Can we please move past these comments on this topic? It doesn’t move the discussion forward, at all. Nobody wants to spend taxpayer dollars on these stadiums, but that is the game. Pointing out that the owners are rich isn’t edgy or informative. If the Sox don’t get a new stadium, somehow, they are likely to leave. That’s a decision we can make as a state, but it is a choice.

Meanwhile, Crain’s has Kam Bucker saying that a lot more private money is involved than has been reported:

One issue with Nashville is local TV broadcasting. Teams get a lot of money that way. The local sports network in Nashville is owned by Diamond Sports, which filed for Bankruptcy last year. That could complicate a move to there. Over half of MLB teams may loose their RSNs.

DPI bid revised link:
https://cdb.illinois.gov/content/dam...n-general3.pdf

The Sox have abysmal attendance numbers. The surrounding area is full of parking lots that Nickel & Dime Jerry controls so it's not like fans spend money in bars and restaurants around the ballpark. They don't bring in enough revenue to justify giving them hundreds of millions of dollars so they don't move out of Illinois.

Let them go to Nashville and see how that works out for them.

This threw a wrench into the entire MLB offseason as it impacted multiple teams and their ability to spend on free agents. It is very, very likely that the issue gets fixed (Apple, Amazon, MLB, or someone else picks up the games) before Jerry Reinsdorf dies and the team is sold.

The bigger issue is just size of Nashville television market. It is poised to get an expansion team, but doesn't make much sense for a team to give up the 3rd largest market, even one it shares.

Yea can't believe the American League will be too happy to give up the Chicago market. Nashville as expansion is desirable esp in American league where it would border StL, Cincy, ATL markets-all National league.

For second fiddle teams, I don't think they lose much sleep over such things.

I mean, is the American League that bothered to soon leave the (shared) Bay Area market for Vegas?

Doesn't seem like it.


Because NEW PUBLIC MONEY STADIUM!!!!!!!!!!



most people/entities I've ever crossed paths have a really fucking hard time saying no to free money.

Since we are talking about baseball, I found this interesting, the data is 10 years old though. Reading it more deeply I am not sure exactly what they are measuring.
I was looking for total TV/media view and Fans in the stands by numbers, but the results are nebulous and subjective in a way. No real Raw data.


https://bleacherreport.com/articles/...by-market-size


Power Ranking All 30 MLB Teams by Market Size

MATT TRUEBLOOD

JANUARY 13, 2012

The New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox are obviously big-market teams. The Kansas City Royals and Pittsburgh Pirates are notoriously small-market clubs.

....

27. Milwaukee Brewers

5 OF 31

Wisconsin is a strange place. Though none of the state's three key metropolitan areas are within even the top 30 of all U.S. cities, its sports teams receive excellent, even overwhelming support.

The Green Bay Packers are the most noted and best example, but the Brewers are an equally salient one.

Miller Park is a nice place, but not the league's best and brightest cash cow. The media market available to the team is tiny, as it's penned in by the Chicago teams to the south and the Twins' market to the west.

No element of the Brewers' economic situation favors them, really, other than that they have masterfully marketed and monetized their brand and now draw some three million fans every year.

...

10. Chicago White Sox

22 OF 31

Though Chicago is a huge market, the White Sox are dominated therein.

Even since the 2005 World Series title the Sox brought home, Chicago remains a Cubs town, and the Cubs will always gobble up most of the tourist money, merchandise money, ad revenue and prime media real estate in the city.

That's one element of the problem here. Another is that U.S. Cellular Field is a bit of a dump, by modern ballpark standards. It has relatively little character. It sits in a poor South Side neighborhood, where the expected economic impact has never developed.

The revenue exclusivity of the area helps in a way, but the removal from downtown Chicago is a disadvantage, too. The Sox are no poor cousin, but they're functionally a mid-market team, albeit the richest once imaginable.


6. Chicago Cubs

26 OF 31

While it's still a joyous place to take in a game, Wrigley Field is not the ascetic baseball temple (or tomb) it once was. And that's a good thing.

With so many things making the park impossible to raze and replace, the Cubs needed to make it work better for them financially. That does not mean trampling its charm with splashy and ill-considered advertising; it does mean making the park modern, branded and self-contained.

In other areas, the Cubs anxiously await a chance to re-jigger their current broadcast rights contract, as their current arrangement worked better in the baseball economy of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

They will be able to draw more fans to the park and more money in from TV viewers under the terms of some new deal and should be capable of running $175-million payrolls within the next five years.



...

TV markets and deals are not as important to MLB as they are for NFL. In MLB you play 81 home games, in the NFL you play 8/9. Because of this, MLB teams make a much larger portion of their revenue from ticket sales and in-stadium spending (food/drinks) than NFL teams.

With interleague play happening all season the NL/AL things isn't a very big deal anymore. It may become completely moot when they expand to 32 teams, as there are rumors of completely reshuffling the divisions and leagues.

Local media revenue is huge and larger for MLB than other leagues. This is why Diamond Sports was such a big deal

https://sports.yahoo.com/how-the-col...155227283.html

And why a team like the Yankees can pull in $143 million in revenue through the YES Network

https://abcnews.go.com/Sports/yankee...ry?id=98080927

True. Even the NFL left the Los Angeles metro for 25 years.

I think MLB would approve the Sox leaving. The question is more about whether it would make the most sense for the Sox long-term to be in either whatever unnamed mid/small-market city vs. whatever terms of the 78 deal they would get.

My bet is that the lure of being close to downtown Chicago and a built out 78, even if they have to put in a majority of the dollars, will outweigh a park financed primarily by the city/state in Portland, Charlotte, Nashville, Austin etc. Who knows, maybe that is wishful thinking.

Another issue is expansion. MLB needs two stadiums from expansion cities. That is already a heavy lift. (And it still isn't clear it has one coming in Vegas). Moving means finding a third.

The White Sox made $60 million from their deal in 2022. In absolute dollars, gate receipts are a significantly larger portion of revenue. For the Yankees example, tickets sales are more than twice their YES Network revenue at $345 million.

This doesn’t include any of the revenue from food or drinks purchased inside the stadium. I believe a full stadium is more important than the local TV deal.

Putting a quality team on the field means the most. If the Sox are good they do draw people. If they are not we spend our money elsewhere unlike Cubs fans that go no matter what.

The Sox are still organized and run like a team from the 1990s.

Look at all the IT/R&D/Analytics/Performance people the Red Sox have:

https://www.mlb.com/redsox/team/front-office

The Cubs:

https://www.mlb.com/cubs/team/front-office

And the White Sox:

https://www.mlb.com/whitesox/team/front-office