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OT: MLB Thread

Watched a vid on YT this week talking about the new stadium deal in Tampa. Something like $1.3 Billion for what amounts to a 30,000 seat stadium and (the kicker) at least twice that amount, if not more, to develop the surrounding neighborhood (i.e. the overpriced condos where the real money is made) Naturally, the humble taxpayers will be on the hook for most of the cost and will reap what every city gets out of a publicly-funded stadium: sweet fuck all.

This is where MLB is at in 2024. No chance in hell of ever seeing the Expos come back. Jamais. At this rate, I'm not even sure if people in Toronto would want to keep paying those rates.
 
WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou said:
Watched a vid on YT this week talking about the new stadium deal in Tampa. Something like $1.3 Billion for what amounts to a 30,000 seat stadium and (the kicker) at least twice that amount, if not more, to develop the surrounding neighborhood (i.e. the overpriced condos where the real money is made) Naturally, the humble taxpayers will be on the hook for most of the cost and will reap what every city gets out of a publicly-funded stadium: sweet fuck all.

This is where MLB is at in 2024. No chance in hell of ever seeing the Expos come back. Jamais. At this rate, I'm not even sure if people in Toronto would want to keep paying those rates.
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it's for the common good
 
TheCountofMonteCristo said:
good paying construction jobs
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Those are temporary jobs. The long term jobs (aside from the team's front office and the players) are minimum wage, seasonal jobs. The kind of money that team owners ask for when they come to city hall looking to get a free stadium is wildly disproportional to any tangible benefit the taxpayers will ever get. I heard this argument from Expos fans like Perry Gee that if the government can subsidize Bombardier why not the Expos ball park? Well, because Bombardier employs thousands of people in well paying high tech jobs while a stadium employs seasonal, unskilled peanut vendors in numbers similar to your local Walmart. And, of course, the ball club wants more money than Bombardier got.
 
I was in town for my brother's wedding in Hudson and went to one of the last homestands against the Cards. Had to sit in the 600 level because the lower bowl was full. The day I flew back to Vancouver they announced the lockout.
 
WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou said:
If they had staved off a work stoppage and the Expos won the World Series, the Expos might still exist today. Brochu voting to kill the season was tantamount to him committing suicide.
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I'm still not convinced they would have won it all, too many top seeds choke in playoffs, see Dodgers in 2022, Giants in 2021, Seattle in the past. You are right though, had they won, they might still exist
 
WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou said:
If they had staved off a work stoppage and the Expos won the World Series, the Expos might still exist today. Brochu voting to kill the season was tantamount to him committing suicide.
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To this day I have yet to see anyone in the francophone media take any off the “giants of Quebec business” to task for refusing to spend despite Walker-Grissom-Hill-Wettland having gone to the team with a sweetheart 3-yr group deal. Mark Routtenberg was the only consortium owners who gave a f*ck
 
Sal_Butera said:
To this day I have yet to see anyone in the francophone media take any off the “giants of Quebec business” to task for refusing to spend despite Walker-Grissom-Hill-Wettland having gone to the team with a sweetheart 3-yr group deal. Mark Routtenberg was the only consortium owners who gave a f*ck
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None of the Francophone members of the consortium wanted to spend any money or risk any money. If the taxpayers weren't going to cover their risk, they weren't interested. Typical chickenshit mentality. You assume the risks and we'll take the profits.
 
TheCountofMonteCristo said:
I'm still not convinced they would have won it all, too many top seeds choke in playoffs, see Dodgers in 2022, Giants in 2021, Seattle in the past. You are right though, had they won, they might still exist
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I think they'd have won it all simply because there was no other team even close to touching them. But even a trip to the Series might have been enough to get a new stadium.
 
WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou said:
I think they'd have won it all simply because there was no other team even close to touching them. But even a trip to the Series might have been enough to get a new stadium.
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Charlie Bronfman used to say “one playoff appearance buys a team 5-years of good will from the fanbase”

Irony of it all, Parti Quebecois leadership at the time both Lucien Bouchard & Bernard Landry were legitimate diehard baseball & Expos fans
 
Even if they had choked in '94, with a playoff appearance maybe they have less of an excuse to dump their best players, and they keep a Larry Walker and/or Ken Hill and they win sometime later in the decade.
 
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