American City Business Journals

July 16, 1999
by Dennis Anstine

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Major League Baseball in Civic Stadium? You gotta be kidding. That's the knee-slapper of all knee-slappers. We're supposed to go from watching the Class A Rockies to the New York Yankees. Yeah, right. And the San Diego Chicken can fly. Seattle builds a $517 million mansion for the Mariners and Portland thinks it can attract a major league team by putting new shoes and a top hat on its 72-year-old ugly duckling. Major League Baseball won't come to Portland until the city starts acting like it's in the major leagues. Will that happen anytime soon?

Well, maybe, then again, perhaps, I suppose, you never know, stranger things have happened. Maybe the chicken can fly--if goosed.

Let's see if we can make some sense of this Civic Stadium-MLB confusion in which we find ourselves.

What we do know is this: With the health of neglected Civic Stadium becoming quite precarious, the city finally came to its senses and realized it needed help. After lengthy negotiations, the city contracted with Portland Family Entertainment to oversee the $37 million renovation of Civic and then operate the public stadium's activities, which must include tenants such as a Class AAA minor league baseball team and a professional soccer team or the deal is off. The city agreed to carry a $33 million bond to pay for the renovation, while PFE committed to sharing revenue at a level that would have the city retire the bonds at the start of the seventh year of operations.

So why did the city not make a bigger push to bring MLB to Civic? Not this time around, the city seemed to be saying, although it insisted that a clause was included in the contract that it could "bump" PFE with a MLB team. But there are many, many reasons why MLB wasn't part of the city's Civic Stadium rehab plan. They begin with the fact city officials realized that, while their first priority is to provide the community with a public stadium that offers a diversity of activities, the tenants would have to draw enough people to pay for the renovation and operation of the facility. Say goodbye to the short-season Rockies and hello to a Triple-A team that plays April through August.

While it's possible that teams in Montreal and Minneapolis, for example, could be relocated sometime during the next year or two, the city decided it had to move now on Civic. The Portland Baseball Group and PFE, perhaps to a lesser degree, are searching for an owner or owners to buy an existing team and move it to Portland. But none has stepped forward during the nearly four years that the idea has been afloat.

Civic Stadium could be a temporary home for a MLB team until a new stadium were built, probably through a public-private-partnership similar to the one Paul Allen has with Washington's taxpayers for construction of a new stadium for the Seattle Seahawks. I don't believe Civic will ever be remodeled as a permanent home. For one, it's public property and there are indications that the Northwest and Goose Hollow neighborhoods would raise a tremendous stink if it were tried. I also think the city has given up on making it a permanent home for a MLB team, though that hasn't been said publicly. Still, its actions regarding the stadium indicate it would prefer another site. Such as, where the city-owned Memorial Coliseum currently stands. Sources say the Coliseum space and adjacent parking area are large enough for a MLB park, and there's no doubt the location is superior to the cramped Civic Stadium area in every way except that the neighborhood isn't as quaint as the North-west. Big deal.

Lynn Lashbrook, a sports management consultant involved with the Portland Baseball Group, believes "the day is going to come when baseball comes to the Portland area." He believes Civic is an option, but there are others. Memorial Coliseum is one, but so is Vancouver, which has a lot of riverfront land, he said.

ashbrook and others have criticized the city, especially Mayor Vera Katz, for not campaigning long and hard for an expansion team. But I don't think there is enough hard evidence out there right now that Portland will support a MLB team to the degree that today's owners demand. I don't believe serious ownership, whether it is local or not, will step forward until there's such a groundswell--from community leaders and potential season-ticket holders--for a team here that it cannot be denied. Build it, and we will come? That's fiction. These days, that's a pipe dream.

I know all about the demographics that say Portland is a better market than perhaps any other city now without a MLB team, and even some cities that have existing teams. But baseball has several small-market teams that could actually go bankrupt if there isn't a drastic change in MLB's economic situation. The last thing baseball needs is to place a team in an area that won't do any better than Kansas City or Milwaukee or San Diego.

Many like to argue that having a Triple-A team is not a prerequisite to having a MLB team. It's not if Allen or Phil Knight or some other billionaire decides he wants to buy a team and put it here. But Portland lost the Triple-A Beavers not so long ago because of lousy support and you can bet that didn't go unnoticed in the land of MLB. The owners are not going to let anyone join their club unless he/she is filthy rich, has a promise for a state-of-the-art ballpark and a market that is absolutely drooling for the sport. The Portland market may be (barely) large enough, but it has none of the big three at this moment and no indication it will have them anytime soon.

Lashbrook's group is attempting to drum up support for the idea, which is a start. Hey, if you love baseball, get involved. Maybe a ballclub will drop into our laps real soon and off we go. Or maybe it never happens (it's been more than a quarter-century since relocation has occurred) and our only chance comes in the form of expansion in 5 to 10 years. Maybe the financial climate will have improved and Portland has the necessary pieces in order. Maybe then.

We can dream and pray that a team will come our way just because we want it to. Or we can figure out what it will take to get one here, roll up our sleeves and go to work. The former is like playing the lottery, the latter is like working for a living. There's nothing wrong with taking a chance, but I wouldn't mortgage the future on it.

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[This message was edited by Dodger Matt on January 04, 2001 at 04:52 PM.]