Major League Baseball (MLB) could be set to add at least one more franchise from Canada as the Toronto Blue Jays go into Game Four of the 2025 World Series against the LA Dodgers, down 2-1.
Expansion talks of the MLB have been further fuelled over the past few weeks, with Commissioner Rob Manfred throwing further fuel to the fire.
According to Front Office Sports, Manfred said: “There are certainly other cities in Canada (beyond Montreal) that would be viable expansion candidates.”
The Blue Jays remain the only MLB franchise based outside of the US, but are the second Canadian team to have entered the league in 2005 the Montreal Expos relocated to Washington DC to become the Washington Nationals.
Montreal remains one of the frontrunners to secure a new MLB franchise as part of the league’s expansion plans before Manfred’s term as Commissioner ends in 2029.
However, he has recently stated he won’t continue expansion plans until the Tampa Bay Rays complete a deal for a new ballpark.
“We’re not going to be on the field, obviously, but I’d like to have the teams picked,” said Manfred. “I’m pretty comfortable with the idea that something good is going to happen in the Tampa Bay region.”
MLB expansion
The last expansion teams to join the MLB was more than 25 years ago in 1998 when the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Rays became the 29th and 30th franchises to take the league’s total teams to 30.
Since then, unlike the NBA and NFL, the MLB has remained committed to its 30 team league structure. However, with Manfred becoming increasingly likely to increase this to 32 teams, he has a little under three years before his commitment in 2029 comes to the fore.
In 2021, ESPN reported that the MLB was looking within the range of $2.2bn for two new ballclubs to join the league, although there was no concrete interest in expansion at this time.
While there was no interest however, Manfred spoke in 2021 at a Sportico event and highlighted Vancouver and Montreal as two Canadian markets primed for expansion, also mentioning Las Vegas, Charlotte and Nashville.
As Manfred’s projected $2.2bn price tag was evaluated on the average valuation of MLB franchises in 2021, Sportico believes this will increase 7% from last year to $2.82bn in 2025, and no doubt continue to increase in the coming years if expansion fees become available to interested parties.
Blue Jays fly the Canadian flag
The success of the Blue Jays reaching its first World Series since 1993 will have no doubt made Canadian cities viable as the next potential landing destinations as part of any expansion plans.
The MLB will be even more buoyed over the prospects of more Canadian markets due to the high viewership numbers of games one and two of the World Series.
Game one of the 2025 World Series was watched by an average audience of seven million people in Canada, with game two averaging 6.6 million viewers. The audience of game one represented more than one-sixth of the 41 million population of Canada.
