Fangraphs: What would MLB Expansion look like?

[Southcack77]

Yeah, they stopped going post-strike for the reasons cited in my post. Screwed over potential WS title by the strike, then immediate sell-off of all the team's best players. MLB takes over management and runs the team into the ground. Would you have gone to those games? Before expansion, they had a very successful AAA team, the Royals. Cursory history, dating back to 19th century:

http://collections.musee-mccord.qc....eme&tableid=11&elementid=63__true&contentlong

Compare that with here. A Braves pitcher goes down with TJ, and you'd think this was the only team ever affected by it. Then a 23-page thread, full of childish rants, on a minor trade. The turnstiles haven't exactly been overflowing in Atlanta. Think it's pretty obvious which franchise's fans had more reason to be pissed.

I don't really recall Les Expos having great attendance most of their history.

 

[Knucksie]

I don't really recall Les Expos having great attendance most of their history.

Yes, no doubt you just sit around and memorize every team's annual attendance figures. (We need a roll eyes emoji here.)
Anyway, here it is:
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/teams/montattn.shtml

A new relatively park/stadium with a good team does wonders! See bump after Olympics with exception of '81 strike year with split season (yes, they had legitimate WS ambitions then, but got screwed over that time too. So it happened twice.) A beautiful downtown park with a consistently good team would've easily drawn people with their summer festivals, which attract millions of visitors. (Having visited the city 20x, speak some conversational French with the locals and reading their papers...but, hey, what do I know?)

If we really wanted a point of reference, we could see how abyssmal Braves attendance figures were during the Dark Days, then after World Series appearances ceased...and especially the last few years. (Hear birds chirping.) As much an entitled, fair weather fan base as there is in baseball. Yet, we had to hear cries of "small market" from Atlanta while the Expos paid their players in US dollars, while the Canadian dollar was tanking.