San Antonio lobbying for AAA baseball

The city of San Antonio, home to the AA (Texas League) Missions, wants to be home of a AAA team. This isn’t something new. With the 2012 Baseball Winter Meetings, this was discussed already.

But like always, there are some problems that block the way to get a new team to town. First of all it is the current Texas League franchise, the San Antonio Missions. The owner, Dave Elmore, doesn’t seem to be interested to move. He claims the money isn’t there to build a new AAA stadium, and there is no AAA team yet. Accoding to Judge Nelson Wolff, a powerful person in San Antonio politics and whose name the Missions stadium is carrying, there is money available to build a $50 million AAA ballpark.

Nelson Wolff Stadium (photo by baseballpilgrimages.com)

In fact, the current stadium, Nelson Wollf Stadium, could be used as AAA facility. The official capacity of the stadium is 6,200, but with the use of the grass berm in left field can hold 3,000 fans, so the true capacity of the stadium is 9,200. Since an AAA ballpark must have a capacity of 10,000, Nelson Wolff Stadium may be a good fit for AAA baseball with some adaptions. It will cost the city of San Antonio only a fraction of $50 million to upgrade this stadium. And besides that, Nelson Wolff Stadium is only 21 years old. Wouldn’t be a waste of money to replace this facility already?

The left field berm of Nelson Wolff Stadium (photo by baseballpilgrimages.com)

It is a public secret that the New Orleans Zephyrs are for sale. The new owner may be interested to move the team because the Zephyrs do not draw too well. Last year only four teams did worse attendance wise.

Elmore owns the MiLB rights of San Antonio, so it will cost the city quite a dime to buy him out unless he buys the Zephyrs PCL logoand moves them to San Antonio. Since Elmore also owns the Colorado Springs SkySox, he cannot buy the Zephyrs without selling he SkySox. According to MiLB rules, it is prohibited to own two teams in the same league, and both teams are playing in the Pacific Coast League. I hear you say:”New Orleans in the Pacific Coast League?” It has to do with the folding of the American Association in 1997. The teams of this AAA league had to be appointed to the other two AAA leagues (PCL and the International League). The Iowa Cubs,Nashville Sounds, New Orleans Zephyrs, Oklahoma City 89ers (now the OKC Dodgers) and Omaha Royals (now the Omaha StormChasers) migrated to the West Coast Pacific Coast League starting with the 1998 season. The Buffalo Bisons, Indianapolis Indians, and Louisville Redbirds became part of the International League, also starting in 1998.

But with an AAA team moving to San Antonio, the AA team must be moved somewhere else. Which city in the Texas League area is AA worthy? Which city in the Texas League is willing to become a home for an AA team?  We have seen it through the years that there is always some enthousiastic  politician who wants to lure a minor league team, but then there always is a city council that is looking at the costs and the feasibility. So moving an AAA team to San Antonio will not be an easy thing to arrange. It will take two years at least.

But for now, the biggest hurdle that San Antonio has to take is to persuade Dave Elmore to give up his territorial rights in the Alamo city.