Salt Lake City officials wants major league baseball

There have been talks about Major League Baseball possibly expanding to Utah and it is very likely to happen. Rob Manfred, the commissioner of the MLB, has said himself that he would love to get 32 teams in the MLB.

But before any of this can happen some things have to change. With the Oakland Athletics and Tampa Bay Rays searching for a relocation (the Athletics are in talks with Las Vegas), the commissioner has said that those two teams have to relocate before another team gets added. 

Salt Lake is due for a brand-new baseball team, The owner of the Salt Lake Bees, who is a minor league team for the Los Angeles Angels, just last year was averaging about 6,000 people attending the games. This was the 18th highest in Minor League baseball.

With that being done, they are trying to build a brand-new stadium for the Bees which they are planning to open in 2025, this just shows the potential Salt Lake has. Larry H. Miller, who is the owner of the Utah Jazz, is the one who is pushing the most for this to happen. His company said they want the stadium to be built on the Rocky Mountain Power District property and is currently breaking ground. The RMP property is located on the west end of Salt Lake City, near the state fair park. 

As of right now Salt Lake is on top for most likely to get a team in the west and it looks like they’re only competition is Portland. Other places likely to get a team in the East include Tennessee and North Carolina. 

With the expansion of the MLB there would be some changes including Each division would include 4 teams per league, as for now there are 5 per league. With teams being added would there be more games played in a year? Now they are playing 162 games but it could increase. There would also have to be a new system of getting new players if another team got added, because when the team gets added, they are going to have no players. The team is going to be in a building stage for some years and who knows how long that could take. But soon enough Utah is going to be able to watch a lot of baseball with a possible addition of a new team in a brand new $2 billion stadium.