OOTP Developments Forums - View Single Post - Do you believe in magic: The Santa Maria Winemakers Baseball Club (2014-)

darkcloud4579 · 04-23-2007, 11:09 PM

Hamilton? Windsor? What the heck?

You might wonder what the heck I was doing replacing those Canadian markets with smaller ones than we had before?

When the Blue Jays flew south to the Premier League, I debated whether we even needed Canadian team or not in the game. After all, why does it matter?

But many of the moves this year were TV market based, reactionary decisions.

So for instance, the team in San Antonio makes up for the lost Houston team.

Moving the Whalers to Manchester, NH might seem weird, but Manchester is part of the Boston TV market, expand MLB's market reach.

Leaving New Jersey, where it's just another team sapping up the TV market away from both the New York and Philadelphia markets, depending on where the team plays its home games, moving to Indianapolis gives the league more market penetration into a Top 50 TV market.

But what about those Canadian teams?

It's easy.

Windsor is part of the Detroit TV market. And Hamilton is part of Toronto's.

So we get to penetrate both of those TV markets, giving us an +1 net gain since we haven't had market access to Detroit since the Tigers moved to the Premier League.

The move to Rochester from Montreal was borne mostly out of respect for the fact that Rochester, N.Y. is one of the cities in pro sports that has maintained the same team in the same league uninterrupted for over 100 years.

The team like the Green Bay Packers is community owned and I thought that would be a nice element to add, especially with Santa Maria playing on the West Coast.

The regional alignment basically makes sense. With sixteen teams -- many of them founding teams -- having left MLB, there wasn't any point in maintaining history as if you could dupe fans into believing that a Owls v. CUbs rivalry had the same cache as the Cubs v. Cardinals.

Though getting the Cardinals back into the fold was a huge, huge coup for us.

The Florida Oranges play in Orlando, which gets us back into a major market area in that state, with Tampa having been our only entry since the Marlins left prior to that.

I think that if this alignment can stay relatively static -- that is, no major moves or shifts -- for the next 15 or so years, it'll get a lot more comfortable and we'll be able to monitor exactly how it all looks comparatively.

I'm not sure some sort of merger between the MLB and PL isn't down the line. But it's not going to happen for a long, long time that's for sure.

04-23-2007, 11:09 PM	#62
darkcloud4579 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2003 Posts: 8,709	Hamilton? Windsor? What the heck? You might wonder what the heck I was doing replacing those Canadian markets with smaller ones than we had before? When the Blue Jays flew south to the Premier League, I debated whether we even needed Canadian team or not in the game. After all, why does it matter? But many of the moves this year were TV market based, reactionary decisions. So for instance, the team in San Antonio makes up for the lost Houston team. Moving the Whalers to Manchester, NH might seem weird, but Manchester is part of the Boston TV market, expand MLB's market reach. Leaving New Jersey, where it's just another team sapping up the TV market away from both the New York and Philadelphia markets, depending on where the team plays its home games, moving to Indianapolis gives the league more market penetration into a Top 50 TV market. But what about those Canadian teams? It's easy. Windsor is part of the Detroit TV market. And Hamilton is part of Toronto's. So we get to penetrate both of those TV markets, giving us an +1 net gain since we haven't had market access to Detroit since the Tigers moved to the Premier League. The move to Rochester from Montreal was borne mostly out of respect for the fact that Rochester, N.Y. is one of the cities in pro sports that has maintained the same team in the same league uninterrupted for over 100 years. The team like the Green Bay Packers is community owned and I thought that would be a nice element to add, especially with Santa Maria playing on the West Coast. The regional alignment basically makes sense. With sixteen teams -- many of them founding teams -- having left MLB, there wasn't any point in maintaining history as if you could dupe fans into believing that a Owls v. CUbs rivalry had the same cache as the Cubs v. Cardinals. Though getting the Cardinals back into the fold was a huge, huge coup for us. The Florida Oranges play in Orlando, which gets us back into a major market area in that state, with Tampa having been our only entry since the Marlins left prior to that. I think that if this alignment can stay relatively static -- that is, no major moves or shifts -- for the next 15 or so years, it'll get a lot more comfortable and we'll be able to monitor exactly how it all looks comparatively. I'm not sure some sort of merger between the MLB and PL isn't down the line. But it's not going to happen for a long, long time that's for sure.