# Canadian Teams in MLB **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [February 16, 2010, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-teams-in-mlb/529173 "2010-02-16T05:21:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-teams-in-mlb/529173/21 "2010-02-16T15:59:36Z")
> [@kidneyfailure](#): > > So MLB does encompass all of the three major countries of North America and could, theoretically, include Mexican teams and more Canadian teams? A number of folks have already noted the likely reasons why MLB isn’t likely to expand into Mexico (or other Latin countries). I also think it’s highly unlikely that they’ll further expand into Canada. MLB realizes that there’s a serious imbalance between the big-market teams (New York, Boston, Los Angeles, etc.) and the small-market teams (Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Milwaukee, etc.) A large chunk of each team’s income comes from their local media contracts (local TV and radio coverage of their games), and that’s revenue which isn’t shared across teams. Most of the Canadian markets would qualify as “small” markets in MLB parlance, at best. This isn’t a perfect list, because it only shows the size of the cities, not the entire market area, but this gives you an idea of size of Canadian cities, relative to some of the “small market” MLB cities in the US: Calgary: 879,000 Edmonton: 666,000 Vancouver: 546,000 Winnipeg: 620,000 Toronto: 2,481,000 Ottawa: 774,000 Montreal: 1,813,000 Pittsburgh: 316,000 Milwaukee: 579,000 Cleveland: 452,000 Kansas City (MO): 445,000 Minneapolis + St. Paul: 648,000 I’d have to believe that adding franchises in Canada (short of putting a new franchise in Montreal) would be simply adding more poor-sister, small-market teams to the leagues. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-teams-in-mlb/529173/22 "2010-02-16T16:20:10Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Calgary: 879,000 > Edmonton: 666,000 > Vancouver: 546,000 > Winnipeg: 620,000 > Toronto: 2,481,000 > Ottawa: 774,000 > Montreal: 1,813,000 > > Pittsburgh: 316,000 > Milwaukee: 579,000 > Cleveland: 452,000 > Kansas City (MO): 445,000 > Minneapolis + St. Paul: 648,000 Population size is tough to judge. Why include Minneapolis+St. Paul and not include Kansas City (MO)+Kansas City (KS)? Here are those 5 US cities by market size: Pittsburgh: 1,979,400 Milwaukee: 1,453,300 Cleveland: 1,763,700 Kansas City (MO): 1,607,500 Minneapolis + St. Paul: 2,712,500 Larger/Similar cities without a MLB team: Portland: 2,106,200 Charlotte: 2,008,600 Sacramento: 1,839,800 Salt Lake City: 1,735,700 San Antonio: 1,698,300 Las Vegas: 1,574,100 (I couldn’t find anything regarding market size for Canadian cities. Anyone’s google-fu not acting up?) ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-teams-in-mlb/529173/23 "2010-02-16T16:39:25Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > Population size is tough to judge. Why include Minneapolis+St. Paul and not include Kansas City (MO)+Kansas City (KS)? Yeah, I should probably have included Kansas City KS. I was only showing cities because I, too, couldn’t find total market population for the Canadian markets. It looks like (and I may well be wrong here, I’m going off of what my road atlas tells me) the western provinces have very thin populations outside of the major cities. For example, Alberta has Calgary and Edmonton, but only 6 other cities with 20,000 or more people. Manitoba and Saskatchewan, combined, are only around 2.1 million people. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-teams-in-mlb/529173/24 "2010-02-16T17:06:25Z")
Would Americans travel to Mexico to watch their teams play? I know it’s not uncommon in the US for die-hard fans to visit every stadium. I also know that tons of Chicago, Boston and New York fans travel to Cleveland just to watch a game. I know it’s not the case for southwesterners, but a trip to Mexico is kind of exotic for most Americans, isn’t it? Going to Toronto is no big deal. Heck, I even went to Montreal to see the Indians play. But I don’t think I could see myself going to Mexico to see my team play. Mostly for the language factor, but also just that it’s too exotic for my midwestern tastes. My point is that a Mexican team would just seem too distanced from the rest of the MLB. I can’t imagine that teams don’t count on a little bit of revenue from non-local fans. It might be novel for some, but I just don’t see it being a stable source of income in the long term. ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-teams-in-mlb/529173/25 "2010-02-16T17:17:35Z")
Before the Expos moved out of Montreal, they played some of their regular-season games in San Juan, Puerto Rico for a couple of years. Monterrey and San Juan were both in the conversation as possible relocation sites for the team before they landed in Washington. I can’t say how seriously those cities were considered, but it wasn’t just out of the question. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-teams-in-mlb/529173/26 "2010-02-16T17:55:58Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > (I couldn’t find anything regarding market size for Canadian cities. Anyone’s google-fu not acting up?) Wikipedia lists the population of cities and of metro areas. I think that the metro area is a pretty good approximation of market size: Vancouver: 2,116,581 Calgary: 1,079,310 Edmonton: 1,034,945 Winnipeg: 694,668 Toronto: 5,113,149 Montreal: 3,635,571 Ottawa: 1,130,761 If anything, metro area could underestimate market size, especially in terms of TV audience. ---
**Author:** ![Hawkeyeop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/958977/32.png) [@Hawkeyeop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hawkeyeop)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-teams-in-mlb/529173/27 "2010-02-16T18:40:24Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > Sure, those are all issues, but i still think that the _economy_ of Mexico City could support a team. > > The richest 20% of Mexicans control over 50% of the country’s wealth. Even if we assume that only the richest 20 percent of Mexicans can afford to go to a baseball game, in Mexico City, that leaves you with a market of up to 4 million people. > > Let’s be pessimistic and halve that, leaving us with 2 million. That’s still comparable to quite a few small-market teams here in the United States. There certainly are other issues. Security is a huge one. Image a mlb player kidnapped going to a game. Altitude is another as Mexico City I believe is higher up than Denver. Ultimately, if the economics worked though, they would find a way to make it happen. It takes more than having enough people who can theoretically afford to go to games. Who is building the stadium? Would a private party be willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars? Would the Mexico government be able to justify helping with the cost. Who is going to buy luxury boxes? Would there be enough corporate interest? How interested are locals in major league baseball? It is hard to see it being instantly a popular there as it is in the U.S. How are the secondary markets? Are there enough people who will travel 30, 45, 60 miles a couple times a year? Will they buy merchandise, watch on TV, and support in other ways. The reason Vegas doesn’t have a team isn’t due to gambling issues. It is because the secondary markets don’t exist. And so on. I am not an expert, and can’t answer these questions thoroughly, but I suspect a Mexican team isn’t worth the effort. Nate Silver did a piece a couple years ago on where an expansion team should go. #1 was Charlotte, I believe Puerto Rico was 4, and Mexico City wasn’t even considered. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-teams-in-mlb/529173/28 "2010-02-16T18:45:18Z")
Some more thoughts about Mexico: the Mexican League is a AAA minor league affiliated with MLB. There are 16 teams in the league, which is divided into northern and southern zones of 8 teams each. Each team schedules 110 games a year. Total attendance for the entire league was about 2.3 million as late as 2003. The most expensive single-game ticket for the Laguna Vaqueros (based in Torreón, Coahuila) is 110 pesos, or about $8.54 in U.S. dollars with today’s exchange rate. It looks to me like baseball isn’t nearly popular enough in Mexico to support a major league team. As for putting teams in Venezuela and the Dominican Republic - while it’s true that baseball is very popular in both of these countries, putting major league teams there would create big travel problems. Each team in MLB plays almost every day for a six-month season. It would be especially hard to fit Venezuela into a team’s travel schedule, and a Venezuelan team might drop dead from jet lag before the season is half finished. A big problem with the Dominican Republic is that the country is very poor compared to the U.S. Yes, you could fill a huge stadium for almost every game, but how much could you charge for tickets, souvenirs, TV rights, advertising, etc.? ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-teams-in-mlb/529173/29 "2010-02-16T18:58:16Z")
> [@Hawkeyeop](#): > > Security is a huge one. Image a mlb player kidnapped going to a game. I’ve known several businesspeople who’ve lived in Mexico City (solidly middle-class by U.S. standards, but pretty wealthy by Mexican standards). They told me that having bodyguards, security fences, etc. was simply the standard for them. Can you imagine what it’d be like for a millionaire baseball player, and his family? And, I suspect that most of the players would be more concerned about their families being kidnapped than themselves. I suspect this would be a huge disincentive for players (particularly non-Hispanic players) to play for a Mexican team, particularly in Mexico City. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-teams-in-mlb/529173/30 "2010-02-16T19:03:14Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > If anything, metro area could underestimate market size, especially in terms of TV audience. Probably so, but it still demonstrates that there are only three markets in Canada which are likely to be big enough to even have a ghost of a chance of supporting an MLB team: - Toronto (already has one) - Montreal (lost the Expos. Even back in the 1980s, when the Expos were pretty good, the conventional wisdom was that Montreal was a hockey town, and the Expos had a hard time drawing big crowds. I don’t see MLB going back there) - Vancouver (only 140 miles from an existing MLB market in Seattle) ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-teams-in-mlb/529173/31 "2010-02-16T19:09:22Z")
> [@Hawkeyeop](#): > > There certainly are other issues. Security is a huge one. Image a mlb player kidnapped going to a game. Altitude is another as Mexico City I believe is higher up than Denver. Well, you’re responding to arguments i never made. Your first argument in this thread was specifically about income levels, and that’s the argument i was addressing. It has nothing to do with security or altitude. Neither of which, by the way, are very compelling arguments in my opinion. > [@Hawkeyeop](#): > > Ultimately, if the economics worked though, they would find a way to make it happen. Which is pretty much what i said. > [@Hawkeyeop](#): > > It takes more than having enough people who can theoretically afford to go to games. Who is building the stadium? Would a private party be willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars? Would the Mexico government be able to justify helping with the cost. I’m sure that the potential owners would do exactly those sorts of calculations. They would look at the potential market, and decide whether or not it was worth it to invest in the costs of bringing a franchise to the city. As for the Mexican government, i don’t think they should help with the cost at all. If the team is economically viable, then let a private owner foot the bill; if the team is not economically viable, then don’t saddle the Mexican government, and the Mexican people, with the financial burden of subsidizing it. > [@Hawkeyeop](#): > > Who is going to buy luxury boxes? Would there be enough corporate interest? I don’t know, but there is no shortage of prosperous companies in Mexico, including both local corporations and the Mexican offices of transnationals. Mexico City has a wealthy financial and commercial center; it’s not just 20 million people living in a shantytown. > [@Hawkeyeop](#): > > How interested are locals in major league baseball? It is hard to see it being instantly a popular there as it is in the U.S. I don’t know. It could be that no-one would go and watch. That’s the sort of thing that the potential owner and MLB would have to think about. But i’d be pretty hesitant about dismissing it out of hand. And again, it’s not the same thing as income and economics, which was the argument i was responding to initially. > [@Hawkeyeop](#): > > How are the secondary markets? Are there enough people who will travel 30, 45, 60 miles a couple times a year? Will they buy merchandise, watch on TV, and support in other ways. The reason Vegas doesn’t have a team isn’t due to gambling issues. It is because the secondary markets don’t exist. Again, i don’t know. but neither do you. It could be that, if Mexico had one team, the whole country would rally around it in the spirit of national unity and “beat the Yanquis” fervor. > [@Hawkeyeop](#): > > And so on. I am not an expert, and can’t answer these questions thoroughly, but I suspect a Mexican team isn’t worth the effort. Nate Silver did a piece a couple years ago on where an expansion team should go. #1 was Charlotte, I believe Puerto Rico was 4, and Mexico City wasn’t even considered. I’m pretty sure that Tokyo wasn’t considered either, even though you know that an MLB team in Tokyo would sell out every game and draw a huge television audience. The reason Mexico City wasn’t considered, i would guess, is that Silver’s argument was explicitly based on an assumption that the United states and Canada were the possible places where a new team would be added. [He says](http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=6241): > [@](#): > > The market size model that I developed in my last series of columns can be used as a reality check against these claims; we can plant a team anywhere in the United States or Canada and estimate its potential attendance and media markets. Indeed, some of the markets that might seem favorable to baseball at first glance don’t hold up well under scrutiny, while others that might seem like afterthoughts do surprisingly well. If he had explicitly considered Mexico City, and rejected it, you might have a point. But the fact that he was only focused on the US and Canada doesn’t really tell us much at all about Mexico. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-teams-in-mlb/529173/32 "2010-02-16T19:19:58Z")
Isn’t the answer money? Didn’t they see an opportunity to make some more money by allowing another team in an already existing market? I mean wasn’t it just picking the low lying fruit essentially? No language barrier, no border issues, existing overlapping tv exposure, shared advertising demographic. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-teams-in-mlb/529173/33 "2010-02-16T19:20:32Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > - Vancouver (only 140 miles from an existing MLB market in Seattle) Only 140 miles? Wow! We can’t have two teams within 140 miles of one another. Guess we should ask two teams out of the Phillies, Orioles, and Nationals to fold. And maybe either the Giants or the Athletics. Detroit and Cleveland are only a bit further apart than that, too. And Cleveland is only 140 miles from Pittsburgh. Not to mention that Portland, one of the largest markets without a baseball team in the US, is only about 20 miles further away from Seattle than Vancouver is. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-teams-in-mlb/529173/34 "2010-02-16T19:58:07Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > Only 140 miles? Wow! We can’t have two teams within 140 miles of one another. > > Guess we should ask two teams out of the Phillies, Orioles, and Nationals to fold. And maybe either the Giants or the Athletics. Detroit and Cleveland are only a bit further apart than that, too. And Cleveland is only 140 miles from Pittsburgh. Just to note that the Orioles owner protested vociferously when the Expos became the Nationals, and moved into their backyard. Of the rest of the teams you mention, all have been in their current locations for 40 years or longer. It may not be a primary consideration, but I would suspect that proximity to existing franchises is a factor which’ll be considered if MLB expands again. They’re likely to want to move into an untapped market. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-teams-in-mlb/529173/35 "2010-02-16T21:01:03Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Just to note that the Orioles owner protested vociferously when the Expos became the Nationals, and moved into their backyard. Yeah, but the Orioles owners is a raging selfish asshole. And i say that as an Orioles fan. MLB should have told him to go fuck himself when he started whining about the Nationals. Hey, Dickweed Angelos, it’s not the Nationals cutting into your viewership, it’s the crappy performance of your team. You know what might get people to watch Orioles games again? Put a team on the field that can go above .500 for the first time in over a decade. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-teams-in-mlb/529173/36 "2010-02-16T21:11:08Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > MLB should have told him to go fuck himself when he started whining about the Nationals. Isn’t that exactly what they did when they moved the Expos to DC? ---
**Author:** ![KennerTheGreat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a8b319/32.png) [@KennerTheGreat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KennerTheGreat)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-teams-in-mlb/529173/37 "2010-02-16T21:50:06Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > Isn’t that exactly what they did when they moved the Expos to DC? I believe they had to mollify him somehow. I can’t remember how exactly, but one part of it was they had to guarantee him a certain price if he decided to sell the Orioles, and if he didn’t get that much, MLB had to make up the difference. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-teams-in-mlb/529173/38 "2010-02-16T22:05:09Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > Isn’t that exactly what they did when they moved the Expos to DC? Not really. From Wikipedia: > [@](#): > > On March 31, 2005, Angelos and Major League Baseball struck a deal to protect the Orioles against any financial harm the Nationals might present. > > Under the terms of the deal, television and radio broadcast rights to Nationals games are handled by the Orioles franchise, who formed a new network (the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network) to produce and distribute the games for both franchises on both local affiliates and cable/satellite systems. MASN was not, however, immediately available on all cable providers, adding to the frustration of Nationals fans. In fact, most in the DC area missed almost the entirety of the Nationals first two seasons. The deal with Angelos makes the Nationals the only major league baseball team which does not own their own broadcast rights. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-teams-in-mlb/529173/39 "2010-02-16T22:17:23Z")
> [@ShibbOleth](#): > > Cute. > so even though none of the teams in the league’s first year was American, by the period prior to expansion (1942-1967), four of the six league teams were based in the United States. The six teams you described are today often called the “Original Six,” but they are not, in fact, the original NHL teams. The NHL started with four teams, all Canadian, and expanded into New York, Detroit, Chicago and Boston later. ---
**Author:** ![Piker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@Piker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Piker)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-teams-in-mlb/529173/40 "2010-02-16T22:55:36Z")
> [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#): > > There’s this thing called “multinational corporations” that you might have heard of. You know, like where a business has been operating in one country and decides to expand into another country. Really, it’s not that big of a deal–you can find McDonald’s in Japan and Toyota cars in the United States. I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that the OP is more familiar with the soccer world, where it is a (stupid) FIFA enforced law that all leagues must contained within domestic borders. Any variences (Toronto in the US league, Auckland in the Austrailian league) must be petitioned for from FIFA. This is probably why the OP is astounded that MLB is “allowed” to have teams in Canada. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-teams-in-mlb/529173.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-teams-in-mlb/529173.md?page=3)