burlingtonbandit

Lol @ the Jets.

I'm sure corporate Montreal would care now as the $ in professional sports is crazy right now. The city has a huge population and even if there are a lot of French people that don't care there is still a pretty big fan base. As someone who lives in Ottawa right now I could see myself making the trip down quite a bit to see some games as its a lot easier to go there for a day or 2 then Toronto. There were many reasons why the Expos failed but things are a lot different in the current landscape for it to not work. The TV contract I am sure would be more than enough to ensure the team does well financially. I know the Blue Jays own the rights for Canada but would Montreal have the rights to Eastern Ontario and the Maritimes?

I could see the Saints coming through. Completely different team at home then on the road. Not betting anything but I could see Indy beating Pit pretty big. The Defence has been lights out lately but this could be a trap game and Pit pull out the victory. Public is heavily on the Colts though too.

They wouldn't need it to be successful. The TV deal if you include the French and English one would probably be worth $80 Million per year. Even if they drew an average in the 25-30k range they would still be making a ton of money.

Dallas games are ridiculous. 8 GP and 29 GF and 29 GA.

If I was a Leafs fan I would probably just cheer for the team to lose at this point. Then you can scapegoat the coach and get someone better and in the process get a good draft pick in a stacked draft class.

Lol Sabres beat SJ at home. Has to be the biggest upset of the season.

But baseball has a good shot at being successful because it would be easier to build a winner in baseball than basketball in Montreal. Also if they are in the AL East they will get 27 sellouts/year with Yankees/Red Sox/Blue Jays. Montreal is actually a pretty close drive to New York and Boston so there is a natural rivalry there too. You can't say Montreal with a new stadium wouldn't be less successful than 10 franchises in the MLB right now.

The difference is a lot bigger than basketball is a growing sport and baseball is not. Montreal would not support a losing basketball team which it would be because no good players are going to want to play in Montreal. It would be Vancouver all over again. Determining whether a sports team is going to be successful is a lot more different then how many buts you get in the seats. TV numbers would be great for a Montreal baseball team as there is nothing else going on in the summer there. Basketball would have to compete with the Habs which wouldn't even be close. The only thing basketball has an advantage of is the arena already being built. All moot points really because a basketball team is never going to go to Montreal as Seattle, Kansas City and even Vancouver would get a team first. Even baseball in Montreal has a slim chance of happening in the next 5 years.

Regular Season starts Tuesday and Raps starts Wednesday.

I'm just telling you how bad of an idea that is. There is also no way Montreal would rather have basketball then baseball. The crowd last night at the Raps game was quiet until the last 2 min and Habs dominate Montreal in the winter time.

Raps waive Cherry and Hamilton. Hamilton had a good preseason but they needed the depth at Centre.

Um they got 100,000 people for 2 Exhibition games? Thats more than the Rays would get in 3 playoff games. You are underestimating the Montreal market for baseball. Before the strike happened baseball was huge in Montreal and there has been a lot of time since the strike that I think people would forget about it and support the team. And even if you are not to high on the Montreal market, it is so much better than the Tampa market you would get an upgrade no matter what. Add in the fact there are 2 French broadcasting companies that would drive up the price of the regional deal as well as TSN looking for content and it would be one of the more valuable TV deals. That would be a terrible idea. NBA would not work as there isn't one American NBA player that would want to live in Montreal in the winter. NBA players already don't like Toronto because of the winter and its 3x colder in Montreal. Add in a different language and higher taxes and it becomes the least desirable place to play in the NBA. MLB you can control players for 6 years so the system works but NBA players have so much control of where they play that the team would be stuck at the bottom forever.

First of all they played in the shittiest stadium in the MLB. Obviously Montreal would have to build a brand new downtown stadium for them to move there but if that gets done then baseball will be successful in Montreal. The Big Owe was in a terrible location and the strike put a damper on baseball in the city. But if you look at the situation right now there are a ton of baseball fans in Montreal. If they move to the AL East with the Jays, Yankees and Red Sox you could count on sellouts for 3/4 of division games.

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/madden-rays-rocked-frustrated-joe-maddon-opts-walk-article-1.1986150 Obviously this doesn't mean the Rays are moving to Montreal tomorrow but it is definitely encouraging. Clearly the owner is frustrated with Tampa and Friedman and Maddon leaving might actually be good for the franchise if they can expedite leaving town to Montreal. As much as Tampa has lost in the last 2 weeks they still have a pretty good group of players and Montreal could support a payroll of at least $100 Million.

Thank god the preseason is over. Excited to watch the Association this year.

Hemsky had more SOG tonight then he did all season before this game.

Willing to trade young guys like Nelson +picks if it can get me a more established forward.

If only I had that game...I got ridiculously good at NHL 14 on PS3. Edit: Why the f*** are you following Ryan Goins on Twitter lol.

I wonder if the Rays bench coach will be the new manager. He seems like a good candidate to replace Maddon. I wonder where Maddon is going if LA is sticking to Mattingly.

If success is determined by the playoffs like you said, the Blue Jays are 1 of only 6 teams to have won the World Series more than once in the last 20 years. Now, I don't believe playoff success determines if the team was successful but merely stating what you are determining what success means to you.

Still better than Buffalo.

Not just him, but the Wild look great early on. The West is scary good. Meanwhile in the East..Buffalo and Carolina fight for McDavid.

Yup, same with the golf course.

The thing I don't understand with the Jays ticket prices is how they don't have dynamic pricing for single game tickets. The "regular" and "premium" pricing is a terrible strategy. There is no way a Friday game vs the White Sox is worth the same price as the home opener, Canada day game or even any Saturday vs the Yankees or the Red Sox. I wonder if this is the year they finally switch to dynamic pricing offering more pricing levels then just 2. To be honest I don't mind it because I will still buy a 20 ticket flex pack and pick the best games to go and in the event I can't go re-sell them for double what I paid. If the Blue Jays want to make more money they really need a new President who isn't running a pro sports franchise like its still the 90s.