The District and Northern Virginia Prepare for a Baseball Team That Has Not Yet Arrived
WASHINGTON, April 25–Speculation is swirling about the Capitol Beltway that Washington or Northern Virginia could house a baseball team as soon as 2003, but some Washington businessmen are skeptical, warning that several obstacles could thwart the area’s hopes of landing its first major league team since the Senators departed the District after the 1971 season.
In the past six months, two of Major League Baseball’s top officials, including commissioner Bud Selig, acknowledged the Washington-area as a potential market for a baseball team, initially playing at RFK Stadium in Southeast Washington.
Chief operating officer Robert DuPuy told reporters in mid-April that a Washington-area team was “inevitable,” though he would not speculate on when a team would arrive. Nonetheless, both DuPuy and Selig said a team would not relocate to the region until Major League Baseball agrees to a new collective bargaining contract with the players, and until it resolves the “contraction” issue-its attempt to shrink the number of baseball teams by one or two.
“Baseball has made it clear that they’re going through contraction and the labor contract first; the second phase is relocation. It’s the right plan,” said Winston Lord, executive director of Washington Baseball Club L.L.C., the D.C.-based group trying to bring a team to the region.
In the past 30 years, baseball expanded from 24 to 30 ball clubs, but no baseball team during that period has moved, and no team has ever been “contracted” out of existence.
Interestingly, the next team to relocate will be the first move of any club in Major League Baseball since the second Senators franchise left Washington in 1971 for Texas only a decade after the original Senators left Washington in 1960 to move to Minnesota. In both cases, the Senators owner was lured from the District by sweet stadium deals.
Most baseball insiders assume the Montreal Expos would be most likely to relocate to the Washington region, unless the Expos are contracted, according to Patrick Courtney, a public relations manager of Major League Baseball.
“If contraction doesn’t go through, I think it’s pretty clear that something has to be done with Montreal,” Courtney said. “Everyone recognizes that Washington is a viable market, so it’s a possibility” that the Expos would relocate to the District].
Courtney and Lord both said that Montreal is a dying market, and the Expos have routinely attracted crowds of fewer than 5,000 to their games over the past few seasons. A good number of minor league teams attract larger crowds than the Expos seat on some nights.
“It doesn’t make sense why they should be operating a team in Montreal in those conditions when you have as [ripe] a market as you do in Northern Virginia,” said Jerry Burkot, spokesman for Virginians for Baseball.
Two prominent groups, Washington Baseball Club and Virginians for Baseball, are jockeying for a Washington-area team, although there is no promise that a club will reside anywhere within the Beltway next year. Major League Baseball, however, is more inclined to eliminate teams than to relocate them in cities without franchises, according to baseball insiders.
“The commissioner is on record saying there is a potential for movement, though [baseball’s primary focuses] are the collective bargaining agreement and contraction,” Courtney said..
There is little doubt that the Washington area could support a baseball team. Outside of major league soccer, there is no competition within the metro area during the summer months that would endanger the team’s economic vitality, said Bobby Goldwater, commissioner of the D.C. Sports & Entertainment Commission.
Redskins owner Daniel Snyder is interested in purchasing a baseball team with Black Entertainment Television CEO Robert L. Johnson and moving it to Washington, though his bid is not the one Washington Mayor Anthony Williams supports.
Several roadblocks still exist, many of which have been documented in the past, and the most relevant argument is the District’s proximity to Baltimore and the Orioles; approximately 40 miles separate the cities.
Although Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley is on record supporting D.C. Washington’s pursuit of a team, Orioles owner Peter Angelos abhors the idea of competition from Washington, arguing that a sizable chunk of Washington-area fans travel to Baltimore to watch baseball at his cozy Orioles Park at Camden Yards.
If baseball relocates a team to the Washington-area, the Washington Baseball Club may have an edge over the Virginians for Baseball group based on recent history. Over the past decade, all new baseball stadiums with the exception of the Texas Rangers’ new digs were placed in downtown areas of cities. D.C.Washington Baseball Club is one proposing a field within the city limits. Virginians for Baseball, founded in 1994, five years prior to the establishment of ts competitor, wants to place a team in the Northern Virginia suburbs.
William L. Collins III, president and CEO of Alexandria-based Metrocall, spearheads Virginians for Baseball. He first tried to bring an expansion team to Northern Virginia in the mid-1990s, but lost out to Arizona and Tampa Bay.
“We believe many owners regret that decision to place a team in Tampa,” Burkot said. “The St. Pete market, where the dome [Tropicana Field] is located, is away from the center of the business community in Tampa. We feel that it may have been a mistake at that point.” Collins later tried to lure the Houston Astros to the region.
Washington Baseball Club (WBC) is a coalition of D.C. businessmen, including AOL co-founder James Kinsey and Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines. Fred Malek, one of most outspoken supporters of Washington baseball and a part of WBC, is a former co-owner of the Texas Rangers with President George W. Bush.
“Our group has a passion for two things: baseball and Washington,” Lord said.
Both Mayor Williams and the D.C. Sports & Entertainment Commission showed their support for the WBC in January by entering into a two-year agreement to join efforts to lure a team to the District. The commission, an independent agency of the District of Columbia, manages and operates RFK Stadium, the former home of the Senators and Redskins that sits next to the D.C. Armory in the Southeast quadrant of the District.
“This agreement sends the strongest possible message to Major League Baseball that the nation’s capitol has the finest combination of people and resources to support a team,” Williams said. “I congratulate everyone who has worked so diligently in forging this alliance which puts the best interests of the District at the forefront. Now more than ever, there is no question that Washington, D.C., is ready to play ball.”
Although RFK Stadium will need refurbishing for the sport, including construction of a new baseball diamond and improved technologies, Goldwater said the ballpark, which seats 45,200, could be baseball-ready in four to six weeks.
“The biggest advantage for D.C. we have is RFK Stadium,” Lord said. “It’s a big asset for us, but it’s a 40-year-old ballpark.” Goldwater said.
A new stadium, possibly near the four-year-old MCI Center in the city’s downtown or along the Anacostia River, just blocks from RFK, could be constructed within two to three years of a team’s relocation to the District.
“Obviously, we can’t turn RFK into Camden Yards, and we wouldn’t put the money into it,” Lord said. “A new ballpark would be a certainty if a team moved to Washington.”
“Our hope is to look at every possible site in D.C. by the end of the 2002 season. And we’re only talking about D.C.,” Lord added.
According to Goldwater, “our goal is to have an MLB team permanently in the District, not necessarily on our property.”
The agreement between the WBC and Goldwater’s commission requires that the commission manage the new stadium even if the ballpark is not on the site adjacent to RFK Stadium.
Burkot argued that a site in Northern Virginia is more central than one in Washington. “I think when you look at the economics of marketplace, the sheer numbers of population, and [where] the center of the business community is, I think [it would favor] Virginia,” he said. “You have half a million people living in D.C., maybe another half-million people working there. 4 million people live out in Northern Virginia, and another two million work there· Families are centered out in Northern Virginia. And it’s easier to come to a ballgame in the evening without coming into the District.”
Andrew Zimbalist, a Smith College economist who specializes in the business of sports, said: “D.C. probably has an edge over Northern Virginia. I think there are some issues with transportation with the bridges [in Northern Virginia]. And D.C. would probably have the higher cachet.” Because of the Metro subway system, Lord argues that D.C. has an edge on transportation – especially if the ballpark is placed in the center of the city, near the MCI Center. “The Metro drives you to the downtown,” Lord said.
He added, “If a team is placed by Dulles Airport, it’ll be like going out to a Redskins game at FedEx field [in suburban Landover, Md.]. It’s an event, but you have the traffic concerns.”
“The last time I looked, the Metro goes into Virginia, too,” Burkot said, laughing. “There are several potential locations where a ballpark would be a great fit. Any location that the stadium authority chooses will be centrally located and will recognize community and neighborhood needs.”
Zimbalist said that a team could thrive in either the District or in the Virginia suburbs.
“It is politically viable, as opposed to economically viable, to place a team in Washington,” said Ronald Utt, a senior fellow with the Heritage Foundation specializing in urban renewal. “In the way that baseball teams are promoted, D.C. is the [ideal] site for a team. [The city could provide] heavy public subsidies, tax abatements and subsidized stadiums. Corporate welfare is oriented to hospitality of entertainment and tourism, aspects that you can’t find anywhere else [outside of a city]· They are for-profit groups that have tapped into government subsidies.”
Utt was referring to efforts in the late 1980s to construct a Redskins park in Alexandria, adjacent to the District. “As much as people like sports, they don’t want it in their neighborhood,” he added. “They’re lucky to be in proximity to people who want it, so in the case of the Orioles, the Maryland taxpayers helped to fund the stadium, and the Virginians have the opportunity to use it.”
The Orioles have insisted that a team in Washington would damage their revenue stream, because the Washington area constitutes a fourth of their fan base. A study conducted by Virginians for Baseball determined that a team in that state would affect only 10 to 15 percent of the Orioles fan base, a report that Zimbalist supported.
“It’s one region, but it’s two different markets,” Goldwater said. “No one connected with the effort to bring baseball to Washington wants to hurt the Baltimore Orioles. There is enough population, enough fans of baseball, in addition to the people who live here – and the 23 million tourists that come to the District here that don’t have much to do at night during the summer – so there should be no question that Baltimore and the Washington markets can successfully maintain two baseball franchises.”
Burkot pointed out that “more people [attending] Orioles games come from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware than come from Virginia. Our fan base would be centered in Northern Virginia and maybe the District.”
When offered the opportunity to discuss the Orioles’ position, team spokesman Bill Stetka refused to shed new light on the subject, or even to state the longstanding position of Angelos’s club.
“I’m not interested in reaffirming anything,” he said on April 16. “It’s a non-story until something new comes out.”
A day later, DuPuy told reporters in New York that it was “inevitable” that a baseball team would call Washington or Northern Virginia home.
As a result, Stetka was more willing to speak on April 18. “I don’t think what [DuPuy] said is anything substantially different from what Bud Selig said in [January],” he said, referring to Selig’s statement that relocation is likely in baseball’s future and that the Washington area. was a prime candidate.
Stetka later added, “We’re not going to block a move for something that hasn’t happened. We’ll work with MLB to determine what their strategy is. I would think anything beyond what was said by Mr. DuPuy is pure conjecture.”
The WBC’s Lord acknowledged that “if baseball were to conduct an independent study and it showed that it would damage the Orioles, we certainly wouldn’t want to put it ther.,” Nevertheless, he added, “we’re not giving up the belief that it wouldn’t strongly hurt the Orioles.”
Zimbalist agreed. “Both would have modern stadiums· and Washington is in the nation’s seventh-largest media market.”
Asked if the Orioles would accept a money package from Major League Baseball in exchange for dropping its opposition to a team in Washington, Stetka said, “That’s all way down the road, and I can’t speculate on anything until anything definitive from MLB comes to us.”
MLB’s Courtney agreed, saying baseball has not determined if it will go through with relocation to strengthen the markets some teams play in. “In [DuPuy’s] opinion, he just thought there’d be a team in Washington at some point. It wasn’t like, ‘this is Major League Baseball’s opinion,’ though he is [chief operating officer] of baseball.”
Proponents of public financing of private initiatives – including using subsidies to construct sports facilities – generally assert that downtown ballparks lead to urban revitalization.
Lord supports the notion of stadiums as centers of economic growth, pointing to Baltimore’s Orioles Park and the adjacent football stadium, PSINet Field. “Take away those two ballparks and the Inner Harbor, and what do they have?” Lord said. “The Inner Harbor is beautiful, and those [parks] have revitalized the area. Look at the surrounding areas around the parks, and look what has been done.”
But Zimbalist and Utt dispute the economic gain theory.
“The two stadiums are wonderful tourist places, but they have done nothing for the city of Baltimore,” Utt said. “It is palpably absurd to think otherwise. Walk in any direction [from Camden Yards] but towards Harbor Place, and you’ll find bona-fide slums. Stadiums don’t add much to economic vitality. The players and executives tend not to live in the community, and those that do work there generally have only part-time jobs.”
While Zimbalist agrees a team improves social vitality, he does not support heavy public financing of private ballparks. “Right now, [facilities] are financed from federal subsidies, and that’s silly,” he said. “I think modest financing is OK, but on the local level. The public has to realize it’s a consumption good [rather than a means to boost the economy].”
“It would not help the economy,” Zimbalist continued. So why place a team in Washington? “It’s enjoyable. You shouldn’t do it for economic reasons. It’s like saying, ‘why have a symphony? It’s not going to boost the economy, but enrich the culture.”
Washington’s delegate to Congress Eleanor Holmes Norton favors a city stadium for both social and economic reasons.
“Being a native Washingtonian, she’s aware of the loss that was created when the Senators left,” said Doxie McCoy, Norton’s press secretary. “A team would boost the whole spirit of the District; the nation’s Capital should have a team. It’s a rallying point for our residents for both social aspects and economic aspects.”
While it is not certain that a baseball team would captivate the region as the Redskins have, Lord is confident a new ballpark would be the center for community growth, suggesting that a new Smithsonian sports museum could be added to the WBC’s plans.
“We’re looking to build potentially a ballpark village and integrate it into the community,” he said. “This isn’t about making money, it’s about giving back to the city.”
IF MLB determines to move a team to the metro area, it will be interesting if the decision comes down to a “‘city versus suburb” debate. Baseball, after all, has never indicated that urban revitalization is one of the sport’s priorities.
There is doubt, of course, that a team will inhabit either Washington or Northern Virginia by 2003, but the region is more than ready to re-enter the small fraternity of cities that house Major League Baseball teams.
“Major League Baseball is very familiar with Bill Collins and his partners,” Burkot said. “He has owned minor league teams with the Yankees, Cardinals, Red Sox and Astros. We haven’t been as visible and vocal in the media in the past several years, but we’ve been working behind the scenes and kept in touch with people with Major League Baseball.”
As for the District, Lord put it this way: “Both the city and our group want a private-public partnership. There are ways that the city can contribute, that will help revitalize parts of the city. We have a strong mayor who supports our effort.”
Written for the New Bedford Standard-Times in New Bedford, Mass.
