North Carolina is home to many pro sports teams, from the Carolina Panthers to the Carolina Hurricanes, but it is missing one major sport: Major League Baseball. There are plenty of baseball teams around North Carolina but none in the big leagues nor in Raleigh, although that may soon change.
Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon has expressed his interest in bringing an MLB team to the Old North state with a focus in the capital city. If Dundon and company earn the bid and the team ends up in Raleigh, it will be the second professional sports team Dundon owns in the city.
Although adding another professional sports team to Raleigh may seem like a good idea in theory, it might be putting too much on the City of Oaks’ plate.
In North Carolina, there are 10 minor league baseball teams with two Triple-A teams in Durham and Charlotte — the other eight are split between High-A and Single-A. From the Asheville Tourists to the Down East Wood Ducks, there is some level of professional baseball all over North Carolina. Even if you’re in Raleigh, the Carolina Mudcats are 29 miles east of downtown Raleigh, and the Durham Bulls are 23 miles west.
There is a rich history with these teams too. The movie “Bull Durham”and the “hit bull, win steak” sign are not just staples of Durham, but all of baseball. The Bulls’ success is not just in the past either. Since 2013, the team has won the International League Championship four times and the Triple-A National Championship twice.
The Bulls and Charlotte Knights have some of the largest baseball stadiums in North Carolina with a seating capacity around 10,000. For reference, the smallest MLB stadium currently seats 25,000. Bringing a MLB team to the capitol would require the City of Raleigh to build an entirely new stadium that seats at least 30,000 people.
This begs the question: Where in Raleigh can you put the stadium and with what money are you going to build it?
Raleigh is currently under heavy construction and will be for the foreseeable future. The Raleigh-Durham area is ranked 21st for fastest growing areas in the United States, and with large tech companies planning on creating hubs in the Triangle, you can only expect the population to grow.
Dundon, who already has an agreement with the Raleigh and Wake County officials to spend $300 million on renovations to PNC Arena and the surrounding area, would need to borrow more money from the state to build an entirely new baseball stadium. This would be a tall order for Raleigh and the rest of Wake County who — according to their executive director of the Greater Raleigh Sports Alliance — have no money allocated to developing any new major sports venues.
One major downside to putting an MLB stadium in Raleigh is the traffic congestion it will create for fans and the general public. The public transportation in Raleigh and the rest of North Carolina does not have sufficient infrastructure to get 30,000 people in and out of stadiums efficiently. Adding 81 more nights of the year where you are bringing large amounts of people to the same place at the same time won’t help this issue.
Because baseball has been a staple of American culture for so long and North Carolina is yet to have an MLB team, many people in the area are already fans of other close teams such as the Washington Nationals and the Atlanta Braves. Getting these fans to commit to a new expansion team over teams they have grown accustomed to may be difficult and not something owners have anticipated.
With how fast the Triangle area, and especially Raleigh, is growing, adding an MLB team may be the City of Oaks biting off more than it can Big League Chew.
