Professional Baseball or Basketball - what would do better here?
 

Just a quick poll - do you think a MLB team or a NBA team returning to Vancouver would be successful - and which team would be better.

Let's assume they have an average team on the field/court, and an average owner in both cases.

For a variety of reasons, most of which have been discussed on this forum, an MLB team would never work in Vancouver.

It would be interesting to see if baseball gained popularity in China, if it would have any impact on popularity here.

Add "neither" as a poll option, and I'll be able to give my $0.02.

The NFL would do well here. Of course this would mean the death of the BC Lions.

"More" suggests a relative equation and not an absolute so your option of neither would make no logical sense.

:shrug:

Anyway I voted basketball as I'm pretty sure a team today would be one of the more successful ones in the league.

Where's the Baseketball option?

http://www.impawards.com/1998/posters/baseketball.jpg

Both.

2.6 million in the lower mainland. People want more than just hockey and football.

Probably Basketball, but I'd rather see Baseball. Basketball would be much much easier as a sufficient venue already exists, but it would have to compete in the same season as the Canucks. I think we're just fine the way we are. A Triple-A baseball team linked either to the Mariners or Jays would be great.

Ah the good ol' NBL...

Are people too old to remember basketball attempt no. 1? Even if we got competent management, uneducated ghetto Americans see Vancouver as Siberia. Even Toronto can't keep talent and they are much "better" geographically and melanin-y.

From Steve Francis's wiki: "He publicly announced that he did not want to play for the Grizzlies, citing the distance from his Maryland home, taxes, endorsements, and God's will."

Toronto was mentioned in a few songs by Lil Wayne, Drake, etc. to name a few. Vancouver? Um... Moka Only has a song about the Canada Line.

It's called marketing.

And what players hasn't toronto kept.


Carter was here for some time
Bosh was here for some time.

McGrady was not traded because of the market, because he was in the shadow of Carter

So what players has Toronto not kept.

The appeal of MLB in Vancouver should not be underestimated. Baseball has always been a very popular and widely-played sport in Vancouver, which has hosted either a high-level or major league-affiliated professional team since the 1920s. And Vancouver has always been a hotbed of baseball talent, sending an inordinate number of players to the major leagues. Of the current Canadian players in MLB, a strong plurality come from Metro Vancouver. Little League and competitive youth baseball is highly developed in British Columbia. In fact, British Columbia became the first place outside of the U.S. to join Little League Baseball, joining in 1951. Langley has sent a team to the World Series in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania almost every year for the last decade, including this year again. Langley home-grown boy Matt Lawrie is causing a sensation in Toronto. Thousands of Lower Mainland residents have been travelling 3 hours down to Seattle each night this week to see Lawrie and the Blue Jays, making Safeco Field feel more like a home game for the Jays than for the Mariners. (Watch tonight's game to see what I mean.) A Vancouver MLB team featuring a young Canadian star from the Lower Mainland could be a very potent and popular enterprise.

I have trouble imagining MLB in Vancouver...

What would be a sufficient attendance and viewership to be considered a "success"? 20,000 per weekday game? 30,000? Would a TV viewership of 100,000 be sufficient to justify televising most games?

The Grizzlies averaged around 60,000 viewers per TV game (about 3/4 of games were televised) and about 16,000 attendance for 40 home games. Those numbers were above average for the league most years.

MLB would have more than twice as many games and triple the stadium capacity.

I just don't see how there would be enough revenue to pay team salaries and expenses and generate a small profit.

Exactly....

There's an important distinction between the novelty of a 3-game series in which (say 5,000) fans make the trip across the border for the Blue Jays versus an 81-game home schedule in which attendance needs to average over 20,000 per game at a minimum to make it viable. In fact, most people I know that wind up going to Mariners games will do so once every couple years as a novelty, but aren't die-hard baseball fans.

Do you really think that a small-market city like Vancouver with a variety of outdoor summer activities and a large Asian population that doesn't care about baseball can generate the same level of attendance as Seattle? or even Toronto?

It's a much different game than football or basketball, since it is played in the summer and has a much longer schedule. MLB is much better suited to American cities where there is nothing better to do. It's just difficult to sustain interest for 81 home dates.

I could go on an on about economic feasibility, Vancouver's weather etc etc, but I honestly would put money that we would get an NBA franchise, or even NFL, before MLB.

Koreans and Taiwanese like their baseball.

Vancouver has been mentioned in songs by Nicki Minaj, and the Outlaws ft Tupac. Canadian artists don't count because if they did every song of Kardinal Offishal would have 30 references to T.O. :P

Oh and Basketball because we have the stadium and even when we had a crappy team the stadium still had close to 10,000 people in it. Now good teams in the states can't draw that many sometimes. Both the NBA and MLB product has been lacking for a while.

I think both pro basketball and pro baseball would do well here (major leagues, of course). But because baseball has no salary cap, I would find it hard for a professional baseball franchise here in Van, to compete with the likes of the other franchises in MLB. It would have to go through the Blue Jays of building young, and keeping the core together. With that being said, I think basketball would have a better chance of succeeding the second time around. I know some people here in Van, are still bitter about the 6 disasterous seasons - but let's forget the past, and embrace the future, and not complain about what was, but have enough vision to see what could be. I'd be thrilled if an NBA franchise came to Vancouver, and of course, for that franchise to be managed well (not like the Stu Jackson era). People will give it a chance, if management is competent, and they see gradual improvements (we didn't see that when the Grizzlies were here - it was 6 seasons of tremendous losses, 19 in a row at one point).

I'd love to see both MLB and NBA here in this beautiful town of ours.

One bonus for baseball is their season doesn't overlap with the Canucks. Imagine how much attention the "Grizzlies" would have got in Vancouver last year? Yes, baseball would also hurt for the first part of the season, but it wraps up the regular season right when the NHL resumes, and a Vancouver MLB team in the playoffs would likely dominate the sports media for the month of October if it were to happen.

It will always be a hockey-first City. That's a given, but #2 is up for grabs. Sorry, the CFL still isn't "major-league" and the MLS is a bit higher than the CFL due to the fact it's an American league mostly. But I think a Vancouver MLB team run properly in an awesome ball park could easily grab the #2 spot. Basketball would do well also, BUT they are always going to be facing up against the Canucks.