{"id":510569,"date":"2026-02-28T22:29:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T22:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/510569\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T22:29:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T22:29:12","slug":"will-salt-lake-city-get-a-major-league-baseball-team-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/510569\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Salt Lake City get a major league baseball team? \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Salt Lake City is gaining momentum as a favorite to land an MLB expansion team.The Larry H. Miller Company has a shovel-ready site for a stadium in the Power District.The Jordan River could be a splash zone for home run balls leaving the ballpark.<\/p>\n

Salt Lake City appears to be gaining steam as a popular choice for Major League Baseball expansion as more national observers jump on the bandwagon.<\/p>\n

And local enthusiasm for a possible new franchise was on full display as the Larry H. Miller Company this week announced the latest step in its $3.5 billion development on the city\u2019s long-neglected west side<\/a> that could someday include a big league ballpark.<\/p>\n

An article in The Athletic<\/a> this week called Utah \u201ca sports boomtown\u201d and MLB expansion frontrunner.<\/p>\n

\u201cReadiness has put Utah at an advantage. While other cities announced their entries into MLB expansion consideration with renderings and merch, Salt Lake City arrived with a 100-acre site, a coalition of prominent Utahns, broad bipartisan support, a plan for public funding and a reputable anchor investor,\u201d baseball senior writer Steve Nesbitt wrote in the story. <\/p>\n

\u201cCommissioner Rob Manfred wants the league\u2019s next expansion cities settled before he retires in 2029. Utah\u2019s Power District presents a turnkey option.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to being shovel-ready, the site is minutes from the Salt Lake City International Airport and downtown and sits on a light-rail line.<\/p>\n

\"\"Conceptual rendering of a future MLB stadium on the Jordan River. | Photo courtesy of Larry H. Miller Real Estate Mad about Salt Lake City<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, popular sports radio personality Chris \u201cMad Dog\u201d Russo talked about where he thought baseball would go when it expands to 32 teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you will see by the time Manfred leaves in \u201929\u2014 and he is gonna leave \u2014 I think you will see an announcement that, whatever year it might be, there will be two new teams in baseball and I think Salt Lake City and Nashville will be the two teams,” he said, per YahooSports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Those two cities aren\u2019t alone in the sweepstakes for an expansion franchise. Portland, Oregon; Charlotte, North Carolina; Orlando, Florida, and Austin, Texas, could be in the running. Mexico City and Montreal have come up as well.<\/p>\n

On separate podcasts in 2024, ESPN baseball analyst Buster Olney and Cy Young Award winner David Cone said that after Nashville, Salt Lake City seems the most likely city<\/a> for an expansion franchise.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I\u2019m just sitting here guessing today, and that\u2019s all it is is a guess, I think it\u2019s going to be Salt Lake City,\u201d Olney said on the \u201cBaseball Tonight\u201d podcast.<\/p>\n

\"\"An apartment building on North Temple is constructed in the Power District of Salt Lake City on Thursday, Oct. 5, 2023. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News <\/p>\n

Cone offered his opinion on his podcast, \u201cToeing the Slab<\/a>,\u201d calling Nashville the No. 1 contender.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of talk about Portland, Oregon, at one point, but I think Salt Lake City, Utah, might have moved ahead,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s my handicap right now, but expansion will be on the horizon. We will get two new teams. Nashville will be one, and Salt Lake City will be the other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Salt Lake City\u2019s profile as a potential baseball town has continued to rise since then.<\/p>\n

Making a splash<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the Miller Company, which spearheads Big League Utah<\/a>, a coalition of prominent Utahns supporting the effort to land an MLB team, held a news conference to announce the hiring of a landscape architect and urban design firm for a key element of its Power District project. Field Operations is tasked with restoring and enhancing the dirty Jordan River running through the heart of the district to the Great Salt Lake.<\/p>\n

\"\"Steve Starks, CEO of the Larry H. Miller Company, speaks during a press conference where community leaders are celebrating the launch of a community-driven plan to revitalize a half-mile stretch of the Jordan River at the Utah State Fairpark in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. | Tess Crowley, Deseret News <\/p>\n

Miller Company CEO Steve Starks told the Deseret News the company is working with ballpark architects on site plans for where a stadium would go, how it would be oriented and seating capacity. Generally, it would be located on the west side of the river facing the Wasatch Mountains. Home run balls leaving the park could land in the Jordan River.<\/p>\n

Visions of McCovey Cove outside Oracle Park in San Francisco immediately danced in people\u2019s heads, including that of state Sen. Lincoln Fillmore, R-South Jordan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the continued momentum on our promise to this area, to this neighborhood, to our community, to the river, to the lake and to our state,\u201d he said at the news conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith this dream: that in April of 2032, this river will be full of kayaks, canoes and fishing nets of people waiting to catch the first home run by a left-handed batter hit into this river with Utah\u2019s Major League Baseball team.\u201d <\/p>\n

Starks said he doesn\u2019t know the dimensions of the ballpark yet but \u201cthat will be a really cool feature. . . . but I\u2019m assuming Aaron Judge could probably knock one into the river.\u201d<\/p>\n

The appropriately titled Stephen James, Larry H. Miller Real Estate chief visioning officer, said this:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe riverside location is our preferred site for a major league ballpark, where Utah can gather along a lovely setting on these shaded banks on a summer evening and enjoy a game of baseball.<\/p>\n

\"\"Aerial view rendering of the Utah State Fairpark, the Jordan River and downtown including the new Power District in Salt Lake City. | The Larry H. Miller Company <\/p>\n

\u201cOnce composed with a walkable mixed-use neighborhood and a world-class ballpark, the Jordan River will become a destination that elevates our quality of life, strengthens our community, and welcomes our guests.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starks shared that image, saying if the day comes that Salt Lake City has a big league team, \u201cimagine what it would mean: a ballpark overlooking a river, families walking along a shared trail next to that river before the first pitch, a district where sports, nature and community intersect. That\u2019s not just development. That\u2019s placemaking at generational scale.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Salt Lake City is gaining momentum as a favorite to land an MLB expansion team.The Larry H. Miller…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,15065,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-510569","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-news-division","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}