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Salt Lake, MLB? No, no, no. Little baseball interest there. Few transplants from great baseball cities. Very unlikely. Sunday games would be a problem.
NBA, third team in Florida. Don't think so.
NHL, can't argue witht that.
NFL, LA definitely, and probably will happen within two years. Birmingham, don't think so. College football is too strong in the south. The pros would be laughed upon. Even Jacksonville is in serious trouble.
NFL: Los Angeles ( I think they should get the Raiders back from Oakland ( IMHO Oakland is a satellite city of San Franscisco - 49ers- like Fort Worth to Dallas - Cowboys- , Newark to NYC- Giants and Jets -and St.Paul to Minn.- Vikings- etc.) Columbus Ohio ( everyone say that C-bus has the Ohio State Buckeyes and I think they are great but comparing college football to the NFL is like comparing apples to oranges.) Portland Ore. and possibly Memphis ( the Titans should be based there instead of Nashville which has the lesser population), Louisville ( rapidly growing) and San Antonio . I also feel that the Buccaneers should move out of Tampa Bay( that area has alot of sprawl with very little urban feel) to it to one of the above mentioned possibilities. MLB : Columbus Ohio, Indianapolis , Portland Ore., Memphis and Buffalo NY.
That is not true. The city of Memphis is larger than the city of Nashville, but the Nashville MSA is much larger and is growing a lot faster. In addition, the Nashville television market is the 29th largest in the country, the Memphis television market is 50th. Huge difference.
Besides, Memphis is a basketball town, not a football town. Memphians are notorious for not supporting their local college football team, and they blew it when the Oilers/Titans were in Memphis for an entire season on their move from Houston to Nashville (it was supposed to have been two seasons, but attendance was so dismal that the Oilers/Titans preferred to play in dinky Vanderbilt Stadium in Nashville rather than spend another year in Memphis). And there is no way that there are enough people to support 80 home MLB games a year in Memphis.
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NFL, LA definitely, and probably will happen within two years. Birmingham, don't think so. College football is too strong in the south. The pros would be laughed upon. Even Jacksonville is in serious trouble.
Football period is big in the south, not just college. Birmingham has become a major city (1.5 million metro population) and is the only major city in the Southern US without any pro sports team attached. It's a lucrative untapped market. Birmingham has been consistently bypassed in favor of Memphis for no apparent reason, as that city has hardly embraced any of it's rewarded pro franchises.
There are 6 MLB teams in the South: Braves, Marlins, Devil Rays, Astros, Nationals, and Rangers. Baseball is as popular as it is anywhere else in the U.S., but as someone stated earlier, there must be a population large enough to average around 30,000 per game for 80 or so games. The cities that have such a population already have MLB teams.
Nationals are not in the South, and Florida/Texas (which have everything)don't count.
New Orleans, Charlotte, Memphis, Nashville, Louisville, the Triangle, and Hampton Roads don't have teams.
Football period is big in the south, not just college. Birmingham has become a major city (1.5 million metro population) and is the only major city in the Southern US without any pro sports team attached. It's a lucrative untapped market. Birmingham has been consistently bypassed in favor of Memphis for no apparent reason, as that city has hardly embraced any of it's rewarded pro franchises.
Birmingham's metro population is closer to 1.2 million in population and isn't the only major city in the South without a major league pro sports team. Austin, Louisville, Richmond, and Norfolk/Hampton Roads, all with metro populations around Birmingham's size or larger, don't have one either.
That's just it. There are several, if not more, metros in the south and mid-atlantic that have similar populations that could or couldn't support major league sports. I guess it comes down to not only demographics, but psychographics, as in which cities would most likely support a pro team. It isn't totally about population, it is about the ability of a metro to support the team financially, both from a corporate standpoint, but also from enough citizens with disposable wealth to add to the equation.
Austin and Columbus have the population base to support major league teams, but their respective college sports scenes are just too dominating.
San Diego, Las Vegas, Louisville, Kansas City, St. Louis, Tampa, Norfolk, and Nashville could support NBA teams. You could also add the NC Triad to the list. The Greensboro Coliseum is the largest in the state, but an NBA team would probably consider it "too old." Vegas and Norfolk have the population to sustain an NFL team also.
MLB is tricky. Someone mentioned Charlotte, but we're not quite there yet. We're doing pretty good with our two teams (in terms of support, not performance--separate issue), and adding MLB would be a bit much at this time. Heck, we're struggling trying to get our minor league baseball team to locate to Uptown from the suburbs.
columbus could easily support an nba team.
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