Atlanta having two baseball teams ??? Existing infrastructure strengthens the argument for a team called "Southern".

New York, Chicago and Los Angeles have two teams in their city (and the A's and Giants have their ball fields 17 miles apart).  Could Atlanta be the fourth city to tout two baseball teams?

Atlanta having two baseball teams ???  Existing infrastructure strengthens my argument for a team called "Southern".

This Ballpark Digest article talks of a schemed up possibility in the American League team called the Atlanta Surge .

The Braves are getting a new stadium in suburbia Atlanta and their "old" stadium is relatively new.

If this isn't an opportunity to draw in an expansion or relocated (Tampa) team for cities of the South, I don't know what is.  A team called "Southern", like the Southern Rays for cities like New Orleans, Memphis, Nashville, Charlotte, Louisville and maybe Jacksonville.  Including existing baseball stadiums in Atlanta and Tampa, that's 8 locations for MLB to spread love.

For my strongest argument being part of a (partial) relocation of the Rays is most logical at this time for including a southern region brand franchise for baseball, I'm not thrilled for Turner Field ( (check this out) of already-a-team-Atlanta) or even Tampa to be a mainstay.  But they could be fallbacks alleviating any concern for failure of the "travel" home (camp) team model.  Cities like Charlotte, Nashville and New Orleans or any of the abovementioned like Louisville or even Birmingham could be inspired (incentivized) to build (onto) bigger better stadiums to increase their cities share of games while "Southern" gets a more robust upstart in the existing major league parks of the region.  Creativity for multi-venued ballparks could take form for multi-use.  I've talked more of Southern region major league sports in previous blog posts.




More future thinking links for baseball:

Links below are design concepts for teams:
Future MLB

While I disagree with Montreal and believe it's too early for it, I like the alignment presented:
An Exercise in Expansion



See more expansion and relocation talk for football, baseball, basketball, hockey and soccer on my blog (starting in Feb 2014, see table of contents/archive):  Major League/Pro Expansion <CLICK> http://prosportsexpansion.blogspot.com/ 
And please feel free to contribute your two cents with mine.