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Mayor seeks regular-season games in Montreal in 2016, eventual return of Expos
Nearly 47 years to the day after Montreal was awarded an expansion Major League Baseball franchise, the city’s current mayor met this week with commissioner Rob Manfred to discuss resurrecting the Expos.
Montreal has been without baseball since 2004 when the Expos were moved to Washington and became the Nationals. But on Thursday, Mayor Denis Coderre took a big step in his attempts to bring back baseball when he met with Manfred in New York to show him that Montreal is “serious about baseball.”
For the past two seasons the Toronto Blue Jays have held exhibition games in Montreal at Olympic stadium, all of which were well received and had 45,000-plus fans in attendance. Now Coderre wants to bring "three or four" regular-season games to Montreal in 2016.
“Demonstrating to the league that Montreal can fill the Olympic Stadium for games in June or July is the “next step” in bringing a team back to the city.
[Coderre] said Manfred was impressed by the fact the four pre-season MLB games the city has hosted in the past two years — two in 2014 and two this year — were near sellouts and he “didn’t close the door at all” to his request for several regular-season games next year.”
That would be an interesting development in the Montreal baseball resurrection plan. But even more interesting, Coderre said it wouldn’t necessarily be the Blue Jays hosting or even playing in those regular-season games. He said "six or seven" teams have expressed interest in playing games at The Big O next season.
Far be it for us to speculate who those teams might be, but it’s not hard to think of a handful of teams that play in front of small crowds, or are battling for new stadiums, who wouldn’t mind a boost at the gate – and some added leverage with their own cities.
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And there’s the rub with Montreal’s scheme. With no plans for MLB expansion any time soon, it would be looking for a team to relocate to Montreal. Manfred said the construction of a new stadium is a condition on the team returning. So does a big crowd for a regular-season game show that Montreal is a serious baseball town ready to have a team again – or does it make it a pawn in another team’s attempt to get public funding for a new stadium of its own? If a team – fine, let’s just say the Tampa Bay Rays – threatens to leave and shows Montreal is a very realistic alternative, does that motivate city officials to step up and do whatever it takes to save their team? If two cities need to build new ballparks, surely the city that already has a team would be the favorite to get one built first.
Obviously there are still many obstacles, including a question of deep-pocketed owners in Montreal. Regardless, baseball fans are allowed to be encouraged by Thursday’s meeting. For the first time since they left, there’s a realistic glimmer of hope of the Expos one day returning to Montreal. Coderre made it clear to French reporters that he is very serious about making that happen.
"The city of Montreal is serious. This is a baseball town, it is part of our history. Montreal is not just a one-sport city. It has all the tools to make it work.”
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Ian Denomme is an editor and writer for Yahoo Sports. Email him at denomme@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter.
