TSN, Bell Globe Media Should Focus on Bringing Back “Les Expos”

Flush with cash, Bell should take a serious look at bringing back the Expos to Montreal

I mentioned this before but with Shi Davidi’s recent column on www.Sportsnet.ca extrapolating further upon the idea that the Expos could potentially return (based upon a recently completed feasibility study by Ernst & Young no less), the momentum seems to be building towards the eventual return of Major League baseball to “La Belle Provence”.

It has been thought of off an on over the years by many industry insiders and purists who felt that Montreal got a raw deal from the way the team was treated by pathetic, non-interested past owners who cared little for the team or city and used the team as a pawn to get what THEY wanted (See Laurie, Geoffrey as Exhibit “A”). Clearly without strong ownership, any new team in Montreal could not survive as it has already come to pass once and has been made clear once again in this new study.

Something strange seems to be in the air this time around however as this study, completed without even a whisper by anyone involved to the media until it was finished, may have not only come at the perfect time for a large Canadian corporation to involve themselves but it also seems to have stirred emotions more than previous rumours of a possible return for several reasons.

This artist rendition of an open air baseball only stadium in Montreal from a year ago seems to be closer to becoming a possibility today then it did a year ago

 

As Davidi mentions, there are many among the inner baseball fraternity who know that baseball in Montreal has worked in the past and can work again under the right conditions. Supporters would point wholeheartedly now at this new study which says that with 60% of their season tickets sold in a downtown Montreal stadium (averaging about 28,000 fans a night with an average ticket price between $25 to $75), a team would thrive in a return to Montreal. They would have to follow the Twins or Rays model of team building and shrewd asset management but it would be a strong market for Baseball what with the new

Super agent Scott Boras, as pointed out in the column, knows that it would work as he points to the 1994 team that probably would have challenged for the World Series before the work stoppage canned the season and the culture of the city itself as a major selling point he would bring up with his clients as he has a soft spot in his heart for one of the most Euro-centric cities in North America.

The only thing that makes sense to me about this possibility would be an expansion team being granted to 2 cities at the same time. 1 to play in the American League and 1 in the national league, so that you have 2 balanced 16 team conferences and you don’t have to rely on Inter-league play all the time as they currently do with their 30 team set up at the moment.

Montreal would be the ideal first choice to land one of these 2 teams with New Jersey being pegged by the Davidi column as a possible 2^nd choice. I would personally prefer to have a team land in either Portland, New Orleans or San Antonio as New Jersey already has it’s allegiance split between the Yankees and the Mets (and trying to build their own baseball stadium there in the current political atmosphere that exists in Jersey would be daunting to say the least as well as trying to spend on an equal footing with both those teams to keep the interest of the local sports fan).

Regardless of how poor the attendance numbers in Tampa are, the team is locked into a horrific lease and isn't going anywhere any time soon

 

Expansion fees for a new MLB team would probably be in the $400-500 million range. Building a new stadium in Montreal with a dome (similar to the Seattle Mariners stadium) would cost between $525 - $580 million so this would not be a small investment at all. But, there is a massive corporate entity currently in Canada that is flush with cash that should be falling all over themselves to get in on this opportunity now while they still can. And that ladies and gentlemen is Bell Globemedia.

As I mentioned before, Bell probably felt like they were sucker punched when they heard the news that Rogers was spending $5.3 billion on Canadian NHL TV and multi-media rights for 12 years. Having offered somewhere in the range of about $4 billion for those same rights over a 10 year span, Bell has clearly demonstrated that they have the cash to spend, they now simply don’t seem to have a product to spend it on.

Well, enter this feasibility study and the opportunity to control the TV rights (all games on TSN or TSN 2 in English  and selling the French language rights to the highest bidder out of RDS and TVA), parking, Stadium naming rights, merchandising, concessions, ads, the list goes on and on. What would be a $1 -$1.4 billion investment would become a massive return on investment for both Bell in terms of their corporate brand in Quebec as well as good will within the Province itself as the passion of baseball and Expos fans in the city would bring them a huge uptick in brand loyalty.

This study was actually conducted under the guise that there would be potential for taxpayer money to be involved in a small part. There are overtones mentioned in the column that there could be money available to assist in the construction of the stadium itself (up to 33% of the stadium costs, or between $180 - $195 million) as long as whichever level of government it is which helps with the construction would retain ownership of the building itself. While this could be a bit of a break in the costs for Bell if they were interested, it would probably be best for them to keep the province or Federal government completely out of any involvement and retain all the profits for themselves.

As bad as the big "O" is for baseball, if Bell jumped into this endeavor with both feet, putting natural grass in there for a year and get could get shovels in the ground by next summer, there could be MLB Regular season games back in Montreal in the next 3 years

 And why not? Rogers owns the Dome, the team and every single dollar spent in that stadium goes directly to them. Why would you want to split that with anyone else, even someone who is willing to pony up some money to help you build the place, when you don’t need their help?

We have seen firsthand how a Canadian market can react when given a 2^nd chance to have a Major league team with the way the people of Winnipeg have embraced the return of the Jets to that city. Montrealers and the people of Quebec in general would fall all over themselves to welcome back what was once a proud and strong team to their city.

Bell should take this giant leap and use the money that they clearly wanted to spend on Hockey and bring back the Expos. Not only will it show Rogers that they may have pulled one over on them in how they stole the NHL out from under them but it would also get them competing directly in another arena, this one laced with chalk.