Why are there no Mexican MLB teams?

Factual Questions
1

I like baseball, but I’m not really what you’d call a “fan”, so correct me if I’m wrong, but as far as I know there are only two countries with Major League Baseball franchises, and they are the United States and Canada. I understand baseball is popular in many Central American countries, like Mexico and the Dominican Republic. But they don’t have teams. I have a couple of theories as to why this could be, and maybe somebody could tell me if I’m in the zone or way off base puns intended…

  1. They don’t want it. It’s obvious why Cuba doesn’t want MLB, but what about Mexico? From what I understand, baseball is popular there, at least in the north. If they don’t want it, then why not? If they do want it, then why don’t they have it? Is baseball just not popular enough? Or maybe…

  2. Many Central American countries are too poor to support franchises. But I thought Mexico was in pretty good economic shape by comparison, and I know soccer (futbol) is huge there, so there is a market for professional sports.

Maybe someone from Mexico (or not) can enlighten me.
Thank you

2

It’s the money issue. Mexico may be rich compared to other Central American countries, but it doesn’t have the kind of money necessary to compete with teams in the U. S. Heck, even Canada is finding it tough to fund teams that match up against teams in U. S. cities…and that’s true not only in baseball, but in hockey and basketball as well.

3

Of course, the easy answer is that nobody has ever tried to put a major league franchise in Mexico. You don’t ask, you don’t get.

However, there are probably significant barriers to putting MLB in Mexico. As Chaim points out, Mexico is only “wealthy” compared to the really dumpy countries, not the U.S. It takes a lot of money to field a team, and I don’t know that Mexico has enough fans willing and able to shell out $15-$45 per seat, another $10 for parking, and $5 each for a hot dog and a beer. Local broadcast revenues are also very important for MLB teams, and I don’t know how lucrative those broadcast rights would be.

There are also quite a lot of, well, “infrastructure” problems in Mexico. Considering all the corruption and crime–can you imagine the first time some player’s kid or wife gets kidnapped for ransom?–it’s not exactly the most friendly place to do business. And I really can’t imagine the Player’s Association giving their approval to a franchise in Mexico, since that would mean that 25 union members would get stuck living in Mexico during the season.

That said, the San Diego Padres have played a few preseason games across the border in Tijuana the last couple years, and I think they did pretty well, attendance-wise. It makes excellent sense for San Diego to try to get all those Mexican folks a stone’s throw away to get interested in the Padres, since they represent a large source of untapped revenue, even if Tijuana itself couldn’t support an MLB team.

4

Does it take less money to field a soccer team? I’m not an industry expert by any means, and maybe the whole pro-sports experience is totally different down there, but I do know that Mexico has professional sports teams, and the athletes are big celebrities, and there’s a lot of money involved. I would even venture a guess that they sell refreshments at games, although I don’t know how much they charge. So why can they afford some sports and not others?

Not to be contrary, but have you ever been to Mexico? Are you qualified to pronounce the whole country a place where no self-respecting athlete would want to live? And regarding the “infrastructure” issues, remember that the most successful baseball franchise in history plays in Bronx, NY.

5

Does it take less money to field a soccer team? Depends on the team, I suppose, but I would bet the general answer is yes. MLB players are the highest paid athletes on the planet. However, the comparison could be instructive. Do you have any figures on attendance and ticket prices? That might be a decent starting place to figure out whether Mexico could support a MLB franchise. Of course, we’d still have to throw in luxury suites, concession sales, broadcast rights, and other sources of revenue, but ticket sales are at least a reasonable place to start.

And yes, I’ve been to Mexico. It’s a third world country, not the sort of place many MLB players would want to live. Or have you heard of any moving there lately?

6

The New York Yankees may PLAY in the South Bronx, but none of their players live anywhere close by, and virtually none of their fans live in the neighborhood, either. New York City is a huge metropolitan area that includes rich, middle-class and poor areas.

Yankee Stadium is an oasis in the middle of a bad area. Fans from New Jersey, Long Island, Queens and Manhattan commute to the stadium for a few hours to watch players who commuted in from New Jersey. NONE of the commuters strays around a moment longer than he has to.

I’m told that this is true of MANY older sports facilities in run-down parts of town.

As for Mexico, just how eager do you think impoverished Mexicans will be to spend $300 million to build a state-of-the art facility for a baseball team? And where are the multi-billion dollar Mexican corporations to buy luxiry boxes in that stadium?

7

Another problem may be that the Mexican Leagues are there.

The Mexican Leagues are officially classed as AAA, but they operate on a more-or-less independent basis. None of the teams, for example, are major league affiliates.

There may be some legal agreements preventing MLB from encroaching on Mexican League territory.

Zev Steinhardt

8

Actually, the reason is very simple: Mexico has no MLB team because nobody in Mexico has ever tried to start one.

Major League Baseball does not “expand” as a single business entity finding new markets; they give franchises to (hopefully) capable investors. When expansion teams are added, it’s not because MLB decided to move in to a new market; it’s because a rich guy, or a rich corporation, was already in a city and was willing to put up the money to start an expansion team. MLB will not “Expand” on its own - you need local ownership to put up the dough and demonstrate the ability to run a team.

The startup cost for a major league baseball team today is very prohibitive. The expansion fee for the next round of expansion will probably be hundreds of millions of dollars. You need hundreds of millions more to set up the team’s organization, start the farm system, staff the team, build a new stadium or renovate an existing facility, and get a slate of ballplayers to start it off.

But if a wealthy Mexican investor happens to have a few billion dollars and were to apply to MLB for a franchise, I’d bet you dollars to donuts the Mexico City Bandits would be in the NL West before you could say “Beisbol.”

9

You can also be pretty sure that with MLB currently considering “contraction” - i.e., eliminating a couple of its teams (most probably Montreal - although that franchise might just be moved), the odds of a new franchise being awarded anywhere, much less in Mexico, are slim and none for the foreseeable future.

10

Shylock, are you sure about the non-expansion plans of MLB?

I find the division imbalance in the NL and the AL to be unsettling, to say the least. Isn’t there room for two more things (esp. to make things fair?) Although, as it is, with wildcards the situation isn’t too bad.

11

Judging from the news reports (and as a copy editor, I read the wires quite a bit), while there has been talk of contraction, there are significant obstacles. For one, MLB would have to find owners willing to let their teams be dumped, and they would probably have to shell out millions to buy them off.

Plus, MLB’s reputation would take a hit, losing that aura of being a successful league, if they threw in the towel.

That’s why they would always much rather move the team, rather than contract.

It is interesting to note, however, that when talk of moving comes up, Mexico City is never mentioned as a possibility. Maybe MLB needs to take a page from the NFL and try a few exhibition games there, just to see what would happen.

12

Actually, there was a Mexican League, back in the '40s, I believe, which hoped to compete with the majors. Even got a few major leaguers to jump ship. It collapsed after a year, maybe two, and the major leaguers were banned from American baseball.

Re: soccer vs. baseball – the AVERAGE MLB player gets around a million dollars, maybe more (it’s been a while since I looked, or cared). That’s some 25 times the average household income. Superstars get considerably more. 25 times the average Mexican household income would be considerably less. So, a soccer star would earn considerably less than a baseball star, yet still by his country’s standards be living like a king.

New teams are added through moving as well as expansion, and it’s telling that no owner has ever seriously thought of moving a team to Mexico.

In addition to money, there are barriers of culture, language, infrastructure, visas, etc.

Actually, Castro is a baseball fan, could use the money, and would no doubt love to have an American team leave the US for Cuba. But the economics are even worse there, not to mention the continuing US embargo of the island.

Oh, by the way, wild cards are evil.

– Beruang

13

Well, my hotline to Bud Selig recently was disconnected. But as pesch notes in a post above there’s been all kinds of mention about it potentially happening…and how difficult it would be.

This from a recent Peter Gammons column at ESPN.com:

You’ll hear absolutely zero talk about having a MLB team south of the border.

14

I live on the border and I have lived in Mexico…From what I have seen, baseball is only moderately popular in most of Mexico. The average citizen of the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Colombia and Venezuela is far more involved in baseball than most Mexicans. In fact NFL American Football exibition games have probably outdrawn MLB visits in recent years in Mexico. But if baseball was to be launched in Mexico, Monterrey, which is probably the most dynamic and progressive city in Mexico (and perhaps the most “pro-American” as opposed to say Mexico City), might have a shot, but even there safety and logistics would be a problem now. Maybe in 20 years.
From the point of view of security and economic infrastructure, Puerto Rico and Costa Rica are the best devellope, and most stable countries in the Caribbean region (not counting very small places like Aruba), yet both are still small (3 to 4 million people, less than metropolitan Detroit or Philadelphia), so I don’t know if they could support a Major league team without a lot of outside assistance.

15

Well as someone born, raised,and still living along the Texas-Mexicor border, here is my 20 pesos worth of opinion:

First of all, as zev correctly stated, Mexico already has a very strong AAA league that is very independent from MLB and has a long history and following in Mexico that a MLB expansion team would have a hard time competing with. The league is called La Liga Mexicana de Beisbol and you can visit the web site at:

http://www.cafeterosdecordoba.com/lmb/

Second, yes, baseball is popular in Mexico, specially in the Northern states and also in Central and Eastern coast Mexico (near the Caribbean islands). Baseball is probably the second most popular sport in Mexico (probably the next close sport is boxing). BUT is still not THAT popular as soccer. Soccer is THE sport of Mexico. One sign of that is that LMB games hardly get tv showings (only certain local stations will broadcast 'em). MLB fares no better. A recent article in a leading Mexican magazine (Progreso) it stated that MLB games might not be televised since MLB was asking for more $$$ and the ratings were just not there.

The main reason why Mexico is not prime place for MLB is not because of lack of infrastructure (LMB has top of the line stadiums) and not of lack of security (living in Mexico doesn’t seemto bother Venezuelan, Dominican, or US players playing in LMB). The main is the same reason Canada has keeping up with their US counterparts: the cost of players. At this moment, the market is well content with LMB and there is not insentives to go forward with a MLB
team by itself.

And, yes, there IS a market for professional sports in Mexico and that is reflected with what the market will bear. The market will bear soccer, boxing, and beisbol. Basketball has no league, but NBA usaully meets that market. American football has a league made up of privage college teams, but that’s about it.
If you are interested in knowing more about individual teamsin the LMB, visit:

or if interested in daily news from the LMB, you can visit this Spanish site at:

http://mexico.sportsya.com/beisbol/

XicanoreX

16

The MLB games that have been played in Mexico were in Monterrey, not Tijuana. The latter isn’t a hotbed of baseball although Toronto Blue Jay pitcher Esteban Loaiza hales from there.

The Padres do run buses from Tijuana up to San Diego on weekends from time to time.

And if you wish to head the other way up the Pacific Coast, I can tell you from a recent vacation to BC, the Mariners are becoming quite popular in Vancouver, BC, which only has short season A ball now.

17

At the risk of repeating some of the above, I think there are several resons why this would or would not work:

PRO

1. HUGE market. A team in Mexico theoretically could almost exclusively draw off 100 MILLION potential fans in Mexico.

In addition, the large Mexican population in the United States could buy tickets for their road games, increasing major league attendace in the States. Teams in Dallas, Houston, San Diego, L.A., Anaheim, Arizona and I imagine Chicago, Tampa and Miami would probably benefit the most, depending of course on what league the Mexican team would be in. If MLB was smart, they would make sure the Mexican team was in each of those cities every year.

The potential of advertising during their televised games here in the United States would be tremendous.

2. The ticket price question was brought up before. But if you put the team in Mexico City, out of 20+ million people, I bet the odds are you could find 40,000 that could afford to pay for tickets, if they were inclined to so.

3. Tradition. As shown before, baseball is ONE of the top sports in Mexico.

4. Baseball has become more international. Today, many players are from Japan, the Carribean and Latin America. In light of this trend, isn’t it time to look beyond English-speaking borders for baseball expansion?

**5. Living conditions?**I also read that the players union would object to it’s players playing in Mexico. But for many of these players, like from Cuba for instance, living in Mexico would be like playing in paradise.

6. Plan B. With attendances in many cities declining, and other sports catching the eye of many youngsters, perhaps baseball needs to look to where they can still thrive when the American market dries up. Mexico? Japan? Carribean?
CONS

1. How would you pay the players? In volatile and unreliable pesos or American dollars, which would be tricky for the Mexican based franchise to do based on the fluctuations in rates. This is a problem for Canadien teams, on top of the higher tax structure up north. I’m not familiar with Mexican tax rates.

2. Political instability. Not all of Mexico is dangerous, but it is certainly not very safe in many parts. Kidnapping millionaires is a business in Mexico City. Most baseball players I would say fit into this category. The country is still overrun by ruthless drug lords who think nothing of assassinating government officials.

Mexico has a 70+ year history of peaceful (albeit usually crooked) transfer of power . . which is the exception to the rule in Latin America. Nonetheless, the possibility of civil unrest as seen in places like Chiapas should never be discounted.

**3. In contrast to one of my PRO points, living conditions in many parts of Mexico are not the same as in the U.S… While this is not true of all of this beautiful country, it is still a Third World nation. My guess is many American major leaguers would prefer NOT to live and play in a foreign speaking country, and once many nationals move to the U.S. and get a taste of what it is like here, might not be willing to move to Mexico either.

4. Racism? This hasn’t been discussed here, but worth bringing up. Would predominately white baseball fans pay money to see their home team play a team from a Spanish speaking coutry? And would nationalistic Mexican fans pay money to see a team with a bunch of American, Cuban, Japanese etc. players? While an all Mexican team would be preferable, I’m not 100% sure if this is realistic if the team wants to be competitive.

5. Interference with agreements with the Mexican league (described above)

Overall, I think the economic, politcal and criminal situations have to improve in Mexico before you will ever see major league baseball there, which I think is a shame.

18

Oh, dear, I don’t want to start a debate, but here goes:

Eventhough there are problems with security in Mexico, the country is NOT “over run by ruthless drug lords.” Most political assasinations in Mexico have been due to repression of political opposition, in-fighting between the political elite, or involvment in drugs. Professional players are pretty much left alone and, yes, many of the soccer players living in Mexico are millionaires even by US standards.

The level of civil unrest, do high comparatively to US or other European countries, is no where near the level of Columbia or such. Still, I grant you that MLB might see the presence of guerrilleros (though as localized and small as they might be - with the exception of EZLN) as a negative factor.

Those who live well in Mexico, specially professional players, have no problem with the living standards of Mexico. If you are very well off and living in Mexico City or Monterrey, it’s like in Houston.

I don’t think that would be major factor. Afterall, if Mexicans are willing to pay top $$$ to see NFL, NBA, and MLB friendly games in Mexico with non-Mexican players, I don’t think they would mind seeing an MLB with a smattering of Mexicans, Anglos, Japanese, etc. players. Most, if not all, Mexicans understand that an MLB team would have to be an international player roster.

I think the factors that have to occur before MLB were to set up a team in Mexico (aside from whatever MLB internal reasons) is:

  1. Player salaries
  2. Relation of MLB and LMB and how the new franchise would be affected by a well established LMB league and vice versa.
  3. Is there really a strong baseball market in Mexico? For the LMB there is just enough, but for a MLB?

XicanoreX

19

Oh, dear, I don’t want to start a debate, but here goes:

Eventhough there are problems with security in Mexico, the country is NOT “over run by ruthless drug lords.” Most political assasinations in Mexico have been due to repression of political opposition, in-fighting between the political elite, or involvment in drugs. Professional players are pretty much left alone and, yes, many of the soccer players living in Mexico are millionaires even by US standards.

The level of civil unrest, do high comparatively to US or other European countries, is no where near the level of Columbia or such. Still, I grant you that MLB might see the presence of guerrilleros (though as localized and small as they might be - with the exception of EZLN) as a negative factor.

Those who live well in Mexico, specially professional players, have no problem with the living standards of Mexico. If you are very well off and living in Mexico City or Monterrey, it’s like in Houston.

I don’t think that would be major factor. Afterall, if Mexicans are willing to pay top $$$ to see NFL, NBA, and MLB friendly games in Mexico with non-Mexican players, I don’t think they would mind seeing an MLB with a smattering of Mexicans, Anglos, Japanese, etc. players. Most, if not all, Mexicans understand that an MLB team would have to be an international player roster.

I think the factors that have to occur before MLB were to set up a team in Mexico (aside from whatever MLB internal reasons) is:

  1. Player salaries
  2. Relation of MLB and LMB and how the new franchise would be affected by a well established LMB league and vice versa.
  3. Is there really a strong baseball market in Mexico? For the LMB there is just enough, but for a MLB?

XicanoreX

20

I’m surprised no one’s caught this yet. Puerto Rico is not a country, but a territory of the United States.

– Beruang