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There are several other cities in the mix and Vancouver lacks a ready-made stadium, with Nat Bailey too small and B.C. Place no longer baseball friendly
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Published Apr 14, 2026 • Last updated 1 hour ago • 3 minute read
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The home opener Nooner at Nat Bailey Stadium as the Vancouver Canadians play the Oregon Emeralds in Vancouver, April 10. Photo by NICK PROCAYLO /PNGArticle content
Mayor Ken Sim floating the idea of bringing a Major League Baseball team to Vancouver is a nice, feel-good news story.
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Hold off on setting aside your summer days to watch Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani come to town just yet, though.
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MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has said there’s an appetite to bring in two new teams into his league before January 2029. He’s mentioned Vancouver as a possible expansion site more than once, citing the interest here in the Toronto Blue Jays and the success of the minor-league Vancouver Canadians.
Fact is, he’s mentioned lots of cities as possible sites. And that’s his job. He needs to build the brand. What better way to say how well MLB is doing than to have a long list of cities that would fit with teams?
Among the other cities that got play for potential expansion include Montreal, Nashville, Charlotte, Portland, Salt Lake City and Mexico City.
There’s been talk about going to back to Montreal since the Expos moved to Washington in 2005.
There’s been a push for years to bring the majors to Nashville. The group Music City Baseball picked Stars in 2023 as the team nickname if they were to get a big-league club as a nod to the Negro League team from the 1940 and 1950s with the same monicker that played in Nashville. Music City Baseball also announced in March 2025 that they were teaming up with a property company to secure a mixed-use development that would include a ready-made stadium.
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And there’s Oregon governor Tina Kotek announcing in June 2025 that she was setting aside $800 million to construct a new stadium in Portland if they were to get a big-league club.
Can Vancouver jump those type of bids? Without a ready-made ballpark?
It’s the 75th anniversary season of Nat Bailey Stadium. Photo by Arlen Redekop /PNG
Nat Bailey Stadium, which is the long-time home of the Canadians, is maxed out. Capacity is 6,500. It doesn’t have any of the amenities like suites you’d expect for big-league action.
And while B.C. Place had MLB exhibition games in the 1980s and 1990s, a $500-million renovation in 2011 featuring a centre-hung scoreboard severely cut into the facility’s ability to feature baseball.
The Canadians looked at holding games there in 2014, and team president Andy Dunn had UBC Thunderbirds coach Terry McKaig bring some hitters to the downtown dome for batting practice. They set up the field as best they could, and with the way the stands are constructed now, right field measured out to 275 feet, or 55 feet shorter than your standard MLB park.
UBC first baseman Bruce Yari hit multiple balls into the second deck in right field that day. The idea of holding exhibition games hasn’t been heard of since.
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Dunn has moved on from the Canadians, but he did a outstanding job running the business when he was here. You’d think that MLB exhibitions or even Canadians games at B.C. Place would have drawn massive crowds. Dunn would have made them happen if they were remotely feasible.
You can, of course, solve any problem if you have dollars to throw at it, and Sim told Mike Howell at Business in Vancouver that a “proponent group has signalled interest in exploring a bid.”
Sim maintains that no taxpayer money is being contemplated in the process.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim says: ‘We’re waving the flag right now. We are letting people know through action that we want a Major League Baseball team, and we’re going to help speed up the process. This is just the beginning.’ Photo by NICK PROCAYLO /PNG
Sim added: “What I can tell you is that the credible people that are interested — and there will be a lot of people interested — they will bring a network and know-how that understands this process very well.”
Keep in mind that pumping up Vancouver is part of Sim’s job. He needs to promote. It’s good for him to look like he’d adding to the city. There’s a civic election coming in October, too, although Sim maintained to Howell the timing of this MLB interest isn’t tied to his re-election campaign.
“We’re waving the flag right now,” he said. “We are letting people know through action that we want a Major League Baseball team, and we’re going to help speed up the process. This is just the beginning.”
Sim’s predecessor Kennedy Stewart sent a letter to MLB in June 2021, saying that Vancouver made sense for MLB expansion and that “we want to get our name on the list.” Sim beat Stewart in an October 2022 election.
@SteveEwen
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