Isn’t there a baseball thread somewhere on here?
Do you know Tim Sweeney and Tom Dundon personally?
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No but if we make noise and interest we will…
dude, I could care less if it was baseball, soccer, NBA or the NFL. I do want a franchise and a stadium downtown…but I"m realistic. Baseball and 82 home games in a city that’s nowhere close to 3 million people is just that. How many people can go to a Tuesday game at 2:00 in the afternoon? You have to have scale for that to happen, Raleigh and charlotte would have to combine to make it a viable market. I know you want to cite a handful of cities that are now smaller than Raleigh but what you ignore is those are 'legacy MLB" cities. Making that argument you try to make is like claiming we should already have an NFL team because Green Bay has one.
My father played minor league baseball so I don’t ‘hate’ baseball. I just don’t think it has any realistic chance in Raleigh anytime soon.
- Not large enough for an 82 game home schedule.
- No corporate support (the one thing the insecure egomaniacs have in charlotte usa)…
- and most importantly no real ownership group anywhere on the horizon.
- Not to mention, baseball has been waning in interest among younger people for the last decade or more whereas soccer is clearly on the upswing
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Not to mention, baseball has been waning in interest among younger people for the last decade or more whereas soccer is clearly on the upswing
I do agree that soccer is on the upswing, but it still has a very long way to go - and I’m a big soccer fan. But, this last point is a difficult one. I can see how it might look like popularity is waning and it probably is outside of current MLB markets, but baseball is HUGE in baseball markets (Florida being the exception).
@UncleJesse, we can go back and forth forever, but I doubt people on this thread really want that. So I’ll just respond this last time to this specific debate.
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Please stop using ‘Raleigh’ as your argument for the market a team would serve. We’ve taken a ton of time to do the research and to lay it out in the data section of MLB Raleigh’s website. It explains the unique situation our region is in and goes into great detail about how to use census data to provide a population density number that you could use to compare viable MLB markets. If you’d like to refute that method, feel free, but don’t just gloss over the fact that our region has a very unique layout and way of counting its population. When you do that, you do find out that yes, our area is on par with 4 of the smaller markets in MLB and yes, they’ve been around for a while (most teams have), but we also went into ALL the numbers of the locations that Manfred listed 2 years ago as potential expansion markets. That data is right here, and our region is right in the middle (and growing faster than all of them).
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The corporate support argument WILL always be the one that those against the idea will use, bc it’s the one no one can prove. Sure you can count number of fortune 500 companies, but the Hurricanes are doing fine and corporate support is not an issue for the 3 major ACC schools in the Triangle. And with our region growing like its projected to, you’re only adding more companies. But do realize the 'baseball can’t happen here!" narrative has been a moving target. First it was the 25-mile rule. That was debunked. Then it was the ‘we’re too small’ myth. That was debunked. Now it’s fallen back to corporate sponsorships. And if you want to close off the option for MLB bc you don’t think enough businesses would be interested then fine, thats your opinion, but that’s a pretty weak reason to not try.
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No real ownership group. Yep. That is why the movement even exists. It’s not to fund a team or will a team into existence. It’s to correct the record on some old date and some old talking points, point out the strengths of our region and the growth we’ve experienced, and showcase the passion and community support that exists here. We are controlling everything we can control as citizens of Raleigh who want baseball. We are doing our best to grease the wheels for a potential investor. That’s the entire premise behind MLB Raleigh’s community first set up.
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As @MordecaiMike said (and we appreciate the honesty from a big soccer fan), baseball is popular. I’m not arguing that soccer isn’t. It is. It’s the 4th or 5th most popular sport in America. But baseball is more popular no matter what metric you want to use. That’s not a statement meant to demean soccer, but it’s a statement grounded in the data. Sure baseball may have lost a sect of younger fans, and soccer may have gained a sect of younger fans, but the gap is so wide that I’m not really sure what you’re arguing. Soccer is not going to eclipse baseball in popularity for a long, long time unless something truly drastic happens.
Please understand that the ask here from baseball fans is not to use millions of tax payer dollars to build a stadium in hopes we get a team. That is unheard of and is completely irresponsible (as it was for the MLS stadium proposal with no franchise guaranteed).
The ask is for the city to do everything IN THEIR POWER to put us in a position to be in the running for MLB expansion. That means as the community the ask is to be vocal, share the message, show support in every way possible. And it means the government (local and eventually state representatives) stating that Raleigh wants to be in the conversation and is ready and willing to work with MLB Front Office and potential investor groups interested in making it happen.
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This has easily become the most annoying thread on the entire site. I’m sorry y’all but I had to say it.
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Yeah I have to say @Loup20 I’m impressed and explains the whole movement trying to grease the wheels for it, with there business partnerships they’re actually trying to get businesses hooked @UncleJesse so when a potential investors come to Raleigh from wherever there’s automatic Corparate support. And last there trying to get the city involved that how other cities hit teams like Sacramento and St. Louis and Nashville there mayor’s went out there way for them to get MLS teams negotiated with whoever in the state of for then city to get land approved and tax dollars ready if that was in the stadium equation. The first thing the NIMBY mayor McFarland did was come out and say no automatically even with knowing that this area is pro-soccer ready and can support a second team. McFarland didn’t even want to support it, even when Malik at the time was saying it was privately funded. Now, yes it was on state property of course but you know I’m starting to think it wasn’t the state. Had the City and so-called pro-growth but really NIMBYs County Commissioners like John Burns actually worked with the state in purchasing the land from the state with intent to help Malik by leasing that new land to him instead bring conceed with the little NIMBY stuff like traffic, and construction, and taxes. Than this wouldn’t have happened and Raleigh would have been awarded an expansion team. See I think the state would’ve let it go or the city could’ve help Malik find new land or the city could’ve leased there own land but No. The City and County folded up to the state saying it’s more their issue than our, when they could’ve teamed up with Malik to make it happen. They sure fought for there lives with Dix Park why shouldn’t they’ve done that for this. I don’t know cause they were NIMBY for everything.
But the point for this movement MLB To Raleigh is to make sure none of that happens. They’re partnerships is to make sure that business automatically pledge there’s Corparate support if a Billionaire Investors want to put MLB in Raleigh, and that when he proposes a Stadium the Mayor (or anyone who’s on that council hopefully not NIMBY monsters) would be energized to help that potential billionaire investor get his stadium wherever it is and the leaders will know there time on office is in this and there fight there lives to get that stadium on the proposed spot. Furthermore the city and county citizens and leaders will support the process. And help when needed when the Billionaire says so. But this movement is to grease all that to get the city connected to the front office, and get a billionaire, the reason I mentioned Sacramento, St. Louis, Nashville even Charlotte because there mayors (in fact eveb Mayor Vi Lyles even wrote a letter to MLS welcoming Charlotte isn’t that automatic support or not) were so vocal they even had unused stadiums put aside for there bids and everything land, etc. So it could happen, and they got there teams. And this movement ensures all leaders in the area in office or future are already for it.
Go ahead and mute it? I for one enjoy it. Maybe a separate thread for the downtown south development to keep it independent from the sports team/stadium discussions would be good.
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Yeah that’s the problem - I’m genuinely interested in any news on the actual development, so I don’t want to mute the entire thread… but it seems like most of the discussion on this thread is childish arguing over whether soccer or baseball will ever come to Raleigh. It’s been talked to DEATH on this forum.
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Anyone care to chat about moderating that? Since sports don’t interest me to much, I can only take the all or nothing approach to it. So far, it’s the former. Plus, users have features, like muting threads, to tailor the experience.
Open to suggestions on how to elevate this topic. At the same time, there’s nothing to talk about so any banter is on the table.
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Don’t do it, years wait years.
I would absolutely second (third?) what @Jake and @orulz suggested. There’s already a Raleigh Stadium/Arena/Sports Discussions thread; all talk about stadiums in general can go there.
We could also just rename this thread “Downtown South” and politely request that people limit discussion on this thread to development that is actually planned or proposed for this particular plot of land. I mean, this project is potentially going to be a huge, transformative project for Raleigh. It definitely deserves its own thread that isn’t clogged up with conversations about the size of our TV market and whatnot.
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To me discussion is discussion and I don’t really care which thread it’s in as I generally read them all anyway. Stadium and sports talk is surely no worse (or better) than some of the other things we talk way too much about such as parking garages (that’s the one that makes my eyes roll back haha) and we get that talk in a lot of threads.
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Alright so let’s get organized. From my view, we have 3 threads here.
Simply put, let do this:
#1 should be sports banter, swing for the fences!! 
#2 should be DEVELOPMENT related to Downtown South (thanks @daviddonovan) so I’ll rename accordingly.
#3 I’m going to put a timer on it and give @Loup20 a chance to chime in. Is there anything else to add on the topic of bringing MLB to Raleigh? If not at this time, I’ll just let the topic close and it can be reopened if organizers behind the movement want to use this site for feedback.
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As posted above, let’s stick to development plans, zoning, whatever, related to Downtown South on this thread. Anything sports related will be moved over to the Raleigh Stadium/Arena/Sports Discussions thread.
Thanks all for motivating me to clean this up a bit.
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Hey thanks Leo. I think getting organized is a good idea. I’ll just give my point of view.
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I think ‘Bring MLB to Raleigh’ is a good thread to kind of just keep open to talk about the movement in general. I don’t really see a need to close it. Anytime a new article is posted about it in the local/nation media and as we host new events or have some updates on MLB expansion and how Raleigh fits in, etc people can just flow it in there.
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I also think there is a debate to be had that is about stadiums in Raleigh and how we use our ‘tourism tax dollars’ . For instance, does Raleigh jump in now and use the money to build a stadium for NCFC/Courage. It will be guaranteed to bring downtown sports, but the ceiling is pretty low in terms of attendance payoff. Or do they put that on hold, get organized and make a pitch for MLB. Chances of landing it are lower, but payoff in attendance is massive. Or do they opt for no stadium at all and just use the money on Dix, museums, etc. I think that is a big debate we are sort of already having…and yes there will be a little MLB Raleigh crossover in there, but it will be less about the movement itself and more about stadium funding or how the city positions itself for pro sports. For that I think the Raleigh Stadium/Arena/Sports Discussions works great.
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That would leave this ‘Downtown South Development’ thread to be more about the project in general and less about what type of stadium the city should fund with the project, or about MLS/MLB viability of our region.
Thoughts on that?
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Sounds good to me. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Hello DTR friends … the Downtown South project team (Kane, NCFC) has started their formal public engagement on the project. If you’d like to share your ideas directly with the project leadership and design team, you can do so here - Downtown South District - Support
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So good to hear this is still of interest!
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