If the opinions of current Major League Baseball players are any indication, Salt Lake City may have an uphill battle in landing a team, which a Larry H. Miller Company-led consortium known as “Big League Utah” is looking to do.
Last month, The Athletic published a survey of 103 MLB players in which they were asked a variety of questions, from “If you were starting a team today, who is the first player you would sign?” (Los Angeles Angels star Shohei Ohtani won in a landslide) to “What is the best potential expansion city?,” among others.
On that expansion question, players could choose among the following:
- Nashville, Tennessee.
- Portland, Oregon.
- Montreal, Canada.
- Oakland, California (it is expected that the Oakland Athletics will be moving to Las Vegas, Nevada).
- Other.
Nashville won easily, garnering 69% of the vote. Salt Lake City came in a tie for sixth with Vancouver, getting 2% of the vote.
That was behind Montreal (10%); Charlotte, North Carolina (5%); Austin, Texas (5%); and Portland (4%).
Three other cities received at least one vote: Orlando, Florida; Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina; and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The Athletic noted that numerous players could see a problem of too many teams in that area of the United States if Nashville gets a team, while Portland — widely seen as Salt Lake City’s primary competition for a team if MLB wants to add one in the West and one in the East — was called “polarizing.”