I lived in Memphis from 00-08 and was a season ticket holder to the Redbirds all those years. Attendance was great until about 5 years ago when it started going downhill. For one thing the Grizzles came to town and stole some entertainment dollars (mostly corporate). But also the team wasn’t run very well and prices kept going up to compensate. I continued to pay them but many people didn’t. This year (I understand from others since I no longer live there) was really bad. Most of it is blamed on the economy. Most of the fans come from outside of Memphis proper - Arkansas, Missisippi, and the suburbs. Some of these areas haven’t fared well in the economy.

You also have to understand the demographics of Memphis. The city is 80% black. The county and greater Memphis (includes parts of Arkansas & Mississippi) is 50/50. In generally black people aren’t big baseball fans. Urban kids (black or white) aren’t big baseball fans because they dont’ play the sport as much. I’m not trying to raise racial issues. But I was a STH to bother the Redbirds and Grizzlies and it was a markedly different crown that went to Redbirds games and Grizzlies games. Redbirds fans were mostly white and suburban or rural. Grizzlies fans were mixed racially, but were clearly urban dwellers regardless of race. I just don’t see a major league franchise surviving in Memphis. In fact, they need to work on their AAA team and get it back up to par.

Bob Johnson has never intimated that in the past. Charlotte is working on moving the AAA Knights downtown (at the request of knights ownership), but there’s a singular lawyer who files injunction after injunction, because he wants it built on land he owns, instead of land the city owns.

That said, the Knights have signed a new agreement with Fort Mill, SC that will keep them where they are until 2014. If they can keep the injunctions clear, Charlotte will probably have a nice AAA downtown park in 2015.

just broke ground 3 months ago on a new park, so, nomination denied. Tampa’s more likely to be a move candidate if there were to be one. I think it would be hysterical to see the A’s move back East after Philly, KC and Oakland already exist in their past.

As a current Triad resident and former Triangle resident (91-96) and Charlotte resident (96-00) I can see the Triangle supporting a baseball team better than the other two NC regions. Minor Lg baseball is extremely successful in Greensboro, not so much in Winston or Burlington (I know, I know, 2 crappy stadiums). But I’ll argue (and rightfully so) that Greensboro is a bunch of baseball fans because they have good, plentiful cheap beer. The whole experience is good, affordable fun (whether you are drinking or not). But the base isn’t there for Major League baseball. GBO averages 6000+ fans a game and Winston is wondering whether they can get 4400 a game in the new stadium. Do you really think Burlington and High Point would add much to those totals? I don’t.

Has anyone been to a Panthers or Bobcats game lately? Have you seen all the empty seats? Charlotte is like Atlanta - fair weather fans. I don’t think Major League baseball would do well. But if they build a downtown stadium for the Knights it will do well - it’ll have a similar atmosphere to Durham Bulls games.

To me the only slightly viable location for a major league team in the Carolinas is in the Triangle - preferably the western side to benefit from the Triad population.

As for Memphis, where I lived from 00-08 I’ll comment on that where someone suggested they could support a franchise.

Clearly you would like to see the Yankees with a $300 million payroll. If anything the Tri-State area could absorb another team. And if you’re moving the Angels, you’ve got to move one of the Bay Area teams as well (you know they don’t actually play in LA, right?).

You can’t have 15 teams in each league, it royally screws up the schedule.

No way the Mets or Angels move. The Mets have a brand new stadium and almost no owner is as tied to his city as Arte Moreno and the LA area.

but the problem is that east of the prairies, there is very little interest in baseball. The greater Toronto area has 5 million people plus an additional 5 in the province. However, the Blue Jays struggle to fill up the stadium and have good merchandise sales because their ownership and baseball Canada have done very little to develop the sport within the community. The popularity of baseball is really diminishing as soccer becomes more popular. There are few diehard baseball fans in the GTA. In fact, I would bet there are more casual Yankee and Red Sox fans, that are more fans of any sport than baseball specifically, in Toronto.

A Vancouver team is a nice idea but I wonder how much that would conflict with Seattle. Plenty of baseball fans from Vancouver follow the Mariners and they would be hard to dislodge, also I am sure the Mariners themselves would object to a Vancouver team. Montreal is the best bet, but Quebec needs to develop youth baseball more first. Last time I checked they do not even have HS varsity teams set up in most areas.

Also, the exchange rate is more a factor for convincing FAs to come then for the team itself isn’t it?

Not sure where your math comes from, and I live on the west coast of Canada… Montreal is nowhere near twice the market Vancouver is, and this is baseball country. Vancouver could handle an mlb team and would be a great natural rival for the Mariners. Having a decent team is always the rub with a new location, so if the MLB Vancouver Salmonbellies could be stocked with BC boys Justin Morneau, Jason Bay, Jeff Francis, Rich Harden and Ryan Dempster it would give us a good start,

Even if it might have the population. And the traffic and public transportation is such that it would be nearly impossible to build a stadium that people could actually get to.

What’s this, then? “Romanes eunt domus”? People called Romanes, they go, the house?

Seems to have dropped a smidge lately for some reason…

Have you ever tried to drive from southern VA to the DC area? It may look close on a map, but once you take DC traffic into consideration that drive is 4 hours of pure hell. That said, I seriously doubt Richmond/VA Beach could support a MLB team.

Imagine if the nearest teams to Philly were in NYC and out on Long Island. Would you be thrilled about making that drive? And that drive would be better than Richmond to DC/Baltimore.