Can Any Cities Host 3 or more Baseball Teams

Factual Questions
1

I was just channel surfing and I came upon a bunch of guys wrapping up a conversation. They were talking about baseball and contraction. They were saying the usual about how Portland and Washington DC and Las Vegas, could host one of these teams. But then one guy went off and started the subject how several cities now could afford a second or third baseball club.

First question. Could any city profitably host a third baseball team(NYC, LA, Chicago, SF)? Could any of the cities now hosting one team host two?

2

I think its more got to do with perception on where people belong.
Most New Yorkians would see themselves as part of the Yankees.
But there may be other cities with an unofficial divide somewhere that could possibly open up a 2nd or 3rd team. I cant think of any examples though.

3

Well, historically, New York has had at least three teams at once. The Yankees, the Giants, and the Dodgers. I have a feeling that there’s another team in there as well before the Mets, but my googling can’t find it for sure.

4

New York used to have three teams (Yankees, Giants and Dodgers.) Some people in baseball have seriously advocated a third team in the NY area as a way to control Steinbrenner’s spending (the theory being that a third NY team would cut into the Yankees’ TV money and limit their ability to simply outspend other teams.)

Los Angeles, despite its size, could not realistically support a third team. The Angels and Dodgers fan bases are not particularly strong, and a third team would dilute the baseball-watching public in the area even further.

As far as expansion, there’s only one current MLB city that could realistically support a second team, St. Louis. Even then, it would be a strain, as the Cardinal Nation is so devout that a second team might not find a fan base.

5

Hijack: I was under the impression that Las Vegas, or any part of Nevada, would never get a pro sports team because sports betting is legal in the state. Was I misinformed?

6

St. Louis could not realistically support two teams, even if the Cardinal faithful liked to watch AL baseball. The city is medium to small for a major league baseball venue; it is, by way of comparison, about half the size of Toronto, Dallas, or Houston. That they support the Cardinals as well as they do is a credit to the people of St. Louis, but there simply are not enough people there to support two teams. After all, they used to have two teams, and one had to move.

I really have no doubt whatsoever than New York could support an additional team. New York is basically the world’s epicentre of pro baseball; cable revenues alone could support an expansion team. I guess most sports have that - you could probably put two more NHL teams in Toronto, or another NBA team in Los Angeles. I would suggest that the best place to put the Expos franchise would be in Brooklyn, which would give the team an instant civic identity and historical link to a great team of the past.

I would also not be too quick to dismiss Los Angeles. The Dodgers are supported every bit as well as the Cardinals and have a large season ticket base; I’ll grant Angel attendance hasn’t been great, but until the 2002 season it was a pretty mediocre team for 40 years. Even then the team has almost always drawn well over 2 million, except in the seasons after the strike.

Other than that I can’t think of any other candidates. Chicago is big, but not nearly as big as NY or LA, and they don’t support the White Sox as it is. Maybe San Francisco/Oakland, if you put a team in San Jose, and that’s a pretty liberal definition of what constitutes a single “city.” And again, that city’s two teams have had, historically, pretty spotty attendance records.

7

The New York area does support three teams in hockey - Islanders, Rangers, and Devils - so the notion isn’t out of the question. There are differences, but not insupportable ones - hockey needs fewer bodies to attend, but it starts with a smaller fan base.

Money, as noted, is the issue. The roster is the smallest piece, though at a couple of hundred mil in long-term contracts, that’s hardly trivial. You’d need a third stadium - hundreds of millions, possibly a billion or more dollars. Most of all, you’d need tv revenue and advertising to support that, and that would be almost impossible to obtain in sufficient quantity after the Yankees and Mets have sucked away the dollars.

Note that the other areas with two teams - Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco - are the second, third and fifth largest population and television markets. And only Chicago has the stadiums physically near one another.

That indicates to me that the only other area capable of supporting two teams is Washington/Baltimore, which combined is the 4th largest in population and television. Angelos has blocked a team in Washington, but it’s feasible. It’s also a technicality, since most people don’t consider that one single area. They’re separate television and newspaper markets, after all.

St. Louis had a second team until the 1950s, and the Browns were the joke of baseball for decades. And St. Louis used to be one of the ten largest areas of the country. Today it’s only 18th population and 22nd in television, totally out of the running.

Philadelphia and Boston also lost their second teams back in the 50s, and are still top ten cities. I don’t think either of those areas could support a second team just because of the money and advertising issues.

In these terms, Sacramento, Portland, and Orlando are the top baseballless markets in size. I could see Montreal moving to one of them before either Mexico City or Puerto Rico just because of logistics and ratings, but who knows the way the Lords of baseball think?

8

Probably not what you were looking for, but Tokyo hosts 3.

Tokyo Yomiuri Giants at the Tokyo Dome
Yakult Swallows at Jingumae Stadium
Nippon Ham Fighters at the Tokyo Dome

There are also three more teams that play within an hour’s train ride of Tokyo: Seibu Lions at Tokorozawa, Saitama, Chiba Lotte Marines at Chiba Marine Stadium, and Yokohama Baystars at Yokohama stadium.

Basically, half of Japan’s twelve pro teams play within a 25-mile radius from the center of Tokyo.

9

Wrigley and Comiskey (sorry, can’t bring myself to use the new name) are ten miles apart – about the same distance as Shea & Yankee stadium, IIRC.

10

The guys weren’t talking about expansion they were really discussing moving the Expos and Twins to other cities rather than eliminating them.

I was thinking NYC is about the only place with a big enough population base to support 3 times. How about Philly?

Would it make more since to move the Expos or Twins to a city WITH a club rather than eliminate it or put it in say Portland, Las Vegas, Or DC. I always considered DC and Baltimore two markets as they have seperate Media Coverage for each city. Even though they are close (like about 50 miles apart)

11

The NY metro area is ten times as big as Kansas City and Milwaukee … they could easily host 3 or 4 teams.

http://home.nycap.rr.com/nickandaj/marketsize.html

12

The NY metro area is ten times as big as Kansas City and Milwaukee … they could easily host 3 or 4 teams.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/20020815zumsteg.shtml

13

In a perfect world, the Bay Area is probably big enough and spread out geographically enough to support three teams…but this ain’t a perfect world.

The A’s ownership desperately want to move the team to San Jose. Unfortunately, Santa Clara county, which includes San Jose and the “South Bay” was officially designated Giants country by MLB fiat when the Giants changed ownership back in the early '90s after their aborted move to Tampa and before PacBell was built. The A’s are hoping that the Expos move to the Washington D.C. area, and thus into Orioles territory so that they have precedent to moving into territory they can say that the Giants have abandoned. The funny thing is that Oakland is closer to San Francisco than San Jose.

The Oakland Coliseum is now forever a football stadium. The A’s could survive in Oakland with a decent stadium (see PacBell across the bridge), but the Oakland city council chose to develop a downtown lot the team had an eye on for housing last year. So the A’s will likely either head south to San Jose or northeast to Sacramento (where Oakland AAA affliate’s park is ready-made to expand to major league level when necessery) within 10 years.

14

Actually, New York City hosts four professional baseball teams.

In addition to the New York Mets and New York Yankees, the city hosts the Brooklyn Cyclones and Staten Island Yankees, New York-Penn League (short season single A) affiliates of, respectively the Mets and the Yankees. Also, in the metro area are the Newark Bears and Long Island Ducks, unaffiliated minor league teams.

It is extremely unlikely that any city with an existing major league franchise would ever add another, beacuse big league teams (and their minor league affiliates) have territorial rights, preventing another affiliated team from entering an existing team’s territory without the existing team’s consent. No big league team would allow another into their city to share the fan base and revenue.

It was actually a rather delicate negotiation to allow the Brooklyn and Staten Island affiliates to come into the City, and I know before the franchise that became the Staten Island Yankees moved here, it was looking into a location on the New Jersey shore that was a problem because it was in the territories of the Philadelphia Phillies and the Trenton Thunder (AA).