Seems like Nashville is all but done. Question is where in the west makes the most sense. Yeah, Central TX does make the most sense...but f*** that. That's Astros territory.
And Rangers territory. If MLB was smart, they'd put a team in New Jersey and not even necessarily in the Meadowlands, but somewhere else in the state (preferably in the North) and grow a presence in New Jersey, which has a huge population and no teams. I realize it's full Yankee, Met and Phillie fans but a team for the state to call it's own would be huge there and you'd have a large population to draw from, including across the river in New Jersey.
Seems like OKC/Tulsa, Salt Lake City, San Jose, Portland, or New Mexico (maybe Santa Fe?) could support a team. Largest media markets without an MLB team currently are: Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto Charlotte Raleigh-Durham Portland Indianapolis Nashville Salt Lake City San Antonio Hartford-New Haven Florida and California probably don't need another team, but if Oakland leaves San Jose or Sacramento could have a team Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham are pretty close to Baltimore and Washington and Atlanta Hartford is basically covered by NY and Boston
It's always tricky with licensing and territorial rights. The Giants have the legal rights to the San Jose area and will not allow another team to go in there. I'm sure there are other areas, like in NY/NJ that I don't know about that have a team preventing them from getting a team.
NE states would be glorified counties/cities if they were in Texas. Yes, there are a lot of people and technically no team in that state… but I would venture the majority of those residents who follow baseball already do support a team.
Based solely on the hyper-scientific "Areas I Would Visit and Catch a Game" metric, they should put Oakland and the 2 expansion teams in Portland, NC, and Bermuda Louisville.
FWIW, Erin Hogan on local Austin radio this morning was talking about this MLB expansion article this morning. Hogan is a baseball-first kind of sports fan, does a baseball podcast, and claimed one of the connections he knows close to recent MLB expansion talks told him Austin-San Anotonio was at the top of their list
They are, easily one of the top 3 locations, but Arlington and Houston have a bunch of pull to make it not happen.
It wouldn't surprise me much if the A's move falls apart. I'm confident that Vegas would much rather have an expansion team now that they've seen first hand how bad of an organization Oakland really is. Everything they touch turns to ****. Vegas deserves way better.
Do we know what the fans want? What MLB wants? What those cities want? If the answer is 3 yes's, then I don't expect Houston/Arlington to hold it off.
I live in NM part-time. I didn’t see NM on list of potentials and would love a team here. But the reality is it’s a very very small market, not many people in Santa Fe (<100k) and even with ABQ it’s still less than 650k in the region… the ABQ Isotopes are a MiLB team of the CO Rockies and attendance is high for a pacific coast league team. Wish it would happen
Montreal is the largest media market without a team and it has a long baseball history. Yes, they lost the Expos, but that was a perfect storm that moved the team.
