SUMMARY
- MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has announced his intention to retire at the end of his term in January 2029.
- Several cities are under consideration for MLB expansion, with the league's preference to add one team from the East and one from the West.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has announced that he will retire at the end of his term in January 2029. But before that happens, he has prioritized MLB expansion, considering it an “inevitability” for the league. While the expansion is not on the immediate horizon, Manfred aims to establish a process to add two new teams prior to his departure.
The topic of MLB expansion has been a longstanding point of discussion. Despite addressing expansion publicly multiple times during his tenure, Manfred has yet to form the committee necessary to formalize the process. However, during Thursday’s announcement, he expressed his hope to select two new cities for expansion soon as reported by ESPN’s Jeff Passan.
Which cities are under consideration for the MLB expansion?
Several cities are being considered for MLB expansion according to ESPN. The expansion is expected to include one team in the East and another in the West, potentially leading to significant realignment.
Among the suggested potential expansion cities, is Vancouver in Canada. Other cities in the running include Charlotte, North Carolina; Portland; San Jose, California; Austin, Texas; and Mexico City. While expanding to cities outside the United States, such as Vancouver and Mexico City, may present challenges, it would undeniably mark an ‘expansion’ for the league.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred says that he will step down at the end of his five-year term, in January 2029. pic.twitter.com/XyybJrbIMI
— Front Office Sports (@FOS) February 15, 2024
Since, MLB’s preference is to add one team from the East and one from the West, Nashville, and Salt Lake City are currently the frontrunners. The reason Nashville, Tennessee, and Salt Lake City are the prime candidates for the expansion is that both cities rank among the top 30 media markets in the United States, and consistently appear among the country’s fastest-growing cities.
Why didn’t MLB expand the league sooner?
The idea of expanding MLB has been present since the league started growing beyond its original 16 teams. The initial plan was to double the number of teams, beginning with an expansion to 18 in 1961. Progress continued, and by 1998, the league welcomed the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays as its 29th and 30th teams, each paying a $130 million expansion fee.
Since 1998, MLB has stuck with 30 teams, making it the longest time without expansion in over 60 years. The decision to avoid adding more teams was a deliberate choice by team owners.
They wanted to keep the central revenue within the existing teams, given the economic boom in baseball since the early 2000s. Now, there seems to be a change in this approach, and MLB is getting ready to add two more teams, to realize its initial goal of expanding to 32 teams in the not-so-distant future.