In what might be one of the most significant press conferences for baseball fans in North Carolina, the Carolina Hurricanes announced a new CEO, a new President and publically announced their plans to be a contender in MLB expansion.

On August 1st, the Canes announced Brian Fork as the new CEO of Hurricanes Holdings, and Doug Warf as the new president. As each came up to the podium to make their comments, they were very direct in their goals to not only continue the Hurricanes success and work on the build-out of the district around the PNC Arena (now Lenovo Center), but also working to bring MLB to Raleigh.

Brian Fork talked about Dundon’s level of interest in the project and what it’s going to take to make it happen…

“(Hurricanes owner) Tom (Dundon has) talked about it publicly, but he’s also very serious about trying to bring a Major League Baseball team to Raleigh. That’s much easier said than done. We will not be the only city, will not be the only ownership group looking to get one of the new expansion teams that will probably be created by Major League Baseball next couple of years. But Tom is very serious about pursuing that opportunity, bringing it here to Raleigh, and we’ll be taking a lead, helping him on the corporate side and business side,”

This was the first time that the Hurricanes announced these plans in an official capacity.

Prior to the press conference, it has been Tom Dundon and Governor Roy Cooper speaking about the goal to bring MLB to Raleigh in a few local interviews and in a national piece published by the Sports Business Journal.

Fork went into more detail in an interview following the presser, discussing North Carolina’s growth, the growth of the Raleigh region, and MLB’s expansion plans all happening at the same time. He also added that if a relocation team became available, that too would be an option.

“It’s the perfect storm, and If relocation is on the table, then that’s absolutely something that Tom would be interested in,”

Fork also detailed the challenges they’ll face as they attempt to make MLB in NC a reality.

“You’d have to find a place to play. You’re going to need a stadium, right? So you’re going to have to find a place to put a stadium. I don’t know where that’s going to be. It’s going to need a lot of land. You’re going to have to figure out a way to pay for the stadium. You’re going to have to get it zones. That’s going to affect a lot of people that live around there. One of the key components that Major League Baseball is going to look at before bringing a team is: Who are your corporate partners? Who are your big corporate partners that are going to invest in it in the short term and the long term? So you’re really going to need everybody on board. “The most important thing is to have an owner that has the means and desire to do it. So that puts us way ahead of most places in the U.S.”

In mid-April, the Sports Business Journal did an in-depth profile on the Carolina Hurricanes’ owner, Tom Dundon.

In the article, Alex Silverman told the story of a non-traditional hockey market, struggling to stay successful prior to Dundon’s arrival in Raleigh. Since then, the Hurricane’s have become an annual playoff contender and have sold out the PNC Arena (now Lenovo Center) every game this past season, while being in the Top-5 for average NHL attendance.

The article then dives into Tom’s next stated goal…

Bring Major League Baseball to Raleigh, North Carolina.

Dundon officially went public with his intentions in October of 2023, and while there will plenty of competition, then Hurricanes’ CMO Mike Foreman explained why Raleigh might have a leg up.

“The biggest thing about Tom is he’s super competitive. So, if all of a sudden it’s either us or another city that’s going to get an MLB team, he’s going to do whatever it takes to win.”

Dundon explained what it may take to make this happen…

“You can get a public-private partnership to build a great stadium, and I think the people would support it. The revenues would do really well here, and we could sell tickets and sponsorships to be of value to Major League Baseball.”

As for where the stadium may end up being, Philip Isley, a board member for the Centennial Authority (the group who owns the arena) gave a hint…

“It would absolutely be the cherry on top if it was located somewhere near our facility. This really could be the next great entertainment district in the South.”

For those who haven’t been paying attention to this movement and those who haven’t dug deep enough into the data, “Does Raleigh have enough population density to support Major League Baseball?” is likely the first question you have when entertaining the idea of Major League Baseball in Raleigh. 

The reason population density matters is because, like any sport, you need to fill the seats on a nightly basis to make the math work on supporting a professional franchise. However, baseball is unique in that each team plays 162 games per season, 81 of which are at their home stadium.

So how do you measure this?

Well, the laziest way to measure this is by simply Googling “Raleigh population” and then taking that number and putting it up against existing cities that have successful MLB franchises. The problem with this is that measuring the population of the city isn’t going to give you good enough data. The number you want is, how many people live within driving distance of the stadium, and that number is going to include surrounding towns and cities.

But there is a way to measure that. It’s called MSA (Metro Statistical Area). So you’d think it’d be as simple as looking MSA population of existing MLB teams and measuring that against Raleigh’s MSA. And that’s what most people did prior to our organization’s existence. It’s why Raleigh was never in the conversation for Major League Baseball expansion and why the media never really took the region seriously as a viable contender for a franchise. Raleigh’s MSA is too small to support an MLB team, but then how do you explain the sold out stadiums for college basketball, college football, or the 67-game sell-out streak that the Carolina Hurricanes have going on.

When you dig into this, it’s simple.

Prior to the early 2000’s our MSA was known as the Triangle MSA and it combined both the current Raleigh MSA and the Durham MSA. Together they make up almost 5,000 square miles, including Cary, Apex and Morrisville (all within a 20 minute drive of downtown Raleigh). But in the early 2000’s the MSA was broken up. This was because what defines an MSA is commuter volume in and out.

Unlike most metros where the surrounding suburbians all funnel into the city for work, our region is unique. We have 3 major population points (Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill) on a single commuter belt, with most of the commuter heading to Research Triangle Park, a corporate park located directly in the middle of these 3 hubs.

This change created a situation where you now had the census reporting the Triangle area as two smaller cities. This dropped the region off of many lists and rankings that had them approaching major metro status just years earlier. To this day, the census discrepancy continues to exist.

So the first thing you could do is simply recombine the Raleigh and Durham Metro and put it up against existing traditional metros that currently have MLB teams. When you do that, you see that our Triangle MSA is larger in population than both Cleveland and Milwaukee (both of whom have successful MLB teams) and approaching Kansas City, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh.

That is a decent way to measure, but still doesn’t give you a real apples-to-apples comparison of population density within driving distance of the stadium.

The reason it’s not perfect is because MSAs aren’t defined by square miles. They are defined by commuter data.

For instance, here are the crazy discrepancies you run into when you are trying to compare population density based on MSA.

• Raleigh/Durham (Triangle) Metro covers 4,408 square miles.
• Kansas City Metro covers 7,256 square miles.
• Pittsburgh Metro covers 5,282 square miles.
• St. Louis Metro covers 7,863 square miles.

So while MSA might be a decent way to measure population density in a region, as it is the most accessible (since it’s reported in the census), it doesn’t answer the question of “How many people live within driving distance of a potential stadium?”

So to get this number right, we looked for a more exact way to measure.

We used a tool, that could scope a custom area, and pull the census data, directly from a desired spot. For each region that has a current MLB team, we set that spot to their existing stadium. For the expansion contending cities, we looked at the most recent proposed location for a stadium.  We set the tool to measure a 60 mile radius (approximately a 1-hour drive) Here is what we found…

Raleigh’s population density within that 60-mile radius was not only larger than every single MLB expansion contender, it was also larger than some areas that boast extremely successful MLB teams such as Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh. Also, not pictured was Milwaukee (3,580,570) who ranks #1 in per capita attendance in MLB.

So if the question is “Does Raleigh have enough population density to support Major League Baseball?”, the answer is: If Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Milwaukee have the population volume to fill their stadiums, then so does Raleigh.

And with Nashville, Salt Lake City, and Portland being the current competing markets for MLB expansion, why wouldn’t you choose the Raleigh? We are not only growing faster than every single MLB market, but also boast more people within driving distance of a potential stadium than any other current option on the table.

The thoery that this market is too small or couldn’t fill an MLB stadium 81 nights per year is invalid. It’s not based on real statistics and that debate should be considered ‘over’.

Gov. Cooper joined the OG Podcast to talk all things sports but made sure to get in a few comments about the potential of MLB in Raleigh. This is the most in-depth the Governor has gone into the eventual NC push for MLB, and the first time he really doubled down on the team’s location being in the Triangle (Raleigh specifically)

Here is the full video with quotes (start the video at the 30:15 mark)…

“The Triangle is the right kind of place to bring MLB.” Gov. Cooper, unprompted, went all-in on MLB to Raleigh, stating that when MLB is ready to expand “we’ll be in the mix” with a billionaire owner & government support. Full Convo on O+G Pod: https://t.co/t4Ct7qlV8kpic.twitter.com/d87Wi04QKe — MLBRaleigh (@MLBRaleigh) December 21, 2023

Unprovoked- Cooper: “I’m ready for some MLB in Raleigh.“

Ovies: “That was on my agenda of things to talk about and it does relate to Tom Dundon. Lots of movement with the PNC Arena and that entire development…So how do you feel about the Centennial Authority and his [Dundon’s] bigger plans to maybe want Major League Baseball.”

Cooper: “I think development in that area has been needed. I think a lot of people have expressed concern about being able to go to the PNC and then what do I do when I’m there.  There’s nothing there. The development around it I think will be extremely positive for our economy, it will help NC State, it will be positive for the State Fair and all things going on out there.

If we can get this Major League team to Raleigh, I think there can be a place in that area and could work. I know that Tom wants to have it in that area. There’s places in South Raleigh and others that people have looked at. But I think it’s a doable thing. I think once everything is squared away in Florida with Tampa and all that, they’re going to expand and I think that we’ll be in the mix. I think that Nashville will probably make a strong bid too.”

Ovies: “What do we need to make a strong bid for this? What do we need to actually make it happen, because I’ve argued…well not argued against it, but just there’s a lot of things that need to take place in the City of Raleigh to make a Major League Baseball team work, infrastructure-wise.”

Cooper: “Well first you need owners with a lot of money who are willing to put the money down to establish the team and put a significant amount in building a stadium and all the amenities. I think probably state and local government’s understanding of the economic windfall that could come from a Major League team. But you’ve got to have the big bucks behind it.

I think with the development behind it happening in that [PNC] area, a Major League team would fit nicely because there’s already infrastructure improvements happening. I think the demographics with the Hurricanes being the only pro team. We don’t have, in the Triangle area, a pro football team, a pro basketball team like Charlotte. Charlotte obviously has been mentioned, I don’t know if they are at the saturation point for pro sports with Charlotte FC and everything they’ve got. They could potentially be in the mix. I just think the Triangle is the right kind of place to bring Major League Baseball. That’s our hole, that’s North Carolina’s hole, that it would be really exciting to bring it here. We might not be able to pull it off, but you’re going to see a lot of people coming together to try and make it happen.“