SALT LAKE CITY — One of baseball’s top insiders says Utah has an inside track on landing a big league team.
Major League Baseball believes Salt Lake City and Nashville, Tennessee, are the “strongest two expansion markets” available, USA Today columnist Bob Nightengale wrote this week. He added that the league has no plans to return to Oakland via expansion, following the departure of the Oakland Athletics.
That said, it appears that Utahns will have to wait a few years before rooting for an MLB team in their backyard, if the league still feels that way at the end of the expansion process.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said he didn’t want to “differentiate between” all the potential expansion cities because the league is still very early in the process, he said during a wide-ranging interview on various league topics with CNBC last week. He also indicated that the expansion team won’t begin playing until after he’s stepped down from his role, which he plans to do in 2029.
“We’re just not at that point in the process,” he said. “No. 2, I would like to have at least gone through the process and identified cities. They won’t be on the field by the time I’m done. I’ve said that, and I remain committed to that.”
Manfred has said for some time that he would like to add two new cities to the 30-team league, one in the east and one in the west, which would help balance out league scheduling.
“Ideally, you would need an Eastern time zone team or one in the Mountain or West just to balance (it),” he told CNBC, adding that the league entry fee will be somewhere in the billions.
The timeline, he also reiterated, has largely been in response to the future of the Tampa Bay Rays and the Athletics.
He’s confident the Athletics’ future is “resolved” now that ground has broken on a new Las Vegas stadium slated to open in 2028.
A $1.7 billion deal to sell the Rays is expected to be finalized in September, The Athletic reported earlier this month. The team’s new owner, according to Nightengale, is more interested in building a stadium in Tampa, Florida, than remaining in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Salt Lake City entered the chat two years ago, during a groundbreaking ceremony for the forthcoming Power District on the city’s west side. Utah’s capital city has been viewed as a strong contender by several experts since then. ESPN’s MLB insider Jeff Passan reported last year that Salt Lake City and Nashville were at “the front of the line.”
Utah lawmakers approved the framework for up to $900 million for a new major league stadium within the Power District during the 2024 legislative session. Salt Lake City leaders also approved Larry H. Miller Company’s rezoning plans for the area at the end of last year, which include a mix of residential and commercial developments at the site of Rocky Mountain Power’s headquarters.
“I think we’ve been very successful in demonstrating to the sports community (that Utah) is a ready market,” Amanda Covington, Miller Company’s chief corporate affairs officer and a spokeswoman for Big League Utah, said last year.
Nashville; Sacramento; Portland, Oregon; Orlando, Florida; Charlotte, North Carolina; Mexico City; Montreal; and Austin, Texas, are among the other cities that have also signaled their interest or been linked to expansion.
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