Sacramento is assembling a franchise bid around the Athletics' departure to Las Vegas, while North Carolina operators are mapping ballpark financing across the Research Triangle — both campaigns running 18 months before MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has committed to an expansion timeline.
Sacramento's pitch centers on a metro population of 2.4 million, existing Triple-A infrastructure at Sutter Health Park, and a corporate sponsor base that includes Kaiser Permanente, Intel, and Blue Shield of California. The market lost the Kings to relocation talks twice before a downtown arena deal closed in 2016; the playbook now is preemptive movement before another franchise uses Sacramento as leverage. Local ownership groups are quietly briefing MLB's revenue-sharing committee on California's $3.9 trillion GDP and the absence of a third in-state team despite the population supporting it. The A's move removes the territorial-rights blocker that kept Sacramento in minor-league status for 40 years.
North Carolina's campaign is splitting focus between Charlotte and the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill corridor. Charlotte already hosts the Panthers, Hornets, and Charlotte FC — three leagues, three ownership models, all profitable. Raleigh-Durham offers something different: Research Triangle Park, the largest research park in North America, home to 300 companies and 55,000 employees. The corporate base includes Lenovo, Cisco, RTI International, and pharmaceutical firms with Sports Edge readers on the board. Population growth in Wake County ran 15% from 2010 to 2020; median household income is $82,000. The pitch is tech-corridor sponsorship density, not legacy fandom.
MLB's expansion framework, leaked to team presidents in late 2024, prices new franchises at approximately $2.2 billion per market — a figure that splits evenly among the 30 existing teams as a one-time payment, netting each ownership group roughly $73 million. The calculus for Manfred is clean: two expansion teams add $4.4 billion to the league's enterprise value without diluting media-rights pools, since new teams enter at reduced revenue-sharing rates for their first five seasons. The model worked in hockey; the Vegas Golden Knights and Seattle Kraken paid $500 million and $650 million respectively, both franchises now valued above $1.2 billion.
Sacramento's advantage is timing. The market has a ballpark, a mayor who survived a recall on a stadium platform, and donor-class operators who already navigated NBA relocation threats. The disadvantage is television: the Sacramento DMA ranks 20th nationally, behind Nashville, Charlotte, and Raleigh-Durham. North Carolina's advantage is the reverse — Charlotte DMA ranks 22nd, Raleigh-Durham DMA ranks 24th, but combined they cover 4.2 million households in a state with zero MLB presence and the 9th-largest population in the country. The disadvantage is site control; neither market has broken ground.
Other markets are running quieter campaigns. Nashville has a ballpark site near Nissan Stadium and ownership groups involving Dave Stewart and Justin Timberlake-adjacent capital. Montreal is pitoting a split-season model with Florida attendance gaps as the wedge. Portland commissioned feasibility studies in 2023 but has not named a lead investor. Las Vegas is effectively off the table until the A's situation stabilizes; Manfred will not put two teams in a market before the first one plays a game.
The next formal checkpoint is MLB's owners' meetings in May 2025, where expansion is expected to reach the agenda for the first time since 2020. The league's preference, according to three team presidents, is for new franchises to begin play no earlier than 2028 — allowing time for stadium construction, territorial-rights negotiations with existing clubs, and media-deal recalibrations with Fox, ESPN, and Apple.
Watch whether Sacramento's Mayor Darrell Steinberg makes an appearance at MLB's winter meetings in December 2025 — historically the venue where expansion shortlists leak. Also watch North Carolina's legislative session in early 2026; any serious bid will require a public-financing package, and the state has not funded a professional stadium since the Panthers' deal in 2013. The Sacramento campaign is further along. The North Carolina campaign has deeper pockets.
The takeaway
Sacramento and North Carolina are building MLB expansion cases before the league opens bidding — **$2.2B** price tag, **2028** earliest start.
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