Essentially, here's the list:
New York, Chicago, and finally (again) Los Angeles. They like to double up.
Denver
D.C.
Dallas
Boston
Philadelphia
and now
Minnesota
Baltimore/D.C.
Bay Area (Oakland, SF)
And look at the five areas that have two baseball teams. These areas are large. Having 2 baseball teams, in just a matter of an afternoon drive apart, is a big deal. Baseball takes about a billion bucks in market. All the others sports are less than half of that. Those areas of twice the baseball are NYC, LA, Chicago, the Bay area and the D.C. area.
That's eleven areas and once upon a time and on the fence again is the capital of the south, Atlanta
. In the ballpark of closeness was St. Louis.
Times change. Long ago, when IT was to be in the Big 3, my Cincinnati was a part of it.
But with these areas listed, it's not to say that the likes of
Baltimore, Oakland or San Fran, and the squeeze that is
New Jersey (in between Philadelphia and NYC), won't come up with another club in fifty years. In the future, Baltimore and New Jersey could have a squad in the NBA again
. And we can envision more basketball, football or hockey in Chicago, though it likely won't be for a long time.
So, which city is next for a second (or third) team? For baseball, I would bet the crowded area of New Jersey if I had to pick. But I could see Chicago getting more NBA before another NHL one. Dallas could creep in more baseball, but new turf will have to be covered first, so any of this isn't going to happen anytime soon, maybe....probably not in our life time. There is seemingly four cities at least in line in each league.
 |
| Across from Oakland in San Francisco |
See much more expansion, co-location and relocation talk for the
footballs, baseball,
basketball and hockey on my blog.
Contribute to the pages to the right and comment below.
See samples:
Twins
In 1990 Mt. St. Joseph University, the then College of Mount St. Joe' started football. It's a Division III program. X had football up to 1973. They started in 1901. The joke still goes that they're undefeated since then. If you're from around the Cincinnati area, you know about Lions football and also Xavier University, namely their basketball. So what if they collaborated and combined for one purpose: a football team? Mt. St. Joe has the stadium. Funds and drives could upgrade the stands for sure to bring the team into a future of Division one ball. And what could we call such a team?
And since we're on these thoughts, let me lip off a bit: Toronto deserves more hockey as much as NYC deserves its baseball. I'd however urge Toronto's suburbs to take on a more broader Ontario base by name.
And, the environment.
I'm sure more than a few folks would share in the brand and love to watch it in their town, especially anything within or in proximity to Appalachia. I've blogged before about some kind of neato' Appalachia United Bootleggers brand, but now I want to float more camps into the geography. Before Atlanta magnetized the MLS to its area, I considered it to be along with Nashville and Charlotte. And I may have mentioned Knoxville or Chattanooga. I believe the brand could even camp comfortably from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati. Charleston, WV wouldn't be bad. And Birmingham. Think Little Rock. The first year for the club could be a controlled chaos.
Twice a month Bootleggers United could call a place home/camp, one month in a place like Little Rock, and in two weeks later Charlotte or Raleigh. This could be tried at all of the aforementioned locations over the course of two seasons to tighten up the decision on camps. It's testing waters and seeing where it could work best. Market analysis on where Bootlegger United items are bought up and the obvious indicator of where seats are quickly filled, televisions are glued to, are measures that can be monitored to do so.
