Williams needs lots of money for his dream to come true.
Pat Williams continues to try to get Orlando into the potential Major League Baseball expansion derby. The problem Williams has with his potential bid is no political will in the Orlando area at the moment to give him public money to build a stadium. Even if Williams did receive some sort of commitment of public dollars to help pay for construction of the venue, he wants public land to house the stadium. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred wants to see expansion, which means that the 30 owners want a shot at what really would be free money for them maybe as much as six billion dollars as the asking price for the two franchises that would come into Major League Baseball. Divide six billion dollars into 30 and each of the present owners could walk away with $200 million apiece for doing nothing except adding two teams. MLB is not going to expand until the stadium situations in the Oakland and Tampa Bay markets are solved and those team owners get new ballparks although John Fisher might have to take his Oakland Athletics business to Las Vegas to get a new venue. Williams would take the Tampa Bays Rays franchise to Orlando if that could be worked out.
Las Vegas was on a list of possible expansion sites, the other places might include Nashville, Salt Lake City, Charlotte, Montréal and maybe if Fisher leaves Oakland for Las Vegas, Oakland. After all, despite what Manfred said, there was a stadium proposal on the table complete with allocated money and environment approvals for an Oakland stadium. Williams is proposing a domed venue that would cost $1.7 billion with Orange County, Florida handing him at least $975 million to help pay for the building and land. Williams’ proposal might not fly in Orlando.
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