| Making a pitch for major league baseball
Virginia Business
July 2004
State residents may soon be singing
“Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” Northern
Virginia and Norfolk — along with Washington,
D.C., Las Vegas, Portland, Ore., and Monterrey, Mexico
— have stepped up to the plate in hopes of becoming
the new home of the National League’s bottom-dwelling
Montreal Expos. A decision by Major League Baseball
Commissioner Bud Selig on where to put the Expos, now
owned by baseball’s 29 other teams, could come
by mid-July.
Backers of the Norfolk bid kicked off
a season-ticket campaign in late May. The group has
put together a $300 million financing plan that would
fund a 38,000-seat stadium along the Elizabeth River
in downtown Norfolk that would open in 2007. “It
is our time and our destiny to join the major leagues,”
says Norfolk Baseball Company President Jason Osborne.
All 16 localities in Hampton Roads support
the bid. Supporters estimate that a major league baseball
franchise would bring 4,000 jobs and a $250 million
annual economic impact to the Hampton Roads region.
Baseball enthusiasts in Northern Virginia,
meanwhile, claim that demographics and economics are
on their side. The Washington, D.C., market is the sentimental
choice for selection — thanks to the still-maddening
relocation of the Washington Senators to Texas more
than 30 years ago — but the Baltimore Orioles
have their feathers in a flurry over the prospect of
losing a sizable portion of their fan base.
Still, Northern Virginia may have an
edge over Washington because of logistics. Prospective
team owners are currently favoring a $400 million plan
to build a stadium in Loudoun County near the Dulles
Toll Road, which would put the baseball team in easy
proximity to the Beltway and Interstate 66, as well
as the more than 1 million residents of affluent Fairfax
County.
Virginians don’t seem to care
which region gets a team — just as long as one
of them wins out: A recent study conducted by a Washington-based
polling firm found that 85 percent of state residents
believe that a major league team in Virginia will be
good for the economy and a majority plan to attend a
game. No matter how bad the team’s win-loss record.
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