{"id":606640,"date":"2026-04-15T22:18:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T22:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/606640\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T22:18:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T22:18:13","slug":"mayor-says-theres-credible-interest-from-groups-wanting-to-bring-mlb-team-to-vancouver-daily-hive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/606640\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor says there’s ‘credible interest’ from groups wanting to bring MLB team to Vancouver | Daily Hive"},"content":{"rendered":"

A surprise announcement on Tuesday<\/a> has people wondering if Vancouver could actually land a Major League Baseball expansion team.<\/p>\n

The press release sent out by the City of Vancouver revealed that Mayor Ken Sim is bringing forward a motion to \u201cinitiate an open and competitive process\u201d to bring an MLB franchise to Vancouver.<\/p>\n

The announcement was met with a ton of skepticism from local sports fans<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But in a Wednesday morning interview on Sportsnet 650<\/a>, Sim provided further details. Notably, the mayor said there\u2019s \u201ccredible interest\u201d from groups wanting to bring an MLB team to Vancouver.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing interest in bringing a team here, and it\u2019s credible interest,\u201d Sim told hosts Mike Halford and Jason Brough. \u201cWe also know the commissioner of Major League Baseball has said that they want to expand to two additional teams before his term ends in January of 2029. So we want to make sure that Vancouver has an opportunity to present a very credible bid.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a topic Daily Hive tackled back in September<\/a>. Nashville and Salt Lake City have widely been seen as frontrunners for the next expansion teams. Portland, San Jose, Austin, Orlando, Raleigh, Charlotte, and Montreal have all been mentioned as potential landing spots as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cities that are out there, almost exclusively, have been cities that have self-reported,\u201d commissioner Rob Manfred said in an interview with CNBC in July 2025. \u201cIn other words, they\u2019re coming to us saying we\u2019d like to have a team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vancouver was mentioned as a potential expansion city<\/a> by Manfred as recently as 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my background in entrepreneurship, when you see an opportunity, you be proactive,\u201d Sim said. \u201cYou don\u2019t wait for things to come to you. We know cities like Nashville, Portland, they are all over this right now, and we want to make sure we\u2019re in the running\u2026 If serious bidders want to be part of this process, we want to identify them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the big thing is getting our ducks in a row right now\u2026 What we wanted to do is initiate a very competitive and open expression of interest process to identify qualified proponents that are financially sound, that know what they\u2019re doing, that could launch a successful bid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just who is willing to buck up and buy a team remains a mystery, but this isn\u2019t a topic that just popped up overnight.<\/p>\n

Sim said he couldn\u2019t discuss \u201cconfidential conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I can tell you is we are very excited about the quality of individuals and groups that are expressing an interest\u2026 What I think people should realize is the nature of sports ownership, professional sports teams, it\u2019s global now. You can have local interest with partners.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sim admitted that BC Place was \u201cnot well suited\u201d for baseball, and agreed that a new ballpark would likely need to be built. He was clear that taxpayer money would not be used to fund it.<\/p>\n

Where could they build it?<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I were to speculate where potential [locations] could be, you could look at the PNE, along Burrard Inlet, False Creek,\u201d Sim spitballed, though he noted a stadium location would be left up to the bidders.<\/p>\n

We should get more information about just who is interested in bringing MLB to Vancouver in the near future. Sim said the motion will come to council on April 22, adding that it would be approximately a 60-day process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A surprise announcement on Tuesday has people wondering if Vancouver could actually land a Major League Baseball expansion…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-606640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}