Patriots went to Foxborough because they needed land and there was none to be had reasonably in Boston.
How about a 30 minute train ride? If we had a 300 km/h (190 MPH) high speed train train it will take about 30 minutes from Greensboro to Raleigh.
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We can’t even get a 30mph commuter rail between Durham and Raleigh.
Putting a tier one professional sports team in Mebane is about as likely as Amazon putting HQ2 in Rocky Mount.
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It could work for football, where the travel and tailgating is part of this 8-times-a-year experience (aka Foxboro and every college town). But baseball and its 160 games? Forget about it.
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Look first of all, this is a distant hypothetical, admittedly not realistic anytime soon. And I’m not even advocating for this to happen – it’s a nightmare scenario based on bad development policies continuing amuck. But…Chapel Hill to the Greensboro 840 Beltway is only 40 miles. True, nobody in Raleigh is going to Winston for a game, but that’s not on the table, we’re talking about the midpoint between two sprawling regions with dispersed populations. Once construction finishes, we will have an overbuilt 8-lane expressway connecting the two regions. Alamance is champing at the bit to leech from the surrounding markets.
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I’m saying the midpoint (Alamance) is ridiculous. No one would go. And your comparison is not even close to applicable here. Just a absurd idea and not even worth debating.
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That makes no sense to put Raleigh team there since there no connection transportation wise. Just because they did there doesn’t necessarily mean its that possible here.
Okay I give up. This was presented from the start as an imaginary “what-if” scenario, not something that will or should happen. Speculative futures have an important place in urban planning so that kind of thinking is not out of place here. For those who prefer a more literal take: Alamance is poised to position itself as a new pole of attraction, splitting the difference between the Triangle and Triad, so long as this rapidly growing megaregion of 4 million continues to converge on its midpoint and fails to provide amenities commensurate with its size. Something between a Buc-ees and an MLB stadium. Maybe a music venue or a theme park.
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Mebane, NFW.
Back in the 90s there was a semi legitimate plan to move the Twins to the Triad, that would be more reasonable.
Put the stadium, and the requisite development to go along with it, here:
Train service isn’t anywhere near what it would need to be for this to work, but with service that is sufficiently fast (1 hour from Raleigh or Charlotte) and frequent (twice hourly), they could draw from both Charlotte and Raleigh.
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MLB in Mebane makes about as much sense as the Mudcats in Zebulon.
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Sounds more and more that the Arizona Coyotes are moving to Salt Lake City this offseason.
Wonder if this changes anything for them in a future MLB bid.
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Interesting. The Jazz arena is just a temporary solution since it cant really fit hockey (kinda like Barclays was for the Islanders) so they’ll have to build another arena for hockey. And also saw that they would be the smallest market that has both NBA and NHL. But someone who’s been following this closer… weren’t we only considered competing with eastern cities?
Interesting. Sounds like it depends on the results of the land auction in June.
The NHL is preparing a contingency that could relocate the Arizona Coyotes to Utah as soon as next season, sources told ESPN.
Even though the NHL remains convinced a franchise should be in Arizona, the league is skeptical about the Coyotes’ newest plan to build an arena in Phoenix, which involved Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo’s bid to win a land auction in June.
The NHL has prepared a backup option that would sell the team to Ryan and Ashley Smith, owners of the NBA’s Utah Jazz, in a relocation move to Salt Lake City, multiple sources said.
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Based on how they decide to do realignment, and based on which cities are actually able to come forward with bids that have strong investment groups and strong government support, there COULD be a situation where Nashville and Raleigh get teams (if they are able to come up with strong bids and Portland/SLC are not).
Unlikely IMO, but possible.
Keep in mind, the Yankees, Phillies, Pirates, Mets, Orioles, Nats, and Braves are all closer to Raleigh than Nashville (miles wise).
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I think that if the Triangle>Triad was growing uniformly, it might make sense to consider a location that’s centered among the entire stretch of 40/85 cities. HOWEVER, that’s not the case. The growth continues to be centered around Raleigh/Wake and the center of population among the counties continues to shift eastward.
Since the 2020 Census, these are the estimated (Census) growth rates of the 4 major MSA areas along the corridor.
Winston-Salem: 0.89%
Greensboro: 0.52%
Durham-C.H.: 1.00%
Raleigh-Cary: 2.00%
The growth lift from the Raleigh-Cary MSA is heightened by the fact that its MSA is nearly double the population of the next largest & slowest growing among the 4: Greensboro.
The play for the MLB should be focused on the Triangle at least, and mostly on its largest city/county.
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Yes, I was going to say. In 1990, the Triad made up about 55% of the combined Triangle + Triad “region”. Today it makes up around 44% (basically the Triangle outgrew the Triad by nearly 800,000 people). The demographic and economic center of the corridor has moved decidedly away from Alamance.
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There trying to get both.
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Today the Raleigh-Cary MSA is more populated than the Greensboro-High Point and Durham-Chapel Hill MSAs combined.
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Didn’t Winston and Greensboro share an MSA back when RDU was an MSA?
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Chatham County 7% growth. Might as well put it here and be near the center of both. Future proof. 
. Chatham Rabbits. Stadium overlooking the Haw River or Jordan Lake just like in San Francisco.
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