Could the Rent Become the Home of the Tampa Bay Rays?

[Dooley]

Portland, OR, Montreal, and Nashville would be my top 3 cities for relocation. Tampa/St Pete is a horrendous baseball market. If it can't/won't support the Rays, it doesn't deserve a team. The Rays are one of the smartest franchises in all of baseball. If MLB puts that in a market that actually supports it, it would be the best thing for baseball and the franchise.

 

[huskyblooz]

god the battered b***** of baseball was such a good doc

Best sports documentary ever!

 

[LoyalFanCT]

If the Rent cannot be used for baseball park (that photo from UConn Nick is great) what about Danbury? Close to New York State, Connecticut could eat away at some of the Yankee fan base. When UConn football was decent we were getting close to 40,000 fans at a routine venue. Isn't that what an MLB team needs?

 

[Vowelguy]

If the Rent cannot be used for baseball park (that photo from UConn Nick is great) what about Danbury? Close to New York State, Connecticut could eat away at some of the Yankee fan base. When UConn football was decent we were getting close to 40,000 fans at a routine venue. Isn't that what an MLB team needs?

 

[Purple Stein]

If the Rent cannot be used for baseball park (that photo from UConn Nick is great) what about Danbury? Close to New York State, Connecticut could eat away at some of the Yankee fan base. When UConn football was decent we were getting close to 40,000 fans at a routine venue. Isn't that what an MLB team needs?

I think you missed the memo. We’re moving them to the XL (which will have a retractable non-collapsible roof), renaming them the “Devil Goats,” and requiring every hitter to have “Brass Bonanza” as their walk up music.

 

[uconnbill]

I'd even say Oklahoma City along with San Antonio would be good choices if not Montreal

 

[MilliniumPrince]

Charlotte would be worth consideration.

 

[HuskyHawk]

San Antonio yes.
Waco is closer to DFW than it is to Austin.

It’s roughly half way in between.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Portland, OR, Montreal, and Nashville would be my top 3 cities for relocation. Tampa/St Pete is a horrendous baseball market. If it can't/won't support the Rays, it doesn't deserve a team. The Rays are one of the smartest franchises in all of baseball. If MLB puts that in a market that actually supports it, it would be the best thing for baseball and the franchise.

Nashville is a great idea. Plenty of people and it would draw from Memphis and Knoxville. No other team nearby except maybe the Braves.

 

[Stainmaster]

Again: OP is not a serious poster. He’s been yanking everyone’s chains for years.

 

[UconnU]

Montreal in the AL east would be fantastic. Beyond the Toronto rivalry, Sox and Yankee fans in VT and upstate NY would be in heaven. It is such a no brainer. Just need a new stadium

Road trips would be a blast

and …

Unlike most of our Northeastern cities - excepting Boston, NYC, Phila - Montreal has grown to over 4.4m in Greater Montreal & nearby population is fairly significant. That's a 20%+ growth since 1999. The Land by the Bell Centre? Sold to the big developer Cadillac Fairview in 2008. Been talking stadium ever since.

There’s a reason why there aren’t more Canadian pro sports teams(outside of hockey). Canadians on average make less money and have significantly less expendable income. Like take Montreal for example; the average annual income is $35,000. That would easily be the poorest major US city. Jackson, Mississippi the poorest us cities average income is $46,000. That’s not even taking tax burden into account. There’s just less money to be made in Canada.

 

[whaler11]

just the lamest troll in internet history

 

[Vowelguy]

just the lamest troll in internet history

Thank you for your interest in UConn athletics.

 

[Dooley]

Nashville is a great idea. Plenty of people and it would draw from Memphis and Knoxville. No other team nearby except maybe the Braves.

Yes sir! Too much of a land gap between the Nats and Braves, IMO. Nashville can pull lots of people from nearby cities. Not to mention, it's proven to be a terrific NHL and NFL market.

Somebody above said Oklahoma City and I completely forgot about that city. OKC would be a great choice too. Bottomline: there are plenty of choices to move the Rays to.

 

[Rico444]

The Braves that just opened a 1.1 billion dollar stadium in 2017? I’d get cracking on the blueprints.

1.1 billion dollar publicly funded stadium

 

[whaler11]

1.1 billion dollar publicly funded stadium

yep they have some skin in the game with small bond payments for 30 years and I think put up some up front money but yeah they arent looking for a new home...

 

[Rico444]

yep they have some skin in the game with small bond payments for 30 years and I think put up some up front money but yeah they arent looking for a new home...

Yeah it wasn't completely publicly funded, but the stadium was just 20 years after they built Turner Field and there was some controversy over using public funds for a stadium that wasn't a necessity. If they left a few years after that and left the county with the bill there would be a riot.

 

[whaler11]

Yeah it wasn't completely publicly funded, but the stadium was just 20 years after they built Turner Field and there was some controversy over using public funds for a stadium that wasn't a necessity. If they left a few years after that and left the county with the bill there would be a riot.

i saw a game at Turner the last season. it is probably the most egregious example of a city rolling over for a team beyond Miami.

 

[Rico444]

i saw a game at Turner the last season. it is probably the most egregious example of a city rolling over for a team beyond Miami.

I've never been but I had always heard that it was a beautiful ballpark.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Yes sir! Too much of a land gap between the Nats and Braves, IMO. Nashville can pull lots of people from nearby cities. Not to mention, it's proven to be a terrific NHL and NFL market.

Somebody above said Oklahoma City and I completely forgot about that city. OKC would be a great choice too. Bottomline: there are plenty of choices to move the Rays to.

OKC is awfully small for a pro market (although Milwaukee has a team). Not much around it other than Tulsa and Wichita. Wichita is a good baseball town, but they are pretty solidly Royals fans. Dallas isn't that far either.
List of metropolitan statistical areas - Wikipedia

South is under-represented in MLB. Nashville and Charlotte stand out to me as good options. Austin-San Antonio combined is a very big market, but Texas does have two teams now.

 

[Waquoit]

i saw a game at Turner the last season. it is probably the most egregious example of a city rolling over for a team beyond Miami.

It was actually the county that put up the dough. And part of the deal was that the stadium was not to be accessible by mass transit. Screw the Braves.

 

[whaler11]

It was actually the county that put up the dough. And part of the deal was that the stadium was not to be accessible by mass transit. Screw the Braves.

Yeah I meant local govt. It may as well be on the darkside of the moon.

 

[Dooley]

OKC is awfully small for a pro market (although Milwaukee has a team). Not much around it other than Tulsa and Wichita. Wichita is a good baseball town, but they are pretty solidly Royals fans. Dallas isn't that far either.
List of metropolitan statistical areas - Wikipedia

South is under-represented in MLB. Nashville and Charlotte stand out to me as good options. Austin-San Antonio combined is a very big market, but Texas does have two teams now.

Good point re: OKC. I'm just going off of how good of a NBA market it has proven to be. I like cities with proven track records of supporting a longer season league (NBA or NHL) first and foremost...but you're right, population size matters too.

The more we're discussing, the more I like Nashville. Charlotte is a good one too. Way too much space between Atlanta and Baltimore/DC region without MLB. And being a drive's distance away from several pretty good sized cities down there would definitely help support a 81 game home slate, particularly weekend series.

 

[Purple Stein]

Looks like the Rays are gonna work their way out of that lease/contract bit by bit ...

Rays to explore splitting home games with Montreal

 

[huskymedic]

Looks like the Rays are gonna work their way out of that lease/contract bit by bit ...

Rays to explore splitting home games with Montreal

.... so they’re not coming to the Rent?

Maybe they can split them 3 ways or move the farm team to New Britain.

 

[huskymedic]

Neill Ostrout @NeillOstrout 11 minutes ago
So maybe there's hope for Hartford to land half an NHL team?

 

[DarthGrumpy]

Would Sox and Yankees fans drop their teams for the Hartford Handmaids?

More importantly, the owners of the Yanks and Sox along with the Mets woudl be against moving a MLB franchise into CT, which the 3 teams basically own. With MLB 3 owners, 2 of which are big names, against such, no chance it gets approved even if the Rent could be retrofitted for baseball, which it can't, or, at the very last, would be more expensive than building a new stadium.

I can't find anthing online; but I thought there were rumors way back when Phoeniox, Colorado and the 2 Florida teams were added that CT was interested in an expansion team and sites around Rocky Hill were being looked at (in between Hartford and New Haven). The terrirotry rights that the same 3 teams
had at the time were raised and the talk of a CT MLB expansion team died quickly after.

 

[DarthGrumpy]

I’ve been in Tampa all week. You’d have no idea they have an MLB team - forget that it’s an excellent one.

Baseball is big in Tampa in SW Florida during Spring training when families come down for vacations and Spring games in Tampa (Yankees) St. Pete (Phillies), Ft Myers (Twins & Red Sox), etc. There are sign, banners, etc. all over the place and hotels and restaurants really push their services. The rest of the year, back to the beach. The only time in recent memory that Tampa draws well is when the Yanks or Sox are in town, which is sad considering some of the teams that the Rays have had over the years. I've been to 1 Tampa game as I was in Tampa for work and the Yanks just happened to be in town. Tickets were a lot easier to get than in the Bronx.

When Tampa and Miami were announced as expansion teams, there was talk that MLB's own internal reports question the viability of locating 2 teams in Florida due to demographics (age and money), tepid fans, and competing entertainment options (the beach). The report recomended that MLB put only 1 team in the state - Orlando.

 

[whaler11]

Baseball is big in Tampa in SW Florida during Spring training when families come down for vacations and Spring games in Tampa (Yankees) St. Pete (Phillies), Ft Myers (Twins & Red Sox), etc. There are sign, banners, etc. all over the place and hotels and restaurants really push their services. The rest of the year, back to the beach. The only time in recent memory that Tampa draws well is when the Yanks or Sox are in town, which is sad considering some of the teams that the Rays have had over the years. I've been to 1 Tampa game as I was in Tampa for work and the Yanks just happened to be in town. Tickets were a lot easier to get than in the Bronx.

When Tampa and Miami were announced as expansion teams, there was talk that MLB's own internal reports question the viability of locating 2 teams in Florida due to demographics (age and money), tepid fans, and competing entertainment options (the beach). The report recomended that MLB put only 1 team in the state - Orlando.

best of the lot is seeing Jays in Dunedin. Old school stadium and have a tremendous bar under the bleachers with no windows.

 

[DarthGrumpy]

Portland, OR, Montreal, and Nashville would be my top 3 cities for relocation. Tampa/St Pete is a horrendous baseball market. If it can't/won't support the Rays, it doesn't deserve a team. The Rays are one of the smartest franchises in all of baseball. If MLB puts that in a market that actually supports it, it would be the best thing for baseball and the franchise.

If relocating Tampa gains steam, I would expect that other cities if they can find some deep pocketed individuals to collaborate will jump in as MLB is the slowest 'moving' league when it comes to expansion and relocation (versus the NHL and MLS for example). Plus, a baseball stadium creates the most people traffic simply based simply on the number of games played each year and that traffic yields a lot of additional development opportunities

Potential North American MLB Cities:

Base) Tampa - #24 Metro 2.975 Million, #11 TV Market, #65 Avg Inc $21,800
Fun) Hartford/New Haven - >#50 Metro 2.063 Million, #33 TV Market, #8 Avg Inc $34,300

1) Austin - #46 Metro 2.000 Million, #40 TV Market, #21 Avg Inc $24,500
2) Charlotte - #32 Metro 2.426 Million, #23 TV Market, #31 Avg Inc $23,400
3) Indianapolis - #47 Metro 1.988 Million, #28 TV Market, #34 Avg Inc $23,200
4) Las Vegas - #42 Metro 2.087 Million, #39 TV Market, #84 Avg Inc $21,200
5) Monterrey - #17 Metro #4.475 Million, #2 TV market (Mexico), N/A Avg Inc
6) Montreal - #19 Metro 4.045 Million, #2 TV Market (Canada), N/A Avg Inc
7) Nashville - >#50 Metro 1.903 Million, #27 TV Market, #26 Avg Inc $24,000
8) Orlando - #34 Metro 2.387 Million, #18 TV Market, #82 Avg Inc $21,200
9) Portland OR - #33 Metro 2.389 Million, #22 TV Market, #10 Avg Inc $31,400
10) San Antonio - #35 Metro 2.389 Million, #31 TV Market, #182 $18,500

Montreal checks-off a lot of critical areas; but, it is in 'Canada' and MLB may not want to just have 1 team in the country's 3rd largest state by population. In an ideal world, Miami and Tampa are merged and move to Orlando opening an expansion slot one of Montreal, Austin, and Portland, which in my mind are the top 3. Vegas is too small and has low income levels on top of an obvious very expensive indoor stadium due to the heat (Vegas's AAA team has seen an attendance boost due to a new stadium built in the Sumerlin suburb in 2019). Charlotte and Nashville are not quiet there yet population wise. Indianapolis is in the Midwest, which is saturated with teams and has a declining population. San Antonio has an income issue. Monterrey was talked about years ago to expand the MLB market; but, moving into Mexico right now is just not feasible for a range of reasons.