The Expos: Five Years Later

[Imgran]

Yes, I fully understood your previous statement. However, good attendance when three of the teams in the league are in town aren't enough to build a franchise around. Under the right economic conditions and with the right marketing plan, I do believe the Montreal market can stand on its own.

Of course, But it's no secret that the AL East is in a much better situation to support Montreal than the NL East is.

Regarding the Boston-Montreal rivalry, well, it isn't what it used to be, and "selling out the Bell Centre faster" is really a relative thing anyway -- home games sell out regardless of opponent.

Both granted, but it will still help, especially if the Expos play in a stadium that's worth going to. Since Fenway's usually overbooked, and horribly expensive, even if the teams are indifferent Sox fans would go to Montreal to watch the Sox as long as ticket prices are reasonable.

[JohnCropp]

Rays and Orioles fans, should they speculatively exist, hate you now.

I've said for awhile that I feel that this division structure is optimized for 36 teams. There's plenty of room for expansion.

I absolutely agree. The easiest way to eliminate small market v. big market issues is to shrink the large markets by adding teams. TV money is king. Divide the kingdom (markets) where they are biggest and there will be room for others to thrive in time.

[tinseltown]

Of course, But it's no secret that the AL East is in a much better situation to support Montreal than the NL East is.

Or Montreal could end up in the same fix as Toronto: unable to outspend their division opponents.

[Imgran]

Or Montreal could end up in the same fix as Toronto: unable to outspend their division opponents.

Seeing that Tampa took the AL East division just a season or so ago, I'm not sure I buy that argument. Sure, the Yankees are hard to cope with and the Red Sox are as strong as they've ever been, but both teams are being competently led right now. At some point that will change.

As for Toronto, I don't buy the economics argument. The Canadian dollar is as strong as it's ever been and they have a HUGE media market. Pretty much all of Canada is their media playground. Honestly if the Jays could ever put a good offensive year, a good defensive year and a good pitching year together at the same time they'd be right there with the big two.

[tinseltown]

Sure, the Yankees are hard to cope with and the Red Sox are as strong as they've ever been, but both teams are being competently led right now. At some point that will change.

I suppose historically that's true (everyone who's up will come down someday), but I won't be holding my breath.

The Canadian dollar is as strong as it's ever been and they have a HUGE media market. Pretty much all of Canada is their media playground.

Don't tell Quebeckers that -- they have no interest in watching the Jays! I'm not sure about the rest of Canada either, but the largest Canadian media market -- southern Ontario -- is Jays country.

Yes, a team can, with competent leadership, compete and the expanded playoffs make it a lot easier for teams to win the World Series (relatively speaking). However, as expressed in the roundtable discussion I linked to, there are those who think it was a mistake for Montreal to vote with the other owners to allow Atlanta into the NL East, so if a new franchise got beat up by the Yankees and Red Sox during its first few years, it might foster a destructive cycle of defeatism. (Of course, given the Expos's last decade, a new franchise would have to be ready to deal with this negativity, no matter what its division or playing record.)

[Bitter Fan]

Toronto is owned by a gigantic media conglomerate and their games are broadcast nationwide (including Kee-bec).

There's really no excuse for their performance the last few years that revolves around their small-marketness and not around giving Vernon Wells one of the dumbest contracts in the history of baseball.

[tinseltown]

Toronto is owned by a gigantic media conglomerate and their games are broadcast nationwide

Yes, but I believe the most significant portion of the market share upon which the ad dollars are based is from southern Ontario. Put another way, the tiny handful of viewers from Quebec don't affect the national share number. Everything in Canada is scaled down from the U.S., including ad and regional sports network revenue. That being said, it's quite true the Jays need to do better at managing their talent.

Honestly if the Jays could ever put a good offensive year, a good defensive year and a good pitching year together at the same time

I exaggerate a bit, but the difference is while most teams need almost everything to go right to be in contention, the Yankees and Sox need almost everything to go wrong to be out of contention (though one of the big things they need to do right is to do a half-decent job at selecting the player mix they need).

[Imgran]

Yes, but I believe the most significant portion of the market share upon which the ad dollars are based is from southern Ontario. Put another way, the tiny handful of viewers from Quebec don't affect the national share number. Everything in Canada is scaled down from the U.S., including ad and regional sports network revenue. That being said, it's quite true the Jays need to do better at managing their talent.

Canada doesn't end at the Manitoba border. Quebec and Southern Ontario are not all there is to Canada. I know there aren't a TON of people in Caanada, but there's more than in most MLB teams' media fiefdoms.

Put another way, granted Canada is smaller than the US, but when the US market is broken into 29 pieces, Canada can probably compete favorably with any one of them if it really tries, right?

[tinseltown]

Canada doesn't end at the Manitoba border. Quebec and Southern Ontario are not all there is to Canada.

Of course not, and that's why I was contradicting your statement that Canada is the Jays' "media playground". I was however acknowledging the fact that national broadcasters nonetheless choose to broadcast the Jays coast-to-coast, not necessarily out of interest, but because the relative sizes of the markets make that the most profitable choice. Put it another way: until recently, CBC had largely stopped broadcasting Habs games in Montreal and showed Leafs games. This was not an indication that Quebec was the Leafs' playground; it was just a decision made to save money.

[Paul Wendt]

There is a lot of optimism here.

Have minor league and/or independent pro baseball expanded in Quebec province this decade? What about Ottawa and Northern New England? I would guess the opposite if forced to guess, but only if forced.


It seemed ironic to me and many others about eight years ago, when SABR members in Quebec province finally organized a formal chapter of the society and greatly increased their number, after it was evident that the Expos would shut down --or would be shut down.

It does seem easy to understand in retrospect. I've heard it said that sabrmetrics owes MLB thank you for the work of Tom Tango, at least for its dissemination by internet. Time is limited and losing a major league ballclub must provoke some fans to reconsider following the current season as a fan.

Paul Wendt
co-founder, SABR Boston
(the left hand man of the founder)