There is no indication Nashville is in line for a team.
If all goes according to plan, Major League Baseball’s Nashville Stars will be hosting someone at a Nashville stadium on the opening day of the 2027 season. Unfortunately for people living in the Nashville area and hoping to go to Opening Day 2027, a lot of things have to go right starting with the Oakland Athletics and Tampa Bay Rays straightening out their stadium situations. MLB is not going to expand to 32 teams until the A’s and Rays get new ballparks. Then there is the matter of building a state-of-the-art Nashville Major League Baseball stadium. Nashville does not have that type of facility but John Loar, who plans to own a Nashville MLB team, is working on getting a stadium built. Loar’s Music City Baseball has a deal in place with Tennessee State University to begin evaluating an over 100-acre area of land on the college campus that could house a Major League Baseball stadium that would be built for the Major League Baseball Nashville Stars franchise.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred would like to see a 32-team set up, up from the present 30. The stadium situations and resolving them in Oakland and St. Petersburg have greater priority than adding two teams. Oakland Athletics owner John Fisher has been playing Oakland against Las Vegas in the stadium game hoping one of those areas will pony up money for him to build an Athletics stadium. It has been relatively quiet in the Tampa Bay area where Rays ownership continues to look for land and money to build a ballpark. Manfred has acknowledged that Las Vegas could be a Major League Baseball market. Nashville and Portland, Oregon have been active talking about getting an MLB franchise. Montréal seems to be in limbo at the moment. Loar and Music City Baseball keep plugging away.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
