Posted by John Vrooman on Wednesday, January 28, 2015 in Major League Baseball.

Interview with Tampa Tribune.

Bad news and good news.

The bad news is that these veiled and not so veiled relocation threats extorting public concessions are standard operating procedure by all of the major sports league cartels. In this case the new MLB commissioner is following the usual old script written by a league of owners who by their nature are interested in maximizing internal league profits at the expense of the socially optimal outcomes for fans.

As a critical part of the extortion game the league artificial limits the number of franchises otherwise simple league expansion would render the club relocation threats  empty and meaningless, because as in this case the qualified Montreal market would simply be awarded a retro-expansion franchise they lost in the 2002-05 MLB Expos relocation derby. So the fan optimizing outcome of league expansion from 30 to 32 teams just ain’t gonna happen any time soon.

The good news is that MLB relocation threats are usually not credible because market size and gate revenue still matter over the long course of 81 game home schedules.  For example the last actual MLB relocation before the Expos/Nationals were auctioned to DC in 2005 was the move of the Washington Senators to Texas Rangers in 1971.  Tampa-St. Pete received the Rays expansion to begin with as compensation from MLB because they had been the frustrated third leg in threatened relocation stadium extortion games that never ever happened (including SF Giants, Chicago White Sox, and others).

The most legendary MLB shell game came down in the 2002-05 Expos move to DC. The other MLB owners (as an LLP) bought the then Expos from now Marlins owner Jeff Loria in 2002 for $120 million and then flipped the franchise for $450 million in 2005 as the DC Nationals playing in a 100 percent $650 million publicly financed Nationals Park.  Loria then packaged the $120 million with an $38.5 million MLB loan to buy the Florida Marlins for $158.5 million from John Henry (who then bought the Red Sox in estate auction) and the rest is South Florida Jeff Loria lore.

MLB clubs usually threaten to abandon ship if they don’t get the concessions that they want, but in reality they rarely do because in MLB it still matters where and in what market you play. Tampa-St. Pete with 1.828 million TV households is the 15^th largest TV market in NA and French and English speaking Montreal combined are the 19^th largest market with 1.526 million TV hhlds.

MLB clubs will wine and pine for greener grass/turf but they just won’t give up their place in line. In spite of all MLB’s posturing to the contrary, the Rays are probably not going anywhere outside except Hillsborough County and especially not to Montreal.  The good news is that outsider MLB relocation threats are not credible, and Stuart Sternberg should be taken at his word: He will stay in the 15^th largest market and bargain in good faith, because he has no superior alternative.