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Originally Posted by austintilIdie
Of course Austin baseball fans were not a big substantial portion of the Missions fan base...but before the Express, the Missions were the only pro baseball team in Central Texas.. within an hour, hour and a half of Austin. Either way, if SA or Austin lands a MLB team down the line, fans from either city will attend....because it beats taking the time to go to Houston or Arlington. My only hope is that of Austin gets a team at some point, we do it right.
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A potential MLB team in Austin could still pull some fans from San Antonio in more ways than just putting them in seats. Yes, there are Spurs fans in Austin. There are a few that would drive in to see games regularly, but there is a larger number who are fans who buy merchandise, watch games on TV, keep up with the team, etc. The metros, while not in the same, still have a decent amount of influence on each other. I would think it is safe to say that the population of Waco and up would most closely identify with the Texas Rangers as their MLB team of choice, and while this is clearly not in DFW metro, it is still good amount of population that would support the team in some way. As stated earlier, whether a new pro sports team is in SA or ATX, there will be some form of overlap in fan base. I am not saying we will see it in the near future, but I see an MLB team eventually going to one city or the other. I believe it to be a very small chance of something going in between. As someone who has lived in San Marcos, Austin, and San Antonio and routinely makes the trip back in forth, San Antonio and Austin are awkwardly placed in terms of distance to each other. If the urban cores were about 15-20 miles closer the dynamics would be much different.
One more point as a native San Antonian: San Antonio is obsessed with the Cowboys supports them in many ways. (Give Jerry Jones credit) As complete outsider, you would have no idea that they are not a local team when watching local TV coverage. SA and Dallas are 275 miles apart.