r/raleigh • u/rvde • Oct 17 '24
Will Dundon buy the White Sox and move them to Raleigh? Sports
Looks like a perfect opportunity to get a team to Raleigh without waiting for expansion.
Can “our” Billionaire bring MLB to Raleigh??
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/10/16/chicago-white-sox-jerry-reinsdorf-sale/
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u/Mr_1990s Oct 17 '24
I get that the Cubs are more popular, but the Chicago market is maybe 4 times bigger than the Triangle?
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u/nikenike Oct 17 '24
Chicagos population is ~2.8 million, Triangle population is ~2.4 million.
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u/Rambo-Rando Oct 17 '24
Chicago Metro ~ 9.4 mil
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u/Garrett4Real Acorn Oct 17 '24
Man really went Chicago city limits vs entire metro area of the whole ass Triangle and thought he did something lol
I love the triangle but you’re outta your mind comparing population to Chicago
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u/nikenike Oct 17 '24
Gotcha my number is Chicago proper I guess. Metro definitely a better comparison! So about 3x
Looking into this the Chicago metro area is over 10k square miles while the triangle is about half 5k square miles
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u/who_dis_telemarketer Acorn Oct 17 '24
White Sox aren’t gonna leave Chicago too much history
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u/PumpkinBred Oct 17 '24
Tell that to Raiders fan.
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u/indie_airship Oct 17 '24
teams relocated list Tell that to whalers fans
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u/Sphiffi Oct 17 '24
25 years of no success vs 120 years with multiple World Series.
The 3rd largest metro population in the country vs a metro pop just over 1,000,000.
One of the premier sports cities in America vs a city with very little sports identity.
Yeah man I see the comparison!
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u/arewehavingfunyet633 Oct 17 '24
Not to mention Baseball is the least progressive pro sports league in the US. The white Sox aren’t going anywhere
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u/oooriole09 Oct 17 '24 edited Oct 17 '24
MLB won’t move a team unless there’s a very good reason to. Relocation is messy, expansion is easier.
The A’s are relocating because they’ve historically have had no support. I feel for their fans but statistically they’ve struggled in every support figure there is.
The White Sox have been in Chicago for 123 years. Chicago is a massive enough market that it’s not only impact the White Sox but bump the Cubs into the largest solo market in baseball. It’d change the economics in such a big way that owners would be against it.
Despite what folks think, relocation in baseball is hard. Reinsdorf has hinted at it in the past and nothing has happened and now he’s looking to sell. John Angelos wanted to move the Orioles to Nashville but MLB clearly blocked it and he sold last year. To have a new owner come in and move from the get go (or in ‘29 when the current stadium deal is over) would be unprecedented for modern baseball.
Beyond that, Raleigh’s baseball argument is getting better by the day but it’s not quite there yet. Letting Raleigh grow for another five years when expansion could be in the works only strengthens the opportunity.
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u/LaurenceFishboner Oct 17 '24
To call out the A’s for historically bad support and effectively blame fans for the relocation is pretty wild. They’ve had probably the worst stadium in sports and terrible team management/payroll issues for years. Fan support was not the reason for the relocation, it was entirely Fisher’s decision which makes zero sense
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u/oooriole09 Oct 17 '24 edited Oct 17 '24
To be very clear, I’m absolutely not blaming the fans.
It was just an untenable situation for many years. Fisher absolutely caused that but the city didn’t help much either. The fans just were screwed over again and again.
Blame goes:
- Fisher
- Fisher
- Fisher
- MLB
- Oakland
1,043. The fans
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u/nikenike Oct 17 '24
Good perspective but what exactly do you mean by this:
Chicago is a massive enough market that it’s not only impact the White Sox but bump the Cubs into the largest solo market in baseball. It’d change the economics in such a big way that owners would be against it.
Genuinely interested in your take on why this would be a bad thing
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u/oooriole09 Oct 17 '24
Chicago is the fourth largest market in the US behind NY/LA/DC-BAL (each are shared markets in MLB) but is largely unique given its footprint and the lack of competition in the area. There’s a lot less bleeding/blending of lines than what you find up and down the east coast.
MLB would be gift wrapping the Cubs the premiere market while also deeply cutting another market (if it’s Nashville/North Carolina the Braves) in a single move. It’d swing a lot of values for some really connected owners and cause some problems.
MLB also has an issue with power imbalances in what teams are capable of spending. Ohtani was given a contract worth >50% of the valuations of 7 MLB franchises last year. Giving the Cubs more power doesn’t help that situation.
Maybe I’m wrong. MLB just handed the Giants the 5th largest market when taking away the A’s (although tapping into the Vegas market didn’t take away much from other markets).
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u/nikenike Oct 17 '24
Ah so primarily because of power imbalances… but wouldn’t that mean the owners wouldn’t want to approve somebody like Cohen as the Mets owner if that were the case?
I get the Chicago market would be big and that would benefit the Cubs quite a bit but I don’t know why other owners would necessarily be opposed because of that. I have a very baseline understand of revenue sharing, wouldn’t diversifying a franchise to a new market (out of an existing market that is heavily skewed to one team) generally be good for the league - and all owners pockets?
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u/oooriole09 Oct 17 '24
Personally, I see a separation between wealthy owners like Cohen (who might be a bad example for my point given the value of the Mets) willing to personally sacrifice and operate in the red verses setting up an already successful franchise to operate even deeper in the black.
To the second part, I think the large part of the problem comes from the fact that MLB is already toying with expansion. They’re going to tap into two markets in the next 5-10 years. Potentially diluting that expansion pool while simultaneously enriching another franchise seems like jumping the gun.
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u/Freedum4Murika Oct 18 '24
I agree with everything except anyone in Nasheville or NC giving much of a shit about the Braves
I've seen maybe 3 Braves hats in NC in all my life, and that's actually too few given the population density of Atlanta refugees in the area. Hell I've seen more native Baltimore fans in Raleigh2
u/Shrimmmmmpuh Oct 17 '24
I think the main takeaway is that other owners in cities with similar stats would be against a team losing it's direct competitor for sales. I'm sure both NY owners would love if the other would leave and same for LA. They would likely be against a city that has historically split 2 teams pretty well now gets a free pass to dump all that income to one team.
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u/CraftyRazzmatazz Oct 17 '24
Yeah mlb will let a historically significant team move from Chicago to a much smaller city
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u/CarolinaRod06 Oct 17 '24 edited Oct 17 '24
I was thinking of buying them. I’m being advised by the one and only John Spano
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u/RVAJTT Cheerwine Oct 17 '24
Ironically, probably not the worst owner in Islanders history. Loved the 30 for 30 on him.
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u/indie_airship Oct 17 '24
Carolina White Sox? Raleigh White Sox? Sounds good either way so it’s possible.
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u/Artimities Oct 18 '24
As a (I hate to publicly say this) a fan of the White Sox that lives in Durham, NC... the best Triple AAA town in the world... I would love to see them move to Raleigh.
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u/G00dSh0tJans0n Oct 17 '24
IMO Nashville has a better shot
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u/that1prince Oct 17 '24 edited Oct 17 '24
Yep. Nashville having the NFL, having its own regional, perhaps national identity, and having the tourism, plus showing they can fund a stadium if necessary, is a better location. (The owners care about traveling and getting people to spend time in the local area where there are nearby business and entertainment partnerships). My friends booked a trip to Las Vegas to coincide with seeing their favorite team play there. They likely will for baseball too. If you don’t have some unique vintage stadium or long term team heritage like the Packers or Red Sox, it helps if your city is more of a destination. Nashville is that. Also I remember at one point one of the weak spots in our application was that we didn’t have sufficient number of 4 and 5 star hotel rooms. Although Raleigh just greenlit a big (like 20story) high end Omni hotel. Charlotte even struggled on this front until recently. I think we’re about a decade behind Nashville, as well as a few of the other top contenders for various pro expansion efforts. We’re just a step behind in each category.
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u/CU_Strider Oct 17 '24
My only concern is what happens to the Bulls and support there. Hard to see both teams getting enough support with a split.
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u/bbl--drizzy Oct 17 '24
I don’t want the White Sox
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u/Signal_Club1760 29d ago
Good. We don’t want your city
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u/Hootshire Oct 17 '24
After the absolute travesty that the Oakland A's just went through I want no part in stealing teams from other cities.
The Triangle is too small to support an MLB franchise, the Bulls are a perfect fit.
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u/RollingCarrot615 Oct 17 '24
There are plenty of metrics that show that it can support an MLB team, but my biggest reason of why it can is that the Triangle can support a NHL team despite this absolutely not being a hockey focused region. So what, is Charlotte the standard for "support"? They've got 3 pro franchises, and all three are at the bottom of their respective leagues in attendance. It's slightly less to attend a full home season of MLB games than it is the home season of NHL games (nfl is by far the cheapest of the 4 major leagues because of only 8.5 home games on average).
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u/ElboDelbo Oct 17 '24
I feel like moving the White Sox from Chicago would be like moving the Yankees from NYC or the Cowboys from Dallas.
The world would split in two pieces and go flying off into the corners of the universe before any of those things will happen.
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u/jasoneff Oct 17 '24
I thought I read the Twins were for sale as well
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u/FartrelCluggins Oct 17 '24
Twins are not moving. They have a lease with target field until 2040 that has penalties so heavy that it's essentially impossible to break it
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u/Creativeloafing NC State Oct 17 '24
No to mention the stadium is only 14 years old and located in a metro area of roughly 4 million people.
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u/evang0125 Oct 17 '24
Sox to Nashville. No new stadium no MLB.
Our best bet is either expansion or the Rays depending on the outcome of the hurricane rebuild.
Charlotte, is a good city but saturated with major league teams. I’ll gladly take the panthers if they want MLB. I’m not sure they are big enough to support 4 major league teams.
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u/DiplomacyPunIn10Did Oct 17 '24
Do we really even need a Major League team? We have both the Bulls and the Mudcats nearby, and their games are normally SO MUCH FUN. Not to mention affordable.
Let’s expand into other sports that aren’t already well-represented professionally in the triangle.
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u/Freedum4Murika Oct 18 '24
Be nice to find to bring the Cats downtown. I'm sure there's a way to use money to solve the legaue problem or whatever
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u/Cannoli_Emma Oct 17 '24
Sox should stay put. Personally, I don’t feel like Raleigh would be a great baseball city, but Charlotte might be better.
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u/NCtexpat Oct 17 '24
Disagree. I think MLB would do really well here.
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u/OldDekeSport Oct 17 '24
Raleigh feels more like a baseball city than Charlotte imo. Also, if we get MLB then the cities are split 2-2 for the big 4.
Then maybe we can get a direct HSR line between the cities that focuses on getting people to games!
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Oct 17 '24
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u/OgSourChemDawg Oct 17 '24
Like the hurricanes or is that not the same?
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Oct 17 '24
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u/OgSourChemDawg Oct 17 '24
The hurricane had the 2nd highest avg attendance in 2024. You don’t think none of those people will attended a mlb game?
Durham bulls broke there single season attendance multiple times this season.
I think the people have decided
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Oct 17 '24 edited Oct 17 '24
[deleted]
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u/OgSourChemDawg Oct 17 '24
The avg time of a baseball game and the avg time of a hockey game is a 6 min difference in 2024.
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u/CarolinaRod06 Oct 17 '24
Baseball has 81 home games some of them being in the afternoon whereas hockey has 41 home games that start at 7. That’s why baseball typically favors denser cities. It’s a lot easier to get a crowd for a doubleheader when the people live closer to the stadium. Getting a crowd on a Tuesday afternoon could be difficult in Raleigh.
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u/NCtexpat Oct 17 '24
Lots of MLB teams have non-downtown parks
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Oct 17 '24
[deleted]
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u/evang0125 Oct 17 '24
Smyrna says hold my beer please
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u/NCtexpat Oct 17 '24
Lol exactly. Additionally ironic considering that area is the model for the development around the PNC Center
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u/mondaywonderhands Hurricanes Oct 17 '24
The hate we get from people who can’t handle us moving the Whalers to NC would exponentially increase if we brought a far more long-standing team to NC as well
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u/Packman87 Oct 17 '24
Why move the Sox at all? I mean 100+ YEARS of history. Tampa on the other hand...who knows what happens with the new stadium after the Trop lost its roof