Yup. MLB Spring Training is one of the most fun traditions and group trips there is. No sense in breaking that up.
Baseball is the best sport to be an athlete because they get to “Winter” in Florida and play in a park all Summer.
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Part of MLB Raleigh’s uphill battle was educating people on the makeup of the Triangle. It’s unique in that it has 3 population hubs within a single commuter belt, and honestly those 3 hubs are starting to meld together with all the growth between them.
But how do you get into that type of nuanced detail with people who are only casual observers or just trying to pump out a hot take without being bothered with the underlying facts?
For those trying to have the conversation in good faith, we have an entire section on the site, but we need to start framing stuff in terms of density per square mile. This is the only decent way to compare one market to another (in terms of population).
Triangle CSA - 5,510 square miles
KC Metro Area - 7,256 square miles
Cincinnati CSA - 4,814 square miles
Pittsburgh Metro Area - 5,281 square miles
Milwaukee-Racine CSA - 3,775 square miles
I honestly believe, after talking to people involved in covering and following these things, that people only discount Raleigh because they aren’t aware of this information. And if you assume big-money investors outside of the area are fully aware of all this, it’s my opinion that you’d be mistaken. Sure the one’s stalking location to bring a team might be aware and MLB themselves may be aware, but again, unless you really have incentive to dig in, you probably don’t have the full picture.
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We look good as a tv market (#23), larger than St, Louis, Nashville, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, KC, St. Louis. And GDP wise we are in that same tier but growing faster. Those are our peers as a region.
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Essentially if Raleigh-Cary needs to merge with Durham-Chapel Hill MSA. That had us rising in metrics.
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As an extremely pale person, this sounds miserable. 
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Then flip it around and play in the park all Winter and go to Florida in the Summer for the rain and the air conditioning!
This is the one aspect where I’m actually fine with being branded to the rest of the country as Raleigh-Durham. Someone who isn’t familiar with the region and assumes Raleigh is the only city in our metro is going to see a stat like this and assume we’re a much smaller market than we actually are:
I mean, I do like some form of distinction between Raleigh and Durham; the two cities are very different from one another, and I like the idea of Raleigh having its own identity/brand (we kind of need to catch up to Durham in that regard). That said, I ultimately believe that we’re much better together than we are separate, and I don’t even think we’d be having this conversation if Raleigh didn’t have Durham. I’d even go as far as to say that there’s a decent chance a Durham-less Raleigh would have ended up being one of those tiny state capitals that no one has heard of, like Augusta or Jefferson City.
Sibling rivalries are fun and good, but, unless Raleigh’s population growth starts significantly outpacing Durham’s (not likely), we need outsiders to know that these two cities, in many ways, operate as a single socio-economic organism. We probably all know numerous people who commute from one to the other on a daily basis. And, frankly, most people who move to the Triangle from out-of-state are doing so for the opportunities that the region has to offer, not specifically Raleigh or Durham.
On a related but slightly-off-topic note, at what point do we start bringing up Cary in conversations about Triangle population hubs? It’s the seventh largest municipality in North Carolina, larger than Wilmington, Asheville, and (perhaps most importantly) Chapel Hill. I know it’s been “just a suburb” for most of its existence, but reinvestment over the past decade is turning downtown Cary into a bit of a destination, at least for folks who live in neighboring towns. On top of that, it’s the only Triangle suburb with its own train station and transit system, it’s about to open what will likely be one of the best downtown parks in the region, and it’s starting to toy with density in a few different areas. Can’t really think of any other Triangle suburb that can currently make all of those claims.
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It’s not Raleigh’s city population that is holding us back perception-wise. Atlanta, Minneapolis, Tampa all have relatively small city populations. Until such time as the MSA is rejoined, Raleigh will continually have a perception problem.
Case in point, every news article about the Amazon HQ2 mentioned Raleigh being the smallest metro chosen among the 20 finalists. Even though it was a Triangle bid and the Triangle was and is bigger than Nashville’s CSA. But perception is reality in some ways, and the Triangle is living in an MSA-defined world.
As far as Cary, I think people started treating them semi-seriously as a hub when the MSA was named Raleigh-Cary. Since then it has been renamed simply the Raleigh MSA, but Cary has only intensified it’s position as a major work-live-play destination in its own right, and in some ways has outgrown its suburban roots. Not in all ways though they are trying to rectify. Being 10 miles or so from downtown Raleigh likely means it will always have trouble forming an identity like Durham or Wilmington or what have you, but it will continue transforming and growing.
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Raleigh’s growth has already outpaced Durham’s over the last several decades. It’s not something that we need to speculate whether or not it could happen; it already has. Some might not know this but Durham and Raleigh were very similar in size in mid 20th Century. In fact, Durham was larger than Raleigh as late as the 1950 Census. Starting with the 1960 Census, Raleigh eclipsed Durham and has never looked back.
As others have already weighed-in, the problem that the Triangle has is at the MSA level. The initial damage was done to the Triangle when it split into two MSAs and neither side came out of it over a million people. I specifically remember Durham boosters celebrating getting their own MSA with a narrative that they thought would prove that they were the rightful owners of the Triangle’s success.
That split was a huge setback to the Triangle’s visibility. Of course, and since then, the Raleigh side has been on a torrid growth pace by growing from about 800,000 in the early 2000s to nearly 1.5 million today. Still, that metric isn’t enough to get the looks nationally that most of us want to see for a new franchise or relocation to the area. 2M at the MSA level seems to be bare minimum these days. A recombined 2.2M MSA could do wonders.
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And right now as I’ve said it looks like the Feds will recombine us. I don’t know if there has to be approval or they have final say. Hopefully someone can answer my question on that? But I think Durham officials probably didn’t have a say in that split, but it hasn’t worked out for them. I think when the merger happens we will hit 2.2 million that’ll stand up our viability. So maybe right now we should campaign for remerger again don’t know if Feds ask for input.
This will also raise out chances of MLS coming here becasue of there league not being a top four we can separate ourselves.
Looks like the A’s finally moving to Las Vegas took a huge step forward.
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Just gotta wait on the Rays now to get their situation figured out and then expansion talk will be heating up.
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Raleigh Rays… Carolina Rays… hmm 
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It won’t happen, but honestly Rays moving to Raleigh would be the best possible outcome. They are well run. Plus the Bulls are the AAA team for them already.
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NY Times reporting the move deal is done and it will all be wrapped up by 2027.
Guess I’m in the market for a new MLB team. This hurts.
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Might as well be a Braves fan since we have Olson and Murphy anyway.
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Yep the ESPN article is saying the same thing. Wonder where they’re going to play between the 2025-2027 seasons though? The article mentions their lease at the Oakland Coliseum is up in 2024 and the Oakland mayor doesn’t sound very friendly in their response in the article.
Here’s some of the details about the proposed stadium they’re building:
The agreement is for a 49-acre site owned by Red Rock Resorts, the parent company of Station Casinos.
Kaval told the Las Vegas Review-Journal a $1.5 billion, 35,000-seat stadium with a partially retractable roof would be built on the site, adding that other developments, including restaurants and an amphitheater, are being discussed.
The A’s will work with Nevada and Clark County on a public-private partnership to fund the stadium. Kaval said the A’s hope to break ground by next year and would hope to be moved into their new home by 2027.
According to the Review-Journal, the purchase agreement is for the land only, and the A’s have an option to purchase an additional eight acres at a later date. The site is about a mile north of Allegiant Stadium, where the Las Vegas Raiders play, and about a mile west of T-Mobile Arena, where the Vegas Golden Knights play.
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I imagine they will try to work something out to play in the minor league stadium in Vegas. I’d be shocked if they stayed in Oakland past this year. Their attendance might be in the hundreds after this official announcement.
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Yep that makes the most sense, I’m sure they’ll logistically figure it out with the Triple A team.
Also, just read this article on the A’s attendance. It was already comically low, basically 6% of the Oakland Coliseum, before this announcement. The Triple A team in Oakland was outdrawing them. I’m with you, I can imagine there’ll be even less people coming to these games now. Especially during the dog days of summer.
A’s Abysmal Fan Attendance Already Approaching Record Lows - Sports Illustrated
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