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You don't seem to understand the concept of getting people into a ballpark for weeknight or, God-forbid, weekday afternoon games could be a problem, when you're talking about 80 games.
Now, when they can get the high-speed rail going, that's a different story. People do that in the Northeast corridor.
No I get it and its an interesting concept
It still precludes why Charlotte made the MLB list in the first place I mean I just assume they understand these factors.
Baseball should be played
- on grass
- during the day (but I will grudgingly accept night games)
- with wooden bats
- with the pitchers batting
Also,
no obnoxious music every second the ball is not in play
no intra-league play
Two new stupid things are clocks and the rule about the batter getting to chose which way to bat (vs the "amphibious" pitcher).
Other than that, I think Bud Selig did a great job as commissioner.
I remember being in Atlanta during the "lean years" when the Durham Bulls actually had more fans for a game than the Braves did. If it wasn't for Aaron, Neikro and few others, no one would have gone to the games, as they were terrible.
They tried to get the public interested once before, in a team around Greensboro. It went over as well as a lead zeppelin!
The Triangle in particular is a diehard 9-5 community. MLB plays a lot of day games, and with such a long schedule, people simply won't sit in a stadium until 9pm 3 or 4 nights a week. You'd get GREAT support when the Red Sox and Yankees came to town, and nobody would go watch when any other team came through. Never going to happen.
You need to look at a multitude of factors including, but not limited to, population density, corporate dollars (i.e. how many Fortune 500 companies in metro area), and how many other teams from the "big 4" leagues are already in the metro area (i.e. is the sports dollar spread too thin).
Football seems to be the "easiest" to get support, since there are only 8 home games and 2 pre-season home games to attend (not including possible playoff games), and like someone else mentioned the games are mostly on Sunday afternoons. So you can have season ticket holders, say for the Carolina Panthers, live in Charleston, Greenville, Myrtle Beach, Columbia, the Triad, the Triangle, Asheville, pretty much anywhere throughout SC and NC. For baseball, depending on where the team is located, you won't have that.
I think when Charlotte Metro gets up to 3.5 million people, they will be able to support a MLB team.
Baseball should be played
- on grass
- during the day (but I will grudgingly accept night games)
- with wooden bats
- with the pitchers batting
Also,
no obnoxious music every second the ball is not in play
no intra-league play
Two new stupid things are clocks and the rule about the batter getting to chose which way to bat (vs the "amphibious" pitcher).
Other than that, I think Bud Selig did a great job as commissioner.
I remember being in Atlanta during the "lean years" when the Durham Bulls actually had more fans for a game than the Braves did. If it wasn't for Aaron, Neikro and few others, no one would have gone to the games, as they were terrible.
And all the fellows in the stands wear suits and the game is in black and white.
Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
23,813 posts, read 34,657,307 times
Reputation: 10256
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheBigKahunaNC
....and there never will be.
They tried to get the public interested once before, in a team around Greensboro. It went over as well as a lead zeppelin!
The Triangle in particular is a diehard 9-5 community. MLB plays a lot of day games, and with such a long schedule, people simply won't sit in a stadium until 9pm 3 or 4 nights a week. You'd get GREAT support when the Red Sox and Yankees came to town, and nobody would go watch when any other team came through. Never going to happen.
There really aren't a large number of businessman's specials. It would be a flop until you get the high-speed rail going, at least in NC. The businessman specials are in the summer, when schools are out. They can be a family outing.
For roughly 80 games, Charlotte makes more sense than Raleigh. They are more likely to draw more people from SC than Raleigh can draw from VA. It's just that simple.
Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
23,813 posts, read 34,657,307 times
Reputation: 10256
Quote:
Originally Posted by hey_guy
No I get it and its an interesting concept
It still precludes why Charlotte made the MLB list in the first place I mean I just assume they understand these factors.
Charlotte made the list because it's almost there & there isn't an imminent expansion. If a team came up for relocation next week it should go to Montreal.
Baltimore/Population
622,104 (2013)
(SMALLER THAN CHARLOTTE)
SO YEAH WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT WE ARE TOO SMALL FOR MLB?????
These are populations for only within the city limits of these locations. In many cities, the geographical city limits are ridiculously small (Pittsburgh, Atlanta, St. Louis, Baltimore). The populations you've shown are only the number of people who happen to live within these arbitrary borders. But every one of these areas have enormous suburban areas that dwarf the actual city population. This metropolitan population is what's important in determining feasibility for having a major league franchise. That is the pool of people from which attendance is drawn from, not just those who live within the city boundaries. Seriously, St. Louis routinely draws over 43,000 people per game. That would be 13.5% of the city residents attending EVERY Cardinals game. See how silly that sounds to report St. Louis' city population?
Let's look at Metro numbers instead (from 2010 census):
No doubt that Charlotte is large enough to be considered for a MLB team. Perhaps Raleigh as well. But that's not the issue. Comparing long established baseball fanbases to up-and-coming areas that have no baseball history and are comprised of many first generation transplants is impossible to do solely on a population to population basis. First generation transplants typically stick with rooting for the teams from where they came from.
There's been only 4 franchises added in the past 35 years, and right now there are 30 MLB franchises - a nice number that breaks down well into 6 divisions. Without MLB expanding their number of franchises, an existing franchise owner would need to see some great advantage in moving from their current location to a new (unproven) one. A franchise really needs to AVERAGE at least 25,000 fans per game over the course of 81 home games. That's a lot harder than it sounds. Two of the last 4 expansion teams are currently/historically at the bottom of MLB attendance figures.
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