Addition by Subtraction
But one thing to dislike is the suggestion that it be a new team. Baseball, like most modern sports, grows in pairs. And they are adding two teams to the West Coast to boldly change the travel requirements, as well as part of an equally bold restructuring plan.
So, they are not going to move one to the East Coast suddenly. Nor are they likely to add another two teams on top of those.
However, maybe The MLB could be convinced to move a franchise to NYC.
Montreal has only 1.75 million inhabitants, while New York City has 8.6 million. And when you include Newark and Jersey City—and the rest of the NY Metropolitan area—that number jumps to over 20 million.
As a comparison, Kansas City, Missouri has fewer than 500,000 folks to support the Royals. How many teams, then, can be supported by 20 million? I have to think, at least one more, is an acceptable answer.
For myriad reasons, it seems very unlikely that this happens any time in the near future, if ever. But while I don’t think it would help as much as the author thinks it would, I do think it would probably help the free agent market in a way Scott Boras would like.
And fans of the new New York Highlanders. Now let’s try to get to the root of baseball’s problem.