According to authors Andy McCue and Eric Thompson, "The less financially successful clubs in two-team cities were finding it increasingly difficult to compete" by the early 1950s.
[1] In addition, population changes in the United States were leading to many citizens moving away from the Northeast, where many MLB teams were based, to southern and western locations.
Actor Gene Autry led a group that paid $2.1 million for the right to place an MLB team in Los Angeles.
[6] Autry, who owned radio stations, had been seeking to acquire a contract to broadcast baseball games when he traveled to MLB's Winter Meetings.
The Los Angeles team was initially scheduled to begin play in 1962, but a relocation plan elsewhere in the AL resulted in the start date being moved up to 1961.
[16][17] George Weiss was the president of the team, and seven-time World Series championship-winning manager Casey Stengel was hired to lead the Mets on the field.
[19] Tom Yawkey arranged a meeting of the owners during a convention, during which the league agreed to accelerate the expansion process and assured that Kansas City would be granted a new franchise to begin play no later than the 1969 season.
Because of failed attempts to attract existing teams, Seattle instead tried to lobby for an expansion franchise at the 1967 owners' meetings in Chicago.
[21] Coupled with Symington's threats related to the move of the Kansas City Athletics, the political influence swayed the American League owners.
[20] In December 1967 at the Winter Meetings in Mexico City, the franchise was officially awarded to Pacific Northwest Sports, led by Dewey Soriano, which received $5.5 million in funding from William R. Daley, who thus had 47% ownership of the venture.
[24] Several influential owners pledged their support for a Montreal franchise in that meeting, including Walter O'Malley, Roy Hofheinz, and John Galbreath.
[23] Because of the slow pace of progress in meeting commitments, Jean-Louis Lévesque withdrew his financial support in the franchise on July 31, 1968.
On May 27, 1968, the National League officially awarded a franchise to San Diego to commence play in the 1969 season[24] for a fee of $12.5 million for the team.
The most prominent was Labatt Brewing Company, who wanted to use ownership of a sports team as a means to establish a visible presence in the Toronto market.
[36] Soon after in February 1976, the Labatt Brewing Company would again fail to acquire and relocate a third team, this time the San Francisco Giants.
The group selected was led by John Antonucci, an Ohio beverage distributor, and Michael I. Monus, the head of the Phar-Mor drugstore chain.
Local and regional companies—such as Erie Lake, Hensel Phelps Construction, KOA Radio, and the Rocky Mountain News—rounded out the group.
[50] Colangelo's bid received strong support from one of his friends, Chicago White Sox and Chicago Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf, and media reports say that then-acting Commissioner of Baseball and Milwaukee Brewers founder Bud Selig was also a strong supporter of Colangelo's bid.
[51] Plans were also made for a new retractable-roof ballpark, to be built in an industrial/warehouse district on the southeast edge of downtown Phoenix, one block from the Suns' America West Arena (now Footprint Center).
[52][53] Similarly, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays gave away their rights to $5 million from baseball's central fund for each of the five years following expansion (1998–2002).
The suit that was launched in response to the failed 1993 expansion was settled in 2003, five years after the Devil Rays began play in the American League.
[56][58] After Sportico estimated the average value of an MLB franchise to be $2.2 billion in April 2021, Manfred called it a "lodestar" for negotiations for an expansion fee for the team's new owners.
[64] By July, the Rays new ballpark was officially approved by the Pinellas County Commission in a 5–2 vote ensuring that the team will stay put in the Tampa Bay area.
[75] The group initially sought land for a stadium by the Cumberland River,[74] but as of June 2022 was focused on North Nashville near Tennessee State University.
[78] The group has proposed building a 45,000-capacity domed stadium on a 35.5-acre (14.4 ha) lot near the Orange County Convention Center along with 1,000 hotel rooms, estimating a cost of $1.7 billion.
The Oregon Legislative Assembly passed Senate Bill 5 in 2003, which could provide $150 million in public funds towards building a stadium.
[87] In 2023, PDP had shifted focus and was considering sites at the Lloyd Center shopping mall in downtown Portland or the Redtail Golf Course in neighboring Beaverton.
[89] On September 23, 2024, PDP announced that they had signed a letter of intent to purchase Zidell Yards, a former industrial waterfront in the South Portland neighborhood.
They also announced their partnership with Rocky Mountain Power to develop a 100-acre (40 ha) lot on the city's west side for a stadium.
[96] On February 15, 2024, the Larry H. Miller company announced that they plan to invest at least $3.5 billion towards the lot, bringing mixed-use development to the area, including a baseball stadium.