This is a point-counter point piece that was in the 02/25/2003 Portland Tribune

TWO VIEWS
"¢ Is Portland's love of baseball enough to float a major league team, or are fans just dreaming when they say it'll work here?

This is not a big-league town

BY Steve Holgate

"If people don't want to come out to the park, no one's going to stop 'em."
"” Yogi Berra

Go ahead. Build it. They won't come.

In the debate about financing a new baseball stadium and where we might put it, no one seems to have given much thought to who is going to fill it. Not only is there little evidence that Portlanders would support a major league baseball team, there's plenty of evidence that they wouldn't.

OK, it's true that the occasional major league exhibition game here draws a good crowd. But, heck, so did Michael Dukakis "” once.

Put simply, Portland is not a baseball town. The long, sad history of Portland's minor league teams illustrates that.

Almost every current major league city had a long record of supporting minor league baseball before receiving a big league franchise. What is Portland's record? In the last three decades, we have twice lost Pacific Coast League franchises because of lack of support.

Some dreamers say Seattle serves as an example of what can happen here. They're right "” but not in the way they think they are. Seattle lost one major league franchise, the Pilots, after only one year "” a major league record, you could look it up.

On top of that, Seattle nearly lost its current team, the Mariners, just a few years ago. Only the combination of a local economic boom, a colossal new stadium, new ownership with deep pockets and a winning team has kept baseball in Seattle.

Well, the bloom is off the economic rose in Seattle, just as it is here. If its recently overachieving team should again start losing consistently, we'd see how much of an attraction a new stadium represented all by itself.

That would be important, since, of the four legs that have recently propped up the Mariners, all that Portland would likely have to offer is that imagined stadium.

Major league baseball teams need something like 30,000 fans in the seats every night as a base for financial respectability. But those fans only begin to cover the revenue needs of a franchise. The real money comes from TV and radio contracts.

Seattle's often-shaky franchise has relied on a population base far larger than Portland's and a radio and television audience that stretches deep into Oregon. Do we really think that a Portland team can survive on a fraction of the audience that has barely sustained Seattle? Not likely.

I love baseball. It gave me my childhood heroes and has brought me many hours of rich enjoyment as an adult. It is the only sport I follow. In my heart, I'd love nothing more than to see a major league team in my hometown. In my head, I know that if it comes, I'd better catch it quick. It won't be here long.

Steve Holgate, who says he was the worst right fielder in Tigard Little League history, is retired from the U.S. Foreign Service. He lives in Southwest Portland.

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Baseball is a hit in PortlandBy Drew Mahalic

Throughout the five-year campaign to bring major league baseball to Oregon, there often has been skepticism about whether a team might actually move to Portland. With the city now identified as a final candidate for the relocation of the Montreal Expos, the question of whether Portland is a serious contender has been answered unmistakably.

We now are faced with a more pertinent question: Would big league baseball in Oregon be successful?

By every conceivable measurement that can be applied to an area without a major league team, the Portland area has exceeded even the loftiest expectations for demonstrating an affinity for major league baseball.

"¢ In 2001, the Portland TV market generated a stunning 4.3 cable TV rating for Seattle Mariners games, topping the mark of 19 major league cities for their own teams. The next year, the Portland region produced a 4.5 rating "” this in a season when the Mariners failed to make the playoffs.
"¢ Portland recorded the seventh-best TV rating in the nation for the 2002 World Series, the third-best mark excluding those cities with a regional interest. Portland's 22.5 rating for Game 7 between the Angels and the Giants doubled the rating of the Washington, D.C., market, as 240,000 area households tuned in for the game.

According to ESPN.com's recent SportsNation survey, Portland has the highest level of fans following the major leagues (72 percent) and more fans who name baseball as their favorite sport than any city without a major league team.

This overflowing passion for baseball exists in the most underserved sports market in the nation. The SportsBusiness Journal recently ranked Portland the third most appealing market in the country for a new franchise. Portland is the largest metro area in the nation without a major league franchise, with a population and corporate base (53 businesses with over $100 million in 2001 revenues) equivalent to the Denver area when it acquired its fourth professional sports franchise.

Based on the above information and an outpouring of public and corporate support for our campaign, we have no doubt that Oregonians will offer long-standing support for a major league franchise. This backing, combined with baseball's newly stabilized economic structure, will provide the new franchise with every opportunity to field a competitive team on a long-term basis.

While Oregonians root for our new club to win a World Series, the state will be the recipient of a major tourist attraction, thousands of new construction jobs and a myriad of new public revenues. It is time to capitalize on this once-in-a-generation opportunity.

Drew Mahalic is chief executive officer of the Oregon Sports Authority and lives in Southwest Portland. He played football for five years in the NFL and is the only NFL player to graduate from Harvard Law School.