[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

I was going to make an argument against the folly of another Canadian team doomed to failure, but Masson26 has pretty well nailed it.

Well, other than the various holes I punched into some of his arguments, sure.

Originally Posted by Masson26

Thats because the Pirates have finally started winning, though they are however still considered to be a small market team, but you can bet as soon as the start losing again, they will have a massive drop in attendance, say the Phillies for example where winning like the Pirates, they would end up with some of the best attendance in the league.

None of which obviates my point: attendance is connected to on-the-field performance.

Note too that the Pirates have one of the smallest parks in terms of seating capacity in the majors—just 38,362.* That means, assuming a sellout every home game, the most it could draw in a season is just over 3.1 million. These days attendance is not the primary driver of baseball economics. League-wide, according to Forbes' estimates for the 2014 season, only 30.5% of MLB operating revenue was from ticket sales.

*New ballparks built over the last twenty years have lower seating capacity compared to the parks they replaced—this artificially restricts supply, hence the same level of demand boosts ticket prices. That's one of the reasons the newer parks are better revenue generators. There's also the increase in club seats and luxury suites.

Originally Posted by Masson26

And yes there are alot of fair weather teams everywhere but whats the point of giving a brand new team, destined to suck for a few years at least in a city that you know will not support a poor team, when there are already teams trying to get out of the same situation.

Define "support". You are making the mistake of assuming that attendance is the primary driver of revenue these days. It isn't.

Originally Posted by Masson26

And as far as being worse then Tampa and Miami, history says its very possible, and even if they where on equal ground with these two teams, why would you put a team in a place to set them up to have the same struggles?

So, contraction it is, then?

Originally Posted by Masson26

As far as the stadiums being dumps. Go look at them, take a tour through them, they are nostalgic stadiums but if you look at them strictly as buildings and say trying to put said expansion teams in those building, there's no way in hell they would get approved. They are all falling apart and take enormous amount of renovations on a yearly basis to keep operational. Just proves that real fans will support a team they love regardless of the stadium they play in, and love that stadium because thats where THERE TEAM plays, not because its new and shinny.

Lots of assertion. No citations. I'll stick to evidence over anecdote, thanks.