MLB’s Orioles Staying Put In Baltimore

Team owner is admanent the team is not moving.

John Angelos, the CEO and part owner of the Baltimore Orioles has told his corporate consumers, television viewers and ticket holders his team is going nowhere. Appearing on a local Baltimore radio station WJZ-FM, Angelos said, “The team would never move. It will never move. It’s here. It’s here forever. It’s been here for 66-odd years. It will be here for 66 more or longer.” The Baltimore Orioles franchise cannot leave Maryland until after the 2023 season at the earliest. The Angelos family, and the Maryland Stadium Authority have agreed to extend their relationship for another two years and are said to be working on a longer-term deal. In June 2018, Baltimore Sun writer Peter Schmuck had a column about the long-term future of the team and whether that franchise could be on the move. Schmuck did not suggest the franchise would relocate but he had heard whispers that the team could leave. 

The Baltimore Orioles leaving tale surfaced again in 2019. An outfit called the Baltimore Post-Examiner had a story about the team moving to Nashville in 2022 unless a local buyer stepped up and purchased the team from the Angelos family. At the time, the Orioles-Maryland state agency deal was scheduled to end following the 2021 season. The Baltimore Post-Examiner also threw in that the Angelos family had a home near Nashville. There were two things left out of that 2019 story that continue to have an impact on any potential move. The Orioles’ ownership stake in the local cable TV regional sports network and MLB may not want to move a team to Nashville when it knows it can charge perhaps as much as $2 billion in an expansion fee. A third factor, Nashville has no plans at the moment to build a Major League Baseball park.

Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191