Also, probably at least 3/4 of those fans were Mets fans. The Marlins have had 15 years to build a fan base. They have none. This was a team that had an attendance of 300 at a game last year.
The Tampa Bay Rays are in the exact same situation.
Okay, Oakland can’t afford Arod. Neither can Cleveland or Minnesota. San Diego? Atlanta? All of those cities are smaller than Baltimore, haven’t spent huge amounts of money, and can compete just fine.
Maybe, and just maybe, it is because they have treated there fans like crap. Telling your fans that you need to buy us a stadium, so we can make more money, isn’t a great way to procure loyalty. Nor to get people to come out to your current stadium. After there first World Series, they had a chance to keep the nucleus together. Instead they attempted to blackmail the city, and when that failed, immediately sold off all worthwhile players. Miami could support a team just fine, if it had a team worth supporting.
The problem with Vegas, is that there are no secondary markets. It is just desert. There just aren’t enough people to support a team.
I think that either Oklahoma City or Tulsa in Oklahoma would support a team.
The largest TV markets without an MLB franchise:
Orlando
Sacramento
Portland, Ore.
Charlotte
Indianapolis
Raleigh-Durham
Given the proximity of both Orlando and Sacramento to already-struggling franchises, and Indy’s location, Portland and somewhere in North Carolina would be the best bets for expansion.
The options were Fremont or out of the area (Sacramento, Portland, Vegas being the likely options). The owner made a last pitch to build a new baseball only stadium on an industrial area of Oakland just north of the Coliseum but was unable to get enough interest or support from the city. The team and the city of San Jose fought for the right to allow a move to San Jose, but San Francisco’s territorial rights to Santa Clara County (gained when the Giants were plotting to leave SF in the early 90s) were considered sacrosanct.
The new stadium in Fremont is just a few miles from the Santa Clara county border, but since it is in Alameda County it is “Athletics territory”. The teams hope is no doubt that the team will be adopted as the “home team” by the high-income types in San Jose, but it remains to be seen just how successful that will be. Both teams are well into a down period. If the A’s have a good ballclub when the new stadium opens in 2011 and the Giants are still mired in the post-Bonds hangover, they should attract new Silicon Valley fans who will certainly find the drive to Fremont easier than the drive to PacBell.
It’s kinda funny… from what I’ve heard, A’s fans are all saying “They better keep Oakland in the name” but 49er fans are saying “They better not keep San Francisco in the name!”
Hawkeyeop- I was all ready to agree with you, bnut Clark County has a population of 1.7 million. Add in visitors, and I’d imagine there could be some fairly good ticket sales. I mean, if I were going to Vegas I’d see if the Giants were in town and get tickets to at least one game if I could.
“The Oakland Athletics of Fremont”, perhaps? Or “the Fremont Athletics of Oakland”? (Ooh…how about the “San Jose Athletics of Oakland”? I know the Giants have the rights to San Jose geographically, but can they prevent the A’s from using the city’s name, if their stadium is actually located in non-Giant territory?)
I agree with Bill James in one of his final Baseball Abstracts (1988 or so) who wrote that that could and should be 40 Major League Teams, that considering the US’ population growth (not to mention South American and Japanese markets), that there is easily enough talent to support 40 major league teams. The Major League owners’ cartel keeps the number limited so that there is always a ready market or two available with which to blackmail existing towns into ponying up for new ballparks.
Adding to the available markets listed above, LA, Chicago and NYC could each support another team. Vancouver and Vera Cruz could each support a team, as could Montreal if it was treated properly.
The value of an expansion market is pretty heavily dependent on the capability of the prospective ownership to get a good stadium built and marry the team to local media interests.
Having said that, there really AREN’T any particularly good markets left. The biggest market without a franchise is, of course, Montreal - which is full of poison and mistrust towards MLB and won’t help anyone build a stadium for fifty years.
After that, it’s slim pickings. Any of the cities mentioned so far would be very small by MLB standards. The largest metropolitan area in the North American sports market that has never had a team is Vancouver, which is still quite small by MLB standards and would have to pull fans away from the Mariners and Blue Jays; Sacramento is not far behind but has even tougher regional competition. For point of reference, the SMALLEST MLB market is Milwaukee, with a population of about 1.5 million. Only three others are smaller than Vancouver or Sacramento, and not by much.
The best expansion choice for an MLB team, to be honest, is the New York City area; either the Jersey side or possibly Brooklyn. (The borough of Brooklyn, by itself, has a greater population than the metropolitan areas of SIX MLB teams.) The market is enormous, big enough for three teams. Then I guess Vancouver, Sacramento, or Portland. But you need the owner first.
I’m sure part of the “territorial rights” the Giants own include not allowing the A’s to invoke a place that they “own” in their team name.
My guess is that “Silicon Valley” will (unfortunately) be the location name of choice. Most people outside of California probably have as much understanding of where “Silicon Valley” is vs. “Fremont”, but at least most people have heard of “Silicon Valley”. Silicon Valley is inclusive of San Jose while being vague enough not to rile the Giants, though most of Silicon Valley as it is generally understood is in Giants-owned Santa Clara county.
There was some discussion a few years back, when the Durham Bulls were being upgraded from A to AAA, to build a stadium that would support their further promotion to the majors (thus ruining the effect of the movie Bull Durham, I suppose). I think that the fact that the stadium they ended up building only seates 10,000 suggests the the idea of planting an MLB team here was considered a nonstarter.
<yankee immigrant> This area barely supports the Hurricanes and the Panthers… and just plain doesn’t support the basketball franchise. North Carolina is a college basketball haven, the natives don’t seem to care much for pro sports. </yi>
(But for what it’s worth, Raleigh/Durham was one of the locations involved in an Arli$$ episode when plotting to move the Angels, along with Vegas and Mexico City)
Same thing with Miami. They don’t support their Basketball team worth a damn, seats were easy to get when they won a championship. Same with the MArlins. Blame it all you want on how ownership treated the team but there were unsold tickets for all their playoff series during both World Series runs. When they played the Cubs last time Chicagoans were flying down in droves and buying tickets at walkup.
Altanta is the single worst sports town in the country and have only ever marginally supported it’s pro teams and they have been treated really well by the owners.
The south just doesn’t work, putting a team in Carolina or Memphis would be suicide.
The The Angels Angels didn’t seem to care. (I assume there was some kind of territorial rights established.)
What? They aren’t the California Angels anymore? 
I thought the Dodgers did squawk about it, but it came to nothing, so maybe “San Jose” wouldn’t be verboten. The LAoA did start out as the plain old Los Angeles Angels so they were just reclaiming their old name. 
What’s made sense to me so far is that the casinos don’t want a major attraction outside the casino to pull people out. The shows are something they put on as money maker second; the first consideration is to get people in striking distance of the gaming floors. UNLV they can’t do anything about.
As for San Juan, what I’ve read is that the town simply can’t afford the 2 million ticket buys and the associated food spending at American prices that would put SJ in the running.
Population: 442,447
http://www.sanjuan.com/demographics.php
The median household income is around 17,367+ dollars and the median family income is around 20,640+ dollars every year.
So you have a city less than half the size of San Antonio, with less than half the household income (SA: $36,706 http://www.census.gov/acs/www/Products/Ranking/2002/R07T160.htm) SA doesn’t get mentioned for a new MLB team.
Cardinal:
SA is about 3 hours’ drive from Houston. Probably considered Astros territory.
Jumping right in…
What I don’t understand about people considering Portland as a market is, if Vancouver would have trouble drawing fans away from the Mariners, why wouldn’t Portland have the same problem, only compounded by having the NorCal teams to contend with as well?
A team in Raleigh-Durham or Charlotte would be a disaster, because the Braves still own most of the South and there’s no way they could draw fans away from them.
I do think a third NYC-area team would be a good move, if for no other reason than to split the Yankees-Mets media money a third way and shrink the payrolls. Of course, the Steinbrenners and the Wilpons aren’t going to let anyone else play in their sandbox.
As long as my Redbirds stay put and the Cubs are a division rival, though, I’m good with wherever they want to put a team.
Wait, you want the Cubs to be in another division? But then they can’t lose to us as often.