The Florida Marlins Baseball Club is making the rounds of potential relocation sites, and the first stop was in San Antonio. Other contenders for the club are Las Vegas, Portland, Oregon, and Charlotte, North Carolina. A move could come as soon as the 2008 baseball season, and such a move could also be impacted by the fact that the current MLB Labor Agreement allows the MLB owners to delete up to two clubs after the 2006 season, so stay tuned.
Interestingly, the potential move of the two-time World Series champion Marlins from Miami is being met with a collective yawn by South Floridians. Craig Depken explains why:
In the end, Miami-Dade County residents will survive just fine without baseball. Although their team won two World Series in their first ten years of existence, in comparison to the sights and sounds of Miami, WS rings are a yawner. In this sense, if the good folks of Miami don’t care one way or the other if the Marlins are in town, why should the rest of us?
Would the National League divisions be restructured if the Marlins move to SA, I wonder? It would be kind of goofy for the San Antonio Whatevers to be in the National League East and the Houston Astros in the National League Central.
As a Marlins fan from Day 1, I think Depken’s argument vastly oversimplifies the situation. Most people do not realize that baseball has a very long history in Miami, all the way back to the Miami Marlins, for whom the current team is named. The high contingent of transplanted Northeasterners there adds to the appeal, as does the presence of one of the best college baseball programs of the last 30 years.
True, sports in SoFlo is generally regarded as simply one form of entertainment among many, and dollars will be expended on the sports teams in rough proportion to their success.
But the fact that there is much to do in SoFlo aside from watch baseball is most assuredly not the only or even the major reason why there is a collective yawn. There is a yawn, IMO, mostly because the good citizens of SoFlo are not willing to pay for a stadium through which the owner can make millions by licensing luxury boxes to corporate entities.
The team, like many professional sports teams, has the market power to blackmail the town by moving to a city that will bankroll a stadium for the owner. The city of miami, the florida legislature is not. And as much as I love my Fish, I cannot fault the pols and the polity for their reluctance on this matter.
They’re not going to finance a stadium. for several years now (remember what happened in 97?) most people have understood the consequences of their refusal. This is unsurprising. Upsetting, disgraceful, in a sense, but not surprising. Hence the yawn.
Also, Zepken’s analysis that WS rings are a yawner in SoFlo is silly. The Marlins have to be accounted the most successful expansion franchise in baseball, and perhaps in pro sports history. 2 WS in 13 years of existence? I think many baseball fans in SoFlo are acutely aware of the significance of those rings. They are not, I can assure you, yawners.
TP, I think Depken’s point is that the Marlins’ undeniable success on the field has not translated to success at the box office or in the financing arena. Games at the existing stadium are not well-attended, and — as you point out — it appears that Floridians not willing to use public financing to build a baseball-only stadium.
Consequently, the only other viable alternative would be to use private financing for the stadium as the owners of the Giants arranged in San Francisco (and, IIRC, was used in building Miami pro football stadium). However, the market for such private financing is apparently too expensive, thus reflecting the market’s assessment that there is a high risk that support for the Marlins among South Floridians is not sufficient to subsidize debt service on the private financing.
Thus, I think Depken has it essentially right. There is certainly nothing wrong with not agreeing to use public financing for a ballpark. But the Marlins clearly cannot make it financially in the football stadium, and private financing is too expensive to use to build a baseball-only stadium. Thus, this just may be one of those markets where Major League Baseball simply has too much competition for the entertainment dollar to be successful.
No argument, Tom. But none of that explains why the Marlins’ impending move has been met with a “collective yawn.” You’ve just detailed (very well) the economic reasons why the team is seeking to move. Zepken seemed to be leaping to some inference about why the fans do or do not seem to care, which, IMO, is not really explained by the market analysis.
I think this is a fantastic idea! For years, S.A. has been trying to land a football team, and while Saints tickets have sold well, I don’t think the town can support a permanent NFL team. The individual tickets are too expensive. San Antonio is a working class town, and most of its residents can not afford to spend $80 a ticket to see a game. However, there are a great number of people that will spend $40 for a ticket. Even though there are many more baseball games in a season than there are football games, there will be many times more people that could afford to take their families to a game. The S.A. market is that elastic.
Additionally, if the stadium were built on the north side of town (around where Ratama Park is) then the Austin market opens up (it’s less than an hour away), and the more expensive box seats get filled.
San Antonio is the only major hispanic market without a baseball team (a demographic that tends to support baseball in higher numbers), so I’m surprised that it’s taken this long for somebody to start talking about it. Besides, if California can have five teams, Texas certainly deserves three!
San Antonio can support NFL and MLB along with the Spurs.As of 2005, San Antonio metro surpassed 2 million people.The six county region which includes Austin-San Marcos has nearly 4 million people.A region smaller in land area than Houston-Galveston-Brazario but having a comprable population.Houston’s 12 county metro population giving it 5 million people.S.A-Austin region is only exploding in population.By 2015 San Antonio could have nearly 3 million people and over 5 million in the San Antonio-Austin corridor.