Next Major League Expansion Team: About the "Next Expansion Team" Blog

About the "Next Expansion Team" Blog

More Big Leagues in more places.

I come with some thoughts about which cities and places deserve a team, doses of reality, and some alternative thoughts for the meantime. These alternative thoughts may be in the fashion of an abstract. So, take a job through the blog and contribute.

League and franchise expansion and/or relocation can happen in more than just one way. Yes, the leagues can expand to more cities with more teams. It's not always practical and that's why it doesn't happen very frequently. Think about how expansion can even be done without adding more teams.

Expand in number of places to play or just in name (League Expansion, name (ie. Colorado Nuggets), and/or number of places (Texas Rangers playing 20 home (camp) games in El Paso).

Another example: The Golden State Warriors, in addition to playing in the Bay area in northern California could play some of their home games in San Diego. The Texas Rangers could play some home games in San Antonio or Austin.

Change in name: Florida Marlins could play in multiple cities (and the Rays could vacate). California Angels up north in Sacramento also. Yankees in Buffalo for 20 games.

You could even expand territory further than that. ... As in more states claimed in a name: What if the Raiders played in Oakland and L.A.? And if it were in Portland also, you could call them the West Coast Raiders. They could be called that housed alone in L.A. with a larger brand name claiming all of the coast.

Some drum beat theme names in my blog:

West Coast
North Coast/Great Lakes/North Shore/Northland
Southern, Southland, Southlakes
Eastland, Eastway
East Coast
Norde Force (An NFL franchise that can be housed in Toronto and all CFL facilities from time to time)
Sur Toros (A team in Mexico, like Monterrey)

Bringing back the state-named teams. If it were up to me the Angels would play in Oakland in addition to Anaheim so that the Athletics could become "West Coast", playing in Portland and Las Vegas. The Rays could vacate for places like Charlotte, Nashville and New Orleans part-time while Florida Marlins ball could be played in Tampa as well.

Get where I'm going with this? A team for pretty much everyone.

Ideas? Tag, your city is it.

A business question in all of this is how feasible it can be to have a team that plays in more than one town. If the West Coast Athletics played Major League Baseball in Portland and Las Vegas, that's two stadiums. All things even, that's 40 home games camped out in each "hometown" base. Are the facilities worth the cost? What multi-use venues can take place in these facilities to off-set the cost of an absence of the primary purpose of the stadium's use, especially if the standard number of games don't take place there. I think Las Vegas could certainly deal with it. How would this split geography play into the possible cannibalization of franchises and their respective television market territories? Obviously with models like revenue sharing, there will be ownership resistance if the number of teams in a league are actually expanded.

Whether having a tag team (a travel tag team) to play part-time in two places is feasible or not has many factors to consider. I think a sure bet is Las Vegas for this part-time model, nothing to say of there being a desire for having a team in any league for the people in that area. If you brand them as a "West Coast" franchise, it's a certainty in my mind. I think the likes of Portland would team up with Las Vegas to embrace the thought of "something is better than nothing" if they could get something like Major League Baseball, NFL or NHL to come to town embracing them in name as an empire in the big sports realm of nations.