Grand Junction Rockies

Every year I analyze the movement of minor league baseball teams from one city to another (past analyses). These analyses are based on a paper I published a few years ago in the International Journal of Sport Finance, "Called Up to the Big Leagues: An Examination of the Factors Affecting the Location of Minor League Baseball Teams". For a short description of the model see this post from 2009. One caveat to all of these analyses is that the data for the study comes from 2003 and may be out of date.

The Rockies Short-Season A affiliate in the Pioneer League is moving from Casper, WY to Grand Junction, CO for the upcoming season. By my analysis moving away from Casper makes sense. It was not one of the ten least likely cities to have any baseball team, but it was just above those cities. My research found that Grand Junction would have been more likely to have a minor league baseball team, but neither was particularly likely (15% for Grand Junction vs. 9% for Casper). Grand Junction is almost twice as big as Casper, but the per capita income is higher in Casper. The higher population makes it a much more attractive market, but the income mitigates that effect slightly. Grand Junction has also experienced fairly rapid population growth in the last decade, so the percentage might be understating its appeal.

Grand Junction is in Colorado and they are affiliated with the Rockies so there may be some positive aspect to that. However, Wyoming is also in the Rockies' "sphere of influence" and Grand Junction is only 50 miles closer to Denver than Casper.

Grand Junction does have a fairly low probability of having a team, and I had it third on the list of potential markets in the current geographic scope of the Pioneer League (Northern Rocky Mountain States) behind Fort Collins and Greely, CO. There also seem to have been a couple of less desirable markets than Casper that still have their teams (Helena and Great Falls, MT). However, given all the evidence, this is pretty close to an example of a move that would have been predicted by my model.

There are NOT too Many Hockey Teams in New York

Peter King in his Monday Morning Quarterback column mad the following column about the NHL and New York:

"b. I worry about the NHL. Last week, on the same night, all starting at 7 p.m., three teams within 35 miles -- the Islanders, Rangers and Devils -- all dropped the puck. And 97 miles south of the Devils' rink in Newark, the Flyers played. Also at 7.

c. And Quebec City can't get a team?"

I'm not sure what his complaint here is, but if it is the idea that there are too many hockey teams in New York or New York and Philadelphia then he is completely off base. There are 22.2 million people in the New York metropolitan area (CSA) and 6.5 million in Philadelphia. There are 715,000 in Quebec City and only 8 million in all of Quebec. There are more people in the combination of the metropolitan areas of New York, Philadelphia, Hartford, Albany, Allentown, Harrisburg, Scranton, York (PA), Lancaster, Atlantic City and Norwich, than there are in all of Canada.

This is not a region that has no interest in hockey. The Rangers and Flyers are two of the league's flagship franchises. Also, last I checked New York is the media capital of the continent, so having an excessive presence there would probably not have much of a downside.

There are not too many professional sports teams in New York!

The Escondido Beavers

In a previous post, I discussed the Portland Beavers moving to Tucson. Eventually the plan is for the team to move to Escondido, near the major league affiliate in San Diego. When I wrote my paper on the determinants of the locations of minor league baseball teams, I specifically ignored cases where a minor league team is located in the same metropolitan area as a major league team. Partly this choice was because my econometric method did not allow for this possibility, but mostly because this phenomenon did not happen very often. In fact, the league rules pretty much give the major league teams territorial rights to keep minor league teams out of their metropolitan area. The exceptions to these outcomes are either because the minor league team predates the major league team (i.e., the Tacoma Rainiers) or because of the minor league team using creative geography to be just outside the territorial zone (i.e., the Kane County Cougars).

However, in the years since I wrote my paper, the major league teams have decided that either minor league baseball is a complementary good, as opposed to a substitute good, or that having their AAA affiliate nearby is enough of a positive to make up for the substitution effect. The Gwinnett County Braves, the Escondido Beavers and the Lehigh Valley IronPigs all represent examples of teams bringing their AAA affiliate into their metropolitan area, or just outside of it in the case of the IronPigs. Having the AAA affiliate close makes it easier to call up players in case of injury. My guess is that over time the increasing value of proximity of the AAA players and that the changing nature of baseball markets, making minor league and major league baseball more complementary, have both increased the teams' willingness to bring their affiliates into their home markets.

Can New York Support a Third NBA Team?

David Stern expresses his doubt (H/T). Of course he has an incentive to downplay the likelihood, in order to protect the market of the Knicks and Nets. However, I think that New York with 22 million people in its metropolitan area should be able to support three teams. Also with one team moving from one side of the city to the other, there is more opportunity to pick up fans right away than there would be for a sport such as baseball.

Federal Money for Hockey Arenas in Canada

Why would the Federal government in Canada be giving money to one city (Quebec) so that it can lure away a team from another city in Canada (Edmonton)? That does not sound like smart politics to me. I guess there is still a chance that the target team is the Phoenix Coyotes. However, the Coyotes have a relatively new arena, and the Oilers are trying to get the city to pay for one, so my guess is that the league would rather the Oilers move than the Coyotes.

The Tucson Beavers?

The Portland Beavers, AAA affiliate of the San Diego Padres, announced that they would be playing next season in Tucson. I would like to consider this move from the point of optimal team location in minor league baseball (see this post from last year for details on my model). The move is complicated by the fact that the eventual plan is to have the team play in Escondido near the major league affiliate in San Diego, and is probably only using Tucson as a temporary home for a year or two. For now I will just talk about the Portland to Tucson move and then look at the Escondido angle in a future post.

On the face of it this move does not make a whole lot of sense. According to my model, Portland would be the second most likely city, amongst those without major league baseball, to have a AAA team. Tucson is 46^th. I estimate that Portland has a 79% chance of having a AAA team, Tucson has a 15% chance. These rankings should not be too much of a surprise, as Portland has a metropolitan area population of approximately 2.2 million and Tucson's is just over a million.

However, there is the complicating factor of the stadium issue. The Beavers stadium in Portland is being renovated for use for the soccer team in the city. When I developed my model it was based on the idea that the city's willingness to build stadiums for team was endogenous to all of the other factors (population, income etc.). But there may also be other idiosyncratic factors related to willingness to construct a stadium that I could not account for. In this case the stadium situation pretty much precipitated a move. It also explains why a team might move for what might be a one-year stay.

Given that a move was required, Tucson makes a lot of sense. Even though it is ranked 46^th, the two cities (Des Moines and Syracuse) right in front of it in the rankings also have AAA teams, so it is not completely out of line with other AAA cities. If the PCL wanted to keep the team out west, Tucson was the best choice, as the westernmost city ranked higher than Tucson is San Antonio. Lastly, since this might be a temporary move, Tucson does not have a AA or A team being disrupted by the move like San Antonio or Boise would have. Also, Tucson had a AAA team as recently as 2008, so it has a suitable stadium.

Territorial Rights and New Arenas: The Case of the Phoenix Coyotes

Brad Humphreys at the IJSF blog has written extensively on the reluctance of the NHL to allow the Phoenix Coyotes to move to Southern Ontario. See here, here and here, though there are obviously many more as the last one listed is Part X. The resistance to the move is motivated by protecting the territorial rights of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Buffalo Sabres.

However, I believe there is a pretty strong secondary motive to the reluctance to a move: the relatively new arena that the Coyotes play in Glendale. Glendale built an arena for the Coyotes in 2003. The arena is only for hockey, as the Phoenix Suns play in US Airways arena (formerly American West Arena; that name change cost me a point in a recent trivia contest). While some teams certainly care about some future team invading their territorial rights, they are all interested in eventually having an arena built for the team by the local municipalities. I do not think Nashville has to worry about another hockey team moving to their city, but they will probably want the city to build them a new arena at some point.

If the Coyotes move out of Arizona, the next time a team threatens to move unless they get a new arena, opponents will have a pretty convincing retort:

Team: "Build us a new arena or we will move to Albuquerque."

Opponents of new arena: "Well, if we build the arena, we will spend $300 million, then the team will play there for five years and then move to Canada. Look at what happened to Glendale."

Team: ?

One way to test this theory is to see if the league would restrict the team from moving to a location without a problem with territorial rights such as Houston, Kansas City or Winnipeg. Of course none of those markets would be nearly as valuable to an owner as Southern Ontario.

Baseball Leaving Oneonta

At the Hardball Times there is an article bemoaning the departure of minor-league baseball in Oneonta. As I have discussed previously, Oneonta is a pretty small city to support a minor-league baseball team. In my study I had it as the third least likely city to host a baseball team that was hosting a baseball team. I would like to admit to one limitation of my study. I was not able to incorporate any measure of tradition and longevity of a team in a location. Tradition and history are an important part of the appeal of baseball, so this is a legitimate concern. For instance, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh with long histories would seem to be better markets for baseball than similarly-sized markets without much baseball history such as Portland and Sacramento. Even with this consideration, the small size of the Oneonta market does not seem to be able to support a Short-Season A team.

I realize there will always be fans who are upset about the loss of a team, but Norwich just seems to me to be a much better market than Oneonta.

Minor League Baseball Returns to Norwich (Without a Missed Season)

Late last year the Connecticut Defenders, a AA minor-league baseball team, moved from Norwich, CT to Richmond, VA. In a previous post I described a paper I had done to examine these types of moves. That move seemed like a pretty obvious choice. Well, it looks like Norwich will still have a minor league baseball team next year (H/T).

According to my model, Norwich was the fifth most over-represented AA level city (see Table 7). However, at the Short-Season A level* that the New York-Penn League plays, Norwich would be on the upper end of the middle of the pack. The team is moving from Oneonta, which I had as the third least likely city to have a minor-league baseball team at any level. Oneonta was a very small city to have a minor-league baseball team, and Norwich seems like a much more promising location.

*Actually in my study I combined the Short-Season A and Rookie levels since they are pretty similar and there was not very many cities in each category.

New Oakland (Fremont?) A’s Stadium

The prospect of a new stadium for the A's in Fremont is back on the table. Given the economic and budget situation in California currently I do not see this as particularly likely. However, from a geographical point of view, Fremont is the optimal location given the rules in place. Unlike Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, the Giants and A's do not share the territorial rights for the Bay Area. The A's have Alameda County plus other areas. The Giants have San Francisco, Santa Clara County plus other areas. At some point in the past San Francisco and Oakland were probably the obvious likely locations for the two teams, but now San Jose is the largest metropolitan area in the Bay Area. It is also quite wealthy. Fremont represents the closest city to San Jose that is currently in the A's territorial rights, or more importantly outside the Giants' territorial rights. The stadium may not be built for a number of years, but if a stadium is eventually built I would not be surprised to see it in Fremont.

Minor League Baseball Returns to Richmond

Minor league baseball is returning to Richmond, as the AA Connecticut Defenders will move there next year (H/T Sabernomics). Richmond for a long time had the AAA franchise of the Atlanta Braves. Before last season the team moved to Gwinnett County in exurban Atlanta. One advantage of this move was that having a AAA franchise nearby is advantageous to the major league team, since AAA players are often being called up to the major league team. However, the major issue was that Gwinnett County agreed to build a new stadium, while the park in Richmond was "old" (1985). J.C. at Sabernomics has covered the issue extensively over the last year (see here, here, here and many more).

A few years ago (data from 2003, published in 2006) I did a study looking at the relationship between minor league baseball team locations and various factors (population, income, distance from major league teams, etc.). However, it does not include stadium age or quality, which I was treating as an endogenous factor, i.e., a large city will have more resources to invest/waste on a ballpark. Over time baseball teams have distributed themselves very efficiently with few outliers from the predicted pattern. Table 6 of my paper presents the biggest outliers for AAA, AA, High-A and the metropolitan areas with no teams. According to the model, Richmond should have either a AAA or AA team (leaning towards AAA). If Richmond did not have a team at the time of the study, it would have been 5^th on the AAA list and 1^st on the other three. Richmond with no baseball team is clearly underrepresented by baseball.

Regardless of the stadium issues associated with the Richmond Diamond, the appeal of the Richmond market relative to Norwich, CT was too much for the Defenders' new ownership to ignore. Richmond's metropolitan area population in 2007 was 1,211,101, while Norwich's was 263,770. An additional one million potential fans can make up for a large number of other problems.