Nashville as MLB Expansion/Relocation Market

[Ingram]

57 minutes ago, japan said:

You want to talk about empty seats?  Go look at attendance for teams not in the historic baseball markets...

And?

Half-filled and quarter-filled stadiums are a natural ocurrance in MLB. With a 162 game season why wouldn't that occur. MLB makes their money over the long haul of the season.

[MidTenn1]

The usual metrics of applying metro population size, corporate HQ and per capita income data to whether or not Nashville can support a fourth major league sport need to be adjusted to factor in a large transient population of tourists.

As an original season ticket holder to Titans games, I see a large secondary market ticket supply going to visitors from other teams who circle the Titans on their calendars and come down for several days to experience Nashville's attractions. That has to be one of the metrics used in the assessment of Nashville's chances of making MLB successful. The Rays would bring the Yankees and Red Sox twice a year (12? games) and the city would go nuts unlike our other 'peer' cities.

And Nashville can go nuts....

As an American League city, Nashville would fill a large hole in the AL universe. There are 10's of millions in that market area that are closer to Nashville than another AL city.

Detroit (or any city) fans closer to Nashville than Detroit would travel to Nashville for (multiple?)home games. There is a whole different set of metrics that apply to Nashville as compared to 'peer' cities. 

[Ingram]

Funny how the consensus on this forum was that the NFL was going to cease to exist and that MLS is on the rise and it's stadium should be next to the Titans stadium downtown. Now it's all hysteria about protecting the NFL. 

It seems like any time someone wants to build a development on the east bank of the river, the pearl clutchers come out in full force.

"How dare they!"

"That won't work!"

Reminds me of what the geniuses here were saying about River North.

Edited October 1, 2019 by Ingram

[Ingram]

10 minutes ago, PHofKS said:

The usual metrics of applying metro population size, corporate HQ and per capita income data to whether or not Nashville can support a fourth major league sport need to be adjusted to factor in a large transient population of tourists.

As an original season ticket holder to Titans games, I see a large secondary market ticket supply going to visitors from other teams who circle the Titans on their calendars and come down for several days to experience Nashville's attractions. That has to be one of the metrics used in the assessment of Nashville's chances of making MLB successful. The Rays would bring the Yankees and Red Sox twice a year (12? games) and the city would go nuts unlike our other 'peer' cities.

And Nashville can go nuts....

As an American League city, Nashville would fill a large hole in the AL universe. There are 10's of millions in that market area that are closer to Nashville than another AL city.

Detroit (or any city) fans closer to Nashville than Detroit would travel to Nashville for (multiple?)home games. There is a whole different set of metrics that apply to Nashville as compared to 'peer' cities. 

 

Dude, nobody would travel to Nashville for a sporting event. What in the world would make you think that? 

[Ingram]

3 hours ago, Tennessine said:

What is with these teen-aged Charlotte posters who come over just to start crap

Be careful guy, the betas will get triggered.

 

Some places have it. Others places don't.

Nashville has it.

Edited October 2, 2019 by Ingram

[Tennessine]

2 hours ago, volsfanwill said:

false, travel 5 minutes west of nashville.  all of west tn is Cardinals.    

That will change by Saturday

[claya91]

15 hours ago, volsfanwill said:

Um... Cardinals... 

cubs fans are everywhere.  but Nashville has been a 3 team city for a long time.  Reds, Braves, and Cardinals.  Reds have fallen off, but the other two are still strong.  Ill admit the Braves are probably pulling the most now.

Cardinals fan here but I see wayy more Cubs fans with all the Chicago transplants. Not even close. 

15 hours ago, japan said:

You want to talk about empty seats?  Go look at attendance for teams not in the historic baseball markets...

Great point here. St Louis averages over 40k in attendence per home game but look at Cincinnati, sure, they're terrible, but many of their home games are under 10k in attendance. The ceiling isn't that high regardless. With Nashville's tourism draw, I'm curious if we'd have a Vanderbilt situation where the majority of fans root for the away team. Not much better than low attendence. 

[nashvylle]

5 minutes ago, claya91 said:

 Not much better than low attendence. 

much, much better than low attendance, IMO. Nothing is worse than playing a game with 5k in attendance, in any sport. 

[Melrose]

Hahaha, St. Louis has an interesting  habit about claims of attendance numbers,  photos posted by @BestFansStLouis tells a different tale.

[grilled_cheese]

Stick the MLB in the Sounds stadium and charge the olds that still care quadruple to make up for the lack of seats. 

[markhollin]

Just so we're operating from real numbers and not opinions and hearsay. Actual attendance and ticket price figures for the 2019 MLB regular season (81 home games per team):

Total attendance of all 30 teams: 93,479,000

Average total attendance per franchise: 27,754

Average percentage of capacity: 67.2%

Total income from ticket sales: $6,356,572,000 ($6.35 BILLION)

Average ticket income per franchise: $211,885,733

Average ticket price across all 30 teams: $68

No other sports league in North America--and dare I say the world--can come close to these bottom line numbers. 

 

[PruneTracy]

3 minutes ago, markhollin said:

Just so we're operating from real numbers and not opinions and hearsay. Actual attendance and ticket price figures for the 2019 MLB regular season (81 home games per team):

Total attendance of all 30 teams: 93,479,000

Average total attendance per franchise: 27,754

Average percentage of capacity: 67.2%

Total income from ticket sales: $6,356,572,000 ($6.35 BILLION)

Average ticket income per franchise: $211,885,733

Average ticket price across all 30 teams: $68

No other sports league in North America--and dare I say the world--can come close to these bottom line numbers. 

Also worth pointing out from your chart that several teams (the Marlins in particular, but also the O's and Rays) are not far away from the numbers generated by the Sounds this season (578,291 for the year at 67 home games = 8,631 per game).

Would from 20% more to double the number of people attend the Sounds home slate plus 13-14 more regular-season home games if they were supporting a team in the show as opposed to a AAA farm team? I don't think that is unreasonable.

[PaulChinetti]

https://www.sbnation.com/2019/9/26/20883568/american-sports-stadium-architecture-future

Relevant and interesting article. Doesn't talk about parking or public transportation at all though.

[Rockatansky]

19 hours ago, smeagolsfree said:

Do we have the population and the spending power to support another major league team?

No.

[Andy20]

I believe we have the population. The team would not be competing for attendance with the titans or the preds for most of their season. I highly doubt that a city like Nashville would have a hard time filling seats if they reached the playoffs if there were titans games at the same time of the year. I think this boosts tourism a lot with many fans of teams like Chicago, St. Louis, Pittsburgh because it almost gives them an excuse to come visit Nashville. There are no other sports to attend through most of the summer, and there are a lot of people I know that go to a sounds game or two each summer, but if it was MLB baseball, a lot more of them would be regulars. Middle Tennessee has a lot of baseball. Tim Corbin at Vanderbilt has increased popularity across the MSA as well as the Sounds bringing in a good following. A lot of Sounds fans are not watching baseball, though. They go as a social event instead.

Edited October 2, 2019 by Andy20

[Ingram]

The business community would scoop up loads of tickets for themselves and their prospective clients. Baseball is a major tool for businesses to shmooze clients and prospects.

Edited October 2, 2019 by Ingram

[DDIG]

6 minutes ago, Andy20 said:

 

I think the best course of action would be to build onto the sounds stadium. The stadium was built with increasing capacity in mind. Game attendance is down in every sport everywhere. If we went with a smaller stadium but with more amenities then I think it would work well. 

I actually thought I heard the opposite, that stadium is not able to take on more capacity / expansion. 

[Ingram]

Miami is averaging 10k+ a game. Nashville will probably pull 5-10k alone in conventioneers and tourists per game.

Edited October 2, 2019 by Ingram

[Jarno]

19 minutes ago, DDIG said:

I actually thought I heard the opposite, that stadium is not able to take on more capacity / expansion. 

You are correct, no expansion.  I looked up the article I had read again and it says expansion is not an option, but does not give the reason.

[Andy20]

2 minutes ago, Jarno said:

You are correct, no expansion.  I looked up the article I had read again and it says expansion is not an option, but does not give the reason.

Which article?

[DDIG]

29 minutes ago, Jarno said:

You are correct, no expansion.  I looked up the article I had read again and it says expansion is not an option, but does not give the reason.

I feel like there were some issues with the foundation, like maybe an underground stream or something going on with the soil. I could be entirely misremembering but I do have a feint memory of something like that and that it couldn't take on a larger structure than they put.

[Jarno]

3 hours ago, Andy20 said:

Which article?

https://www.newschannel5.com/news/mlb-commissioner-mentions-nashville-as-possible-mlb-expansion-city

 

 

[Andy20]

The quote is coming from the Nashville Sounds organization. They just agreed to lease the stadium from the city for 30 years and promised to spend $50 million on the building next door, so I doubt they want any speculation of this occurring which could put their future in Nashville in the air. If there are actual reasons like what DDIG mentioned, though, then it would make sense as it would not be cost effective, but I have doubts as to this being the case.

[Jarno]

I'm not sure it matters either way.  The days of trying to throw an upper deck on a minor league park are long gone.  It would have to be modern and on the cutting edge for us to get a team.  (and most likely would have to be in the core to generate the excitement which will bring in the tourist and business travelers)

 

Edited October 3, 2019 by Jarno

[bwithers1]

23 hours ago, smeagolsfree said:

Guys, come on, this proposal is not going to happen at that location if it happens at all. Metro is not going to demolish Cumberland Park and get rid of that parking. Priority goes to the Titans.

@smeagolsfreeThat's basically what I told NewsChannel5 yesterday.  Cumberland Park isn't going anywhere.  Bridge relocations aren't going to be approved by Metro, TDOT or TDEC for that matter.  And the Titans get first priority for any new construction since they are the incumbent tenant with a long-term lease.  The team owners need to look at the PSC site, LOL!

Edited October 2, 2019 by bwithers1