The Toronto Blue Jays will play at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium for a second set of exhibition games as the prospect of MLB’s return to Quebec brightens
Major League Baseball is back in Montreal this weekend for a second consecutive pair of pre-season games with the ‘home’ Toronto Blue Jays set to ‘host’ the Cincinnati Reds. Some 90,000 tickets have already been sold to baseball-starved fans, as the movement to fill the baseball void left by the 2004 relocation of the Expos gains steam.
A year ago, a return of the sport to Montreal would’ve appeared a pipe dream to all but those toiling at the Montreal Baseball Project, the organization seeking to bring a second baseball act to the city. Then the Mets and Jays played in front of over 96,000 fans at Olympic Stadium, forcing then Commissioner Bud Selig to take notice. This week, on the eve of yet another extraordinary show of support, new baseball commissioner Rob Manfred re-addressed the subject.
We’re very very pleased with the Commissioners comments. I’m going to meet him eventually in the future weeks to discuss about the issue. Baseball is clearly in our DNA – it was very disappointing to lose the Expos in 2004 but we want to redo the story. It’s one step at a time.
Right now we’re in phase two of our journey. We know we need a ballpark. We know we have to have it downtown. You have to put a financial package together, you have to get the numbers together and the costs of the stadium and who is involved in it, it’s not an easy task but that’s what has to be done to make it happen with the business people of Montreal. We’re taking it one base at a time, no pun intended.
What you’re gong to see is that these expansion fees are going to be exorbitant ... and then the other aspect of it is that you’re trying to grow the game, you’re going to increase the pot if you go to markets you’re not in. In other words, if you’re putting a second team in Canada, you’re really growing the sport in Canada. You have a Francophone population that’s not served. So you would open yourself to a market with two all-sports networks, in French, in Quebec, who would absolutely battle it out to try to get the rights here.
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from Sport | The Guardian http://ift.tt/1F8Genn
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