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Canadian MLB Expansion Or: Should The Jays Play At Least 1 Series In Vancouver + Montreal Per Year?
Olympic Stadium was a building catastrophe from the get go. It was a contributing factor of the Expos leaving Montreal. Having said that, it would have been really cool if the MLB were to at least designate the Canadian stadium to host some regular season games in the next few years.
Hunter Stokes (Chief Writer) Follow @stokes_hunter21
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I must be out of my mind right?
Having the Toronto Blue Jays play in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver allduring a regular season – and re-brand the club to a national team in the MLB? But stop and think about this for a minute.
The club as drawn almost 100K total fans for the 2 exhibition games in Quebec during the last 2 years in exhibition series right before the season started.
Why not play some games in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver – and rename the club the Canada Blue Jays? Okay.. that is a little drastic here. Keep them the Toronto Blue Jays, but what would be wrong with selling 40K+ fans a game for 12 total games? Maybe 6 games in each city.
Since the MLB insists on having 19 Divisional games a year – with 3 series in each city, would it be that bad if the Tampa Bay Rays or Baltimore Orioles were to visit Montreal to play the Blue Jays a series?
Or how about and grow the brand on the West Coast by playing a 3 game set at BC Place Stadium followed up with Toronto heading down to Seattle right afterwards for another series? Read the rest of this entry
The Falling Canadian Dollar Could Be A Major Roadblock In Any Montreal Bid For Another MLB Franchise
Toronto is the only team in the MLB not in the USA. With that comes foreign currency. For the years of 1990 – 2007, the Canadian Dollar was hovering around the 70 cents mark for the duration (62 cents at its worst). The last economic crash in the USA – had the dollar at par for the better part of the last 7 years, including once reaching $1.10 for every George Washington bill in America in late 2008. The average for the exchange rate had been in the mid 90 cents range for the most part of 2014. The loonie has been in a nosedive since the end of 2014 kicked in – and now it is around 80 cents for every US Dollar. It will cost you $1.263 Canadian for $1 American on today’s market, and it If it looks to go down much more. This economic factor could significantly derail any effort the city of Montreal has to ever regain an MLB franchise.
Chuck Booth (Owner/Lead Analyst): Follow @chuckbooth3024
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The Canadian Dollar is in a free-fall against the American greenback. I woke up this morning to see that to buy a US $1, it now cost $1.263 Canadian dollars. Effectively that means any club in Canada is at 26.3% Luxury Tax before the season even starts, because the team pays out player salaries in USD, while the money brought in is Canadian currency.
So often people forget that the Montreal Expos problems became occurring not only as the 1994 Player Strike/1995 Lockout fanbase was angry at the MLB, with some of them never to return, but also a sagging loony.
At its worst price, was a 0.62 cent buck vs the USA back in the mid-90’s. With the oil prices being what they are, this has serious ramifications for any impending groups of people wishing to bring back baseball to Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
The Expos left after the 2004 season, and in some ways it is a total injustice. Perhaps no other franchise has been affected more by the two biggest work stoppages than the Montreal had been.
The 1981 Player strike happened when Montreal was filling Olympic Stadium to the tune of 2 Million Fans per year, and the young nucleus of players such as Andre Dawson, Tim Raines, Gary Carter, Tim Wallach and Warren Cromartie were leading the charge to an uprising NL squad.
Of course everyone remembers “Blue Monday’s” HR to knock the Expos out of the 1981 playoff chase. The 1979 – 1994 teams carried out 12 out of 15 winning seasons, and possessed one of the greatest semblance of a drafting organization ever. Read the rest of this entry
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