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In general, I find change to be very scary. For example, living on my own for the first time was pretty freaky (for a week or so). That said, there are so many things that happen in our lives that we just accept with a blind eye; North American pro sports being no exception. The Cubs new mascot, Clark, can’t talk. Why?

Why can’t the animate face of your franchise communicate? Not that he would need to on a regular basis, but what if Clark announced the lineups for the day’s game? Or verbalized some new promotional campaign as he prances through the concessions? Who decided that mascots couldn’t talk? Perhaps a better question is, why are we afraid to change such things? Instant replay took this long? Seriously?

Rant over. The real topic I want to discuss here is expanding the sport with new teams. Enough of the talk about whether Oakland is moving or not moving to San Jose; let’s give San Jose a legitimate shot at a bid for the MLB’s 31st team. I see you too, Montreal. More on potential cities later; I don’t really understand why possible landing spots always takes the spotlight in these types of talks. Instead, I want to look at the conceivable impacts of expansion.

First, I think that it has become evident that MLB is in a decent financial standing. Last March, Mike Ozanian of Forbes said, “The average baseball team is now worth $744 million, 23% more than a year ago and the largest increase since we began tracking MLB finances in 1998. During the 2012 season, revenue (net of stadium debt service) rose 7%, to an average of $227 million per team”. Coincidentally, baseball hasn’t expanded since ’98, when it added the Diamondbacks and the Devil Rays. With the recent explosion of TV contract dollars pouring into the league, it is pretty easy to see that baseball is well off. Not to mention the money being thrown around in free agency, and the increasing cost of buying one Win Above Replacement, or the news that Atlanta will soon be playing in a new park after being in their current one since just 1997. Needless to say, baseball is big business.

Both Tampa Bay and Phoenix paid total expansion fees of $130 Million each, way back in 1995. The Dodgers were just bought for roughly $2 Billion. I’m going to keep things simple and ballpark it, if you will, and say that the expansion fee for a new team would be $500 million. If two new teams were to be added, we’re talking about roughly $1 Billion to be shared among the existing 30 franchises. That is a decent amount of money, just to open the doors to your league. There are many other financial implications that could be discussed here, but I think the point is again quite clear; expansion would create value.

As I alluded to earlier, certain cities have an itch to call themselves home to a MLB club. Speculation often includes the Canadian cities of Montreal and Vancouver, as well as American cities like Portland, Charlotte, Indianapolis, San Jose, and so on. The most recent MLB additions of Washington, Phoenix, and Tampa Bay place 14th, 19th, and 30th on Forbes’ value list, respectively. While Tampa is clearly the laggard of the three, both the Nationals and Diamondbacks are very successful franchises, in terms of financial strength. As a Rays fan, I’ll try to keep my homerism to a minimum, but I must point out that the Forbes list has them just $6 million behind the 29th place Royals, so it isn’t like they are the broken leg of a cheetah. Also, their TV ratings are, at very the least, encouraging. Why they play in a dome in St. Pete’s is another story.

Furthermore, wouldn’t MLB want to cover the map as much as possible? Expand the game across North America (and beyond) to their full extent? Makes enough sense at face value. However, I must acknowledge why this may not be in the best interests of the league. As long as there are viable host cities, there will always be a demand for a team. Having fewer teams than baseball could theoretically handle artificially increases demand for a franchise.

 In other words, if San Jose had a team, the purchase value of the Oakland Athletics would decrease. This artificial demand is what gives the league power; if the Giants didn’t build a new park, would they still be in San Francisco? I absolutely hate the idea of publically funded stadiums, but it is what it is. More franchises would loosen the stranglehold the league has on these cities, as demand for a team would be lessened. But still, as demand for baseball in general increases, I think there are more than enough viable cities to keep demand at a high level.

What other reasons could play a factor in the league not wanting to expand? A common argument is talent dilution. More teams would require more players, and there aren’t a lot of really good ones as it is. Personally, I don’t buy this argument at all. I would suspect that as the population increases, the number of talented ballplayers churned out should increase too. And intuition tells me that those talents are being developed better then ever, with improvements in equipment, facilities, teaching methods, and so on. This is especially true on an international level, as MLB aids fundamental development in various countries. The result is a more diverse sport than ever seen before. Baseball talent is abundant, and should continue to be so.

In my opinion, talent dilution could be a good thing for today’s game. An extra two teams would bring with it a slew of minor league affiliates, each with job openings both on and off the field. The added players would theoretically lower the replacement-level player. This would predictably make players like Mike Trout and Clayton Kershaw even better, and their production more valuable. Retaining star talent would be an even bigger deal than it is now, and expansion would spur innovative ways to get your hands on a stud. I understand that in a sport like basketball, one player can fundamentally change your franchise (See LeBron James, Cleveland Cavaliers).

In that circumstance, talent dilution would be a disaster (it is a team sport). While I don’t think Mike Trout should be the sole difference-maker for the Angels, I do believe that he should be worth more than 10 wins. As the best player of my baseball-watching era, I would have no gripes if his current level of production created, say, 12 wins rather than 10.

One thing that is certain is new teams would help keep talent in MLB. For example, Kevin Youkilis recently jumped ship to the Japanese league. In a larger MLB, surely the fringe-players like Youkilis would find more opportunities here. Not that the Nippon League is a threat MLB, but retaining talent is probably a good idea. In the event, years down the line, MLB wanted to expand outside of North America, it would be easier if existing local leagues were of lesser quality and easily outclassed.

So how would the rosters of new teams look? Lets look to the expansion draft for Tampa and Arizona. Apparently, other teams could protect 28 players of their choice, as well as all players from the previous two drafts. Of all drafted players, five would become all-stars (and Bobby Abreu is still kicking around, I guess). While this is just an educated guess, I could see this draft-system applying well in today’s game, just as it did roughly 15 years ago. 40-man rosters are sometimes a struggle now, so I’d imagine some solid players would be left off of a 28-man protected list. Teams with deeper rosters, or loaded farm systems, would probably feel the pain in this system. If somebody wants to go ahead and speculate examples of what players would be left off of a club’s 28-man list, feel free. In any case, the Diamondbacks got good in a hurry, and I don’t see any reason an expansion team today couldn’t do the same.

Let’s say that there are two new expansion teams in Portland and Charlotte, mainly because Ken Woolums found that they are the two most viable cities. The league would need to restructure divisions and logistical stuff like that. I’d probably have two divisions of eight teams in both the AL and NL, which would work nicely. The top two teams in each division are locks for the playoffs, and then MLB could decide on a wildcard system however they’d like. In any case, 32 teams would allow MLB to make the postseason system a bit cleaner than it currently is.

I think back to the brand new Cub mascot. Clark hasn’t had to endure the century-and-then-some of sans-championship baseball in the Northside of Chicago. With two more teams, the odds of Clark seeing a Cubs championship decreases even more.  And unfortunately for us, we’ll never know if Clark has an opinion on this, or any other subject. The change that Clark represents, however, is exactly what I’m trying to convey here. He is the only official mascot in the 112-year history of the Cubs. Clark will provide a revenue stream as well as a marketing tool, and more importantly, change. Hopefully, MLB will embrace the same ideas and expand beyond the 30-team threshold. Change can be good. In this case, it seems like a no-brainer. Expand the league, please!

This post originally appeared on Batting Leadoff. Batting Leadoff is a website dedicated to providing readers with premium baseball content. Posts from the site will appear regularly on the Sports Business Society Blog (view the information in the sidebar for updated information).


Bryan Robinson is a second-year student at Brock University, located in St. Catharines, Ontario. He studies Sport Management, and hopes to earn himself a career in the baseball industry. Bryan spent time as an intern with the Fergie Jenkins Foundation this past summer, and also recently started his own website at www.ProProjections.com. Bryan aspires to continue developing his passion for baseball. He is from Wheatley, Ontario, Canada, and has been a life long Rays fan. Contact Bryan at bryrob58@gmail.com, or follow him on twitter @ProProjections.

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