Friday, February 22, 2013

Rick Scott Wants Plan to Keep Grapefruit League Teams

Last night in Sarasota, Governor Rick Scott hosted a reception for the top executives from the 15 MLB teams that take up spring residence in Florida.  And according to the Herald-Tribune, he wants to come up with a plan to make sure the state doesn't lose any more teams to Arizona:
Florida's biggest concern now is losing the Houston Astros, which train in Kissimmee. The team's lease expires in 2016, and there has been talk of Arizona cities trying to lure the team out west.
As I've written before, the Sunshine State is not in position to lose a spring training team, but maybe even pick one up from Arizona; City of Palms Park in Ft. Myers has been vacant since the Red Sox got a new $77 million stadium across town.

But maybe Governor Scott is truly concerned about the Grapefruit/Cactus competition.  It would stand to reason Arizona would be just as concerned since its main draw, the Cubs, threatened to move to Naples in 2010.

Scott has two choices for keeping Grapefruit league teams in Florida:
  1. Offer state and local subsidies to keep building new and improved ballparks to keep teams (like the Baltimore Orioles);
  2. Speak to his friend, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, and agree that neither state would contribute public funds toward stealing the other's spring training teams.
Option No. 2 would of course guarantee the same level playing field as Option No. 1...except the taxpayers of each state would get to keep tens of millions of dollars in their own pockets each year. 

Option No. 2 makes the most sense and is a win-win for both states;  which is why my money is on Option No. 1.

2 comments:

  1. Jason ColletteFebruary 22, 2013 at 12:13 PM

    Sides need to work together to move the Nationals over to central Florida and allow they & the Astros to share a state of the art facility. Osceola has had a nice facelift in recent years but most of the facilities in Arizona dwarf what is here in Florida.

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  2. PJMay 28, 2013 at 12:17 AM

    Why do the franchises need "state-of-the-art"??
    If Scott had any backbone, he'd put out a minimum and force the franchises
    to make it state-of-the-art - code words for the big-time sports industry version of the "mine is bigger than yours" ego trip.
    Time to stop allowing the tail to wag the dog.

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