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OT: MLB Thread

Habs53 said:
I really do not understand how anyone can make a judgement on attendance on a stadium that is in prime location. They had pretty good years in the shit bowl. Some people have thick skulls and can only focus on the negative last few years when the team was sold away.
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Well in all honesty, we would not have the best attendance in the league and yes, the team would have to work harder to attract fans just like many teams in professional sports have to do. Not every team is Montreal or Toronto in hockey or St Louis or the Yankees in baseball. But I would prefer to have those issues to deal with than to sit back and wring my hands and just say it can't work.
 
CH1 said:
Nostalgia is a funny thing. Nobody remembers how cheap MTL tix were. They had no pricing power, even in the glory days.

Plus, no FA wanted to sign here, despite all the recent sweet talk from players about loving the city and never wanting to leave.

As they say, everything beautiful is far away.
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well if they have $5 night once a month it guarantees one good game attendance wise.
 
Pretty sure with a downtown park they shouldn't have too much trouble averaging in the low 20s even in tough times. 18k or so weeknight games, and should be able to routinely get 35 for weekend games. Fans seem to like going to Molson Stadium for Als game, and granted that's only a game a week, the nice, cozy downtown park can have a big effect. I mean, if the Twins can average 27k a game, Montreal would be a similar market to them, I'd say.
 
UWHabs said:
Pretty sure with a downtown park they shouldn't have too much trouble averaging in the low 20s even in tough times. 18k or so weeknight games, and should be able to routinely get 35 for weekend games. Fans seem to like going to Molson Stadium for Als game, and granted that's only a game a week, the nice, cozy downtown park can have a big effect. I mean, if the Twins can average 27k a game, Montreal would be a similar market to them, I'd say.
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18-20k a weeknight, and maybe 25-30k on weekend games = crappy attendance, I don't see how they could consistently pull in 35k on weekends especially for every other team except bos/tor/nyy, otherwise I would expect like 25k on a weekend. Only 6 teams had under 25k avg attendance last year, and one of them is the team that is probably relocating. They need 25-30k avg attendance otherwise they might as well not even come here.
 
well written Bradley

You can't base a franchise on hope of corporate welfare from the Yankees and fans for other teams attending your games
 
The feasibility study gave an avg range of 27-31k attendance, which seems a bit high, especially for when you get teams like Cle/Min/Ari/Bal/ that will most likely draw under 20k a game to. Considering they only factored in a cost for a 36k stadium, they would need sellouts for almost every other team to achieve anywhere NEAR those numbers. The report also assumes a 'stronger' canadian dollar in forecasting revenues/profitability which is about 25% off now from when the study came out, meaning, you are looking at a huge money losing venture with those numbers.
 
Krustchev said:
In other words, this is essentially a pipe-dream.
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Look, if a company wants to buy a team just to provide TV content across Canada then you never know. But, with the dollar headed for a weak cycle for the near future, I don't know if anyone is going to really go into this thinking they are going to make money.

The BlueJays receive approx 36m/yr in tv rights technically from Rogers Corp -> Blue Jays, or 225k a game. It's basically just to float the blue jays, but about 1/4 of fair market value compared to what other teams are getting. You can basically just imagine how little the Expos would get from Bell if they owned them. While other teams are signing 150m+/yr deals. But Rogers has kept it hush hush on what the current payments are between sportsnet to the bluejays. So, you can see the baseball team gets screwed in those types of deals, and the Expos need whatever advantage they can to operate to stay competitive.
 
Since the baseball team is getting "screwed" by it's content provider owner, the owner is happily screwing itself and that's all that matters. It's an accounting shell game. The big if/hope/dream is that some head honcho at Bell is getting bored with their job and is willing to roll the dice.
 
CH1 said:
Since the baseball team is getting "screwed" by it's content provider owner, the owner is happily screwing itself and that's all that matters. It's an accounting shell game. The big if/hope/dream is that some head honcho at Bell is getting bored with their job and is willing to roll the dice.
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It's an accounting game, but they are technically run as separate entities. For sure, but other teams are taking advantage of the TV deals to put some of it back into the team since they are being run exclusively as baseball teams and not TV content for the parent company.
 
xposbrad said:
It's an accounting game, but they are technically run as separate entities. For sure, but other teams are taking advantage of the TV deals to put some of it back into the team since they are being run exclusively as baseball teams and not TV content for the parent company.
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I believe Ted Turner started the whole synergy when he sold the rights for his Braves to his TBS for penny on the dollar.

Lots of reason to let your baseball team seem like laggard money maker in the equation -- namely you can cry poor when negotiating with player unions, government officials and revenue sharing.
 
Jonah Keri was on the radio today in Vancouver and said that he attended a couple of business luncheons while he was in Montreal this weekend. He said he was surprised (pleasantly) at just how much traction the idea of getting a team back is now getting among the business elites. He specifically mentioned Bell, which he said is definitely looking into the idea now that they no longer have all of that hockey content. He went on to say that if ownership is solid, there's synergy in terms of broadcasting and the advertising and corporate luxury boxes are taken care of, how many Joe Blows show up to the stadium on any given day won't matter as much as they used to.

He rightly took a dump on the former consortium, saying that they were cheap and not interested in growing the product. They simply had no vision. But ironically if they had just spent enough to keep their ownership stake in the team they'd have made a fortune by now. The "worst" team in MLB is still valued at somewhere north of $600 million US.
 
In other words, he told you want you wanted to hear so all is good. If you recall correctly, back when the Siths purchased the team, there were a number of businessmen who "were interested" and joined with him but none would pony up the $$. Sure someone might want a stake in the team but are they willing to pony up to buy the team AND build a stadium? I find it hard to believe the Canadiens would stand back and allow the Exrays to get a publicly funded stadium without saying, hey we paid ours AND pay a ton of tax, what is wrong with this picture?

If someone or a group is willing to pay 1.3 billion to buy and build, more power to them, but I will believe it when I see it.

To paraphrase old Red Fisher, "show me the money and the stadium"
 
WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou said:
Jonah Keri was on the radio today in Vancouver and said that he attended a couple of business luncheons while he was in Montreal this weekend. He said he was surprised (pleasantly) at just how much traction the idea of getting a team back is now getting among the business elites. He specifically mentioned Bell, which he said is definitely looking into the idea now that they no longer have all of that hockey content. He went on to say that if ownership is solid, there's synergy in terms of broadcasting and the advertising and corporate luxury boxes are taken care of, how many Joe Blows show up to the stadium on any given day won't matter as much as they used to.

He rightly took a dump on the former consortium, saying that they were cheap and not interested in growing the product. They simply had no vision. But ironically if they had just spent enough to keep their ownership stake in the team they'd have made a fortune by now. The "worst" team in MLB is still valued at somewhere north of $600 million US.
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If anyone is interested the podcast of the interview can be found here... it starts late in the 29th minute.

http://www.tsn.ca/radio/vancouver-1040-i-1410/bmac-and-taylor-apr-6-hour-1-1.249652

My take was that Keri is happily surprised by the fact that things have moved along further in building a plan than he ever thought of realistically. Bell is involved, corporate Montreal are very interested and having discussions and not just saying they are for charity purposes.

What I see is that this once fantasy led Warren Cromartie group that started up a few years ago has really done more than they have stated publically. There is a whole lot more going on under the radar to build a solid base for a team returning to Montreal. They are doing due diligence to make sure they have checked off all the boxes that people will ask about.

I think the odds are still against them but this no longer wishful thinking amongst die-hards... an MLB team in Montreal down the road seems quite possible.

Keri also said he is invloved in another film that will have Josh Duhamel playing Bill "the Spaceman" Lee.
 
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Lotusland said:
If anyone is interested the podcast of the interview can be found here... it starts late in the 29th minute.

http://www.tsn.ca/radio/vancouver-1040-i-1410/bmac-and-taylor-apr-6-hour-1-1.249652

My take was that Keri is happily surprised by the fact that things have moved along further in building a plan than he ever thought of realistically. Bell is involved, corporate Montreal are very interested and having discussions and not just saying they are for charity purposes.

What I see is that this once fantasy led Warren Cromartie group that started up a few years ago has really done more than they have stated publically. There is a whole lot more going on under the radar to build a solid base for a team returning to Montreal. They are doing due diligence to make sure they have checked off all the boxes that people will ask about.

I think the odds are still against them but this no longer wishful thinking amongst die-hards... an MLB team in Montreal down the road seems quite possible.

Keri also said he is invloved in another film that will have Josh Duhamel playing Bill "the Spaceman" Lee.
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If there is any substance to this rumble ... you would have to think the Rays owner seriously wants to move his team
 
No doubt it is still a ways off. Even not counting the need for a stadium that will have to be mainly privately financed, the fact remains you need a team to relocate or you need MLB to vote for expansion. Neither right now is really anywhere on the table. But we are definitely in a better position today than we were 10 years ago. As MLK said, I may not get there with you, but we will get to the promised land.
 
Habs53 said:
If there is any substance to this rumble ... you would have to think the Rays owner seriously wants to move his team
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What he really wants is for Tampa to build him a stadium which City Council put a stop to last week in the latest attempt to replace Tropicana Field according to Sal I believe?

The Montreal news/noise this past weekend helps the Tampa owner get city officials attention in Tampa that his threat to move the team has a location to go to if it becomes necessary. The Tampa politicians know he is locked into an expensive out lease at Tropicana Field until 2027 but they will have to do better than waiting until around then before finding him a new park to play in... as the years chip away that lease become more manageable to get out of.

Of course he doesn't have a perfect fit in Montreal either as Canadian cities do not fund arenas and ball parks too often so is he willing to put any money into a new stadium?

I think the question of the day is for the Tampa City Council. Do they feel that Tampa is a baseball city? If they go ahead and build a new park and get themselves heavily involved like DC did with the Gnats and I believe Miami did with the Marlins... will it be justified? Those disappointing playoff crowds cannot be because the dome stadium is lousy.

A similar question has to be asked in Montreal as well but I am pretty sure that the Big O is more of a legit problem for Expos fans than Tropicana Field is for Rays fans.

However the one thing I get out of this drive in Montreal is that they aren't so much focused on the Tampa franchise... they just want to be ready so that when a franchise is available either through relocation or expansion that they are all set to move forward. That may still take some time but clearly there are advantages of getting the Rays franchise than there would be with any other franchise in MLB.

Maybe the stars are aligning for a baseball return to Montreal.
 
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