@Mat_Germain_ is a baseball analyst who keeps a close eye on the Rays. He recently shared his insights with Mark @TheBaseballBiz recently on what does the future hold for the expansion or moving of MLB teams to new cities .
Mark Corbett:
I want to ask you about something else entirely different. Quebec. Now are we looking at a major league baseball team going to Quebec, anytime soon?
Mat Germain: I don't know. And I say this because as somebody that's very well in in, on that file and when everything fell through the Sister City concept, and I know these people, I don't want to call them actors, but they have an agenda that they're trying to push through.
Here's what I know. The ownership group there has invested money in getting M l b the right information to have a franchise. So they've gone through all the process, they've gotten the designs done for the stadium. They've gotten all the canvassing of information from the population, from all three levels of government, what they'd be able to give them how the parking and everything else, the size of stadium, everything is, all the checks in the boxes are there.
And I think that's what the Sister City concept was about. I don't for one second believe they were ever going go through with it. I think it was about getting Montreal vetted as a potential m l b City how MLB feels about that after the fact. I have no idea. What I can tell you is that the gov levels of government there are very supportive of giving money to have a team come back to Montreal.
They're okay with that. It's way more than most cities would be. They've done it for the arena. They built an NHL arena with nothing but taxpayer money and Quebec or money. And there's not even an NHL team to go in there, and they were still willing to do it just so that it would eventually attract an NHL team.
So I'm not worried about that. What I'm worried about is when you ask Steven Bronfman and his group. Are you willing to spend 4 billion on a Major League baseball franchise? The answer is heck no. In no way, shape or form, are they going to go there Now, is there a route to get there? Absolutely.
Can they get zero interest loans from MLB this, that, the other thing, naming rights, paying towards it because it's payments, right? You're just making the payments. Oh, yeah. So there's ways to contort things so that it's less out of pocket. But I say this because to me, them moving the As to Montreal, that makes sense because they can buy the A’s for a billion dollars.
The same as what the Royals were sold for, and then they have everything already built. The scouting department, the affiliates the whole machinery of the team is already there. They don't have to start everything from scratch, which is all a cost. If they go for a franchise for a new, and they're betting against others, first of all, the bidding's going drive that cost up for the franchise, probably towards the 2.5 to 3 billion.
And then you still have to pay for the stadium, and you still have to build all those affiliate relations and scouting departments and everything else from scratch. I don't see that happening in Montreal at all, like ever.
So either they. Move a team there, whatever team that ends up being and who knows, like it's not just the, A’s there are other teams that are having certain issues.
My feeling is that we'll see a team in Vegas, we'll see a team in Utah or Portland, one or the other, and we'll see a team in either Charlotte or Nashville. And my hunch is, The other avenue that I've worked out that is a possibility if they did do the expansion route would be if they did a Sister City concept with Nashville.
But I think it would be just as unpopular with Nashville as it was with Rays fans. They either want a full team or they don't. So that's the one way I could see the Montreal ownership group being, okay, we can do the Sister City concept like we said before, but with an expansion team where they don't know any better, where they're just happy to get half a team.
You know what I mean? And then maybe that's more easily taken in.
Mark Corbett: Yeah, I could see that with Nashville that that might be a bit more acceptable. Like just cause what you're saying, they don't have anything to base it on. Oh yeah. We, to have any team at all might be just perfect for them.
It was interesting though, and you were talking about Las Vegas because I was looking at some news just in the last couple of days and it sounded like. What some of the sessions had passed from the government and were closing down without any commitment of dollars to bring a team to Vegas. There was nobody saying, okay, let's go ahead and build a fund with taxes to put up a new stadium.
And it was like, that was not part of any conversation from what I was able to see in Nevada. And so the A’s may really be struggling to find a place.
I guarantee you that if Fisher says tomorrow I will sell to an ownership group in Vegas, it would happen like that. But because he's an outsider going in and begging for money it's a completely different ballgame.
Ah, and I still think that Major League Baseball needs to stop this nonsense of just begging for public funds to build new stadiums. It's just, It's unseemly, you didn't see certain wealthy ownership groups asking for money. Like the Dallas Cowboys did not ask for money.
They built their stadium and what do they get? Nine games a year or maybe 10 with the preseason like, And they still got it built grow up, built your own stadiums and go where you want to go instead of begging and pleading and making this whole like, tantrum like a kid basically saying, I'm taking my ball and I'm going home because you're not giving me what I want.
It's a little bit infantile and I think, MLB would benefit in so many ways of having a team in Vegas, just like hockey has. The Vegas Knight are about to win a Stanley Cup possibly and the NHL is all over the TV and they're growing and their revenues are higher than ever before.
And there's no aside from that Coyotes which have been a debacle in terms of arenas for ages. That team should go to Quebec City if anything, but I think it's about time that, MLB moves on with these things and helps those teams establish themselves or find new ownership and force them out like they did in LA with the Dodgers and Frank McCourt had to sell the team basically because things were just getting out of hand.
And that's where it's getting right now with the A’s and the Rays, to be frank, like that the Rays need to, I know they still have. A timeline, right? They still have the time until the Trop lease ends, but it's now like it's, this is the year they need to announce what they're going do.
Mark Corbett: Man I'll tell you, I work at the Tampa Baseball Museum and time again, I probably said it here before, is pe.
One of the few questions I get over and over is have you guys got a stadium net or are they Ray staying here? And I just still put my hands up and say, I don't know because there's just too much going on with this back and forth, and then there's that also little noise coming over from Orlando about wanting to get a major league baseball team. So Florida is going get cramped with a lot or nothing. I'm not sure which is going be here a few years, but we will see.
Mat Germain: That's right. I think the important thing is, that things seem to be positive right now.
Overall options are plenty. As long as you hear, there's always a lot of options. Usually that means that something is, can get worked out.
When it starts getting to be that rhetoric of either or, like this or this and then we're out, like happening with the us, then you're in the world of hurt.
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Gratitude to all
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