Link to Oregonlive.com article

Portland's big league fantasy
Sunday, March 02, 2008
RYAN WHITE
The Oregonian

By the time the mention of "parsimonious Portlanders" came around, we were already thinking the City Club of Portland should have its own sports talk show -- presumably on OPB, where some listener might know what "parsimonious" means.

(It means you're all tightwads.)

Except, OPB aired an hour of baseball talk Friday morning, the same day the City Club convened a panel of Trail Blazers president Larry Miller and Beavers/Timbers owner Merritt Paulson to discuss whether Portland is a sports city.

We could have saved them a lot of trouble. No, it's not. At least not by any classic Boston-Chicago-New York-Detroit-Philadelphia definition. But it was fun to see the town's big brains working on the subject.

Common to both OPB, which took up the topic on its new call-in show, "Think Out Loud," and City Club was the question of whether Major League Baseball will ever find a home here.

"It's not going to come here unless the Triple A product is the most successful in the league," Paulson said of MLB, and, yes, he admitted that maybe his motives for such a statement could be called into question, but he believes he's right. "That's just a fact."

Possibly. It's also possible there are a great many who won't go to a Triple A game, but would go see MLB. After all, who sits around and talks about the Beavers' rotation, or hitters, or the standings? Not nearly as many as play fantasy baseball.

It's an interesting debate in part because it's so hypothetical. There's no real way of knowing how an MLB team would do until there's an MLB team in town, and that doesn't seem the least bit likely anytime soon. Still, we kick it around all the time.

Selling minor league baseball here has to be one of the most difficult jobs in town. Miller and the Blazers have an increasingly easy gig. The Blazers never lost their fans. Their fans went on hiatus. They're coming back.

The Timbers fit a niche, and if Major League Soccer some day arrives, that's great, but MLS doesn't overshadow soccer in a market this size the way MLB overshadows baseball.

Last year, the Beavers averaged 5,478 a game, a slight drop from the previous season despite increased attention from Paulson, who took over the team in June.

"We don't have the marquee athlete to market," Paulson said.

What do you sell? Paulson's answer: everything. The experience. The intimacy. A less-corporate atmosphere. The chance to see guys on the rise, and guys on their way down. Family fun at an affordable price. The usual stuff.

Paulson noted the Seattle Mariners' television ratings in Portland. They're good. According to Fox Sports Net, over the last five years, the Mariners have averaged a 2.2 rating, which basically means at least 2.2 percent of the television sets in the market were tuned to baseball. Over the same period, albeit one the Blazers would like to forget, the Blazers averaged a 2.4 on FSN.

But that could be interpreted as an interest in major league baseball, an interest in watching a game and not caring about getting a cheap T-shirt tossed your way.

Either way, the Beavers are going to attempt to exploit interest. Their new deal with FSN will put 20 games on FSN, and those 20 games will then be promoted during Mariners games. More exposure will, Paulson hopes, lead to more fans.

Unless only so many people want the experience they're selling, a few more want cheap beer, and the rest want the big leagues. That's the question. It's not as interesting as kicking around a pitching rotation, is it?

Ryan White: 503-412-7024; ryanwhite@news.oregonian.com

I read this in the paper. What was the point of this article? To try and shoot down ay idea of having a MLB team in Portland? Way to stay positive there Oregonian.

quote:

Originally posted by JONFARR:
I read this in the paper. What was the point of this article? To try and shoot down ay idea of having a MLB team in Portland? Way to stay positive there Oregonian.

I didn't get that feeling from the article. Really, at this point, MLB expansion or relocation is a far off matter. I think Ryan summed up matters well... He pointed out that there are fans of MLB in this city, that the idea of having a team come here now is distant, and that selling MiLB is difficult in the market. All truisms.

I didn't care for the title of the article, as there is clearly no "fantasy" about it at this time. But the article itself was fairly pedestrian.

What's interesting to me is the supposition that success at the AAA level will make us better expansion candidate someday. My view is that I don't think it helps nearly as much as other factors (such as market growth, corporate base, ability to fund a terrific and financially viable stadium, support for big 4 sports generally (TV ratings, Blazers, etc.)). That being said, supporting the Beavers certainly doesn't hurt. I wish Mr. Paulsen well and look forward to attending more Beaver games (and fewer Mariners games) than I have in the past.

If minor league mega-success was critical to major league viability, we wouldn't have teams in Miami, Tampa Bay, Denver, or Phoenix now, and we'd have them in Louisville, Buffalo, Sacramento, and Memphis instead. Sure, it doesn't hurt, but I don't think it is one of the factors MLB looks at that closely.

We'll be better off once the "anti-expansion" commissioner is gone ...

I've completely understood the "minors does not lead to majors" argument... in terms of finding an owner, getting the money arranged, and related issues.

What I'm picking up from various conversations, however, is "Keep Portland Weird" in an indirect manner. What that means in this instance is that the money isn't going to come around unless they know the PEOPLE are interested. People here don't get all wishy-washy about rich people generating business the way it happens in some other cities (which, BTW, is happening less). I think the cross-pollination with Seattle (Initiative 91) is very telling about the likelihood that this is at least shared region-wide.

As such, the Beavers are the de-facto interest guage. Local moneymen have nothing else to go on, partially because they have less sway on the city and the populace than they would in other markets.

In addition, you could argue that the city was spoiled by Paul Allen arranging the financing for the Rose Garden instead of going through the city for funding. That possibly created an expectation that anyone else seeking a team in this town was/is to do the same. I bet Allen would agree, and have regrets about his work, at this point.

Long time, no post.

2 things..

1.) The minors has to be successful in order to lure MLB argument is bogus. The Phoenix Firebirds had terrible attendance, as did the Denver Zephyrs. As for Miami and Tampa, well they had ROOKIE "A" ball teams. Paulson wants butts in seats, cannot blame him.


2.) I, for one, do not believe for a second that the "Keep Portland Weird" is the contingency that is hampering MLB2PDX. It is a lack of Fortune 500 companies, gutsy civic leadership, and a barely acceptable population base (in terms of size). SO in essence, it is old Portland money that is preventing this...not some kid with dreadlocks playing frisbee golf at Pier Park.

AAA attendance would be irrelevant to MLB, but it might help fan the flames of local interest (which could help give civic leadership a backbone in the matter) in the 5-10 year interim before the opportunity arises again.

So AAA attendance doesn't hurt, but it could help.

To be fair, Denver had outstanding AAA attendance immediately prior to getting the Rockies, and you can't blame Phoenix for having terrible AAA attendance outside with their summer heat. I know nothing about Miami or Tampa, except they pretty much look like AAA teams right now so what's the diff.

Pretty sure Denver had lousy AAA attendance prior to the Rockies--heck, can you blame a populace w/NFL/NBA/major college programs within an hour or 2, for lack of support for the local AAA team? Of course not--it's similar in PDX, which is arguably more sophisticated than Denver, at least in terms of non-sports offerings--we know we're major league in terms of size and cosmopolitanness (forgive the Bushism)--so we don't, for better or for worse, pull hammies in feverish excitement over minor league baseball--we feel we deserve the real thing, MLB, and unless and until that happens...I think Merritt Paulson is great, and I wish him all the prosperity in the world w/the Bevos and moreso any MLB/MLS aspirations he has; but to suggest AAA support is anything close to a prerequisite for MLB is very shaky at best...

James,

I don't have any stats to back it up but if you Google "Denver AAA baseball attendance" or similar searches, you'll find all kinds of references to Denver setting single season minor league baseball attendance records.