All you need is one city that wants a team and every team in the league will threaten to move there. When one team moves the city that lost its franchise will want a replacement team. It’s a game of musical chairs that can go on forever.
The White Sox and Royals both want new stadiums? Great. Maybe Buffalo or Nashville or Portland will build a stadium. Then maybe Chicago will build a stadium to get a South Side team back.
But if that one city could support a team, they’d already have one. There’s wanting a team, and then there’s wanting one enough to incur all of the costs.
When it comes to moving a team, I think it’s less about the population per se of the new metro area and more about the size of the media market, how good a deal the team will get from the local .gov on the stadium/surrounding land, and how many luxury-suite-buying corporate headquarters are nearby.
There is a plan floating around in Chicago (ideas and notions only…nothing firm) for a new football stadium for the Chicago Bears and a new baseball stadium for the Chicago White Sox (which, if it was built as planned…the White Sox stadium would be a few blocks from me). Of interest, the current White Sox stadium still has not been paid off.
These are all a loooong way from getting approval but they are working on it. The Bears moving to the far NW suburbs is madness in my view but that’s another discussion.
It depends on how beloved the team is. As one Doper pointed out above, the Eagles hold tremendous attachment power in Philadelphia. The idea of them moving out would be a nonstarter.
The Miami Marlins, on the other hand, might not get any clout by threatening to move if they didn’t get a $2 billion stadium from taxpayers. They consistent rank at the bottom of MLB in attendance. Miami residents might even shoo them out with good riddance. Same for Washington Wizards.
Seattle didn’t finish paying off the loan to build the King Dome until 2015 - 15 years after it was torn down.
For both the city and the team. That kind of fan loyalty is tremendously valuable to the team, and they won’t get it anywhere else.
I’m not sure how this money’s out for the team since they would have to include the cost of demolition of the old park which can’t be cheap.
That said, the new White Sox stadium proposal is a mixed use thing. Hotels, housing, shops, restaurants…all money makers.
This is one of the assumptions stadium deal proponents frequently invoke. However, when looked at more closely, most of the revenue generated by these facilities is not new, but money that was otherwise being spent on other activites in the area (e.g. poached from other local things).
I am not sure we mean the same thing.
Yes, team owners would tout how new business would grow in the area of a new stadium and make it all awesome. That rarely happens and never lives up to projections.
Jerry Reinsdorf, the owner of the Chicago White Sox, has said that their current field is FAR too big. The popular style now is smaller, more cozy (but still big) fields like Wrigley Field in Chicago. Also, the owners of the Cubs (Wrigley Field) have built all sorts of nice amenities around the park. It’s expensive to go there now but it seems to be paying off and the area is nicer.
Reinsdorf actually wants to build a smaller stadium along with all these other amenities as a part of the whole thing. No hoping the neighborhood will get better. They will build the better neighborhood from the outset.
Will it work? There is evidence it might. Do I want my tax dollars to go to it? Nope…not at all. They will make all the money, they can pay for it.
When I was in Chicago this year I heard a little about the plan to replace Soldier Field. Aren’t they planning to build on the same footprint as the existing site? If so I don’t see that there’s much room for redevelopment or new projects nearby - that whole area is already built out, and IIRC the city doesn’t allow private development east of Lake Shore Drive.
There is a big parking lot just south (and adjacent) to the current Soldier Field where the Chicago Bears football team plays that they would like to build on. That is one plan. The other is the Chicago Bears bought the long defunct Arlington Race Park (horses) in the far northwest suburbs as a possible location. The locals didn’t give them the tax breaks they wanted so they gave up…now the locals are coming back with a sweeter deal.
A stadium waaaay out there seems crazy but this is the horse-trading that happens for a few years I guess.
That’s an interesting question. I would love to see a heat map of Bears’ season ticket holders. It’s possible that for a significant number, that location would ease their commute to the games. That was one of the things the Atlanta Braves actually published to justify their move to the north side of Atlanta - it’s where the majority of their season ticket holders lived (along with having the land to build the Battery in a much more desirable location).
(Looks at map)
Huh. And my mom complained that the L from O’Hare to the Loop took too long, and that was on a Tuesday at lunchtime.
It’s definitely a mixed bag. When St. Louis built the dome - excuse me, the stadium shaped annex to the convention center - it did not revitalize the northern part of Downtown, even with a riverboat casino a short walk away. On the other hand, the Cardinals’ Ballpark Village development next to Busch Stadium has been a success, although a good part of it came from sucking customers from nearby bars and restaurants.
I know this will probably be sacrilegious, but why not have the White Sox and the Cubs share the stadium? The Rams and the Chargers do this now in Los Angeles. It makes more and better use of the facility. AIUI, many urban stadiums are in areas that are busy when there are games, but the areas are deserted when the team is away or during the off season, which is most of the time. At least it would keep.local bars and restaurants full most of baseball season.
Apart from the two being historic rivals and fans truly not liking each other (just happened violently a couple days ago) it should be noted that Wrigley Field is smack in the middle of a Chicago neighborhood. When the Cubs are there traffic gets bad. Now double that. I am not sure anyone would be happy with that situation.
The Cubs, having just spent a fortune renovating Wrigley, and building an entertainment district, wouldn’t be interested in moving from their historic home. I suppose they might be willing to share, but I’m not sure that the Sox would take them up on the offer.
It’d lead to some scheduling challenges. Baseball games frequently get postponed or rescheduled due to weather; if you have two teams sharing one stadium, it means that there is effectively a game being played there nearly every single day from April until October, with few open spots on the calendar to move a rescheduled game.
It’d also mean twice the wear and tear on the playing surface – probably not an insurmountable thing, but definitely an issue.
And, the Cubs have a deal with the city, which limits them to only 47 evening events over the course of the year (“events” currently include concerts as well as baseball games). This sort of agreement has been in place since Wrigley finally got lights (and night games) in 1988, because, as @Whack-a-Mole notes, the stadium is in the middle of a neighborhood, and the residents have a say in how much nighttime disruption there is. Having 162 games a year at Wrigley, instead of 81, would mean at least one, and probably both, teams would be playing the vast majority of their games in the afternoon – AIUI, it’s more wearing on the players, especially during the summer, and the limitation that the Cubs have on night games is generally seen as a competitive disadvantage for the team.
This is, in fact, one of the reasons why teams have such interest in building “entertainment districts” around their stadiums, and is what the Cubs have done with their Gallagher Way complex adjacent to Wrigley.
Yes, I was that Doper 
, and your point is a good one.
Damn! Those guys were way ahead of their time.
Gillette Stadium (home of the New England Patriots and Revolution) is an interesting case. In addition to the stadium, there’s Patriot Place mall, with shops, restaurants, and a movie theater. It’s way out in the wilderness from Boston, so the restaurants have something of a captive audience before and after games. It also occured to me that suburban stadiums (especially football) typically have good road access and huge parking lots that are only used a few times a year. Building something else, like a shopping mall, to take advantage of the location makes a certain kind of sense.
I don’t know what the financing was for the complex, or what other public incentives may have been offered. According to Wikipedia, the shopping center (at least) is owned by the Kraft Group. Robert Kraft owns the Patriots and Revs.