With a new commissioner, there is always renewed debate in whether MLB should expand to 32 teams. The main reason is to balance out the leagues and scheduling issues. The other side is that more teams mean a more diluted product (lesser talent).
Yes, the U.S. population has grown since the last expansion, but that does not equate to fist full of dollars baseball fanatics. Most of the growth in the population are in the lower middle class, which is continually hard hit by the endless mild recession.
Still, the proponents like the idea because more teams means more coverage and more league revenue. If MLB can franchise two more teams, that means maybe a billion or two dollars split among the 30 owners, or maybe $33 million of free money per team.
Expansion to new cities will be hard with the Athletics and Rays
already looking to relocate. Some possible new locations: in California
near Sacramento, in Texas at Austin and San Antonio. Brooklyn or north
New Jersey, if you can get the Yankees and Mets to play ball (good luck
with that). It might be time to finally move a team to Las Vegas …
maybe. The South is lacking for teams, with Charlotte, Nashville,
Memphis or Louisville being possibilities. Also another team could be in
Canada, with Montreal getting a long look. The league has often thought international expansion into the Latin market (Mexico, San Juan, even Havana if diplomatic relations are opened).
But not lost in this discussion is the fact that contraction is probably the better answer. MLB continues to subsidize a half dozen teams already through revenue sharing. MLB gives smaller market teams who struggle to compete bonus provisions like protected picks in the draft, and capping spending by big market money teams on international player signings.
It would make more sense to contract the 30 teams down to 28.
Miami and Tampa Bay play to low attendance crowds. Combine the two clubs and move the franchise to Orlando, where you can get the excess tourist trade on a game by game basis.
The powers that be have been kicking Houston around for being a mismanaged bottom feeder for a long time (being exiled from the NL Central to the harder AL West for example). So why not improve the franchise by merging it with the Oakland A's who want out of the Bay Area. Plunk the new Houston A's in San Antonio if Houston can't support a team.
The players union will balk at losing 80 40-man roster spots with contraction. But on the flip side, that means more money for the players on the newer 28 team rosters.
Most likely nothing will happen for a long time.
