You get to locate 1 new team in each of the 5 major leagues. What cities do you pick?

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

yes, there have been some strong american powerhouses over that time span, but there were also lots of one-off cup winners in that stretch too.

it just seems so strange that none of them have been by a canadian team.

cup wins over the past 25 years:

detroit - 4
pittsburgh - 3
chicago - 3
new jersey - 3
los angeles - 2
colorado - 2
washington - 1
boston - 1
anahiem - 1
carolina - 1
tampa bay - 1
dallas - 1
rangers - 1

We can credit Canada for Colorado, they were the Nordiques the year before they moved to CO and won the Cup.

[Cirrus]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

what's even crazier to me is the fact that no canadian team has won the stanley cup in 25 years now

Wow god you're right. The '93 Canadiens were that long ago.

Anyway, I highly recommend these two articles from 538 that delve into both why Toronto is by far the best market for another hockey team in North America, and why a second Toronto team would likely help the Leafs. Here are two choice quotes:

Originally Posted by 538

Toronto easily had the largest number of avid NHL fans; with a shade over 5 million, their total was double that of any other metro area in North America.

Originally Posted by 538

Canadian teams routinely sell out their arenas at high ticket prices — whether or not they are any good. This may reduce their incentive to compete.

[RC14]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

pittsburgh, oakland, tampa bay, and miami all have even lower average home attendance than the white sox this season.

maybe one of those teams should move to charlotte instead?

hell, miami is only averaging 10,700 per home game, which is off-the-charts terrible from a historical perspective.

the white sox attendance figure this season (16,900 per home game) actually looks somewhat ok compared to that.

source: http://www.espn.com/mlb/attendance

I am not a baseball fan but I was able to score a free subscription to MLBTV this year so I have turned on a game now and then. I have been surprised to see several stadiums that looked similar to that empty White Sox stadium. I have been wondering if that is normal turn out for an MLB game or if something is wrong in the league.

[Jonesy55]

Isn't the number of games in the MLB absolutely huge? Maybe if they reduced the number of games and cut out a lot of fairly meaningless fixtures then average attendances would rise?

[10023]

Originally Posted by Jonesy55

Isn't the number of games in the MLB absolutely huge? Maybe if they reduced the number of games and cut out a lot of fairly meaningless fixtures then average attendances would rise?

Maybe. But part of baseball’s identity as a sport is that there are so many games That’s why it’s so statistics-focused... the law of large numbers applies. In baseball the best team really always wins the division.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by RC14

I am not a baseball fan but I was able to score a free subscription to MLBTV this year so I have turned on a game now and then. I have been surprised to see several stadiums that looked similar to that empty White Sox stadium. I have been wondering if that is normal turn out for an MLB game or if something is wrong in the league.

well, it was a stupidly long winter that stretched into april in many place around the country, so that didn't help. here in chicago, throughout april we averaged 20-25 degrees below normal for the whole fucking month. it was one of the coldest aprils in the history of chicago, and chicago was not alone in experiencing such a ridiculously long winter.

but beyond that, there do appear to be some troubling signs regarding baseball attendance this year.

it's pay-walled, but this article from the WSJ was just published this morning:

Major League Baseball Sees a Sharp Drop in Attendance
League-wide attendance of 27,328 per game is down 6.6% from this time last year

Originally Posted by Jonesy55

cut out a lot of fairly meaningless fixtures

such as?

[Burgh15]

NFL - San Antonio - Good market size and would make for a great Super Bowl location if they built a new stadium.

NBA - I want to see the Supersonics back in Seattle, but Las Vegas is perfect for an NBA team.

NHL - Since Quebec has gotten so much love, I'm going for Hartford. Great uniforms and one of the great all-time goal songs.

MLB - Portland.

MLS - Nashville

[BnaBreaker]

Originally Posted by Burgh15

NFL - San Antonio - Good market size and would make for a great Super Bowl location if they built a new stadium.

NBA - I want to see the Supersonics back in Seattle, but Las Vegas is perfect for an NBA team.

NHL - Since Quebec has gotten so much love, I'm going for Hartford. Great uniforms and one of the great all-time goal songs.

MLB - Portland.

MLS - Nashville

Nashville has already been awarded an MLS expansion franchise, just FYI.

[Jonesy55]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

such as?

Well I'm no baseball expert as you may guess , but according to Wikipedia each team will play each of its divisional rivals 19 times in a season and other teams in the same league 10 times a season (plus a few inter league games)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018...on?wprov=sfla1

Is there any need for that number of match ups? If you cut it down to playing each team 4 or 6 times a season then each individual game might have more importance and attract a bigger crowd?

Is there any other sport where teams play each other so often? No need to take it down to NFL levels where an entire home season is 8 games if you don't reach the playoffs which is the other extreme.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Jonesy55

Is there any need for that number of match ups?

no, i don't think there's any need to play so many games, it's just tradition at this point.

MLB predates TV (and even radio), so in the olden days the only way to see your team play was to actually go to the ballpark, and with baseball being a relatively easy sport in terms of physical exertion (excepting pitchers), the players can play everyday, so the owners probably just wanted to make as much money as possible so they scheduled games pretty much every day all summer long.

[dave8721]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

no, i don't think there's any need to play so many games, it's just tradition at this point.

MLB predates TV (and even radio), so in the olden days the only way to see your team play was to actually go to the ballpark, and with baseball being a relatively easy sport in terms of physical exertion (excepting pitchers), the players can play everyday, so the owners probably just wanted to make as much money as possible so they scheduled games pretty much every day all summer long.

Its also a game where the margin between good teams and bad teams is pretty razor thin and there is a lot of randomness in results. In Football a "good team" will beat a "bad team" 95 times out of 100 (maybe higher), in baseball its more like 60 times out of 100.

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by Jonesy55

Is there any need for that number of match ups? If you cut it down to playing each team 4 or 6 times a season then each individual game might have more importance and attract a bigger crowd?

Is there any other sport where teams play each other so often? No need to take it down to NFL levels where an entire home season is 8 games if you don't reach the playoffs which is the other extreme.

To answer your questions: Yes and Yes.

These games are really clumped into 3 or 4 consecutive game series. Baseball is all about winning series. If a team takes 2 out of 3 then that is a great outcome. Good pitching often determines games and winning a series involves putting forth your best starting pitchers and preserving the bullpen as much as possible.

Baseball is not a very strenuous physical sport [except for starting pitchers, or any pitcher with a high count]. Pitchers need 5 days of rest before starts. You don't have to be an incredible physical athlete to dominate baseball. The skills needed are very different than that of the NBA or NFL or soccer.

E] When it comes to a day off between games, that is crucial rest for your pitching rotation. That one extra day off will likely result in a series win especially if the upcoming opposing team is on a long stretch.

Baseball is a simple game, but there is much thought into every single at bat and that's what I love about the game.

[SFBruin]

I'm a little late to this, but:

MLB: Portland
NFL: San Antonio
NBA: Seattle
NHL: Hamilton
MLS: Charlotte

[maru2501]

NFL - chicago second franchise in a dome that can host superbowls. market plenty big enough and the bears are maddening. but also influential, so it won't happen

NBA - seattle. no question

MLS - Austin. It is hipster and odd but that works for a single major league franchise in town especially MLS. They'd be like the portland timbers (although portland has NBA too)

MLB - charlotte. Major league ready after Panthers and Hornets and Atlanta runs too much of that giant area

NHL - nordiques, but Houston probably fair and ready with a stadium. Very large market

[xzmattzx]

I haven't done this yet:

MLB: I'll go with the obvious answer of Montreal. They are primed to either get the Tampa Bay Rays, or get an expansion team. The issue about expansion is what other city would get a team: Portland or San Antonio? Those two are the favorites.
NFL: This is tough because most cities that should have a team do, and most cities that don't have a team don't need one. Until last year I would've said San Antonio, which was maybe the only big city that was a glaring omission, but I think San Diego should get a team back first.
NBA: The NBA seems intent on teams in Seattle and/or Mexico City, but I think it's time for Louisville to become a professional sports market. They have an arena, and they are putting together an ownership group in hopes of landing a team. Louisville was a finalist to land the original Charlotte Hornets, before they moved to New Orleans, and other teams like the Vancouver Grizzlies and Seattle SuperSonics have looked at Louisville as a destination. Kentucky has the grassroots support for basketball as well, like Indiana.
NHL: Disqualifying Seattle, which is halfway to landing an expansion team, I would go with Quebec City, which missed out on expansion when the Vegas Golden Knights were born. They have the arena, and look viable to the league, but the only thing holding them back are the divisional alignments. Quebec City would be a much better place for a team to move than to put an expansion team.
MLS: I don't really know MLS like I do the other leagues, in terms of ticket prices, fan bases, grassroots support, etc, so I will go a little exotic and say San Juan. It's the third-largest metropolitan area in the Caribbean, and I am assuming that it is not quite as poor as the larger Caribbean metros of Santo Domingo and Port-au-Prince (and the city of Havana, which itself is almost as big). MLS could be cheap enough for Puerto Ricans to aford tickets, and allow the island to enter into the major sports discussion.

[skyscraper]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

Baseball is not a very strenuous physical sport [except for starting pitchers, or any pitcher with a high count]. Pitchers need 5 days of rest before starts. You don't have to be an incredible physical athlete to dominate baseball. The skills needed are very different than that of the NBA or NFL or soccer.

"I'm not an athlete, I'm a ballplayer." - John Kruk

[nomarandlee]

NFL: Toronto or London
NHL: Milwaukee
MLB: Charlotte or Portland
NBA: Seattle
MLS: Peoria

[isaidso]

MLB: Montreal
NBA: Vancouver
NHL: Quebec City
MLS: Edmonton
CFL: Halifax

NFL: not sure.

[Jonesy55]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

To answer your questions: Yes and Yes.

These games are really clumped into 3 or 4 consecutive game series. Baseball is all about winning series. If a team takes 2 out of 3 then that is a great outcome. Good pitching often determines games and winning a series involves putting forth your best starting pitchers and preserving the bullpen as much as possible.

Baseball is not a very strenuous physical sport [except for starting pitchers, or any pitcher with a high count]. Pitchers need 5 days of rest before starts. You don't have to be an incredible physical athlete to dominate baseball. The skills needed are very different than that of the NBA or NFL or soccer.

E] When it comes to a day off between games, that is crucial rest for your pitching rotation. That one extra day off will likely result in a series win especially if the upcoming opposing team is on a long stretch.

Baseball is a simple game, but there is much thought into every single at bat and that's what I love about the game.

Thanks. I guess it's quite similar to cricket in that respect, which is why you can get some cricket games that last five days. I wouldn't like to be in an NFL game that lasted five days, half the players would be dead by the end of it.

[edale]

Originally Posted by isaidso

MLB: Montreal
NBA: Vancouver
NHL: Quebec City
MLS: Edmonton
CFL: Halifax

NFL: not sure.

Why would the NBA go back to Vancouver when it failed miserably there not too long ago? They had their chance, and they proved to be disinterested.

Seattle is the PNW city that deserves to get its team back, IMO.