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So with all this talk about the Marlins and how Loria, Samson and Selig do business and promote baseball I got thinking. Is bringing a team to your city feasable in this day and age?
Sure right off the bat, it's 'sexy' politics. Your town becomes a 'big-league' town and gives something for the community to rally around.
But then you start looking through the numbers, bringing a team to your area costs alot. First off you need that state of the art ballpark. That alone costs $250-400 million dollars. Depending on all kinds of factors. On top of that you have to buy the team. That can vary on cost, depending on the situation. Let's use $100 million as a figure.
So somehow, someone out there has to come up with alot of cash. Let's use half a billion as a ball park figure. There aren't alot of Billionaires kicking around in every town.
I didn't do any major reasearch yet to check the numbers but I used approximations from things I hear in the news. If someone wants to edit these numbers go right ahead.
My point is simply that becoming a major league town is a massive investment, for a ton of people. It's tough to justify publicly funding a new ballpark when that money could be used for life and death issues. I don't think we'll see much in the way of franchise movement in the future, just because of the astronomical costs involved. The only way it happens is if you have an angel investor, such as a Donald Trump.(he was the first name that came to mind) Who's absolutely loaded and wants to have a baseball team of his own.
I hate to say it, but I think any town that puts out that massive amount of public cash is just plain stupid.
BTW, I'm don't have anything close to a BMA, so if I'm way off base, straighten me out.
Sure right off the bat, it's 'sexy' politics. Your town becomes a 'big-league' town and gives something for the community to rally around.
But then you start looking through the numbers, bringing a team to your area costs alot. First off you need that state of the art ballpark. That alone costs $250-400 million dollars. Depending on all kinds of factors. On top of that you have to buy the team. That can vary on cost, depending on the situation. Let's use $100 million as a figure.
So somehow, someone out there has to come up with alot of cash. Let's use half a billion as a ball park figure. There aren't alot of Billionaires kicking around in every town.
I didn't do any major reasearch yet to check the numbers but I used approximations from things I hear in the news. If someone wants to edit these numbers go right ahead.
My point is simply that becoming a major league town is a massive investment, for a ton of people. It's tough to justify publicly funding a new ballpark when that money could be used for life and death issues. I don't think we'll see much in the way of franchise movement in the future, just because of the astronomical costs involved. The only way it happens is if you have an angel investor, such as a Donald Trump.(he was the first name that came to mind) Who's absolutely loaded and wants to have a baseball team of his own.
I hate to say it, but I think any town that puts out that massive amount of public cash is just plain stupid.
BTW, I'm don't have anything close to a BMA, so if I'm way off base, straighten me out.
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