Baseball owner pleads for Montreal help
The owner of the American baseball team Tampa Bay Rays says the only way to “save” the team is to split its season with Montreal.
I don’t know where to begin here. This is not a cause. There is no need to come to the rescue of this baseball team. It could be closed down or sold to some other American city that wants one.
If anyone here starts talking about putting up a baseball stadium to host an American team for half its games, I will happily start a campaign against doing anything so stupid. I would certainly support such a campaign.
dominic 10:55 on 2020-12-09 Permalink
Boy, did they ever have bad timing. Asking for money for a small % of the population at a time when government finances are a mess could not be easier to reject. If billionaires can’t support their sports teams, then maybe there are too many of them?
Kevin 12:01 on 2020-12-09 Permalink
The team’s never coming to Montreal. The owner of the Rays just uses our city to try and get out of a contract he signed locking him to Florida for years to come.
walkerp 13:45 on 2020-12-09 Permalink
I hate baseball but if the owners are willing to invest in the stadium development and none of it comes from public coffers and it didn’t destroy anything already good architecturally and neighbourhood wise, I’d be in favour of it and I think it would do well here.
I think Kevin has the right of it, though. The Tampa owner is just using this concept as a bargaining chip.
walkerp 13:46 on 2020-12-09 Permalink
For instance, replace the Turcot with a baseball stadium. Who says no to that?
Kate 14:19 on 2020-12-09 Permalink
walkerp, I’m at risk of repeating things I’ve written earlier, but there’s no such thing as a major sports facility that’s only paid for by private money. A big building needs municipal infrastructure, security, transportation and other services that come out of the public pocket. Also, while such a facility should be paying the standard tax for commercial space of that size, they never do. The Canadiens organization plays poor mouth every year and gets taxes reduced on the Bell Centre, and it’s standard operating procedure. Major league sports are machines for moving public money into private pockets.
Bill Binns 16:22 on 2020-12-09 Permalink
Couldn’t agree more. This may be the first issue to get me out in the street with a sign in my hand.
If I had to guess how this will go, I would say that it will be announced loudly with NO PUBLIC MONEY and they will pull a Teddy Roosevelt and come begging when the thing is half built. We can then fork over millions or live with a half finished stadium in the middle of the city. There will be wild promises made about all the fine jobs that will be created by a facility that is operational for 5-8 days a month.
Hell you can read the whole script by looking into what happened to the nice folks who purchased our old baseball team.
thomas 16:26 on 2020-12-09 Permalink
Further to Kate’s point, not only do sports facilities require, at a minimum, additional public infrastructure resources, but they can destroy the utility of existing infrastructure. Witness the Molson Centre whose placement made Windsor Station useless. A decision that has crippled rail transport, i.e. between downtown and the airport, in this city ever since.
GC 09:23 on 2020-12-10 Permalink
I actually like baseball, but I think it’s a terrible idea. Kate’s right. This isn’t some species that’s about to go extinct. If their aren’t enough residents of Tampa to support a Major League team, maybe the answer is not to prop one up there.