Montreal CAN work as a baseball market. But the Expos were woefully mismanaged from Day One.
IMHO, they would need the following:
- Territorial rights to ALL of Canada, in the same way that the Rangers and Astros share ALL of Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma, even each other's cities. The original Expos were forced off TV in southern Ontario when the Blue Jays were launched.
- Joint territorial rights to northern New England with Red Sox.
- Abandonment of Red Sox claims to Atlantic Canada.
- A new stadium. Ironclad and under construction before a team moves into the Big Owe for not more than 2 years. The Big Owe is the greatest architectural malpractice in world history and is not acceptable. Stadium would need to be baseball only and have a retractable roof or ambient heated seats.
- Solid TV deals and radio deals in both English and French. The original Expos media rights were mismanaged.
- A solid long term sponsorship deal with a major company.
- A special automatic revenue deal to kick in when the Loonie to Buck rate reaches a certain level. Currently it is about even. But it ranged as low as 60 cents during the Expos era. Politics and economics change and someday it will be 60 cents again, and the Expos need protection.
However, I think Manfried is just taking a page from Goodell's playbook. He is playing Montreal (and Las Vegas, Portland, northern New Jersey, Charlotte, etc.) off against the taxpayers of Oakland and Tampa Bay as stadium extortion.
, I do feel bad for them for what happened in '94. That was the best team in baseball that year and had a very good chance of winning the World Series.
