Oakland and St. Petersburg are not the only stadium troubled markets.
Remember when Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said that his business was ready to expand and that the stadium situations in Oakland and St. Petersburg were about to be solved and expansion was moving ahead? It seems that potential expansion franchise owners in places like Nashville, Salt Lake City, and Portland, Oregon will have to cool their heels for a bit because the stadium situations in Oakland and St. Petersburg have not been settled. The Tampa Bay Rays’ ownership group is still trying to get a stadium deal done in St. Petersburg. The Oakland situation has not been resolved.
Major League Baseball may have other stadium issues to solve if Jackson County, Missouri voters say no on April 2nd to a referendum that would keep a sales tax going that would fund a new Kansas City Royals’ stadium. It has been relatively quiet in Phoenix where the Arizona Diamondbacks’ ownership group wants something done in terms of getting a new stadium or rebuilding its existing ballpark. There seems to be some movement in Chicago in the stadium game with the White Sox’s ownership kicking the tires at a location closer to downtown. Two of Manfred’s stadium problems in Baltimore and in Milwaukee have been resolved. The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim ownership has been looking for a new ballpark for quite a while. Does that mean that Major League Baseball is stuck at 30 teams for the next four years? Solving the Oakland Athletics’ ballpark situation is paramount in terms of expansion. The Athletics’ owner John Fisher does not seem to have made too many friends in Las Vegas in his quest to relocate his business to the Nevada market. Fisher has no friends in Oakland right now and it seems that both he and MLB are done with the market. Fisher may be holding up expansion.
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