Portland Mayor-Elect Keith Wilson is optimistic about his city’s chances of landing a Major League Baseball franchise in the future.
“I’d say this is as close as we’ve come,” Wilson said during an appearance on a local television show, according to The Oregonian. “We feel confident it’s down to us and one other city. And we’re making a solid play.”
It’s unclear which other city Wilson has in mind — Nashville would seem to be an obvious candidate — but Portland’s desire to enter the baseball industry is nothing new. CBS Sports reported on the Portland Diamond Project’s attempts at landing a team as far back as 2019. In September, the PDP announced plans to buy property on which to build a stadium at Zidell Yards on the South Waterfront.
“With the trends that we’re seeing, like with the Battery in Atlanta, these ballparks can truly be transformational for a bigger idea than just baseball,” PDP founder and president Craig Cheek told CBS Sports five years ago about his vision for Portland’s ballpark plans.
Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred has previously suggested he would like to begin the expansion process before his term ends in 2029. Manfred has long indicated that he would wait until after the situations with the Athletics and Tampa Bay Rays are resolved before shifting gears toward expansion.
The A’s appear en route to a solution, having relocated from Oakland to Sacramento this winter as part of a multi-year layover that will eventually land them in Las Vegas. The Rays, meanwhile, continue to represent a headache for all parties involved.
MLB has not expanded since 1998, when it introduced the Rays and the Arizona Diamondbacks to give the league an even 30 teams.
