Via Rays Index, Peter Gammons brings up the idea of moving the Rays to the tri-state area:
The Rays haven’t been able to solve their venue issue. The Trop is stuck in a place that no one East of Tampa — such as the Orlando market — will drive to; a place Peter Ueberroth once said was only suited for tractor pulls; a market such that after its team won 97 games and the American League pennant, attendance and revenues stayed flat. There are smart people in the Major League Baseball offices wondering if there’s hope of even discussing a potential move of the Rays to New Jersey or Southern Connecticut over certain protests from the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox and Phillies.
Having grown up in southern Connecticut, I don’t think baseball will work there. New Haven and Bridgeport both tried teams, and they turned out to be fads. Attendance was great the first year, then dwindled. Maybe a major league team will be different, but you’re asking a lot of Yankees, Mets and Red Sox fans to change allegiance.
One thing in Connecticut’s favor is the venue. Bridgeport already has a minor league park with room to expand:
The A tab on the map is Harbor Yard, which contains both an arena and baseball park. If you look at a larger map, you can see two parking lots across the street from the ball field. To put a major league team there, they’d likely need to move the footprint across the street into those lots.
The location is serviced by a rail line connecting New York and New Haven, Waterbury and Bridgeport. Likewise, highways meet at that point as well, so it’s easy to get there from the north, east and southwest. Someone could build a very nice 35,000 seat stadium on that spot.
The downside, it would be in Bridgeport. The independent league team there is already named after a fish (The Bluefish), but my guess is a major league teams would be named for the state. The Connecticut Yankees won’t work. I’m guessing they would be the Oaks, as CT is the Charter Oak State, although I wouldn’t mind the Robins (state bird). The Gunners wouldn’t be bad given the state’s history of arms manufacturing.
While I’d love to see a team in CT, I doubt it’s going to happen. If they want to move a team to that area, Brooklyn is the best bet.
I really enjoy your work and the insightful analysis that you relay. And while the detail on the Bridgeport location is spot on, your assessment on why it wouldn’t work is also correct, too many loyalties to the Yankees, Mets and Red Sox. What would work better would be a New Jersey location for a team as the Devils have shown an ability to draw and the fact that trying to get to Queens or the Bronx for games from NJ is a major hassle. Getting to the Mets/Yankees is not so hard for Ct.
I’m guessing Hartford is too small, but what about North Jersey, San Antonio or Charlotte, NC? Jersey might be a hard market to break into, but the other two would seem ripe. SA was eager to lure the Saints from New Orleans, so maybe their appetite for major league sports extends to baseball.
On paper, a baseball team in the New York suburbs is a great idea, and would diminish the financial advantage of the Yankees that everyone complains about (and the Mets, but for some reason people aren’t bothered by the Mets winning the NL East every year). However, the only professional sports franchises that have been really successfully based in New Jersey are the two NFL teams. And this is because all the New York area NFL teams are in New Jersey. Plus its American football, which is in essence a suburban sport. Maybe the problem with the Devils and Nets are their respective sports. Or maybe its New Jersey. Anyway Brooklyn is a much better location for a third baseball team in the New York area. With over two million people in the borough itself its not a bad potential fan base.
I really like Charlotte as a MLB location if there is another expansion or a team moves. North Carolina currently has the biggest concentration of people that is farthest from an existing MLB team. There are something like nine million people in the state and the closest teams are in DC and Atlanta. Though the Raleigh-Durham area may be a better location than Charlotte.
@JR: San Antonio tried to get the Marlins a few years ago when they were toying with the idea of moving. I also liked the way SA wouldn’t be played. They made the Marlins a good offer, put a time limit on it, and said take it or leave it. That’s different from what Portland, OR went through with the Expos and Hartford, CT went through with the Patriots. Those two cities were just used to get a better deal from the location where the teams really wanted to play.
The Oaks? Not “The Nutmeggers?” 😉
@Linkmeister: I thought about the Nutmegs, but no.
The problem with Brooklyn will be the cost of the stadium – there’s no reason for New York to pay a single cent, they don’t need the third team. Are any of the other locations ready to pay for the stadium? Or is MLB ready to move into a location where the team has to pay for the stadium on its own?
I’m sure ESPN would love to have a team in Bridgeport.
How’s about the Connecticut Fighting Claims Adjusters, in honor of the state’s insurance industry?
Or maybe the Buckleys, for the guy who wrote God and Man at Yale
Watch ’em move to San Juan, PR ..that would be awesome for them & a shocker to everyone.
@Devon: Everyone there will give big cheer.
I’d love to see a team in the Caribbean. Maybe play 41 games in Havana (once they have free & fair elections), 20 in PR and 20 in the Dominican Republic.
Why not turn back the clock and merge them with the Pirates? It worked for the Pirates/Louisville Colonels. The Marlins and Pirates both belong to the sea.
As long as it’s Fredi Gonzales and not John Russell, the Pirates have what the Marlins are missing: outfield depth (led by McCutcheon) and a big time 3B prospect (Alvarez).
Have the Marlin Pirates identify players with ML contracts to trade, or release, with lower ranked teams getting first shot at new free agents.
Bridgeport is a non-starter. I go to a couple of Sound Tigers games each year. The downtown is blighted; some find it scary. People come for concerts or games and then leave.
While the population and the money might be there in the NYC area; there are simply no monies for a tax-payer funded stadium in the tri-state area. Corporate support is questionable as are PSL revenue. The Knicks are doing surprisingly well at the gate, but the other teams are not. The Yankees didn’t have a sell out until July. New football and soccer stadiums open this year and perhaps the Barclays center will open in 2012. The Giants haven’t sold all of their season tickets; there are thousands of unsold seats for the Jets. Citifield will be a ghost town. No one wants to go to Newark or Uniondale or East Rutherford, though the performance and marketing of the teams have a direct correlation on attendance. All the existing teams are chasing dollars and sponsors that aren’t there.
Orlando would make a lot of sense, but IIRC the Rays have an ironclad lease and Florida is an economic mess.
@AR: Having lived in Bridgeport until I graduated college, the area around the ball park is a lot less blighted than it was. The area where the ball park now stands was covered by crack houses before the construction. I think it’s one of the few publicly funded stadium projects that actually improved the surrounding area.
That said, you don’t want to wander too far from the complex, although from what I hear, the same is true of Orioles Park at Camden Yards.
@David, the same is also true for Comerica in Detroit. I only go to Sunday afternoon games there. I’m probably overreacting, but. . .