Pat Willians, the co-founder of the Orlando Magic, is planning an initiative to bring baseball to Orlando.
This from Bleacher Report:
There's a press conference set for Wednesday morning at 11 ET where he will announce plans apparently.
So both Orlando and Portland apparently have teams/individuals who are looking to bring in the MLB.
If they will go ahead and move the Rays to Montreal, and then expand by 2 teams then that should pretty much do it.
Looks like the Athletics would rather stay in Oakland and just remodel their park or maybe build a new one. Either way, if MLB had 32 teams then they could build a better divisional system. Each league having 2 divisions of 8, you take the division winners and your wildcard spots are a little more opened up.
32 is too many without salary caps for teams and other restrictions to make the league competitive. I love expansion and relocation news but I think baseball would improve with contraction.
No potential expansion cities have a billion dollars ready to build an MLB ballpark. Not Orlando, not Portland, not Las Vegas, not anywhere. That is by far the largest obstacle, though the lack of MLB-quality players to fill new rosters, especially starting pitchers, is also important.
I thought that it was conceded that the MLB in Florida just doesn’t work. While it doesn’t cost $1B to build a baseball stadium, it still seems as that is THE major hurdle in the Sunshine State. To say nothing of how the big league cannibalizes Spring Training and minor league baseball attendance.
Instead of moving the Rays to Montreal, wouldn't it be easier to just slide them to Orlando? I think it will be incredibly hard to expand MLB by two franchises. The bottom of MLB, annually, is bad enough due to lack of major league talent. Can't imagine what it would look like adding two young franchises to the mix.
The Rays can't leave the Trop for any place outside the TB metro area until their lease is up after the 2027 season. Their lease allows them to buy their way out before then only if their new home ballpark is in Pinellas or Hillsborough counties.
That isn't much of an obstacle, given that it's "only" 8 more seasons and it might take that long for anyone to finance, build, and open an MLB-quality ballpark anywhere else.
So the Orlando guys, if they are serious and not just wishcasting, could make a legitimate long-term plan to build support, shake down the taxpayers for money, and have a ballpark ready for opening day in 2028. They won't even need to find someone with enough money to buy the Rays if they can get the Rays owner on board with moving to Orlando.