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OT: MLB Thread

WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou said:
There's a difference between being cheap and being poor. The old Expos consortium headed by Brochu was a bit of both but mostly and even all together they didn't have the cash to play in the big leagues. Bronfman and Garber may be trying to cheap out but they ain't poor. Far from it. If they wanted to they could put a competitive team on the field and could afford to build them a park to play in. They just don't wanna. They want the taxpayers to build it for them because that's the MLB business model. It's all about real estate and government subsidies nowadays because these rich guys don't want teams to own them, they want teams so that they can flip them for a profit 5 or 10 years down the road.

This is why franchise valuation reports like we got yesterday with the Habs are now so important. I mean what do you care what your house is worth today if you have no plans to sell it? I bought a condo 2.5 years ago and a year after I bought it it's appraisal value decreased by about $8000. But all that meant to me was a reduction in my property tax bill. I wasn't looking to sell so I didn't care about fluctuations in the real estate market. Today it's worth about $8000 more than what I paid for it but again so what? I'm living there and not looking to sell. But sports franchise owners are always looking to see how much they could make if they were to sell because they are always looking to sell if the price is right.

The problem with the Expos if they come back (and the Nordiques also) is that if they were to be put up for sale down the road there is no one locally who could afford to buy them and keep them where they were so they would either have to go under or relocate again. You can make an argument that the Expos and/or the Nordiques would be viable but that's only in terms of putting teams in those cities and leaving them there forever. But that's not how any of this works. The value of any franchise isn't what you pay for it but what you sell it for. If you locate your franchise in a city in which it is impossible to sell it and have it stay where it is then what's the point of doing it at all? If the Habs could be put up for sale and not attract a single local buyer what would happen to the Expos or Nordiques? Putting an MLB team in Montreal or an NHL team in Quebec City in this day and age makes no sense. Not when we're talking about the kind of money it takes to play nowadays. It's a waste of time.
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Loria made bank relocating from Montreal. I am pretty sure the new group is aware of that. As long as they don't lose too much money while they are here, it makes sense since franchise values pretty much always rise. What TV network will pay the expos 100m a year to compete with US teams and their deals? The new Expos would never have a competitive payroll, let's be real. The question is, how long would this team last with a bottom 5 payroll and possibly split city for the short term? I know that if this experiment fails, it's relocation and probably no team again while I am alive. So it's not that I am against this group doing this, I just wish they had a proposal with a realistic number for a stadium and payroll north of 120, otherwise we know the fans in this city will never support the team.
 
xposbrad said:
Loria made bank relocating from Montreal. I am pretty sure the new group is aware of that. As long as they don't lose too much money while they are here, it makes sense since franchise values pretty much always rise. What TV network will pay the expos 100m a year to compete with US teams and their deals? The new Expos would never have a competitive payroll, let's be real. The question is, how long would this team last with a bottom 5 payroll and possibly split city for the short term? I know that if this experiment fails, it's relocation and probably no team again while I am alive. So it's not that I am against this group doing this, I just wish they had a proposal with a realistic number for a stadium and payroll north of 120, otherwise we know the fans in this city will never support the team.
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Any talk of baseball even returning to Mtl, starts with the notion Blow Jays exclusive broadcasts rights from Brockville westbound are either void because Expos are no longer an entity (if that’s how the agreement was structured), or there is a strong belief a challenge in courts will void the exclusivity.

BTW - Blow Jays are the only MLB team to have no radio broadcast this season, as a Rogers cost cutting measure.
 
Sal_Butera said:
Any talk of baseball even returning to Mtl, starts with the notion Blow Jays exclusive broadcasts rights from Brockville westbound are either void because Expos are no longer an entity (if that’s how the agreement was structured), or there is a strong belief a challenge in courts will void the exclusivity.

BTW - Blow Jays are the only MLB team to have no radio broadcast this season, as a Rogers cost cutting measure.
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Blue Jays brought back the radio broadcast end of July.
 
Sal_Butera said:
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The comments thread is priceless. Of course, we all knew from the beginning that this was a sham. Sternberg will either find a way to extort the taxpayers for a new stadium or Bronfman will find a way to extort the taxpayers in Montreal. Whichever accomplishes this first gets the Rays full-time.

A more likely scenario is that neither city plays ball and the team moves to Charlotte or Nashville.
 


This game was played barely a month into the existence of the Expos, which makes it one of Van Horne's earliest recorded play-by-play calls. He was as good then as he is today. He came fully formed. To listen to him in 1969 you'd have assumed him to already be a veteran broadcaster, even though he had only done 3 years of calling minor league ball in Richmond Virginia.
 
Sal_Butera said:
Multi split-city plan officially dead…

www.google.ca

MLB kills Rays’ split-city plan with Montreal

Team officials say they have no immediate plans to explore relocation to another market, and Stuart Sternberg has no plans to sell the team.
www.google.ca www.google.ca
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It was always bullshit. Just a ploy to separate the taxpayers from their money. MLB tried but neither Tampa nor Montreal took the bait so they've given up on this particular scam attempt.

Bronfman ain't building that stadium with his own money. If the taxpayers say no, forget about getting a team back.
 
Basketball is more likely, though not probable. Building is in place and NBA is a mega brand, including in Montreal.

The NBA is poised to compete with the EPL to be the biggest sports brand in the world, so they are likely eyeing international investments and revenue streams.
 
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