Expos investors meet MLB’s conditions for new team
An investment group from Montreal has met MLB’s outlined conditions for bringing back the Expos.
The Expos are gone, but not forgotten in the city of Montreal. For now, anyway. A group of investors led by Stephen Bronfman and Mitch Garber has advanced their proposal for a new team to the point that they have met the conditions of the league for a new franchise.
The Expos left Montreal in 2004 after years of poor attendance and financial difficulties to become the Washington Nationals, but a loyal fanbase has clamored for baseball, turning out in force for the annual exhibition game in old Olympic Stadium.
"The source said the investors have a solid financial set-up, support from two levels of government, various potential locations for a stadium as well as at least five different designs for the venue.“We are not going to say we favour one site or another,” the source said. “But it’s crucial for the (eventual) site to be well served by public transit.”"
There is still no indication from MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred that a new team is coming in the immediate future. Manfred has indicated a desire to expand the league to 32 teams to make scheduling easier. He did not indicate a timetable for expansion, but said that it would not occur until after the new CBA was ratified and stadium issues in Oakland and Tampa Bay were worked out.
The Rays are still having difficulty determining a site for a new stadium, while the A’s may have an easier time in Oakland with this week’s announcement that the Raiders will move to Las Vegas. When the Golden State Warriors move across the Bay to the San Francisco waterfront, it will leave the A’s as the only major professional sports team in Oakland.
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The original Expos franchise played in Montreal from 1969 to 2004, and made the playoffs one time. Their best shot at a World Series in 1994 was scuttled by the MLB player’s strike. The Expos always had some of the best Latin American talent in baseball, with names like Vladimir Guerrero, Pedro Martinez, Jose Vidro, Ugueth Urbina, Moises Alou, Javier Vasquez, and Orlando Cabrera spending time with the team.
Unfortunately, their exciting core could not be kept together after the strike, and attendance quickly fell, bottoming out at less than 650,000 in 2001. There is still a love for baseball in Montreal, but it remains unclear just how willing fans will be to support an expansion team that will likely face a long, uphill climb to actually contending.
MLB will have to be careful about sending a team back to Montreal, as the league cannot afford to keep a franchise on life support if things head in the wrong direction.