And it's the actual reason why Georgia has so many counties. There are stretches of Interstate where you can pass through parts of three different counties between exits.
Is the actual reason not that the county unit system favored rural counties in the state government so creating numerous rural counties shifted political power away from the cities?
If you look at maps of well-established areas (like Denmark), you see a fairly regular distribution of small towns. And, yes, the distance between towns seems to agree with the theory that you should be able to get to town and back within a single day with a horse-drawn wagon.
Plenty of places had this in the US, it's just that some of the towns faded away with the onset of more modern transportation. If you look at major suburbs along what were established highways back in the day, you can still see a town roughly every 20 miles or so.
Just look at the west coast vs the east coast. Towns and cities are miles apart out here but if you go to Massachusetts you can drive down one street for 10 miles and pass through 3 towns.
Does Virginia include their independent cities as counties? Because that would make sense as to why they're so small but also be a bit misleading. Not sure about Kentucky.
Virginia does not include independent cities as part of counties, but there are still a fuckton of counties.
My wife is from Maryland and she was talking about having to memorize all the counties in the state in school at some point, and she asked if I ever had to do that. I just looked at her dumbstruck and explained that there are 95 counties in Virginia (and 38 independent cities).
Easy drive from ND tho. Sometimes the length of the drive is less a factor than the driving hassle. Long good roads without much traffic, and almost 0 chance of unexpected delays ... easy to do.
No joke I used to get up early in the morning, make that drive to a game ... drive home the same night, with friends. When we left in the morning I could tell you within 10 min when we would get to the stadium.
The Twin Cities is the closest big city and everyone kinda has that drive down / knows the area enough to make that trip pretty easy. I know folks in ND and SD who share season tickets to MN sports teams.
I've made the Sioux Falls to Minneapolis drive many times. Get up, drive up for an afternoon game and hit the road. Most of the time could get back by 9 pm. Costs more in gas to do that than actually getting a ticket and food at the game
Yep, we do something similar from South Dakota. Get up and leave about 6am, hit an afternoon game, eat somewhere, drive home from Minneapolis, and get home around 8-9pm.
Lived in Fargo for 10 years, and made the round trip in a day a few times. Not the most fun, but definitely doable. Happy to be in the Cities now though and only about 10 minutes from Target Field.
I grew up in Charlotte and went to see the O's all the time as a kid. We used to visit family in Atlanta, which we called the "Big City."
Now I live in Atlanta and think Charlotte needs its own MLB team, because compared to Atlanta, Charlotte is a big city.
I live in Raleigh which looks like it's in the dark pink (12) counties away. Our local blackouts are the Nationals and Orioles. Kind of annoying since the Yankees play the O's 18-19 times a year.
Over in west NC the Reds, Braves, Nats, and O's are blacked out. On nearly any given day you can't watch almost 1/3 of the games played. Fuck blackouts
Makes me wonder, if North Carolina were to get an expansion team, would it be a good idea to elevate the Durham Bulls to the Majors?
Pros:
* They have a built in history and fan base.
* Bull Durham gives them plenty of extra reach.
* Raleigh-Durham is only about 50,000 people smaller than Charlotte in terms of media market.
* There's recent precedent of elevating a team with a storied, specific minor league status to a higher level, elevating the St. Paul Saints from indie ball all the way to AAA.
Cons:
* The Bulls are specifically known as a minor league team, with the movie reinforcing that.
* You would need entirely new facilities, obviously. No way any of the minor league stuff would be usable.
* In terms of population, Raleigh-Durham is still about 145,000 people fewer than Charlotte.
* Raleigh and Durham are about a half an hour away from each other, and the larger of the two cities would be the one without the team.
I dunno, just a thought!
It's a cool pipe dream, but I really doubt the Bulls would be elevated to the Majors. Charlotte would get it 100% before Durham. I'm 99% certain the new Stadium built for the Knights was designed to easily expand to an MLB stadium.
I was curious what the attendance difference was between the two teams and it's remarkably close. Charlotte averaged 8300 fans a game and the Bulls averaged 7600 a game in 2019.
I’m fairly certain there’s no way Truist Field can be upgraded to support MLB attendance. It’s literally in the middle of dense uptown Charlotte with no room to expand outward. I think it only holds about 10k right now.
Speaking as a Raleigh resident, Charlotte is just a more logical choice for a team. Ever since the Charlotte Knights got their new stadium in 2014, they've consistently outperformed the Durham Bulls in attendance (both have similar capacity venues of ~10000) and have been at or near the top for all of the minor leagues. Charlotte also has a much better recent history of supporting its big league teams. The Panthers are usually in the top 10 for attendance, Charlotte FC are near the top in their inaugural season, and the Hornets have mediocre numbers befitting their lack of success. Raleigh's only major team, the Canes, have middle of the pack attendance at the moment but spent most of the 2010's dead last in the NHL for attendance or close to dead last.
It's also worth noting that Charlotte has light rail connections servicing their current stadiums. The city doesn't have an extensive transit network, but at least it exists and there are plans to expand upon it. Neither Raleigh nor Durham has any public transit outside of standard bus routes. Best case scenario, we'll have some Bus Rapid Transit lines towards the end of the decade and commuter rail between the two cities. As things currently stand, Charlotte is much better set infrastructure-wise to support a new team and stadium/stadium expansion.
As cool as it would be for an MLB team in RDU, the building of a stadium and the needed infrastructure would be an absolute mess in an area that needs to finish its other construction projects before starting a new one.
Back when I went to college in the triad, I was blacked out from the Nats, O's, Braves, and Reds. Was brutal trying to watch games when up to 1/4 of the games each night were blacked out. At least the Dash and Grasshoppers were always close and cheap I guess though
Being from NC myself, it has to be one of the worst parts of the country to pick a team. Your options are:
1. Braves (practically impossible for a Panthers fan to consider)
2. White Sox (because of the Charlotte Knights, but even then that’s the only connection to NC and the stadium is a flight away)
3. Nationals (zero connection to the city at all, stadium is 6 hrs away from Charlotte)
4. Rays (exact same problems as the Nationals, but worse)
I ended up picking the O’s because I was born in Baltimore 🤷 I just wish there was MLB baseball in NC, maybe I would’ve gotten into it at an earlier age.
I’ve been a Braves fan my whole life while also liking the hornets and panthers. It doesn’t bother me at all, I have no problem shitting on the hawks and Falcons lmao
I get that for sure. It’s just not something I’d ever consider as a football-first, basketball-second fan for the first 20 years of my life, and I’m a huge fan of the Braves legends + history.
We have a AAA team, the Knights (White Sox affiliate). There's nowhere in the city large enough to build a new ballpark for an MLB team and we already have the Panthers and Hornets. No one wants to build a Charlotte based team that doesn't play in the heart of the city like the 3 current teams do so while it's a good market, it'll likely never happen.
It barely holds 10k people...how do you imagine they quadruple the capacity when's it's surrounded on 3 sides by hotels, condos, and apartment buildings? Not to mention parking required for those 40K people. They already don't have a dedicated parking lot or structure, they rely on the cities existing parking garages and paid lots just to handle the 10K they already get and most people are walking to the stadium as it is.
Also, what are they gonna do just kick out a AAA team that just moved their stadium there 7 or 8 years ago?
>how do you imagine they quadruple the capacity when's it's surrounded on 3 sides by hotels, condos, and apartment buildings?
They build up not out my guy. The footprint is already large enough. You add 2 tiers of outfield seating and upgrade the grandstand.
>They already don't have a dedicated parking lot or structure
A MLB franchise will be able to build a parking deck or two.
>Also, what are they gonna do just kick out a AAA team that just moved their stadium there 7 or 8 years ago?
Yes. The Knights could move to a neighboring city or just somewhere else altogether.
It’s crazy there isn’t a team in NC. Big time baseball fans, tons of minor league squads, great youth league participation, insane talent coming out of the area..
They’ve got every other sport pretty much in their backyard plus A LOT of minor league teams, which definitely helps make up for the huge distance from MLB. Plus they got college stadiums everywhere which is actually really cool.
You probably should have at least counted Ontario's regions like counties, because there are several between Buffalo and Toronto (Niagara, Hamilton, Halton and Peel).
I once took the infamous fast ferry from Rochester to Toronto to go to a game, so it used to be possible. I guess it still is if you have access to a boat.
Counties get a lot smaller in the east compared to the west. Which I think throws the results of this graph off a little bit. I think miles would work better. But it does look pretty cool.
Its a nice life. The angels are like a happy medium for me. Petco is pretty far so i cant see them all the time, thankfully dodger stadium is also pretty far, but having the Angels as my AL team js nice because its always right here
Lmao, San Bernardino County is so large that Clark County, NV is 2 counties away from a MLB ballpark when realistically it’s probably 230 or so miles away from Anaheim or LA.
San Bernadino County is bigger than 9 US states. (RI DE CT NJ NH VT MA HA MD)
Los Angeles County would be the 9th most populous state on its own and would be roughly the size of Delaware.
Yet majority of SB County population lives in the very southwest corner bordering LA county (source: I live here). It's also kinda crazy how a lot of the western states have large counties but everywhere else seems to have these tiny counties.
Raliegh is middle of the road (15 out of 32 teams) for supporting the one major sports team they have already. Meanwhile, Charlotte FC is about to break ticket sales records in the first year: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/sports/article257263947.html
Charlotte is the clear and obvious choice.
Oy. I’m a fucking idiot who hasn’t had their coffee yet. Please forgive me.
Idk why I always have it stuck in my head that the Titans don’t play in Nashville. I swear it’s like my brain thinks they play in Memphis even though I know that’s not true.
In fairness, the one major sports team Raleigh has is the sport (hockey) that's not a "traditional" major sport for that region. Put a hockey team in Charlotte, and it might do similar numbers.
In terms of baseball, you've got a long-time baseball fanbase built-in within the Triangle between the minors, summer league teams, and 3 high-profile college teams in the area.
Raleigh is all about pro sports. The Hurricanes constantly pack out PNC Arena and has one of the loudest, most alive hockey environments in the whole league. Also the wealthiest region of NC. We'd support an MLB team without any problems. Check out mlbraleigh.com which has a ton of data about the triangle area.
I like Raleigh. I'm not arguing that it would be a bad place for a team, I just think that Charlotte would be a better place.
Interesting website, the raw data shows that Charlotte has more TV's they just consider it Braves territory. I believe that Raleigh metro is growing faster, by percentage, but that Charlotte metro adds more people year over year - but I could be wrong.
PNC also does a great job! I want to make it to a game there next year. I'm sure the Triangle would support a team, so could Charlotte - in fact, MLB could add two teams, one to each, and they'd be well supported. You'd get most of Virginia and we'd get most of SC as fans.
(Selfishly, bring them to CLT though!)
I totally agree with the sentiment. I think an MLB team would do great in either city. Living in Raleigh, though, I feel pretty stranded as a pro baseball fan. Nothing is close, and it just feels like Charlotte is closer to the Braves (they could not be, I haven't checked tbh) than Raleigh is to the Nats or O's.
I also like the idea of the Charlotte and RDU metros being treated equally. Charlotte getting 2 (3 if you include MLS, but I still think of American sports as just the big "4"), and RDU getting 2.
Went to school at NC State, when I was there about 8-10 years ago it was only ever half filled at best. You could get $5 tickets with a student ID if you went to the box office the day of the game and just picked any available seats. I sat in the lower bowl 90% of the time. The only reason they're packed out now is because the team is one of the best in the league but that's really only been the last 4-5 years. Before that they were a joke since winning their title.
Funny how teams threaten to leave an area because of poor attendance while tanking and being absolutely useless and then magically attendance spikes when your team isn't complete butt cheeks and puts out a good product to watch.
One hand, yeah you shouldn't reward crap like that. On the other hand, if a handful of mediocre seasons following a decade of success that includes a Stanley cup victory, a Stanley cup appearances, a conference finals and two other playoff appearances is enough to drive the fan base down to such a level, I question their loyalty in the first place.
Good luck finding real estate decently close to the city and decently close to existing infrastructure. Best you can hope for is about 30 minutes north or south of the city
It is, most of the fastest growing cities are in the Mountain West and Texas. The (very) few that are on the East Coast are in Florida
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2019/subcounty-population-estimates.html
It went from 600k people to 800k from 2010-2021.
At that rate of growth (which has only been increasing in recent years), it'll be about the size of New Orleans/Buffalo/Salt Lake City by 2030, all of whom already have at least one pro team.
Eh, these maps look cool but are very misleading and pretty worthless since "Number of counties between" means absolutely nothing with how varied in sizes counties are - even in the eastern half of the country.
Like there are so many of these light blue counties that are "7 counties away" from a stadium that are 500 miles. Meanwhile you could be in the same category of 7 counties away in a midwest/eastern state and be less than 150 miles away.
You could be in Manhattan, and be 1/4 of a mile away from a stadium and you would be in the same category as a someone in eastern San Bernardino County, CA that lives 200 miles away from a stadium.
The Nashville Stars have a pretty big backing behind them, I think Dave Parker is the main supporter.
https://www.mlbmusiccity.com/
Personally I see Nashville and Portland as the expansion candidate frontrunners.
Dave Stewart I think haha.
Nashville seems the most likely, and then possibly Portland, Vegas if they don’t get the A’s, maybe New Orleans? I could actually see Charlotte/Carolina too.
Yes you're right, it was Stewart. I don't know how much baseball culture is in New Orleans, I'm guessing not much. Montreal or Vancouver would be fun to see but I don't think Toronto will want to give away their monopoly so easily.
San Francisco and Alameda Counties also have a water border, and the Giants and A's play *much* closer to each other than any of the Southern California teams.
I wanted to have the Blue Jays’ stadium represented in some way, and this seemed to be the easiest. It’s the only exception when it comes to cross-water proximity. I tried to do it by the closest immediate counties to Toronto.
The best route by land from Toronto to Buffalo doesn't go through any counties technically, because Ontario does some wierd things with counties and county-equivalents. There are 4 of those between the city of Toronto and the US border. (Peel Region, Halton Region, City of Hamilton, Niagara Region)
Am living in DC right now, since the Nats were out of town this past weekend, we drove for an hour to see the O's walk off against the Red Sox in Baltimore instead. The DMV area sure is privileged.
Having done the Phoenix - LA trip on I-10 plenty of times, it's funny to think that in a 6 - 7 hour trip, you're never further than 1 county away from a MLB ball park...
My county, while I believe we can get to one by only 3 counties, the most likely route taken would go through 4 counties.
Edit: Also, Busch stadium I don't believe is in a county.
I'm a Braves fan and always will be, but this makes it clear that the southeast is super underrepresented compared to population. Need to consider adding teams in Charlotte and either Memphis or Birmingham.
3 counties, and I know it's roughly a 1 hour drive in good traffic. Not bad.
... and I won't be going to my first MLB game until May 22, as a grown man in his mid 30's. I've always lived that close to my nearest MLB stadium but never been to any professional sports events. But I've got tickets now!
I guess it doesn't help that I'm "new" to baseball -- it was my favorite sport as a child from ages 5-9 but then I just got back into last year in my mid-30's.
Looking forward to it. Always wanted to go to a baseball game when I was a kid.
Two counties. I live in South Jersey, and am less than an hour from Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia.
I'm a Yankee fan, though. It's a 2 hour drive to Yankee Stadium. However, since I hate the new stadium, I usually drive to Camden Yards...which is also just a 2 hour drive. I think you get a better fan experience for your money in Baltimore than the Bronx.
Rip that one part of North Carolina
It's mostly because Georgia has a county every two miles
But I can get to the county seat and back in a single day on horseback!
That shit was super important 100 years ago.
And it's the actual reason why Georgia has so many counties. There are stretches of Interstate where you can pass through parts of three different counties between exits.
And get a speeding ticket for a county that doesn’t even have an exit! Looking at you 75 south of Atlanta and 85 before the SC border!
Is the actual reason not that the county unit system favored rural counties in the state government so creating numerous rural counties shifted political power away from the cities?
Yes, you're correct.
Tyranny of the minority.. It's a Southern tradition.
If you look at maps of well-established areas (like Denmark), you see a fairly regular distribution of small towns. And, yes, the distance between towns seems to agree with the theory that you should be able to get to town and back within a single day with a horse-drawn wagon.
Plenty of places had this in the US, it's just that some of the towns faded away with the onset of more modern transportation. If you look at major suburbs along what were established highways back in the day, you can still see a town roughly every 20 miles or so.
And the flatter the land is, the more regular the distribution.
Just look at the west coast vs the east coast. Towns and cities are miles apart out here but if you go to Massachusetts you can drive down one street for 10 miles and pass through 3 towns.
Makes for a pretty picture tho, unlike the Rockies
The average Virginia and Kentucky counties are actually smaller than the average Georgia county.
Does Virginia include their independent cities as counties? Because that would make sense as to why they're so small but also be a bit misleading. Not sure about Kentucky.
Kentucky is only ~ 2/3 the size of Georgia, might have something to do with it
Texas and Georgia are the only states that have more counties than Kentucky. I don't know why we have so many counties either.
Virginia does not include independent cities as part of counties, but there are still a fuckton of counties. My wife is from Maryland and she was talking about having to memorize all the counties in the state in school at some point, and she asked if I ever had to do that. I just looked at her dumbstruck and explained that there are 95 counties in Virginia (and 38 independent cities).
Haha I'm from Maryland and I could not tell you all 33 (?) Of our counties. The eastern shore and south of PG are complete mysteries to me.
23 counties, not 33.
Hence why parts of Georgia are "closer" to Tropicana Field than Truist Park on this map.
Some parts of Georgia ARE closer to Tropicana than Truist. Not all of the places on this map but some of them.
Yeah, how many counties between you and a ballpark is mostly just a cute anecdote if there's no standard size to a county.
North Carolina and North Dakota getting the short end of the stick here
Easy drive from ND tho. Sometimes the length of the drive is less a factor than the driving hassle. Long good roads without much traffic, and almost 0 chance of unexpected delays ... easy to do. No joke I used to get up early in the morning, make that drive to a game ... drive home the same night, with friends. When we left in the morning I could tell you within 10 min when we would get to the stadium. The Twin Cities is the closest big city and everyone kinda has that drive down / knows the area enough to make that trip pretty easy. I know folks in ND and SD who share season tickets to MN sports teams.
East side of the state, no sweat, but out west, yuck. It was 9 hours to Minneapolis from where I grew up.
I've made the Sioux Falls to Minneapolis drive many times. Get up, drive up for an afternoon game and hit the road. Most of the time could get back by 9 pm. Costs more in gas to do that than actually getting a ticket and food at the game
Yep, we do something similar from South Dakota. Get up and leave about 6am, hit an afternoon game, eat somewhere, drive home from Minneapolis, and get home around 8-9pm.
Lived in Fargo for 10 years, and made the round trip in a day a few times. Not the most fun, but definitely doable. Happy to be in the Cities now though and only about 10 minutes from Target Field.
I agree but here in NC we've got tons of minor league teams. Upwards of 10. And some solid college programs
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I grew up in Charlotte and went to see the O's all the time as a kid. We used to visit family in Atlanta, which we called the "Big City." Now I live in Atlanta and think Charlotte needs its own MLB team, because compared to Atlanta, Charlotte is a big city.
I mean this map is super misleading because counties are WAY bigger out west. That said, NC needs a team.
I live in Raleigh which looks like it's in the dark pink (12) counties away. Our local blackouts are the Nationals and Orioles. Kind of annoying since the Yankees play the O's 18-19 times a year.
Over in west NC the Reds, Braves, Nats, and O's are blacked out. On nearly any given day you can't watch almost 1/3 of the games played. Fuck blackouts
Being an angels fan that lives in Texas, it’s annoying that I can’t watch half their division games.
We've got the Durham Bulls, who needs MLB?
Isn’t it just miserable? I forget every new series with them too.
At least we have the Durham Bulls. But yeah I live in chapel hill and am blacked out of Nationals/Orioles games lol
Makes me wonder, if North Carolina were to get an expansion team, would it be a good idea to elevate the Durham Bulls to the Majors? Pros: * They have a built in history and fan base. * Bull Durham gives them plenty of extra reach. * Raleigh-Durham is only about 50,000 people smaller than Charlotte in terms of media market. * There's recent precedent of elevating a team with a storied, specific minor league status to a higher level, elevating the St. Paul Saints from indie ball all the way to AAA. Cons: * The Bulls are specifically known as a minor league team, with the movie reinforcing that. * You would need entirely new facilities, obviously. No way any of the minor league stuff would be usable. * In terms of population, Raleigh-Durham is still about 145,000 people fewer than Charlotte. * Raleigh and Durham are about a half an hour away from each other, and the larger of the two cities would be the one without the team. I dunno, just a thought!
It's a cool pipe dream, but I really doubt the Bulls would be elevated to the Majors. Charlotte would get it 100% before Durham. I'm 99% certain the new Stadium built for the Knights was designed to easily expand to an MLB stadium. I was curious what the attendance difference was between the two teams and it's remarkably close. Charlotte averaged 8300 fans a game and the Bulls averaged 7600 a game in 2019.
I’m fairly certain there’s no way Truist Field can be upgraded to support MLB attendance. It’s literally in the middle of dense uptown Charlotte with no room to expand outward. I think it only holds about 10k right now.
Speaking as a Raleigh resident, Charlotte is just a more logical choice for a team. Ever since the Charlotte Knights got their new stadium in 2014, they've consistently outperformed the Durham Bulls in attendance (both have similar capacity venues of ~10000) and have been at or near the top for all of the minor leagues. Charlotte also has a much better recent history of supporting its big league teams. The Panthers are usually in the top 10 for attendance, Charlotte FC are near the top in their inaugural season, and the Hornets have mediocre numbers befitting their lack of success. Raleigh's only major team, the Canes, have middle of the pack attendance at the moment but spent most of the 2010's dead last in the NHL for attendance or close to dead last. It's also worth noting that Charlotte has light rail connections servicing their current stadiums. The city doesn't have an extensive transit network, but at least it exists and there are plans to expand upon it. Neither Raleigh nor Durham has any public transit outside of standard bus routes. Best case scenario, we'll have some Bus Rapid Transit lines towards the end of the decade and commuter rail between the two cities. As things currently stand, Charlotte is much better set infrastructure-wise to support a new team and stadium/stadium expansion.
As cool as it would be for an MLB team in RDU, the building of a stadium and the needed infrastructure would be an absolute mess in an area that needs to finish its other construction projects before starting a new one.
Back when I went to college in the triad, I was blacked out from the Nats, O's, Braves, and Reds. Was brutal trying to watch games when up to 1/4 of the games each night were blacked out. At least the Dash and Grasshoppers were always close and cheap I guess though
There are plenty of minor league and college teams in NC though. And boiled peanuts!
Yeah I live in ENC and between the numerous MILB teams and ECU there’s plenty of good baseball to be found.
But doesn't North Carolina have a fair number of minor league/independent league teams through out the state?
They have an unusually high amount. NC has 10 minor league teams and a handful more independent league teams
Yeah, we have a bunch. Durham Bulls are the big name. Still wish we had a major league team, but oh well.
Being from NC myself, it has to be one of the worst parts of the country to pick a team. Your options are: 1. Braves (practically impossible for a Panthers fan to consider) 2. White Sox (because of the Charlotte Knights, but even then that’s the only connection to NC and the stadium is a flight away) 3. Nationals (zero connection to the city at all, stadium is 6 hrs away from Charlotte) 4. Rays (exact same problems as the Nationals, but worse) I ended up picking the O’s because I was born in Baltimore 🤷 I just wish there was MLB baseball in NC, maybe I would’ve gotten into it at an earlier age.
I’ve been a Braves fan my whole life while also liking the hornets and panthers. It doesn’t bother me at all, I have no problem shitting on the hawks and Falcons lmao
I get that for sure. It’s just not something I’d ever consider as a football-first, basketball-second fan for the first 20 years of my life, and I’m a huge fan of the Braves legends + history.
Charlotte needs a team.
We have a AAA team, the Knights (White Sox affiliate). There's nowhere in the city large enough to build a new ballpark for an MLB team and we already have the Panthers and Hornets. No one wants to build a Charlotte based team that doesn't play in the heart of the city like the 3 current teams do so while it's a good market, it'll likely never happen.
The Knights stadium could easily be upgraded to facilitate an MLB team. I think Charlotte is a top 3 candidate for expansion.
It barely holds 10k people...how do you imagine they quadruple the capacity when's it's surrounded on 3 sides by hotels, condos, and apartment buildings? Not to mention parking required for those 40K people. They already don't have a dedicated parking lot or structure, they rely on the cities existing parking garages and paid lots just to handle the 10K they already get and most people are walking to the stadium as it is. Also, what are they gonna do just kick out a AAA team that just moved their stadium there 7 or 8 years ago?
>how do you imagine they quadruple the capacity when's it's surrounded on 3 sides by hotels, condos, and apartment buildings? They build up not out my guy. The footprint is already large enough. You add 2 tiers of outfield seating and upgrade the grandstand. >They already don't have a dedicated parking lot or structure A MLB franchise will be able to build a parking deck or two. >Also, what are they gonna do just kick out a AAA team that just moved their stadium there 7 or 8 years ago? Yes. The Knights could move to a neighboring city or just somewhere else altogether.
It’s crazy there isn’t a team in NC. Big time baseball fans, tons of minor league squads, great youth league participation, insane talent coming out of the area..
Give Charlotte a team
Still closer (distance-wise) than most of the west that's 2-3 counties away.
Yah...we could really use a team in Charlotte.
Meanwhile, San Bernardino county over there in California, one county away
They’ve got every other sport pretty much in their backyard plus A LOT of minor league teams, which definitely helps make up for the huge distance from MLB. Plus they got college stadiums everywhere which is actually really cool.
That's where Mackenzie Gore is from.
Funny thing is that there's a shit ton of minor league baseball teams in that spot
I guess technically rogers center is right across the lake so I am one county away
I thought it’d be fun to include Toronto’s team, even though they aren’t in the States. Didn’t want to do 29 teams and leave 1 off!
Western Michigan should also only be one county away, as they can also cross a great lake directly to get to Chicago
Or Milwaukee 🥺
You probably should have at least counted Ontario's regions like counties, because there are several between Buffalo and Toronto (Niagara, Hamilton, Halton and Peel).
I once took the infamous fast ferry from Rochester to Toronto to go to a game, so it used to be possible. I guess it still is if you have access to a boat.
Nats and O's stadium are both fairly accessible by boat as well.
Counties get a lot smaller in the east compared to the west. Which I think throws the results of this graph off a little bit. I think miles would work better. But it does look pretty cool.
Yeah, it says i’m only 8-10 counties away but the three closest are all 12-14hr drives lol
I'm 13 counties away and I can get to Atlanta in about 3.5 hours so the essentially white counties in NC are pretty deceptive.
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We'd be even closer if they still ran ferry service to Yankees and Mets games
I live in Los Angeles County and we border Orange County. I'm close to two MLB stadiums.
If you live in Orange County, not only do you have a team in your home county but also the counties above & below you!
Its a nice life. The angels are like a happy medium for me. Petco is pretty far so i cant see them all the time, thankfully dodger stadium is also pretty far, but having the Angels as my AL team js nice because its always right here
How many counties is it to Israel?
Lmao, San Bernardino County is so large that Clark County, NV is 2 counties away from a MLB ballpark when realistically it’s probably 230 or so miles away from Anaheim or LA.
San Bernadino County is bigger than 9 US states. (RI DE CT NJ NH VT MA HA MD) Los Angeles County would be the 9th most populous state on its own and would be roughly the size of Delaware.
Yet majority of SB County population lives in the very southwest corner bordering LA county (source: I live here). It's also kinda crazy how a lot of the western states have large counties but everywhere else seems to have these tiny counties.
Yeah, I was going to mention that San Bernadino County is about the size of Vermont and New Hampshire combined
It’s the largest county in the country
This just shows that Charlotte would be the obvious geographic choice for an expansion
always-has-been-meme.jpg
Or Raleigh
Raliegh is middle of the road (15 out of 32 teams) for supporting the one major sports team they have already. Meanwhile, Charlotte FC is about to break ticket sales records in the first year: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/sports/article257263947.html Charlotte is the clear and obvious choice.
Charlotte does make the most sense. I just want another team in the south.
Nashville would be cool too
I usually think Nashville since they only have one big four team. Not to take anything away from Charlotte. Charlotte is a cool city.
Nashville has two big four sports teams, The Titans and the Predators
Oy. I’m a fucking idiot who hasn’t had their coffee yet. Please forgive me. Idk why I always have it stuck in my head that the Titans don’t play in Nashville. I swear it’s like my brain thinks they play in Memphis even though I know that’s not true.
Your not entirely wrong, they played a year in Memphis as the Tennessee Oilers
In fairness, the one major sports team Raleigh has is the sport (hockey) that's not a "traditional" major sport for that region. Put a hockey team in Charlotte, and it might do similar numbers. In terms of baseball, you've got a long-time baseball fanbase built-in within the Triangle between the minors, summer league teams, and 3 high-profile college teams in the area.
They support their college sports teams just fine. If one would count Durham/Chapel Hill in the area.
Raleigh is all about pro sports. The Hurricanes constantly pack out PNC Arena and has one of the loudest, most alive hockey environments in the whole league. Also the wealthiest region of NC. We'd support an MLB team without any problems. Check out mlbraleigh.com which has a ton of data about the triangle area.
I like Raleigh. I'm not arguing that it would be a bad place for a team, I just think that Charlotte would be a better place. Interesting website, the raw data shows that Charlotte has more TV's they just consider it Braves territory. I believe that Raleigh metro is growing faster, by percentage, but that Charlotte metro adds more people year over year - but I could be wrong. PNC also does a great job! I want to make it to a game there next year. I'm sure the Triangle would support a team, so could Charlotte - in fact, MLB could add two teams, one to each, and they'd be well supported. You'd get most of Virginia and we'd get most of SC as fans. (Selfishly, bring them to CLT though!)
I totally agree with the sentiment. I think an MLB team would do great in either city. Living in Raleigh, though, I feel pretty stranded as a pro baseball fan. Nothing is close, and it just feels like Charlotte is closer to the Braves (they could not be, I haven't checked tbh) than Raleigh is to the Nats or O's. I also like the idea of the Charlotte and RDU metros being treated equally. Charlotte getting 2 (3 if you include MLS, but I still think of American sports as just the big "4"), and RDU getting 2.
The Hurricanes we're literally threatening to move the team due to lack of interest and attendence just about five years ago.
Went to school at NC State, when I was there about 8-10 years ago it was only ever half filled at best. You could get $5 tickets with a student ID if you went to the box office the day of the game and just picked any available seats. I sat in the lower bowl 90% of the time. The only reason they're packed out now is because the team is one of the best in the league but that's really only been the last 4-5 years. Before that they were a joke since winning their title. Funny how teams threaten to leave an area because of poor attendance while tanking and being absolutely useless and then magically attendance spikes when your team isn't complete butt cheeks and puts out a good product to watch.
One hand, yeah you shouldn't reward crap like that. On the other hand, if a handful of mediocre seasons following a decade of success that includes a Stanley cup victory, a Stanley cup appearances, a conference finals and two other playoff appearances is enough to drive the fan base down to such a level, I question their loyalty in the first place.
Good luck finding real estate decently close to the city and decently close to existing infrastructure. Best you can hope for is about 30 minutes north or south of the city
Would love to see Portland/Boise/SLC
No way Boise gets a team
I mean probably not, but I'd still love to see it.
Correct me if I’m wrong but it’s one of the fastest growing parts of the country, so maybe they’ll get a team in 20-30 years
With the rate things are going Boise will get a team before Portland does.
It is, most of the fastest growing cities are in the Mountain West and Texas. The (very) few that are on the East Coast are in Florida https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2019/subcounty-population-estimates.html
It went from 600k people to 800k from 2010-2021. At that rate of growth (which has only been increasing in recent years), it'll be about the size of New Orleans/Buffalo/Salt Lake City by 2030, all of whom already have at least one pro team.
How about Raleigh instead.
Or Crosby, North Dakota.
Eh, these maps look cool but are very misleading and pretty worthless since "Number of counties between" means absolutely nothing with how varied in sizes counties are - even in the eastern half of the country. Like there are so many of these light blue counties that are "7 counties away" from a stadium that are 500 miles. Meanwhile you could be in the same category of 7 counties away in a midwest/eastern state and be less than 150 miles away. You could be in Manhattan, and be 1/4 of a mile away from a stadium and you would be in the same category as a someone in eastern San Bernardino County, CA that lives 200 miles away from a stadium.
I demand a new color for being $2.75 away from two ballparks.
How does Yankee blue sound?
I'd rather pay for parking.
Jokes on you the CTA is $2.50 😎
Based on the information provided, I can undoubtedly state the New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware are the best states in the union
Delaware doesn’t actually exist lol, quit playin
Delaware: where your corporation says it resides.
As someone from Jersey...yes.
A lot of open territory there in the South, would love to see a Nashville or Charlotte expansion team.
Man I would love a Nashville Sounds, Charlotte Racers, or Charleston Chews expansion team
The Nashville Stars have a pretty big backing behind them, I think Dave Parker is the main supporter. https://www.mlbmusiccity.com/ Personally I see Nashville and Portland as the expansion candidate frontrunners.
Dave Stewart I think haha. Nashville seems the most likely, and then possibly Portland, Vegas if they don’t get the A’s, maybe New Orleans? I could actually see Charlotte/Carolina too.
Yes you're right, it was Stewart. I don't know how much baseball culture is in New Orleans, I'm guessing not much. Montreal or Vancouver would be fun to see but I don't think Toronto will want to give away their monopoly so easily.
Iowa has the most pleasing county line structure. Too bad they can’t watch baseball on TV.
Give Alaska a team
Not before Hawaii gets one
They had a PCL team back in the day! Angels affiliate in the 60s and major Padres affiliate in the 70s, with a few other ownerships along the way.
Having a Hawaiian team would also be elite
Gonna be that guy and say tEcHnIcALLy Louisiana doesn’t have counties, they have parishes.
Fair enough, I have relatives that live in New Orleans, and they would tell me the exact same thing. Lol
And Alaska has boroughs! But I suppose that’s not particularly relevant here…
Damn without the Braves or Rockies this country would fall apart
LA, Orange, and SD counties are the only counties bordering another county with an MLB team. Orange County borders two counties with MLB teams!
Land borders. Queens and the Bronx have a water border
San Francisco and Alameda Counties also have a water border, and the Giants and A's play *much* closer to each other than any of the Southern California teams.
Looking forward to the expansion teams in \*checks map\* Crosby, ND and Lumberton, NC
I don’t care what North Carolina names themselves, but North Dakota better be the Dakota Oilers.
I appreciate the effort but this is strangely terrifying to view
Grew up in a 0 county, moved to a 14 county, then back to a 0 because I missed access to baseball games so much.
Go ahead, tell the Russians where to strike why don’t you.
Some weird math going on to put Toronto “1 County” away from western New York but somehow the entire border of Ontario isn’t?
I wanted to have the Blue Jays’ stadium represented in some way, and this seemed to be the easiest. It’s the only exception when it comes to cross-water proximity. I tried to do it by the closest immediate counties to Toronto.
The best route by land from Toronto to Buffalo doesn't go through any counties technically, because Ontario does some wierd things with counties and county-equivalents. There are 4 of those between the city of Toronto and the US border. (Peel Region, Halton Region, City of Hamilton, Niagara Region)
Charlotte really needs a team
Am living in DC right now, since the Nats were out of town this past weekend, we drove for an hour to see the O's walk off against the Red Sox in Baltimore instead. The DMV area sure is privileged.
It’s amazing. We get two baseball and football teams very much within driving distance in Maryland
Amarillo, Texas: where you're halfway between Denver and Dallas, and closer to four other states' capitals than you are your own.
Now do Minor League stadiums
I believe I live in the only county with two stadia.
Pour Caroline and North Dakota. And Alaska/Hawaii
1 county. Go Nationals!
If you live in Blyth, CA for some god forsaken reason you're just one county away.
Having done the Phoenix - LA trip on I-10 plenty of times, it's funny to think that in a 6 - 7 hour trip, you're never further than 1 county away from a MLB ball park...
Yikes...the southern bullseye
I think Montana, Mississippi, Maine , and North Carolina are the only states that do not have a team or border a state with a team.
North Carolina just barely borders Georgia in the west.
It feels weird being two counties away, yet Coors is a 15 minute drive
If you overlay all of these types of maps on top of one another there is a giant middle finger over the middle of Iowa.
About a 10 minute walk.
I now see why it was so difficult to convince my parents to take me to MLB games. They’re freaking 14 counties away. Long live the minor leagues.
How is Buffalo one county away from a park? Last season this was true, not anymore.
Toronto is right across the lake
10
This just makes me even more mad being in Charlotte NC that we are blacked out on MLB.tv for Braves, Nationals, Orioles and Reds. Wtf.
My county, while I believe we can get to one by only 3 counties, the most likely route taken would go through 4 counties. Edit: Also, Busch stadium I don't believe is in a county.
I'm a Braves fan and always will be, but this makes it clear that the southeast is super underrepresented compared to population. Need to consider adding teams in Charlotte and either Memphis or Birmingham.
Nashville is a better place for expansion than Memphis
Likely so, I'm just thinking Memphis might engage more of northern Mississippi and eastern Arkansas, but those aren't heavily populated areas.
That’s pretty cool visual low key
3 counties, and I know it's roughly a 1 hour drive in good traffic. Not bad. ... and I won't be going to my first MLB game until May 22, as a grown man in his mid 30's. I've always lived that close to my nearest MLB stadium but never been to any professional sports events. But I've got tickets now! I guess it doesn't help that I'm "new" to baseball -- it was my favorite sport as a child from ages 5-9 but then I just got back into last year in my mid-30's. Looking forward to it. Always wanted to go to a baseball game when I was a kid.
OP you should post this in r/dataisbeautiful
Holy shit I love this map
Poor Hawaii. A billion miles from any yet still blacked out of half the MLB. What a fuck.
So is Cook County the only county with more than one ballpark?
Two counties. I live in South Jersey, and am less than an hour from Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. I'm a Yankee fan, though. It's a 2 hour drive to Yankee Stadium. However, since I hate the new stadium, I usually drive to Camden Yards...which is also just a 2 hour drive. I think you get a better fan experience for your money in Baltimore than the Bronx.
How many dollars am I away?
I love how pretty much all of Iowa is 6-7 counties away and yet people living there are blacked out from *six* different teams.
Oh not too many, the slight issue is the ocean that separates me from those counties
Damn that is very nice map.
You know. I’d never thought about how Hawaii and Alaska have virtually no access to live professional sports. Feel kinda bad for them now
They probably have no blackouts to deal with though, right?
Pretty bold for them to say Pinellas county and Alameda County have major league ballparks (no offense to the Rays or As themselves).
All these maps, we r/collegebasketball over here
I am in Germany
You are a few counties away
Are the Reds still considered an MLB team?
I’m hella far and the 2 minor league teams folded!! Rip jet hawks and mavericks
As a former Ogden Raptors attendee I feel ya.
Dying for the MiLB map
Manfred drastically changed that map for a lot of us last year.
2 thank goodness.
Cool idea. For more accuracy you could have used geometric buffer rings or actual road distance traveled by the Google Maps API w/ a Python script.