Will Charlotte Ever Land an MLB Team? – Charlotte Magazine

Does it even want one?

Remember that time Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred mentioned Charlotte as an ideal market for an expansion team? No, not that time. The other time. 

No, wait, the other time.

You get it. For years now, the Queen City has been near the top of Manfred’s list when he talks about MLB expansion from its current 30 teams. You’ve heard comments like this, way back in 2018 when he was on set with Fox Sports 1 during the All-Star festivities: “I want to be careful here, because any time you single one out, other cities feel slighted. We have a list of cities that I think are not only interested in having baseball but are viable in terms of baseball, places like Portland, Las Vegas, Charlotte, and Nashville in the United States.”

Careful or not, he did leave out a few markets that are very much in the conversation six years later (hi, Raleigh and Salt Lake City). And he might have given a city or two a false sense of optimism. 

MLB wants to grow its revenue base from 30 to 32 teams. It’s been a minute (1998) since the league last expanded, and owners are excited about the idea—mostly because the expansion fees they’ll charge for new franchises will be mind-boggling. In 2021, Manfred threw out $2 billion per team as the potential number, based on the average franchise valuation at the time. That’s a lot of free money for the 30 current owners to divvy up just for letting two more groups join their exclusive “we own a baseball club” club. 

Players love the idea because two new expansion teams means two new 40-man rosters, not to mention dozens of new jobs for minor league players. The owners and MLB Players Association don’t agree on every detail about expansion, of course, but their wishes are as closely aligned on this subject as just about anything in the sport. 

But—how do we say this carefully?—it’s prudent to wait before buying those gold-plated shovels for the groundbreaking photo op in Charlotte. For starters, Manfred has been clear about one thing: Baseball will take no significant steps toward expansion until the stadium situations with the Oakland A’s and Tampa Bay Rays—massive headaches for the league for more than a decade—reach permanent resolution.

It’s easy to understand why Manfred has regularly mentioned Charlotte. With a booming metro population slightly north of 2.8 million residents—it was just shy of 2.6 million when Manfred named Charlotte on FS1—it’s now the 22nd- largest metro area in the United States. A growing population means a growing television market, and another strong point: Charlotte has a plethora of potential corporate partnerships in banking and other local industries. The Charlotte Knights, the Chicago White Sox’s Triple-A club, have consistently ranked among the top 10 minor league teams in attendance, showing an appetite for baseball in what’s considered a basketball and football city. 

The biggest problem, though? Despite a stellar market resume, no substantive group is working to convince MLB that Charlotte is the league’s best option. Other cities in this part of the country have organized and well-funded groups pushing toward that goal.

Nashville’s effort has years of growth and research, and influential people in baseball circles back the city’s bid. Raleigh suddenly has political influence—North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has voiced his support—and something a lot of other expansion hopefuls don’t: a motivated billionaire potential owner in Tom Dundon, who owns the National Hockey League’s Carolina Hurricanes. 

“It’s funny. It seems like the greatest amount of enthusiasm for Charlotte to have Major League Baseball is everywhere but Charlotte,” says Erik Spanberg, the Charlotte Business Journal’s managing editor, who has covered sports business for years. “For people who have been here a long time, Charlotte has been perpetually ‘five years away from Major League Baseball’ going all the way back to the ’90s, maybe even farther.”

The Knights’ beautiful uptown stadium—seriously, it’s such a great fan experience, in just about every aspect possible—is not the problem. It’s true that Truist Field’s seating capacity cannot be significantly expanded in its current footprint. Right now, it seats a shade north of 10,000 fans; an expansion franchise would need at least 30,000 seats. 

After the uptown ballpark was proposed, even as it was under construction, local attorney Jerry Reese filed eight lawsuits to try to prevent the city from building it. He believed it would hinder Charlotte’s chances of landing an MLB team, either through relocation or expansion. And he wasn’t the only one with that opinion. It’s hard to see how that will make an impact on this expansion push, though.

“Look, that stadium is 10 years old now,” Spanberg says. “I hate to use this word, but we know how disposable sports stadiums are now. There’s probably no way it would have been used anyway, even if it was big enough, which it isn’t.”

At the MLB All-Star Game last summer, Manfred said he hoped to establish an expansion committee “shortly thereafter” the Oakland and Tampa Bay issues are resolved. This offseason, hope emerged. In September, the Rays announced plans for a $1.3 billion ballpark in St. Petersburg, and in November, league owners approved the A’s’ move to Las Vegas. 

But the Rays’ proposal has political hurdles to clear, and the A’s are, well, kind of a disaster. The original Las Vegas plans were scuttled, backup plans have been tweaked—and still face significant legal and political challenges—and the team has signed an agreement to play in a minor league ballpark in Sacramento for the 2025, ’26, and ’27 seasons. A’s owner John Fisher let the Oakland Coliseum fall into a shameful state of disrepair and stripped the roster of its most talented players to help force the move out of Oakland. He basically stole the owner’s storyline from the movie Major League.

Manfred has announced that he will retire in January 2029. His most optimistic expansion timeline? “I don’t think, realistically, those clubs would be playing before I’m finished,” Manfred told reporters in February. “I would like to have the process in place and operating before I go.”

So, playing baseball by 2030 at the earliest. Does that mean the expansion process will close in on the “picking the markets” stage? Does it mean he’d like to have the two new franchises working toward a debut Opening Day, with new ballparks under construction? There’s certainly a reason the commissioner’s wording is vague. 

Another element: The plan is to add two new franchises, and if history is any guide, there will be plenty of miles between the two sites. In 1998, MLB added teams in Phoenix and the Tampa Bay area. In 1993, Denver and Miami. In 1977, Seattle and Toronto. In 1969, MLB added four clubs, in San Diego, Montreal, Kansas City, and Seattle (the Pilots moved to Milwaukee a year later and became the Brewers).

“This is the biggest question,” Spanberg says. “Would baseball be willing to stay just East Coast, and even more narrow than that, stay just in the Southeast? You could certainly justify it with population and business growth. But would they be willing to do that?”

Salt Lake City, Las Vegas (if the A’s wind up elsewhere, which is still possible), and Portland would all be viable sites for a western expansion team, and Austin and San Antonio have been on the fringes of the conversation, too. And it’s truly hard to imagine Charlotte leapfrogging both Nashville and Raleigh.

No market is more organized and prepared than Nashville’s Music City Baseball. Managing director John Loar, a veteran of acquisition groups with multiple professional franchises, has worked for more than four years to build a business plan based on his experience, and he’s focused on the task. 

“We’ve done a site and market analysis, and I think we understand the market completely from the real estate perspective,” Loar says. “We’ve removed any and all obstacles so that when baseball is ready, when Tampa and Oakland are resolved and an expansion committee is formed, that it’s really just finding the right general partner.”

The Nashville effort even has a brand identity. Music City Baseball has partnered with the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City and adopted a name, the Nashville Stars, that pays homage to the old Negro League team. The group has also tapped into Nashville’s music scene—their official “Music Industry Advisors” list is 28 deep, including Luke Combs, Justin Timberlake, Eric Church, and Kix Brooks—and any ballpark would be connected to a music-based entertainment district that would create revenue year-round. The real estate development company Mortenson is conducting a market analysis that focuses on at least five potential sites. 

The MLB Raleigh group doesn’t have Nashville’s infrastructure or depth of baseball-specific market research, but the effort does have a lot of momentum (and some very cool hats for sale), plus a potential fan base that’s larger than just Raleigh’s metro area. It certainly helps to have a very rich owner who’s already built a popular team. Tom Dundon’s Hurricanes have been near the top of the NHL in attendance the past few years. 

“The viability data showcases an underserved region that’s in line with existing MLB markets but growing faster than all of them,” Ryan Foose, an MLB Raleigh representative, says in an email. “It’s not just us seeing this. It’s why you see the governor going public with his desire to work on bringing MLB here and why you see Tom Dundon bringing together a group to make it happen.”

Baseball will expand at some point. The Southeast—home to one team, the Atlanta Braves; we’re not including Florida—will get a second franchise. There’s just not much reason, for now, to believe that team will play in Charlotte. Still, a lot could happen between now and whenever the Oakland and Tampa Bay messes are cleaned up. 

“I’m not ready to write Charlotte off,” Spanberg says, “because there is so much interest in Charlotte from MLB and nationally, and when you have nearly 3 million people and you have a really healthy business environment in a fast-growing city with a lot of young professionals with disposable income arriving daily, those are all the things you want for any sports expansion franchise.”

He pauses. 

“But as I look at it right now, Raleigh is ahead because they’ve got somebody with money, and they’ve got influential people, and they’re actually saying, ‘Yes, we want a baseball team.’”

That seems important. 

RYAN FAGAN is a longtime MLB writer who spent more than 18 years with The Sporting News, 10 of those living in Charlotte. He’s voted for the Baseball Hall of Fame eight times.