Charlotte MLB Team Speculation

[elrodvt]

Which team will be best to watch cannot be determined just by the league level. For example, the White Sox tend to keep their AAAA type players (guys who will never be great in MLB and are in the org for short term mlb backup purposes) players at AAA Charlotte and their hot prospects at AA. Then they get a month or two at AAA just to be sure and up they go. I've read that it has to do with not over exposing them but don't really know why. So, I'd much rather attend a AA game if it's the White Sox. Geography also comes into play along with who the coaches are. Other teams get their top prospects up to AAA as quickly as possible. 

[DownEast]

Wow. What a shame if the Wood Ducks were to leave Kinston. Grainger Stadium is almost 90 years old and a gem of a minor league ballbark. I used to watch the Kinston Indians play there as a kid. And at a time when downtown has been on the upswing. Let 'em have the Mudcats. 

[kermit]

5 hours ago, DownEast said:

Wow. What a shame if the Wood Ducks were to leave Kinston. Grainger Stadium is almost 90 years old and a gem of a minor league ballbark. I used to watch the Kinston Indians play there as a kid. And at a time when downtown has been on the upswing. Let 'em have the Mudcats. 

I agree, Kinston is absolutely one of the purest places to watch Single A ball.

[HRVT]

11 hours ago, kermit said:

I went to a Chattanooga Lookouts game a month or two ago. It may have been an off night, but the play quality was really atrocious, I have seen much better quality baseball in Kannapolis, Asheville and Greensboro this year. The economics of AA has always puzzeld me, seems like some really long bus rides combined w Single A attendance (but I have been to very few AA games). 

I grew up in Durham and my girlfriend's stepdad was the grounds keeper at DAP (she sold Chipwiches at the ballpark and was in most of the crowd shots in Bull Durham) -- I have lots of fond memories! Anyway, when the first version of the Mudcats came around they had to build the ballpark in Zebulon because everything from Raleigh east was in the Bull's exclusive market area. Its been so long that has probably changed, but that is why I always assumed there was no minor-league ball in Raleigh or Cary.

I am not sure how much ownership cares but the Hickory Crawdads have been struggling at the gate (they are right at 2,000 per game this year). There has also been lots of troubling ownership news in Gastonia. The Atlantic League sure is weird baseball, I would love to go to legit Single A games in Gastonia, it would be an excellent Sally League town. 

It sounds like they are about to build a new ballpark in Leland (Wilmington burb in Brunswick County), and they are rumored to get the Crawdads or the Wood Ducks if they can find the money for the park. Having said that, I doubt I'll ever make the trip to see baseball in Leland, between the mosquitoes and the sprawl I would find it to be miserable.  Wilmington however is a town that really needs more than summer league baseball, but the city just can't manage to hustle up the money to build a ballpark -- it would be great up north of the PPD building near the river. Rebuilding Buck Hardy in Greenfield would also be a good site.

I've been to a few AA games and the baseball is a bit better than it is in A+ usually (I went to a couple Bowie Baysox games and I went to a Richmond Flying Squirrels game to see them play Bowie). One funny story though was that at one of the games, Bowie's opponent had this Catcher who just kept letting passed balls through. I think he let something like 5 pitches past him and me and my friend talked for a while afterwards about the horrible Catcher on the other team..... it turned out to be Alex Avila who became an All-Star in the MLB. As for travel, the Southern League isn't that bad. The longest route is Kodak, TN to Biolxi, MS (about 8 and a half hours). By comparison, in Carolina league, Augusta is 9 and a half hours from Delmarva so the travel in both leagues seems about in line.

As for territory in MiLB I think you may be right though I don't know how flexible the rules are. 35 miles seems to be the "territorial" radius believed to exist but I can't find anything concrete on that and there would be a fair number of "violations" of this rule though I think this may be more "enforced" in AAA (but even Kannapolis is less than 35 miles away though maybe they were grandfathered in with the Knights moving back uptown?). From what I understand, the rules don't apply to Gastonia or High Point because they are in the Atlantic League. Speaking of the Atlantic League, the league in general doesn't seem to be particularly well run and marketed as a whole. I'm not sure how long a league can survive when half of its teams draw fewer than 2000/game. Spire City (Frederick, MD) and Staten Island draw fewer than 1500/game with Staten Island barely above 1000. 

The new park in Wilmington (or Leland) would be good though the Wood Ducks would be off the table as they're moving to a new park in Spartanburg in 2025. Hickory could be on the table though as I know they've been struggling (I'm a bit surprised they survived realignment). 

[HRVT]

6 hours ago, DownEast said:

Wow. What a shame if the Wood Ducks were to leave Kinston. Grainger Stadium is almost 90 years old and a gem of a minor league ballbark. I used to watch the Kinston Indians play there as a kid. And at a time when downtown has been on the upswing. Let 'em have the Mudcats. 

Unfortunately, my guess is that Grainger doesn't meet the requirements that are laid out as far as facilities that MiLB teams must meet by 2025. This is why Richmond is scrambling to get a new stadium built by 2025 after a couple decades of hemming and hawing for instance. Even if it does, the attendance there was pretty bad even before the announcement of their upcoming relocation to Spartanburg. I suspect it's gotten worse (though finding 2023 figures seems more difficult than it used to be). Though I do agree it is a shame to lose such a classic minor league park.

[Crucial_Infra]

One advantage Charlotte has over Nashville for MLB potential is population within 100 mile radius. Last I checked, Charlotte had 7.3 million compared to Nashville’s 3.3 million. Raleigh, fwiw, has 5.6 million. 
 

Nashville has one of the smallest 100 mile radius populations in the South. The only major cities with smaller populations are Jacksonville (3.2), New Orleans (~3) and Memphis (2.6). 

 

Select southern cities 100 mile radius pop

 

Orlando 8,062,244 

Atlanta 7,942,852 

Dallas 7,720,460 

Tampa 7,487,905 

Charlotte 7,269,861

 

Houston 6,938,672

Miami 5,950,850

Raleigh 5,584,991

Louisville 5,289,221

Austin 5,012,963

 

San Antonio 4,173,352

Nashville 3,323,964

Jacksonville 3,169,401

New Orleans 2,979,683

Memphis 2,595,837 

And here are my random notes on 150 mile radius population from 2020. Nashville fares better here but it’s still not great compared to its potential expansion competitors, though it can take solace in being just behind Houston and ahead of Miami (note: half of Miami and Houston’s radius population is fish) 

Edited September 4, 2023 by Crucial_Infra

[kermit]

^ Wow, Orlando!

I am surprised that Tampa drops off so little from Orlando's numbers, I guess Peninsular Florida really is that narrow.

Edited September 4, 2023 by kermit

[Crucial_Infra]

1 hour ago, kermit said:

^ Wow, Orlando!

I am surprised that Tampa drops off so little from Orlando's numbers, I guess Peninsular Florida really is that narrow.

Tampa is able to reach down into Ft Meyers/Cape Coral

[carolina1792]

On 9/4/2023 at 5:20 PM, Crucial_Infra said:

One advantage Charlotte has over Nashville for MLB potential is population within 100 mile radius. Last I checked, Charlotte had 7.3 million compared to Nashville’s 3.3 million. Raleigh, fwiw, has 5.6 million. 
 

Nashville has one of the smallest 100 mile radius populations in the South. The only major cities with smaller populations are Jacksonville (3.2), New Orleans (~3) and Memphis (2.6). 

 

Select southern cities 100 mile radius pop

 

Orlando 8,062,244 

Atlanta 7,942,852 

Dallas 7,720,460 

Tampa 7,487,905 

Charlotte 7,269,861

 

Houston 6,938,672

Miami 5,950,850

Raleigh 5,584,991

Louisville 5,289,221

Austin 5,012,963

 

San Antonio 4,173,352

Nashville 3,323,964

Jacksonville 3,169,401

New Orleans 2,979,683

Memphis 2,595,837 

And here are my random notes on 150 mile radius population from 2020. Nashville fares better here but it’s still not great compared to its potential expansion competitors, though it can take solace in being just behind Houston and ahead of Miami (note: half of Miami and Houston’s radius population is fish) 

Topographically speaking, Nashville metro is severely limited in 'room' to grow compared to Charlotte or Raleigh regions. However, Nashville is the most likely to attract a random billionaire to fund any MLB ambitions. Greed will ultimately win in sports. 

[Crucial_Infra]

7 hours ago, carolina1792 said:

Topographically speaking, Nashville metro is severely limited in 'room' to grow compared to Charlotte or Raleigh regions. However, Nashville is the most likely to attract a random billionaire to fund any MLB ambitions. Greed will ultimately win in sports. 

Though topographically limited is good for potential density I suppose 

[KJHburg]

Well the Rays are staying in St Pete and I am happy for them.  St Pete is a growing great city part of the Tampa Bay area.

https://stpeterising.com/home/2023/9/18/the-rays-expected-to-announce-new-stadium-deal-in-downtown-st-petersburg

so no relocation for this team. 

[HRVT]

20 hours ago, KJHburg said:

Well the Rays are staying in St Pete and I am happy for them.  St Pete is a growing great city part of the Tampa Bay area.

https://stpeterising.com/home/2023/9/18/the-rays-expected-to-announce-new-stadium-deal-in-downtown-st-petersburg

so no relocation for this team. 

I was honestly hoping they would be the ones to relocate to Charlotte eventually. I'm honestly not sold this will be a good long term move but we'll see soon enough. While the Trop is by all accounts an awful place to watch baseball, the fact that the Rays dropped to one of the most sparsely attended teams in MLB by only its 3rd year is a huge alarm bell. I know that was 20+ years ago, but Tampa Bay has had consistently awful attendance for a very long time.

We'll find out soon enough if it was the Trop... or something else. Especially since they appear to be building right next door to the Trop (and the location of the stadium was one of the issues).

Edited September 19, 2023 by HRVT

[J-Rob]

I always get so excited when I see activity in this thread. Not today, lol.

[videtur quam contuor]

The Baseball stadium is near the southern tip of the peninsula and the  connections are over causeways and bridges with tolls and with limited capacity in all directions. Look at all those people in the eastern Bay area with a loooooong drive to St Pete. 

The agreement among the municipalities in the 1970's was that Tampa would have the football team and St Pete baseball team if and when. This made the metro a unified sports support system. 

[kermit]

CBJ has an article today on MLB expansion in light of the Ray’s news. Nothing new, but I thought it worthwhile to pull out this quote:

Quote

To date, no person or investment group has said they want to bring an expansion team here, though that person or group could come from elsewhere, as billionaire David Tepper did in 2018 to buy the NFL Panthers for $2.275 billion.

https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2023/09/20/major-league-baseball-expansion.html

[J-Rob]

4 hours ago, kermit said:

CBJ has an article today on MLB expansion in light of the Ray’s news. Nothing new, but I thought it worthwhile to pull out this quote:

https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2023/09/20/major-league-baseball-expansion.html

This article more or less said nothing, but as someone who would love to take his kids to MLB in Charlotte, this one line gave me unrealistic and insufferable hope:

"The Charlotte Sports Foundation declined comment when asked Tuesday about possible interest in an MLB expansion campaign."

Maybe they had nothing to say, but when I read "declined comment," I usually interpret that they can't comment, or don't want to comment, as opposed to having nothing to say. Otherwise, seems like a good opportunity to promote Charlotte as a sports town, which is what the Charlotte Sports Foundation is all about.

 

[HRVT]

On 9/20/2023 at 2:13 PM, J-Rob said:

This article more or less said nothing, but as someone who would love to take his kids to MLB in Charlotte, this one line gave me unrealistic and insufferable hope:

"The Charlotte Sports Foundation declined comment when asked Tuesday about possible interest in an MLB expansion campaign."

Maybe they had nothing to say, but when I read "declined comment," I usually interpret that they can't comment, or don't want to comment, as opposed to having nothing to say. Otherwise, seems like a good opportunity to promote Charlotte as a sports town, which is what the Charlotte Sports Foundation is all about.

 

I mean, there has been some real talk of an expansion by 4 but I'm even wondering if it might make more sense to just expand by 6 if you're going to do that in order to keep divisions even. That may require some shuffling of divisions as I don't think it would be so neat and tidy to simply put a new team in each division... but then again maybe you can considering you have the AL and NL to use.

Charlotte, Nashville, Portland, and Salt Lake City are four that would make sense. Then maybe you could do San Antonio and New Orleans and you could actually split that out fairly easily....

Put Nashville in the NL East and Charlotte in the AL East. Put San Antonio in the NL Central and New Orleans in the AL Central. The finally, put Portland in the NL West and Salt Lake City in the AL West.

But I'm just putting thoughts down on a keyboard. It won't actually play out that way. But if there would be MLB expansion, it probably won't be just 2 teams.... and Charlotte seems to be very high on the list. With the success of the MiLB team, it's clear that the city can and would support an MLB team.... location was the major issue before.

[jednc]

Saw this article this morning. If Charlotte can't get an MLB Team, then I'd root for Raleigh. What I hope this does is bring a Charlotte group out of the shadows...

https://ncsportsnetwork.com/exclusive-canes-owner-tom-dundon-working-to-bring-mlb-to-nc/

[Crucial_Infra]

5 hours ago, jednc said:

Saw this article this morning. If Charlotte can't get an MLB Team, then I'd root for Raleigh. What I hope this does is bring a Charlotte group out of the shadows...

https://ncsportsnetwork.com/exclusive-canes-owner-tom-dundon-working-to-bring-mlb-to-nc/

Asked about that lofty ($2.2 billion) number, Dundon said, “sounds reasonable.” 

[KJHburg]

Honestly I think Raleigh Durham makes a great case for MLB.  and this the first person I have heard of that is interested in bringing a team to NC.  As the #2 largest metro in Carolinas sometimes you will try harder and their TV market is just slightly smaller than ours and larger than Nashville's for example.  

[J-Rob]

I still believe that long-term Charlotte makes sense as a better spot for several reasons, but Fortune 500 corporate sponsorships is one. Admittedly, I also just don't love Raleigh as a destination. 

Others have mentioned this previously, but I am now wishfully dreaming of Michael Jordan returning to his love of baseball. I saw this morning that he is now listed on the Forbes 400, with a net worth of 3 Billion following his sale of the Hornets.  The Hornets never worked out on the court, but can you imagine how much MJ's legacy would grow in the Carolinas if he brought MLB to Charlotte?

Maybe he wouldn't do it on his own, but could he lead an investor group? Until MLB chooses Raleigh or Nashville over Charlotte, I will find myself daydreaming about a team in Charlotte, regardless of who a potential owner might be.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/michael-jordan-forbes-400-net-worth-3-billion/

Edited October 4, 2023 by J-Rob

[KJHburg]

Looks like an effort to bring MLB to Raleigh has been underway for months and includes some state help.

The quiet effort to bring an MLB team to Raleigh, North Carolina (axios.com)

[kayman]

Once again certain ones are trying to work against Charlotte yet the MLB itself said Charlotte is the best location in the region for a MLB franchise.  Idiocy at it's very best running-a-mok. 

Nope, I won't support bad decisions, period.  Logic & logistics are what I support not "what is best for the state" b.s. 

 

 

Edited October 4, 2023 by kayman

[smeagolsfree]

Spread the love and the wealth is the best thing that can happen to NC. To have two cities that are able to get an MLB team is great. Just as in TN we have Memphis with the NBA team. I do not really follow sports that much and do not go to the games, but I do realize the importance of pro sports to a city and state.

Anytime you have multiple cities in a state that are able to host pro teams is a good thing. Put the jealousy aside and hope at least one of your cities get the team. Raleigh deserves better than to be treated like the red headed stepchild, same as Memphis.

[J-Rob]

40 minutes ago, smeagolsfree said:

Raleigh deserves better than to be treated like the red headed stepchild, same as Memphis

Raleigh is the state capital that has consistently driven funding for infrastructure and investments in higher education away from Charlotte. There is a reason Charlotte is the largest metro without a law school of medical school, and that is only changing now because of private institutions not influenced by Raleigh. In my mind, Charlotte has been the red headed stepchild that found success despite jealousy from Raleigh. Charlotte stands as the economic and geographical center of the greater Carolinas region.  If they put a team in Raleigh, I will probably try to go see a few games and support them, but Raleigh is far from a victim because some people see the logic to an MLB team being in Charlotte.

Edited October 4, 2023 by J-Rob