Salt Lake City has never been an expansion contender.
Not too many people envision Salt Lake City, Utah as a possible Major League Baseball expansion contender if MLB decides to add two teams sometime in the future. MLB owners are not going to expand until MLB’s bad stadium situations are resolved. MLB has decided stadiums need to be replaced in Oakland and in St. Petersburg. But Utah’s governor Spencer Cox thinks Salt Lake City would be a good Major League Baseball market and the governor has a spot in mind to build a stadium in Draper where the state’s old prison was located. Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred is bullish on Las Vegas. There are investors in Nashville that have put together a plan for an expansion baseball team. Montréal investors were willing to share the Tampa Bay Rays franchise but all has been quiet in Québec since MLB pulled the plug on a so-called Sister City’s plan which would have seen Rays’ game played in the early part of the season in the Tampa Bay area and the summer part of the season in Montréal.
Things are also quiet in Portland, Oregon where a few investors are pushing to land an expansion franchise. Salt Lake City is the United States’ 34th largest TV market and that is something that would unlikely not move the needle into a positive area for Major League Baseball owners to consider Utah as a place to set up shop. Milwaukee and Cincinnati do have smaller TV markets. There are just five Fortune 500 companies in Utah. There are major league sports in Salt Lake City with the National Basketball Association’s Utah Jazz, Major League Soccer’s Real Salt Lake City and college sports and that is where the corporate money goes. Salt Lake City is a long shot to get an MLB franchise.
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