Businessman Stephen Bronfman still believes that the city of Montreal could host a Major Baseball team. And this, despite the abortion of the last project that he supported for many years.
In 2020, MLB outright rejected the sister city project that Bronfman and Stuart Sternberg, majority owner of the Tampa Bay Rays, were considering for Montreal and St. Petersburg. At the time of the announcement of the rejection, Bronfman and his Baseball Montreal Group were finalizing the presentation of a development project for the Bridge-Wellington sector, including the model of its baseball stadium.
The MLB wants to expand in the coming years by adding two new teams to the circuit which already has 30. Eight cities would be considered as a priority and Bronfman indicated in an interview with The Gazette that Montreal deserves to be at the top of the list.
“The project we had was affordable. We had fortunate partners who had experience and who were ready to lead the issue. We demonstrated our will to the league and I think the owners and managers saw it too,” the executive president of the Claridge firm told the daily newspaper. The Gazette.
“So I believe that Montreal will definitely be taken into consideration. On the other hand, we find ourselves in a situation where the agreement will no longer have anything to do with the affordable offer that was on the table with Tampa as the majority partner. »
Bronfman says he doesn’t have the financial resources to be the main conductor of the next project, but believes he has the connections to help move it forward.
“In today’s dollars, the amounts are completely crazy,” he explains.
According to Bronfman, whose father Charles was the first owner of the Expos from 1969 until 1990, the idea of splitting the schedule between two cities was perhaps too avant-garde at the time although he s This is a system that could have benefited smaller markets.
The one who intended to build a new stadium that could accommodate 29,072 spectators at Bassin Peel also protested against the Quebec government’s proposal to repair the roof and the te ring of the Olympic stadium for $870 million in the current economy where the population has more urgent needs.
There has been no expansion in Major League Baseball for over 25 years. According to what ESPN reported in February, Nashville and Salt Lake City, which just got the defunct Coyotes into the NHL, were the favorite candidates.
The last time there was an expansion, the Devil Rays and the Arizona Diamondbacks were born at a cost of $130 million, bringing the number of clubs to 30.
2024-05-15 22:17:29
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