and Albuquerque, New Mexico. Granted, we (well, “Raleigh/Durham”) at least finished ahead of those cities, but this whole list made me lol.
By the way, lest people think I am being negative about absolutely everything, the Triangle would be a way better candidate than Las Vegas, which this … random dude? … has ranked No. 2 overall on his list. (You can’t make any money broadcasting to places with nothing but cattle and cacti.)
I purposefully added these statements specifically to be CLEAR that it should be understood that this is not some data-rich, insider list of cities. However, you just had to take that sarcastic swipe anyways. Obviously, I’m not surprised.
Here is the thing. You are following this very closely. A few scrolls up shows how much of your daily time you’re willing to use talking about MLB in Raleigh. Whether you know it or not, that is a net positive for the movement (even though a lot of your comments are snarky swipes.)
Had MLB Raleigh never launched you’d be knee-deep in transit talk, MLS talk, etc. Instead, you’re here having a conversation about baseball in Raleigh. And while you’d be doing a heck of a lot more to HELP our city if you used your time, education and research skills on figuring out ways to take action and make something happen (you’ve said numerous times you support pro sports in Raleigh), we still thank you for never failing to keep the conversation fresh.
It might be a random dude saying these things, but this random dude happens to have the megaphone of USA today. I think we’ve all seen things be spoken into existence, so I would say that the simple existence of the article is a positive for raleigh.
random dude that gets paid for click bait articles, hence the slide show (i.e. a ton of new ads every time you click Next). Don’t support this type of “journalism”
I do like talking about baseball, it’s true! (Although I greatly enjoy being knee-deep in transit talk, just in case there was any confusion on that point. Transit talk is fun!) And, hey, it’s going to be a slow news decade on this front, so flagging stuff like the WaPo story on the Rays that mentioned Raleigh is probably the only thing that’s going to keep this thread from going dormant for months at a time.
By the way, (also @JoeZ), I flagged the news story from the WaPo with no snark at all because when the Washington Post mentions your bid, even in passing, that’s noteworthy. The random dude’s blog post, though, was just ill-informed drivel. Also, this isn’t USA Today (which my employer owns now), this is just an ancillary blog that, weirdly enough, is focused on the NFL. (But that does remind me that I need to talk to my publisher about how I can leverage the real USA Today for the benefit of my own newspaper.)
Again, I’m deeply conflicted about this whole thing because, yes, I love baseball, and having a team right in my own backyard would be very cool for me personally. And obviously, everybody knows why I am nevertheless against doing the things that would be absolutely necessary to make this a reality, and there’s no point in flogging that horse today. Honestly, I’m dreading this thing ever becoming a real ask for huge subsidies because it’s not going to be fun for me to dig in my heels opposing that.
But that ambivalence, I think, also helps me look at this thing fairly objectively. The Triangle (not “Raleigh,” per se, but the Triangle region) is rapidly reaching the point where an MLB team is or would be viable here. And if MLB were just handing them out to every ownership that could build a stadium and write a check for expansion fees, the way MLS is, honestly, Raleigh could almost certainly get one. But there are, at most, two more seats left to add to the table, and right now, there are many more strong candidate cities for a team than there are seats at the table, and that’s just sort of where things stand at the moment.
As editor-in-chief of a media group, I’m honestly surprised at how you view digital content and public opinion. Today’s content delivery, like it or not, is heavily dictated by social media. So source, again- like it or not, falls a lot lower in the hierarchy in the sharability of content than it used to. So, as I noted in my initial post, this isn’t some data-rich, insider list of cities, but it is a blogger/journalist employed by an extremely recognizable publication putting our city as a potential landing spot for MLB. And remember, with expansion/reclocation 6-8 years out, spreading the word and starting the conversation is really the only proactive thing the community can do at this point. That’s why any article with large reach mentioning our region is a win and worthy of sharing (esp in a forum with a thread ABOUT MLB in the Triangle.
I guess my confusion is, if you would personally like a baseball team in your own backyard (as you say)…
… why are you always chomping at the bit to tear down the source or point out the “why it’s not likely to happen.” ?
As someone in media that wields the power to create conversation or expand thinking, why sit on a forum and spend large amounts of time discussing hypotheticals and picking apart nuances?
Why not take a stand and write the article that Raleigh needs to read. Not the lazy “Here’s why it WON’T happen.” but the article that starts with an opinion that you yourself believe…
Start there, and instead of immediately dismissing the odds (because as we all know, they are long shot odds at this point.) Focus on the path forward. What should Raleigh be focusing on? What have we, as a community, accomplished over the past 8 months and what are the checkboxes we need to check in order to make it a reality. Why not talk about stadium funding alternatives that other cities have used and hit on options that Raleigh can look at to make this happen without putting it on the back of the taxpayer?
Why not take leadership in these conversations? As a Raleigh citizen who ‘loves baseball’, why continue to take the easy road, criticizing articles, criticizing the process you THINK will take place? And why not position the conversation as “Sure, it’s a long shot, but it’s possible to do it right. Here are some options on how Raleigh can put itself in a position to be a major contender.”
Obviously it’s your prerogative to do with your time what you please, but my question is, if you really do care about Raleigh and some part of you does want an MLB team, why not use your time and talents to educate people on the steps we should be taking to make that happen, instead of spending hours trying to deconstruct the positivity and outside the box thinking that it would take to get this done?
I mean, I’m a Phillies fan, and I would love for them to win the World Series next year, but if someone asked me, “Hey, man, you think the Phillies are going to win the World Series next year?” my answer, candidly, would be “probably not.” There are a lot of reasons for that, but mostly it’s because there are 30 teams and only one of them gets the trophy. For similar reasons, an MLB in Raleigh certainly could happen, but probably won’t, just like the Phillies probably won’t win the World Series this year, which is not to say that I am rooting against either of those things to happen, but just that my temperament is such that I try to come into these things with realistic expectations.
Improving public transit. Right now, the only feasible model for the Triangle would be to put a stadium next to I-40 and surround it with parking lots, which is nobody’s preferred model. Any other model would require a quantum leap in our public transit capabilities, but, conveniently, that’s a thing that would be very much worth doing even if we never get a team. Most of the other things that would improve Raleigh’s profile are also just the very simple things that we should be doing anyway like strengthening the local economy and making it easier for people to move here and in particular move closer to the urban core. Ultimately, pro sports teams (like most businesses!) want to be in places that have lots of potential customers that have lots of money to spend. It’s slow, not especially exciting work, but it’s crucially important, and also hugely helpful whether a team comes or not.
I don’t want to get into a long tangent about journalistic standards, but FWIW, I thought the CBS Sports story that I flagged above (also in a very non-snarky way) was very thoughtful and well written and helped cast Raleigh in a very positive light. But most of the internet clickbait written about pro sports expansion is just absolutely terrible, and that is a hill I’m prepared to die on.
PS. For the record, two posts back you tried to distract bias by talking positively about the Triangle’s MLB chances as opposed to Las Vegas’. Then turned and used that comment to swipe, once again, at credibility of this blogger/‘random dude’. However he may, perhaps, be a little more informed than you are on this list. Vegas is most definitely a major player in expansion and one Manfred has spoken about numerous times.
Here’s the quote from Manfred: “In a recent meeting with the mayor of Oakland, I did mention Las Vegas in the context of pointing out that the A’s might have to relocate if a new stadium can’t be built in Oakland,” Manfred told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “There is, however, no plan to move to Las Vegas.”
The Las Vegas thing might have been a dig in this particular context: The Oakland Raiders are in the process of moving to Las Vegas, so “Look, if we don’t get a stadium built, maybe the A’s will just have to move to Las Vegas, too,” would make sense as a bit of nose-tweaking.
But, yeah, Las Vegas was also one of the six cities on the famous First Things First list, so it’s come up. As I’ve said before, I would love to have a way to get Rob’s unguarded thoughts about why he appears to not have Raleigh at the top of his mind and know what the reasons are for that. Similarly, I’d be really, really curious to hear why Las Vegas’s name got thrown out there. My guess is that 1. MLB saw the massive stadium subsidies thrown at the Raiders and would like to get some of that themselves and 2. Having a team in America’s gambling mecca, which for so long was unthinkable, has now become desirable. Since I can’t read minds, those are just educated guesses. But Las Vegas doesn’t seem like an especially attractive market for MLB’s core business model of providing baseball-related entertainment.
But, yeah, it would be absolutely fascinating to see the data MLB has and fully understand what factors they’re weighing most heavily.
