3 teams in NY?

[77smbg9177]

3's a crowd....pleaser - Newsday.com


"New York is a baseball town. Always has been, always will be.

How much do we love baseball around here?

Last year, more than 7.5 million people went to baseball games in New York. This year, the figure will be closer to 8 million.

But when the new ballparks for the Yankees and Mets open in 2009, the raw numbers will go down - there will be something like 20,000 fewer seats available between both parks - and so will your chances of getting in to see a game.

Demand drives the engine and supply tries to keep it running. Right now, the demand for baseball in this town may be stretching the limits of the supply.

So why can't New York support a third major-league baseball team?

For 54 years, we did it quite well, of course, and in 1947, the best cumulative attendance year the Yankees, the Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers ever had, a total of 5.6 million people paid their way into Yankee Stadium, the Polo Grounds and Ebbets Field.

That is still nearly 2 million fewer than went to the two remaining ballparks in New York last year.

So what is stopping some ambitious entrepreneur such as Jeffrey Loria from packing up his team and moving from the baseball wasteland of Miami, where they can't find 15,000 people a night to go to a ballgame, to New York, where the Mets and Yankees will be turning away that many people every night? . . . . . . ."

[RickJay]

Of course New York could support another team.

New York won't get another team for the same reason Toronto isn't going to get another hockey team; although the market would support it, the flagship franchises wouldn't stand for it.

[John F]

not just flagship franchises wouldn't stand for it but the fans would get sick of it.

Another New York / Tri state area team and what are the fans in the rest of the country supposed to think? You don't keep expanding to the Northeast just because the population of the US is greatest there. There are other markets, other possibilities and other flavorings of each sport that leagues need to reach into... Being one-region centric hurts more than it helps in marketing a league (look at Hockey).

[Goose]

Yeah, I think two New York teams is quite enough already. They don't need more.

[all4phillysportsfan]

We don't need 3 teams in New York considering most cities don't even have 2 teams.

[DiamondDave]

It will not happen.. and rightfully so

[Nocahoma]

Hey, I just don't need another team to hate. LOL

[RickJay]

Originally Posted by all4phillysportsfan

We don't need 3 teams in New York considering most cities don't even have 2 teams.

Most cities don't have two teams because they can't support them.

New York can. Look, forget whether you like New York or not; isn't it kind of stupid not to put the baseball teams where the baseball fans are? New York has eighteen million people in and around it; it is ten times larger than Milwaukee, three times bigger than Philadelphia. It is as big a city as Toronto, Boston, and Houston combined, with enough room left over for Kansas City. It's twice as large as Chicago, which supports two teams, and three times larger than the SF/Oakland area, which also supports two teams. It's a woefully under-served market that could easily accomodate another team.

Brooklyn, by itself, is larger than any city in the United States without a baseball team. It, or the New Jersey side of the Hudson, is a bigger and more potentially lucrative expansion or relocation market than any other place in the USA you can name.

Baseball still relies heavily on ticket sales. Why not have more teams where you can sell those tickets?

And furthermore, you'd force the rich Yankees and Mets to partially share their market. What's wrong with that?

[John F]

Riddle me this though Rick -- How many games are going to be nationally broadcast that feature the Mets/Yankees and Team #3?

Add to that Boston games and you have 4 teams probably making up the bulk of national telecasts on Fox and on ESPN. There are 30(32 in the case of expanding by 2 baseball teams -- 1 in NY and 1 elsewhere) franchises and the bulk of the coverage goes to the Northeast teams. Other teams aren't covered in the same fashion as those Northeast teams because Hey, they are catering to the millions in the Tri-State area and New England! Forget the rest of the country!!

To have a 3rd team because "the fans are there" just makes the focus that much more on only one small portion of the baseball world. It's much like Hockey -- where the focus is on the Tri State region, Boston, Toronto, Ottawa, Detroit and Montreal while there are 22 OTHER teams in North America. Hockey suffers because they don't realize they focus too much on the teams close together geographically.

The population is in New York, congratulations. For the good of Major League Baseball as a whole, a 3rd team in the immediate Tri State area can't happen.

[all4phillysportsfan]

I just hope that if MLB does eliminate teams in the future, that they eliminate them, and not move them to other cities. I honestly think there are too many teams in Major League Baseball as it is.

[RickJay]

Originally Posted by John F

Riddle me this though Rick -- How many games are going to be nationally broadcast that feature the Mets/Yankees and Team #3?

Depends how good they are. Nobody gave a crap about the Yankees in 1990.

Besides, right now, all we get on Fox is Red Sox and Yankees. How could things be worse?

99% of baseball fans who watch games on TV watch local cable broadcasts, and get either the regional team or watch the Cubs/Braves/Yankees/what have you on a superstation. In my area, what you mostly get is Blue Jays - not Yankees and Mets. In St. Louis, you mostly see the Cardinals. In southern California you're going to see the Dodgers and the Angels, and closer to San Diego, the Padres. If you're in southern Texas, expect to see the Astros a lot. There is no lack of television coverage for any baseball team.

To have a 3rd team because "the fans are there" just makes the focus that much more on only one small portion of the baseball world. It's much like Hockey -- where the focus is on the Tri State region, Boston, Toronto, Ottawa, Detroit and Montreal while there are 22 OTHER teams in North America.

How can you "focus" on eight teams? And on what fantasy planet are the Ottawa Senators "focused" on? Their games are broadcast in the Ottawa Valley, Brockville, and that's about it. They get no coverage in the USA, none anywhere else in Canada unless they're playing the Leafs or the Habs... I see just a tinge of bias showing. I live west of Toronto and if I want to see an Ottawa Senators games I'd better hope they're playing the Leafs, because the Leafs are the local team, and so that's what's on TV. If I lived in Calgary, I'd see a lot of the Flames.

Hockey suffers because they don't realize they focus too much on the teams close together geographically.

Hockey suffers because people in Tampa Bay don't give a crap about hockey, which is their prerogative.

The NHL has put hockey teams in places where there aren't any hockey fans. Therefore, there aren't enough fans coming to the games. I mean, why is this a surprise? I find it amazing that anyone would be surprised to find that Sunrise, FL is not a strong hockey market (home of the Panthers) but apparently it actually did surprise some people. If you want empty arenas and no fans, by all means continue to put NHL teams in stadiums in the middle of a suburban industrial park across from an outlet mall where half the population wouldn't know an ice skate from ice cream and the NHL teams draws fewer fans than some good OHL franchises (that is a literal description of where the Florida Panthers play.) If you want that franchise to draw fans and garner interest, move it to a place where there are hockey fans, such as southern Ontario. Or Winnipeg. Or Quebec.

Placing sports franchises where the fans aren't, and not placing them where they are, is stupid. It's simply, unquestionably stupid. What sort of idiot deliberately avoids his market when deciding where to put a business?

The population is in New York, congratulations. For the good of Major League Baseball as a whole, a 3rd team in the immediate Tri State area can't happen.

Nothing would be better for MLB or its franchises. There's simply no downside to this except in a few fevered imaginations. If you want baseball to succeed, give more baseball to baseball fans.

[Nocahoma]

Originally Posted by RickJay

The NHL has put hockey teams in places where there aren't any hockey fans. Therefore, there aren't enough fans coming to the games. I mean, why is this a surprise? I find it amazing that anyone would be surprised to find that Sunrise, FL is not a strong hockey market (home of the Panthers) but apparently it actually did surprise some people. If you want empty arenas and no fans, by all means continue to put NHL teams in stadiums in the middle of a suburban industrial park across from an outlet mall where half the population wouldn't know an ice skate from ice cream and the NHL teams draws fewer fans than some good OHL franchises (that is a literal description of where the Florida Panthers play.) If you want that franchise to draw fans and garner interest, move it to a place where there are hockey fans, such as southern Ontario. Or Winnipeg. Or Quebec.

Placing sports franchises where the fans aren't, and not placing them where they are, is stupid. It's simply, unquestionably stupid. What sort of idiot deliberately avoids his market when deciding where to put a business?

First of all, as a resident of Raleigh and a Hurricanes fan, I think you should reconsider this "no Hockey fans in the South" mentality. You might also look up how many of your friends & neighbors are moving here, and I'm pretty sure a few of them are in South Florida already. NC just passed NJ in population, as a matter of fact.

Secondly, I'm quite certain that Winnipeg and Quebec had (and have) NHL teams already. They moved South.

[Nat]

A third team in the Tri-State area would help allieviate payroll disparity, and due to immigration, desire to reside there & everything else, the New York area shows no sign of shrinking anytime soon. I agree there's enough teams in the MLB as is, but with certain organizations (i.e. Marlins) with uncertain futures, it would be a logical (if not sympathetic to current fan loyalty) to place a team in NJ, CT or dare I say BK.

[77smbg9177]

if you were to put another team in NY you could very well do so especially up state buffalo area and big woop NY would have 3 teams in the state thats because of exactly what Nochoma said ny can support it just like CA supporting there SIX teams because they have the fans and support to and i think it would be fine to put a third team in NY the only thing i wounder is what the team would be in AL or NL

[Nocahoma]

Dude! Punctuation is your friend.