Thanks for the work, I agree it is definitely working! Can’t wait for more merch.
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If only the city had a vision to have a car-optional connection from downtown to downtown south.
Extending Fayetteville Street to Downtown South and converting it to a walkable shopping street with very limited car use would make so much sense.
The city could leverage the car-centric Walnut Terrence property to build 4 times as much affordable housing via deals with development on the street. Wilmington Street “traffic”…what traffic?..could be shifted onto the highway connected Hammond Rd and MCDowell/401.
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Don’t get me started again about Walnut Terrace. Where’s my blood pressure meds?
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This is not true. Raleigh’s MSA isn’t the largest at all. It’s only larger than SLC’s. Its CSA is larger than Nashville’s, but smaller than both Portland and SLC. I wonder how they are describing the metro area to come up with that claim.
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So Charlotte is not considered a front runner? I dont see any way MLB doesn’t drop a team in NC, so if they are out of it that is very good news I’d say.
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Because we all know that it is ridiculous to say that Raleigh and Durham’s MSAs shouldn’t be combined. Even if not combined by the federal bureaucrats, MLB decision-makers should know that it is one region.
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They could be, but as of yet, no ownership group has come forward—a glaring need. Not to mention, they have several barriers that we don’t (current downtown MiLB stadium that can’t be expanded, Tepper owning FC Charlotte which would be competing for summer fan dollars, etc.).
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One interesting wrinkle here is that the A’s move to Las Vegas does not seem to be a done deal after all. The A’s have not secured funding for their stadium and the mayor of Las Vegas has just come out and said that their plan doesn’t really make sense.
There is also a fair amount of speculation that Oakland would be the frontrunner for a new team. This has happened before where a new team was added to a city that had lost one.
In fact, there have been 4 expansion teams that were created to replace a relocated team:
1961: Senators
1962: Mets
1969: Royals
1977: Mariners
And of course the Brewers were basically an expansion team in 1970 after they left Seattle. If Oakland can get a real owner and a good stadium deal, I’d think they’d be frontrunners. The issue is not the city, it’s the ownership group.
That would certainly shake things up, and basically eliminate Portland and Salt Lake from contention (since it makes no sense at all for MLB to add two western teams). I don’t think it would impact Raleigh’s chances at all though, since my assumption is that MLB wants a western team and a southeastern team.
But, if the move to Vegas is not secured, then the timeline for expansion will get pushed back.
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There may be historical examples, but I’d put the odds of Oakland getting another team to replace the As at near 0%. They’re about to lose their third major league team in the last decade, I don’t think anyone will run that back again.
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That’s a fair point, but I should clarify that I mean the Bay Area rather than the City of Oakland. The Warriors did not leave the Bay Area, but yes you’re absolutely right that teams may want to stay away from Oakland. The Bay Area is the 5th largest population center in the country and it’s almost as big as the other 4 “frontrunners” combined.
I would not be at all surprised if a group of tech billionaires decides to put in a bid. If that happens, they would certainly be formidable. It could end up in San Jose or some other city, but still in that market.
It’s kind of hard to judge against other cities because the other cities are trying to draw a new team, and Oakland is trying to keep one. Once it’s absolutely certain that the A’s are leaving, then there’s the chance that a new ownership group emerges and puts in a bid.
But, as I said, I don’t think this will matter for Raleigh’s chances. It’s basically between us, Nashville and (maybe) Charlotte for the other team.
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If there were a group of tech billionaires who wanted baseball in Oakland or the Bay Area, why wouldn’t they make a play to buy the A’s instead of letting the A’s move and then trying to get an expansion team?
I believe the A’s plan to move to Paradise — what most folks think of when they think of “Las Vegas.” That would be outside the LV mayor’s jurisdiction. Just my read on it.
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I just don’t see why SF needs another team across the bridge if they lose the current one
Few areas can support multiple teams in a single league. New York, Chicago, LA, and the DMV area are the only others that do. Dallas, Miami, Philadelphia, and others make do with 1 each. And sports mania has never been a strong point for the Bay Area. I can’t imagine MLB coming back to that well again anytime soon when/if the A’s finally leave.
I’m not saying that it shouldn’t be combined. It definitely should be. I am just saying that there isn’t any definition of metro area currently that makes the Triangle area larger than all of those other cities.
Here are MSA, CSA and UA numbers for all considered using latest 2022 estimates.
MSA:
Portland: 2.51M
Nashville: 2.05M
Raleigh: 1.48M
SLC: 1.27M
CSA:
Portland: 3.29M
SLC: 2.77M
Raleigh: 2.19M
Nashville: 2.18M
UA:
Portland: 2.10M
SLC: 1.18M (not including Ogden or Provo)
Nashville: 1.15 (not including Murfreesboro)
Raleigh: 1.07 (not including Durham)
Now, Raleigh and the Triangle can certainly claim the title of growth leader and project future population that positions it in better light in, say, 2030 and beyond, but it cannot really claim metro population leading all by any real metric today.
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Y’all have brought up several good points about my post. I do not know that any of them is sufficient to dissuade MLB from seriously looking at the bay area, but you’re totally right that it’s hardly a slam dunk. There are no certainties, otherwise this wouldn’t be very fun to speculate about.
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I can’t help but wonder if Charlotte isn’t already over extended on professional sports seats in their market. There’s but so many dollars to go around and there are LOTS of baseball games in a season. One could argue that the Triangle is over extended too because of the power 5 football and basketball seats that also need to be filled, but those seats are often filled with folks that cover a broader geography (especially football). For big 5 pro-sports now, and among all of the contenders, the Triangle market only has NHL seats to sell. Portland and SLC have both NBA and MLS seats to fill. Nashville has to sell NFL, NHL and MLS seats to fill.
The Triangle has lots of minor league seats to sell in soccer & baseball, but DBAP (for example) is but 1/4 the capacity of a typical MLB park, and the Wake Med park is only 10,000 seats as well.
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Raleigh/Durham Metro (Recombined)
You can read about it here…
https://mlbraleigh.com/the-data/
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That still doesn’t make the statements about the metro population true, and I already asserted that Raleigh can make a case for growing at a faster rate. I am well aware of the history of the MSA and CSA populations of the Triangle, and the way that it has hindered the perception of the Triangle in the past (can anyone say HQ2?).
I think that it’s completely valid to cast the net into the future to position Raleigh’s bid for MLB, but even then it will remain smaller than Portland and arguably SLC for some years to come.
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Wow Lou! This article crosses the T’s and dots the I’s on every aspect. Great Information Lou! Thanks
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