With Texas already home to two MLB franchises, the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros, the prospect of Austin becoming a future home to a major league baseball team might sound far-fetched to a conventional fan.
But if you ask the folks at the Austin Baseball Commission, the idea of an MLB team does not seem too far out of the ballpark for an underserved market in professional sports.
“The NBA has three basketball teams in Texas, so it’s pretty clear that the state can support three baseball teams,” co-founder Dustin Byington said. “I think there’s an opportunity to create a three-way regional rivalry.”
It’s been over two decades since the MLB expanded to new markets, welcoming Phoenix and Tampa Bay in 1998. Since then, America’s pastime has become hesitant to expand compared to efforts from the other big four leagues in recent years.
Current MLB commissioner Rob Manfred gave himself and the league a definitive date for expansion by the time his contract expires in 2029. Although there is no clear list the league is considering, cities home to Triple-A teams, the highest level of minor league baseball, are vying for an MLB franchise.
“People benefit from friction in sports; everybody loves a regional rivalry,” co-founder Derik Fox said. “We expect that Houston and Dallas probably won’t want this, but they’re two votes out of 30 teams.”
Fighting for a spot with other groups around the country, Fox and the commission believe Austin is the best market for the MLB to expand to, citing the major growth the city and region have experienced in the past decade.
“We’re going to have 6 million (people) by the end of this decade, the way (Central Texas) is growing,” Fox said. “You factor in San Antonio, and we’re much, much larger. So this whole part of Texas is extremely underserved.”
Domination by UT for decades has put Austin behind its big-city counterparts in the state in attracting pro sports to settle in Central Texas. Professional leagues have headed to the Metroplex and Houston instead — places with higher populations and more national media attention.
Texas has mostly filled the void left by a lack of professional sports with premier college athletics. However, the Austin Baseball Commission does not view the University as a major threat.
“I’d say 15 to 20 years ago, UT really would have a lot more clout in this town,” Fox said. “This city has grown so quickly to such an extent that these kinds of business ventures really can’t be stopped by the school or by local government anymore.”
Breaking the city out of its shell, the Major League Soccer expansion in Austin in 2018 ushered in a new era of the city’s sports landscape. Looking at the support Austin FC has garnered since entering the league has given the Austin Baseball Commission confidence in its goals of attracting a “Big Four” franchise.
“Austin FC is an important venture because it represents something that’s outside of the typical Austin institutions,” Fox said. “It was something that was its own entity. And I think there wasn’t much of a conversation about interfering with UT because this wasn’t seen as a soccer town.”
Just a year and a half in, the Austin Baseball Commission’s ambitious goal of bringing in an MLB franchise remains a couple of years away. Still, the group is working hard by rallying public support in the meantime.
“At the end of the day, the baseball team is for the residents of Austin,” said Jacob Neidig, a marketing analyst for the Austin Baseball Commission. “We want the voices of the people, the opinions of the people, to be one of the highest priority factors. Austin has demonstrated so much potential with how people follow UT that this is another opportunity for the city to grow together.”
