Well, in fairness, there’s now whispering of contracting the Rays and the A’s.
“Contraction” is a code word for “build us a new stadium.” Much of the North American professional sports business model is based on getting the common taxpayer to build stadia for the member franchises, who get the stadiums or use thereof for either nothing or a sweet cut rate, thus siphoning millions of dollars from the government into the team coffers.
To extract the free stadium, it’s important to threaten the jurisdiction with the loss of the team, either by moving them of contracting them. Every now and then you’ve got to actually do it. It’s been eleven years since MLB moved the Expos to Washington (Montreal wouldn’t build them a new stadium) so it’s about time to kick ass again.
In fairness, Oakland plays in a horrible stadium and has been trying their level best to get a new one for years and years. Tampa Bay plays in a horrible stadium that well ill-conceived from the get go. So it’s certainly true both teams could use better digs. What would be fair is if they built the damn stadia themselves, like any normal business would do if it needed a new facility, but MLB would never allow this to happen again because it hurts their leverage with every other city in North America. Far better to lean on them until either they crack or someone in Brooklyn, Montreal, Portland or wherever says “Hell, I’ll build you a shiny new stadium, let’s pass a tax to raise some money” and you can turn the Tampa Bay Rays into the Portland Wolves. Then, later on, the bitter residents of Tampa Bay might build a shiny new stadium into which you can move an expansion team and make even more money.
Bud Selig’s own Milwaukee Brewers departed a city (Seattle) that later got another team that moved directly into a new stadium and later extracted yet another new stadium, all financed by the hapless taxpayer. The Brewers, of course, are themselves a replacement for the Braves, who were lured away from Milwaukee by a shiny new stadium in Atlanta financed by the hapless taxpayer, which was later replaced by another new stadium financed by the hapless taxpayer, and which will in 2017 be, in turn, replaced by a shiny new stadium financed by the hapless taxpayer. When the Brewers arrived in Milwaukee in 1970 they sadly did not get a shiny new stadium - the move was made so quickly they didn’t even have time to change the uniforms to what they wanted - but they did eventually get Miller Park, which was financed by, well, you know.
So when they were talking about “contracting” the Twins and Expos, what they really were doing was getting shiny new stadiums. Mission accomplished! Minnesota build Target Field and the Expos got new digs in DC, paid for by - you guessed it - the hapless taxpayer.