Raleigh seems to be the prefered site.
Some politicians in North Carolina are ready to put aside around $700 million in seed money to build a Major League Baseball stadium somewhere in the state. North Carolina politicians want to position the state as a contender for a Major League Baseball expansion franchise. It appears that the politicians are looking favorably at spending the baseball park dollars in Raleigh although Greensboro could also be in the hunt. Charlotte appears to be out of the public funding discussion. There is one problem. Major League Baseball is not in an expansion mode at the moment. There are labor negotiations with the players ongoing with the industry’s collective bargaining agreement ending in December. North Carolina has some stiff competition if MLB does go through with expansion plans as politicians in Utah, Vancouver, British Columbia and Sacramento are ready to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a baseball venue. The ownership of the NC Courage of the National Women’s Soccer League wants a new facility and it wants public money to pay for the stadium’s construction. It is getting expensive for North Carolina taxpayers to support big time sports.
The National Hockey League’s Carolina Hurricanes franchise owner Tom Dundon is getting public money to renovate the city’s arena and putting up a village around the venue. Three years ago, Dundon suggested that Major League Baseball ought to consider Raleigh for an expansion team. In the past MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has suggested that Charlotte might be a good spot for an expansion team. This is not the first time someone has suggested putting an MLB team in the Wake County region. In the late 1990s, Don Beaver attempted to buy and move the Minnesota Twins franchise to a publicly funded stadium in Greensboro if voters said yes. The voters rejected the stadium plan in 1998.
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