Major League Baseball Expansion Team Members Jason Norris

Major League Baseball Expansion Team Members: Jason Norris, Matt Moore, Kelby Pedery-Edwards, Kevin Price

Motivations • Our entire group is baseball fans • Teams are constantly changing locations • We have witnessed the birth of many expansion teams in our lifetime, all which seem to be in sub-optimal locations, and they suffer financially and competitively because of this. • GIS could solve this problem!

Even Mario likes baseball!!!

Two Main Objectives • Determine the most suitable city in the United States and its territories for the location of a new “expansion” baseball team. • Within selected city, locate optimal site for team headquarters and stadium.

Methods for Finding the City • We found a list of the 30 cities with the highest populations in the U. S. • Create a 100 mile buffer around existing team cities • Determine high-population cities outside of buffers • Use Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) to determine optimal city for new team

Potential Cities • There were 8 cities among the top 30 metropolitan populations without baseball teams: - Riverside, CA (4, 026, 000) - San Juan, Puerto Rico (2, 509, 000) - Portland, OR (2, 137, 000) - Sacramento, CA (2, 067, 000) - Orlando, FL (1, 984, 000) - San Antonio, TX (1, 942, 000) - San Jose, CA (1, 787, 000) - Las Vegas, NV (1, 777, 000)

Current Results • The four highest population cities that were outside of 100 miles from a MLB team are: – San Juan, Puerto Rico (pop ~ 2, 509, 000) – Portland, Oregon (pop ~ 2, 137, 000) – San Antonio, Texas (pop ~ 1, 942, 000) – Las Vegas, Nevada (pop ~1, 777, 000)

Buffer Map

Multi Criteria Decision Making • Determine criteria for locating a team • Average individual assessments of variables • Input data into algorithm to find the weight applied to each variable • Input each city’s scaled data to determine which one is the best suited for a new team

MCDM Chart

Methods for Finding Stadium Location Within Optimal City • Develop standards for locating a stadium • Overlay maps of each criteria to determine feasible locations • Use Google Earth to see what the site looks like • Pick one location that we determine to be the most feasible for a new MLB team’s stadium

Important City Criteria • • • Land Use (e. g. residential, commercial…) Land Value (high – medium – low) Population Density (from Census tract data) Traffic Density (high – medium – low) Public Transportation (availability and location of routes) • More TBD…

Map Overlay of City Criteria • Create maps for each variable • Overlay maps in order to determine “hot spots” where a stadium might be located • Rigorously compare each layer in order to determine which of these “hot spots” is the most suitable

Data Sources • US Census Data • Major League Baseball Team Cities (from MLB. com) • Once the optimal city is determined, we will figure out where/how to get specific data such as transportation routes and traffic density

Anticipated Problems • Including San Juan, Puerto Rico (a U. S. territory), creates map-making issues • Subjectivity in determining what data to include • Non-spatial data is not included in our analysis – Would the city’s populace be enthusiastic about a new team? – Will Major League Baseball expand? – Would the determined city be willing to house a MLB franchise? – Would someone help the city fund an MLB franchise?

Likely Results We foresee Las Vegas as being the best location for a new baseball team, but professional sports leagues have always viewed that city as taboo because of the association with gambling. Fortunately or unfortunately, this attitude is going away, with the Seattle Supersonics of the NBA seriously examining relocating there, as well as multiple football teams looking to relocate there as well.

What do we hope to do with this? Our group feels like this sort of spatial analysis could be a real asset to a professional baseball team looking to relocate. We at the very least plan on sending it to every professional team just on the hopes that someone will look at it and be intrigued. With the financial failures of the recent expansion teams in Florida, it seems like a more scientific approach needs to be taken to the location of new teams. Where the owner of the team is from should NOT be the only factor!