Steve Malik should do this. You think I could press him on the podcast. Btw I decided not to show my face, nor interview my guests with my face.
Yeah I don’t see them above some of the already out-there/rumored cities like Portland, Las Vegas, or Nashville. Still I do agree with you having established names with deep pockets associated with a bid like this makes all the difference in the world. Something we know all too dearly here with the MLS and our bid.
Raleigh has to seriously work on its brand identity before anyone is going to see us as a viable market for expansion franchises. If we can’t do that, we will need to convince a team to relocate like happened with the Whalers/Canes.
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Raleigh would jump into contention pretty fast if Dundon or really any investor teamed up with the city/state to start making moves. This isn’t just my opinion, this is the opinion of both Wayne McDonnel Jr of Forbes and RJ Anderson of CBS Sports. Both of whom cover MLB expansion nationally for their publications. (I had personal conversation with both of them)
Portland has investors + celebs but doesn’t have a spot for a stadium.
Nashville has celebrities and a little money but needs larger investors + funding for a stadium (which might be hard seeing as they just committed a ton in increased taxes for an upgrade of the Titans stadium)
Charlotte doesn’t have investors nor do they have a current spot for a stadium. Plus they’d need to buy out and move the Knights.
Montreal and Las Vegas seem to be ready to roll, but I’m of the belief that MLB is targeting our east coast dead zone between DC and Atlanta. That could mean Nashville, Charlotte or … if we get things in order, Raleigh.
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Meanwhile, Raleigh has land adjacent to downtown, owned by our biggest developer, looking for an anchor for a district with a clean slate, zoned for a stadium, adjacent to I40 (connection to the rest of the Triangle) and on the future BRT line (i believe),
The only thing we don’t have is investors or the state’s backing (for now).
That said, the land/developer issues in a growing city seem to be the hardest things for these other expansion cities to get in order. Finding money isn’t the issue. I believe if/when the state/city get invovled, things change dramtically.
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I do agree with this, but as an interesting temperature check go to Reddit r/baseball and read the thread on the SLC news. A lot of people mention Raleigh as a better option and the people that are doubtful are usually because they don’t realize how big the metro is.
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Definitely agree with all of this. At the end of the day, MLB (and other major sports) want a group that has enough money and a stadium plan that can hit the ground running (to avoid an Oakland / Tampa situation). If tomorrow a Dundon-other billionaire backed group announced they wanted an expansion team going in Downtown South and they had the City / States support we would probably be a leading candidate to get a team. Same goes for the other cities mentioned. Like you said, I think Portland, Nashville, and Charlotte have more roadblocks to get it done than Raleigh.
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This is a major talking point that gets overlooked when talking about expansion. Sure these cities have a bigger brand name than Raleigh, and if you stop there then sure, Raleigh isn’t beating them out.
But when you dig into the pieces needed to get this done, and the cities that have those pieces in order, you start to see that Raleigh is shaping up to be a true contender.
Obviously, an investor with unlimited pockets who is completely tied to a city could overcome any of these things, but investors are always extremely rich people, and extremely rich people are where they are because they rarely let emotion or passion get in the way of profit.
Charlotte for instance is a bad deal because of the extra costs. $2 billion expansion fee, then you need to secure land for a stadium, then ask the state/city for more tax money for the stadium (that’s gonna be a fight), then you need to buy out the Knights and all along you’ll need to be doing this with Tepper likely standing in your way. (Realize he’s competing for that tax money for a new MLS stadium/Panthers stadium…plus MLS overlaps baseball MLB will have some sort of cannibalization effect on his newest investment).
So if you’re an investor and you want to bring a team to NC, do you want to deal with all that. Or do you want to walk over to Kane, make a proposal for a stadium to anchor his downtown south district (which is zoned for a stadium) and be walking into a win/win situation where you aren’t fighting uphill?
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Even as a soccer > baseball fan, I’d be okay with MLB moving forward with a stadium at Downtown South if it needed a ‘shovel-ready’ site. And pushing some future hypothetical soccer stadium to the old Cargill site.
The Twins stadium at ~700’ x 700’ fits perfectly.
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I don’t think it’ll happen anytime soon, but the best future site imo would be redeveloping the prison site into mixed use with a stadium as the centerpiece.
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Man, if you could connect DT South and Cargill with pedestrian bridges, and then rehab that warehouse district back there, this would be amazing. I believe James Goodnight owns those warehouses, no?
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I don’t think we need the city or state, Raleigh approved the rezoning and it goes straight ASR. I also don’t think the council can stop ASRs, and there no meetings.
We literally have treasury in front of us, and we not using it. When we figure that out MLB will come to Raleigh.
Steve Malik change your mind about MLB.
I don’t think we need the city or state, Raleigh approved the rezoning and it goes straight ASR. I also don’t think the council can stop ASRs, and there no meetings.
We literally have treasury in front of us, and we not using it. When we figure that out MLB will come to Raleigh.
Steve Malik become make a attempt and MLB to Raleigh.
Oh, you’ll need the city and the state.
You’ll need it for upfront infrastructure money, for one. There will have to be some sort of commitment to get investors/MLB to know for sure that they have a partnership in the state/city. Without that, we’re dead in the water.
No investor is going to put their money and reputation on the line, only to be stiff-armed by local & state politicians. That would be embarrassing, and the one thing a billionaire hates more than losing money is being publically embarrassed.
This needs to be a partnership for it to work, be it in Raleigh, Portland, or Nashville. The costs are so high to make this happen, that there needs to be some incentivization involved.
Personally, I’m not worried about government involvement. When the time is right I believe they’ll have a package of some sort. Will it be too late? Will it be enough? Those are the questions, but as far as does this make sense for NC and for Raleigh gov to want to be in the conversation, that’s a no-brainer.
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Well yeah the state might be tough, but one thing keeping us ahead is we zoned it. Now for Wake County or Raleigh is a slight easier.
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I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
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@ahops0428 I’ve long thought that SLC is underrated as an expansion candidate. Utah is growing faster than any state is and significantly richer than the average, and SLC is almost 400 miles away from the closest existing MLB franchise. The huge problem is that its TV market would essentially be limited to the state of Utah and one of the smallest in baseball. Sure, SLC’s market is bigger than Milwaukee’s, as the SLC group points out, but the Brewers turn on TVs all across Wisconsin. The Reds have Kentucky. etc. That said, I think it could still work.
@mike It’s always worth bearing in mind that Target Field has the smallest footprint in MLB at 10.5 acres large (including the portions that extend over surrounding roadways). A site that will just, just barely fit Target Field’s footprint, with literally zero on-site parking, not even for the team’s own use loading and unloading equipment, would almost certainly encounter insurmountable obstacles in practice. Some segment of the fan base is going to want to drive cars to the stadium and find parking conveniently nearby, especially in a city that currently has worse public transportation than probably any existing MLB city, and will almost certainly continue to for quite a while longer.
@Daniel Yeah, the prison site is not for sale at any price at any point soon, but the lack of ingress/egress points make it a non-starter. Every MLB stadium except Wrigley Field is within half a mile, usually a quarter of a mile, of at least one freeway exit. A lot of them are at the intersection of multiple freeways.
If there’s ever an MLB stadium in the Raleigh-Durham area, it will be built along I-40 and supported by parking lots. In other words, it will look extremely similar to PNC Arena. Cars, man. People love 'em!
@Loup20 This is a serious question, by the way: on the website, are you going to archive the Southern Gateway location under a “here’s what could have been” (not actually, but okay) type page now that there’s new construction breaking ground on this site?
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Only because this is entertaining and not to take it as a serious exercise, what are the site constraints for the other large Kane/Malik tract acquired for DT South south of 40, Wake County PIN 1702381400
Atlanta stadium fits too. Parking is easy, Downtown South has a crap ton of it.
I’m definitely biased, but someone posted the top Metros without a team:
- Orlando (#17)
- Sacramento (#20)
- Charlotte (#21)
- Portland (#22)
- Raleigh-Durham (#23)
- Indianapolis (#25)
- Nashville (#27)
- Salt Lake City (#29)
- San Antonio (#31)
- Columbus (#32)
So, looking at that list, I can’t see why Raleigh wouldn’t be considered. Florida already has teams. Portland has a lot of cross-contamination with Seattle teams. Sacramento is in the heavily-used California Market. Charlotte could piss off the Braves (pulling in a lot of South Carolina fans as well).
Downtown South would be an awesome location for this and is already earmarked for a stadium. I’d wonder what the actual odds would be that this could happen.
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