Within three months of a laboar agreement, commissioner will announce timetable", "Baseball Ready to Add Miami and Denver Teams", "6 cities named finalists for 2 NL expansion teams", "Mack Pushing Commissioner; Wants Expansion Timetable", "Owners' Group Approves Denver, Miami Baseball: Final hurdle is vote by all owners. When the NFL expansion committee headed by current league commissioner Roger Goodell awarded franchises to Charlotte and Jacksonville in 1993, three other prospective teams with nicknames, logos, and color schemes already unveiled and season ticket deposits sold, were left disappointed. The more teams there are, the broader the appeal, especially for fans that live in a geographical baseball desert. Senator Connie Mack III from Florida, the grandson of baseball great Connie Mack and a member of the Senate Task Force on Major League Baseball, pushed Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent to expand to Florida. Baltimore was another city in the running for an expansion team in 1993. The city was awarded a Canadian Football League franchise in 1995, but the Mad Dogs (Presley Enterprises wasn’t an investor) folded after one season. The team folded in 1948, two years after the NFL’s Cleveland Rams relocated to Los Angeles. In mid-1974, the NHL awarded Vince Abbey, president of the World Hockey Association’s Seattle Totems, an expansion franchise to begin play in the 1976. NL East. The NFL wasn’t looking to add another team at the time, so Bassett filed a lawsuit against the league claiming that it violated antitrust laws by denying the Grizzlies, who were briefly known as the Southmen, entry into the NFL. The 1961 Major League Baseball expansion resulted in the formation of two new Major League Baseball (MLB) franchises in the American League (AL). But upstate New York is far enough away from New York City that it could sustain its own team in an MLB expansion scenario. Hampton Roads, a metropolitan area in southeastern Virginia that includes Norfolk and Newport News, was one of nine candidates for NHL expansion in 1997. [citation needed]. But the Orlando bid had the backing of Amway Corp. president Richard DeVos. They haven't expanded since 1998, but if there is MLB expansion, here are seven cities for new teams. Local and regional companies—such as Erie Lake, Hensel Phelps Construction, KOA Radio, and the Rocky Mountain News—rounded out the group. After Seattle and Tampa Bay were awarded teams, John Bassett moved his World Football League team from Toronto to Memphis and signed several NFL stars, including Larry Csonka and Jim Kiick. While that would likely diminish the chances of the Nationals and new Montreal team being in the same division, they still could both end up being in the NL. Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred has made no secret of his affinity for expanding MLB from 30 to 32 or more teams. So I just kept going, and Nationals just came tumbling out.” Nationals was the name of Washington’s National League franchise in 1886 and the name the team adopted when the Montreal Expos relocated to Washington, DC, after the 2004 season. Rhinos was chosen as a replacement nickname, but the backlash from fans was so great that Weinglass and Glazer reopened the search. With the alignment MLB created for this season, it has rekindled conversations about future alignment and possible expansion. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/29462/11-expansion-teams-just-missed-cut After all, baseball, like all sports, has taken a huge financial hit, and there is still a lot of questions about the 2021 season.Add to that the fact that the current collective bargaining agreement expires after the 2021 season. This decision marked the first time in expansion history that leagues were required to share expansion revenue or provide players for another league's expansion draft. As one reporter noted, the logo, designed by the same advertising firm that created the logo for the Orlando Magic, was “strikingly similar to the logo used by Paramount Pictures Corporation for its recent baseball movie, Major League.”. There is a growing sense around Major League Baseball that the league will eventually expand from 30 to 32 teams, and Portland, Ore. has consistently been mentioned as a potential landing spot. While the NBA has played several preseason games in Mexico and the NFL hosted a regular season game there in 2005, no major professional sports league has expanded south of the border. The WHA folded before the 1974 season and the Totems joined the Central Hockey League in 1974-1975. Sporting leagues also hope that the expansion of their competition will grow the popularity of the sport generally. In 1990, Major League Baseball solicited bids for two expansion teams to join the National League starting in the 1993 season. . The NHL reneged on its offer and denied Abbey’s team an expansion bid. It may be a bit off but there are cities who want a team … The case was settled in favor of the NHL more than a decade later. “It’s a scavenger. It's Official", "More than just Barnum on the bill for expansion Marlins", "Denver, Miami expected to be approved as expansion cities", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1993_Major_League_Baseball_expansion&oldid=996029905, Pages containing links to subscription-only content, Wikipedia introduction cleanup from June 2015, Articles covered by WikiProject Wikify from June 2015, All articles covered by WikiProject Wikify, Articles with unsourced statements from October 2011, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 24 December 2020, at 03:51. Both the NFL and NHL have 32 teams, or soon will, and MLB certainly must look at that and want in. Rob Manfred sees MLB as a growth industry and wants to get to 32 teams. [2] On December 18, 1990, the committee eliminated Charlotte, Nashville, Phoenix and Sacramento from consideration to cut the list down to six finalists. The Rockies? The prospective ownership group announced it preferred a nickname other than Senators and asked fans to submit ideas on a postcard. St. Louis was the third city that came oh-so-close to being awarded an expansion NFL team in 1993. total number of games would be 98 plus 48 plus 16 =162 games The adage that a rising tide lifts all boats is a mantra to keep in mind when considering expansion. Abbey responded by filing an antitrust suit against the league, arguing that his team’s and the WHA’s demise was primarily the result of the NHL’s growth. Charlotte Hornets owner George Shinn, who led the bid, chose Rhinos as the team’s nickname and a color scheme of teal, purple, and blue. And, with the premise that adding more teams will add more revenue—while, don’t forget, playing into the back-and-forth tactics of the CBA—the idea of expansion … This 12-team configuration … It’s also led to MLB expanding from only a handful of teams to 30 and yet still talk of more in the future. The following year, MLB announced the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks as its newest members. “It’s a cowardly bird anyway,” Weinglass said of the Ravens nickname. Players, owners must agree on labor contract ; the current pact expires Dec. 31. Pros Pushed up against yet another failed bid for stadium funding in 2006, the Marlins decided to look at other markets, including San Antonio. See also. The NL had already picked up 2 AA franchises in Brooklyn and Cincinnati for the 1890 season, to go along with the original Boston and Chicago franchises and existing teams in Cleveland, New York, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. But the Hound Dogs never came to be. In 1892, the National League expanded to 12 teams with the addition of 4 teams from the American Association, which had disbanded after 10 years. More than 70% of respondents to a poll in the Memphis Commercial-Appeal didn’t like the nickname, which was inspired by the hit single originally recorded in 1952 by Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton and adapted by Elvis four years later. Abbey was scrambling to secure funding for the franchise fee that was required to join the NHL and missed a major deadline for a deposit. While the shades-sporting baseball never made it to the big leagues – MLB awarded expansion franchises to Miami and Denver – SunRays was the nickname of Minnesota’s AA affiliate in Orlando from 1990-1992. The 1993 Major League Baseball expansion resulted in Major League Baseball (MLB) adding two expansion teams to the National League (NL) for the 1993 season: the Colorado Rockies and the Florida Marlins (now known as the Miami Marlins). MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has not shied away from talking about expanding both in the US and internationally, either. While Ravens was the leading vote getter in a Baltimore Sun poll, the team feared a Ravens logo would too closely resemble the Atlanta Falcons’ logo, and ultimately decided on Bombers. Vincent said the owners expanded to raise money to pay their collusion debt. MLB has toyed with the idea of expansion teams. With the COVID-19 pandemic the league may consider more than ever the need to introduce additional teams for the much needed cash injection. [4] With three sites from Florida remaining in contention it became apparent that one would win out while the other spot would go to a non-Florida team. After filing a lawsuit against Ralston, the league imposed a deadline to sell the team to a new ownership group before it would consider dissolving the Blues. Last time the League expansion teams to bring their total to 32 teams, soon. 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