Nashville as MLB Expansion Market

[bigeasy]

3 hours ago, japan said:

The last home game was pretty packed.

I think lots had to do with that being a divisional game, first home game, and then the hype post Cleveland win. If they lose to Atlanta this weekend it will be very interesting to see what the turnout will be for Buffalo. No clue if their fanbase travels well.

[thenorthchannel]

Oh the Bills Mafia travels well.   

[WebberThomas4]

 

[WebberThomas4]

 

[PaulChinetti]

Only issue I’m seeing is how are they saying they are handling the mass of people entering and leaving Titans games on the pedestrian bridge? That thing is packed especially post game. They are funneling g people through a “entertainment living room”... what now?

How would that all work during the construction period too?

Retractable roof would be awesome. 

[downtownresident]

That’s a packed site plan, and is currently home to Cumberland Park. Hopefully they’d also include redeveloping some of the land in front of Nissan Stadium to replace the park we’d be losing in this scenario. 

[Sean blackdog]

Make bigger is better. 

Edited October 1, 2019 by Sean blackdog

[DDIG]

lol what are these guys thinking? They don't own that land. This will not be well received and gives Cooper what he loves best: a target to yell hell no at.

51 minutes ago, downtownresident said:

That’s a packed site plan, and is currently home to Cumberland Park. Hopefully they’d also include redeveloping some of the land in front of Nissan Stadium to replace the park we’d be losing in this scenario. 

Not to mention I think the Titans are keen on redevelopment as part of a Nissan upgrade. They will be vehemently against this.

[nashvylle]

Just now, DDIG said:

lol what are these guys thinking? They don't own that land. This will not be well received and gives Cooper what he loves best: a target to yell hell no at.

Sports authority does... the no public money is a very big point. 

I do think the titans are entitled to that land though, so that’s the biggest issue. 

[DDIG]

1 minute ago, nashvylle said:

Sports authority does... the no public money is a very big point. 

I do think the titans are entitled to that land though, so that’s the biggest issue. 

Yeah and Cooper is all about getting maximum dollar for any deal - I'm skeptical of no public money or atleast a few sweatheart deals to make this happen. You are right, the Titans would be pissed and probably look to pack up if that happened. 

[downtownresident]

27 minutes ago, DDIG said:

lol what are these guys thinking? They don't own that land. This will not be well received and gives Cooper what he loves best: a target to yell hell no at.

Not to mention I think the Titans are keen on redevelopment as part of a Nissan upgrade. They will be vehemently against this.

The Titans could still redevelop the land to the east of the stadium if this gets built. That is, if the plan is to renovate the current stadium vs a full rebuild to the East. 
 

This is an absolute non starter, IMO. It replaces a city park that is already built out, and the ingress/egress looks like a mess.

[Ingram]

The Tennessee Titans have had empty seats everywhere for the last five seasons for just eight home games a year. A privately funded baseball stadium mixed use development will probably get the go ahead over a near billion dollar stadium renovation for a team that can't fill the seats for eight games a year.

Edited October 1, 2019 by Ingram

[henburg]

14 hours ago, downtownresident said:

The Titans could still redevelop the land to the east of the stadium if this gets built. That is, if the plan is to renovate the current stadium vs a full rebuild to the East. 

I'd bet on this happening in the future.

16 hours ago, WebberThomas4 said:

 

I don't think I gave these guys any credit at all when I first heard about this, but they don't seem to be playing around. I'll continue to echo others in not being that interested in the MLB in general (especially an expansion club), but I can't help but feel intrigued by the site plan. It's flashy and admittedly would probably be a really cool ballpark experience if built, even if there are a lot of obvious issues with it. It's funny that the Pedestrian Bridge just plops down right into the outfield. 

Edited October 1, 2019 by henburg

[BnaBreaker]

50 minutes ago, henburg said:

I'd bet on this happening in the future.

I don't think I gave these guys any credit at all when I first heard about this, but they don't seem to be playing around. I'll continue to echo others in not being that interested in the MLB in general (especially an expansion club), but I can't help but feel intrigued by the site plan. It's flashy and admittedly would probably be a really cool ballpark experience if built, but there are a lot of obvious issues with it. It's funny that the Pedestrian Bridge just plops down right into the outfield. 

Ditto to everything written here.

[claya91]

Big baseball fan here.. several issues come to mind.

1. We have a brand new 91 million dollar triple A stadium 

2. MLB is having attendance issues and Nashville would be the second smallest metro to host a MLB team.

3. The majority of baseball fans here have allegiance to the Braves and to a lessor degree (unfortunately) the Cubs.

4. Nissan Stadium is a bottom tier NFL stadium and any further expansion would be disrupted (and necessary to host a super bowl)

 

[Sean blackdog]

Group releases renderings of potential MLB stadium
https://www.newschannel5.com/news/group-releases-renderings-of-potential-mlb-stadium

[jmtunafish]

7 hours ago, claya91 said:

3. The majority of baseball fans here have allegiance to the Braves and to a lessor degree (unfortunately) the Cubs.

Agree about the Braves, but I would've thought there were more Reds fans than Cubs fans in Nashville.  

[markhollin]

Interesting that this site is nearly the exact same one I proposed for the minor league baseball stadium back in 2004 (I have diagrams I drew up for it somewhere--if I find them I'lll post them).

This is a pretty tight footprint for all they are trying to squeeze in there:

- 35,000 seat, retractable roof stadium

- Covered "Entertainment Room" concert venue.  Looks like 4,000 range capacity.

- Rooftop bar above right field bleachers

- College Baseball hall of Fame/12 story office building

- Extensive retail/restaurant presence

- 20 story residential tower

- 20 story hotel/condo tower

- Twin 25 story office towers w/ 1 million sq. ft. of space

- 15 story live/work building. 

- Extensive parking garages underneath structures.

The view over the right field wall would be of SoBro skyline ...but with the 5 story rooftop bar atop the right field bleachers,  much of the view from the main stadium across the river might be impeded. They should rethink this so the view is unencumbered. 

Am presuming that the scoreboard will be above left field bleachers. and blocking the view of eastern shore incline of the KVB Bridge.

Integrating the KVB Bridge into the set up hugging the left field area of the stadium is smart---but things are so tight that there could be some significant traffic issues. 

Really like the Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge integration into the complex.

Not sure that a retractable roof is all that necessary.  There aren't that many bad weather days in spring/summer/early fall.  Most games are in the evenings when the heat index drops significantly.  

Updated Music City Baseball website:

https://www.mlbmusiccity.com/

More at The Tennessean here:

https://www.tennessean.com/story/sports/baseball/2019/10/01/nashville-mlb-team-stars-stadium-renderings/3828450002/

[smeagolsfree]

Here are the renderings.

[DDIG]

11 hours ago, Ingram said:

The Tennessee Titans have had empty seats everywhere for the last five seasons for just eight home games a year. A privately funded baseball stadium mixed use development will probably get the go ahead over a near billion dollar stadium renovation for a team that can't fill the seats for eight games a year.

NFL is still by far the most popular and profitable sport. Nissan is also used for a bowl game, concerts, other events. Titans brought the NFL Draft in town and a nicer football stadium likely means a Super Bowl in the future.

And I have a very hard time believing Nashville would come close to packing a MLB stadium (which has bigger attendance problems than NFL) 80 times a year.

1 hour ago, smeagolsfree said:

Here are the renderings.

 

 

Of course a concert venue, everything in Nashville must have a concert venue!

Edited October 1, 2019 by DDIG

[Tyrone Wiggum]

11 hours ago, Ingram said:

The Tennessee Titans have had empty seats everywhere for the last five seasons for just eight home games a year. A privately funded baseball stadium mixed use development will probably get the go ahead over a near billion dollar stadium renovation for a team that can't fill the seats for eight games a year.

I'm genuinely interested in this thread from the perspective of why Nashville thinks it's a better fit for MLB than Portland or Charlotte; Davidson County's per capita is 15% lower than Mecklenburg County's, in a significantly smaller tv market that already has three "professional" teams (MLS is about as professional as EFL League Two, but whatever), and Charlotte is smaller than Portland.

Butts in seats no longer drive margins for a significant majority of MLB teams; it's all about the TV contract, and though Tampa just got a massive upgrade to its deal, it's still a crap deal comparatively in a market nearly 70% larger than Nashville's. 

So what gives?  Is it the guy who knows other famous people but doesn't appear to have any money but makes lots of loud noises?  Sincerely confused.

[Bark At The Sun]

I like how they made the railroad disappear.   You cant even get a  Gulch to Cummins Station Pedestrian Bridge over the railroad in this town.   

[TheRaglander]

2 minutes ago, Tyrone Wiggum said:

I'm genuinely interested in this thread from the perspective of why Nashville thinks it's a better fit for MLB than Portland or Charlotte; Davidson County's per capita is 15% lower than Mecklenburg County's, in a significantly smaller tv market that already has three "professional" teams (MLS is about as professional as EFL League Two, but whatever), and Charlotte is smaller than Portland.

Butts in seats no longer drive margins for a significant majority of MLB teams; it's all about the TV contract, and though Tampa just got a massive upgrade to its deal, it's still a crap deal comparatively in a market nearly 70% larger than Nashville's. 

So what gives?  Is it the guy who knows other famous people but doesn't appear to have any money but makes lots of loud noises?  Sincerely confused.

I wonder if having that concert hall booked often will provide a significant revenue stream?   I dont know what the capacity is.. but does it fill that sweet spot for outdoor that Starwood provided?  Ascend too small, Nissan too big...

[PaulChinetti]

1 hour ago, smeagolsfree said:

 

This is even more confusing. This shows as the entertainment living room. Which is at the end of the pedestrian bridge. So the pedestrian bridge would dump out into a concert venue? What what?

[Nash_12South]

I'm impressed. I think being adjacent to downtown, with all the tourists (and everyone else) would make this much more likely to succeed than about any other location. We went to a couple of Yankees games for a few innings and went back to being tourists while in NYC over the years.