MLB expansion talks stall as owners question the math

MLB expansion – From Salt Lake City to possible Vancouver investment efforts, Major League Baseball’s expansion push is running into a tougher reality: several owners privately doubt it will ever happen and argue the economics don’t add up—especially when past expansions burd

A lavish press conference in Sacramento this week—balloons. baseball caps. politicians and a star like future Hall of Fame manager Dusty Baker—was meant to broadcast that Major League Baseball has the money. the land and the passion to grow. But in parallel, a different message is spreading through team ownership circles: the shovels may never hit the ground.

Beyond Sacramento, MLB has already built a visible infrastructure around expansion. A staff of advisors in Nashville is working. an office is “constantly pumping out press releases. ” and even though there is no actual ownership in place. a team name has already been chosen. The group has also started seeking investors in Vancouver. with Salt Lake City positioned as the next step—at least on paper.

The question owners are asking now is blunt: what if the hype is just hype—what if expansion doesn’t happen at all, or is delayed beyond the years many fans have been bracing for: 2031, 2032 or 2033?

Several MLB owners and executives, speaking on the condition of anonymity due to the ongoing nature of the situation, said expansion is not being treated as something that’s close.

“I don’t think it’s going to happen, I really don’t,” one longtime MLB executive said.

An owner called expansion “stupid.” Another said, “It’s not anything that’s being discussed right now, I know that.”

At the bargaining table, the timeline also looks uncertain. Expansion has not been addressed in early collective bargaining agreement talks between MLB and the players union, and it is expected to be tabled until after a CBA agreement is reached.

Once a new CBA exists, the logic for delaying expansion would seem to weaken. But owners argue that the economics don’t improve just because the negotiations end.

After all. commissioner Rob Manfred has said he wants expansion as part of his legacy and is already on record wanting to add two more teams before he leaves office in January 2029. “When people want your product. ” Manfred said last week on the Pat McAfee Show. “I think it’s kind of incumbent on you to try to figure out a way if you can deliver that product to them.”.

Schedule makers also like the idea. A 162-game schedule with 32 teams is easier to construct than one with 30.

Players union supporters would also see upside. The union would like expansion with 52 new jobs in the league, and players would likely benefit from the realignment that comes with new teams—reducing travel and frequent cross-country flights.

But that doesn’t answer the central complaint that keeps surfacing from ownership: expansion is expensive and, in the eyes of many decision-makers, it doesn’t pencil out.

“Why would we want to subsidize two more small-market teams?” one executive said. “I don’t understand it. The economics don’t add up.”

Owners point to the league’s own history as evidence. When MLB expanded in 1993, adding the Miami Marlins and Colorado Rockies, and again in 1998 with the Tampa Bay Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks, the early promise didn’t translate into steady financial results—especially in attendance.

The Marlins, who won two World Series titles in their first 10 years, have finished last or next-to-last in National League attendance in all but one year since 1998. The only time they drew more than 2 million fans since 1997 was when they moved into their new ballpark in 2012.

The Rays, winners of two American League pennants and participants in the postseason nine times since 2008, have finished last or next-to-last in AL attendance 21 years, drawing more than 2 million fans only in their 1998 inaugural season.

The owners’ concern is not simply that those teams struggled. It’s who paid for it.

MLB executives estimate the Marlins alone have received about $4.5 billion in revenue sharing from the central fund since their birth into MLB. When owners compare that amount to what new teams have paid up front, the mismatch becomes harder to ignore.

In that earlier expansion cycle, the Marlins and Rockies paid $95 million in expansion fees. The Diamondbacks and Rays paid $130 million—while none of the teams among the revenue sharing payees were among those receiving revenue sharing themselves.

Now. with Manfred pushing for every team to share their local TV revenue and new national TV contracts coming in 2029 that MLB estimates could be worth $250 million per team. owners are weighing whether creating two more low-revenue teams would mean cutting their own slices and handing more money to newcomers.

One owner put it directly: “Those teams certainly won’t be paying money into revenue sharing. So it will be less money for everyone else. What’s the added benefit, to get more fans engaged?. I’m not sure expansion will drive fan engagement in either market. So, we’ll see what happens once our labor deal is done.”.

“But I really don’t understand the logic for expansion, at least not yet,” the owner added.

The money question is tangled with the labor one. Owners are in New York on Tuesday and Wednesday as labor talks have begun, but several believe that if those talks drag into a long, drawn-out stoppage threatening games in 2027, politics could become part of the pressure.

“If we miss spring training, I could see Donald Trump getting involved,” one owner said. “He could say, ‘Gentlemen, enough is enough. I want a deal. And I want it by the end of the week. Or else.’”

That threat sits alongside another uneasy ownership reality: some teams losing money on paper don’t translate to personal downside for their owners.

Steve Cohen of the New York Mets is an example that came up repeatedly in conversation. Mets operating losses in excess of $200 million have become a familiar annual figure. but Cohen is positioned to become “an even a much richer owner” thanks to an $8 billion casino project built next to Citi Field.

“One owner said, “Cohen never would have gotten the casino if he didn’t have the team, so it really worked out well for him, no matter how much money he loses with the Mets.”

There are also sharp debates about how revenue sharing and local TV sharing would work—and what would stand in the way.

In MLB’s initial proposal to the players union. teams would equally share their local TV contracts. meaning the Dodgers—receiving an average of $334 million a year—would earn the same as the Milwaukee Brewers. which receive about $25 million a year. The caveat is that owners would agree only if there is a salary cap.

The players union, meanwhile, has pushed for a $3 million minimum for salary-arbitration eligible players. If the union gets that, the free-agent market could be flooded with non-tenders. There were 77 of 160 players who settled their arbitration cases last season for less than $3 million.

Then come the caps and floors that shape which clubs can compete.

If there were a hard salary cap of $245.3 million in MLB, the Dodgers could have a problem, considering that Yoshinobu Yamamoto (2035), Shohei Ohtani (2033), Mookie Betts (2032) and Blake Snell (2029) are signed to massive contracts through at least 2029.

The Marlins, by contrast, could be forced into heavy spending with a $171.2 million salary floor. The Marlins have only $5 million on their books after this season and have had a $100 million payroll once during Bruce Sherman’s eight years as owner.

Even in a different part of the baseball world, those financial pressures shape decisions. The Philadelphia Phillies made a move this spring by tacking on three more years with Cristopher Sanchez’s six-year. $107 million contract extension. leaving the Cy Young candidate under team control through 2033.

Sanchez is now attempting to go where only Orel Hershiser and Don Drysdale has gone before with a 44 ⅔-inning scoreless streak. He needs to pitch just 2 ⅔ shutout innings in his next start this week to move into third place on the all-time scoreless streak. Orel Hershiser holds the MLB record with 59 consecutive shutout innings in 1988, with Drysdale at 58 innings in 1968.

Back in the expansion argument, every detail seems to circle back to one point: if new teams arrive, what they do with money—and what other clubs give up—will define whether expansion feels like growth or extraction.

That’s why owners are watching not only commissioner statements, but also whether labor deals produce the guardrails—like a salary cap—that would determine how money flows. Without those guardrails, the risk may be too familiar, owners say, from the last times MLB expanded.

The labor and expansion questions may look separate on the surface. In practice, the owners’ skepticism about expansion is being built from the same materials: the history of revenue sharing, the uncertain attendance outcomes, and the way new TV revenue plans could dilute existing earnings.

And for the moment, at least, the shovels in Salt Lake City remain waiting.

MLB expansion Major League Baseball collective bargaining agreement Rob Manfred revenue sharing local TV revenue salary cap players union Miami Marlins Tampa Bay Rays attendance labor talks 2027