Vancouver looking for potential ownership group for MLB franchise<\/p>\n
Published 4:23 pm Thursday, April 23, 2026<\/p>\n
Vancouver city council has directed staff to start seeking possible owners for a Major League Baseball franchise expansion in the city.<\/p>\n
The expression of interest process invites interested parties to submit proposals demonstrating financial capacity, expertise and a feasible approach to supporting a potential MLB bid.<\/p>\n
The proposal deadline is June 19 at 3 p.m. After that, staff will evaluate submissions and report back to council with recommended next steps.<\/p>\n
Mayor Ken Sim introduced the motion on Wednesday (April 22), calling Vancouver a \u201csports city full of Canucks fans, Lions fans, Goldeneyes and Rise fans and, of course, Whitecaps fans.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s also a city of baseball fans who spend their spring, summer, and fall all watching the Blue Jays, watching the (Seattle) Mariners and visiting Nat Bailey stadium to cheer on our hometown Vancouver Canadians.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sim said the MLB \u201cwill potentially add two new expansion teams in the next few years,\u201d adding league commissioner Rob Manfred is looking to add a team in the west.<\/p>\n
He added that this presents a \u201conce-in-a-generational\u201d opportunity.<\/p>\n
The motion, he said, \u201cdid not come out of left field.\u201d Sim said his office has already been approached by \u201cserious\u201d proponents for a potential bid.<\/p>\n
An information bulletin from the city says its role is to protect the public interest while \u201crunning a fair and transparent process to assess whether a suitable ownership group exists.\u201d<\/p>\n
It adds that this is an early-stage step and the city\u2019s isn\u2019t approving a stadium, selecting a site, or committing to a team.<\/p>\n
There is also no commitment of public funding.<\/p>\n
Any future proposal would require Vancouver council approval and would be subject to full regulatory processes, including public consultation.<\/p>\n
\u201cVancouver has a strong and established baseball community, including the Vancouver Canadians, who continue to draw strong support at Nat Bailey Stadium,\u201d the bulletin reads.<\/p>\n
The Vancouver Canadians are a Minor League Baseball team and a High-A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays. The Blue Jays are the only Canadian team in the MLB.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vancouver looking for potential ownership group for MLB franchise Published 4:23 pm Thursday, April 23, 2026 Vancouver city…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-624339","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624339","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=624339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}