Major League Baseball formally advanced expansion plans for Salt Lake City and Nashville at a $2.2 billion entry fee per franchise, the first addition to the league since the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Rays paid $130 million combined in 1998. Commissioner Rob Manfred's office distributed term sheets to prospective ownership groups in both markets last month, according to three people familiar with the discussions.
The valuation represents a 55% premium to the $1.42 billion average franchise sale price from the past five transactions, including the Mets ($2.4B, 2020) and Nationals ($2.2B, 2023). Expansion fees bypass revenue-sharing formulas, meaning existing owners split $4.4 billion across 30 clubs—roughly $147 million per team before legal and advisory costs. The league's broadcast rights committee has already briefed Apple and Turner Sports on carriage scenarios for a 32-team playoff structure, targeting renegotiation windows in late 2026.
Salt Lake City's bid hinges on a $1.1 billion retractable-roof stadium in the Granary District, with Larry H. Miller Sports & Entertainment controlling site assembly and Utah's legislative session opening in January to debate a state-backed infrastructure bond. The Miller family sold the NBA Jazz to Ryan Smith in 2020 but retained real estate holdings that position them as the anchor local partner. Nashville's group, led by Dave Stewart and music executive John Ingram, secured a $2 billion mixed-use development commitment from Metro Nashville in 2023, though the stadium lease ties public funding to a 40-year CPI-indexed formula that spooked two potential equity partners who walked in November.
The expansion timeline targets ownership approval by the 2026 winter meetings, stadium groundbreaking by mid-2027, and opening day in 2029—the same year the league's current collective bargaining agreement expires. That collision creates leverage problems: the MLBPA has already signaled it expects expansion draft rules that limit each existing team to protecting 10 players rather than the 15 allowed in 1997, a concession that makes roster depth more expensive for current owners while increasing the talent base available to new clubs. One AL general manager noted his front office is already modeling 2028 trade scenarios around expansion-draft exposure, treating it as a second deadline.
The fee structure allows ownership groups to pay $440 million upfront and finance the remainder over 10 years at Treasury rates plus 200 basis points, a construct the league used when private equity rules were being debated in 2022. That means an ownership group could theoretically enter with roughly $600 million in equity if they secure stadium financing separately—a figure within reach for family offices that passed on NBA expansion in Seattle but see baseball's local media rights as undervalued relative to basketball's national weighting.
Two other markets remain in peripheral discussions. Charlotte's ownership group, assembled by Chiquita Brands heir Carl Lindner III, submitted financials in October but lacks a stadium site beyond conceptual renderings. Montreal's effort collapsed in December when Quebec's provincial government declined a $500 million infrastructure commitment, leaving the group without a path to the $1.1 billion stadium baseline MLB requires.
League officials expect to finalize expansion cities by June 2025, giving ownership groups 18 months to close equity raises before the approval vote. The treasurer's office at MLB Advanced Media has already built financial models for a 32-team postseason format that adds $120 million annually in playoff gate and broadcast revenue, split across all clubs. That figure underwrites the expansion fee's premium, but only if stadium leases close without renegotiation and both clubs reach competitive viability by year five—a threshold the Rays and Diamondbacks both missed, requiring revenue-sharing subsidies through their first decade.
The commissioner's office will present final term sheets to the ownership committee on February 6 in Phoenix. Stewart's Nashville group has scheduled a private lender meeting in New York for February 12.
The takeaway
**$4.4B** in expansion fees split 30 ways funds stadium debt elsewhere while creating roster exposure clubs are already trading around.
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