Manfred confirms expansion is on, and Portland will be ready

A rendition of the ballpark envisioned by Portland Diamond Project should the city get awarded a Major League Baseball expansion franchise (courtesy Portland Diamond Project)

Updated 9/2/2025 1:50 PM

The reality of Major League Baseball expansion is getting closer. And yes, Portland is very much in the mix.

Commissioner Rob Manfred didn’t confirm the latter. In fact, he didn’t mention any potential expansion sites. But Manfred discussed the status of MLB expansion in a recent ESPN interview, during which he talked timeline, potential realignment, regional preferences and expansion fees.

Manfred, who turns 67 on Sept. 28, said he intends to have two expansion teams identified before his impending retirement date of January 2029.

“It has to be two teams,” Manfred said. “The only other restriction is, ideally we have an Eastern (team) and one in the Mountain or West (time zone) to balance.”

Manfred declined to name names of potential cities.

“The cities that are out there almost exclusively have been self-reported,” he said. “I don’t like to differentiate between them. We are not at that point in the process.”

It appears, though, that while there are several bonafide contenders in the East — Nashville, Orlando, Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham among them — two heavyweights will be slugging it out in the West.

Salt Lake City and Portland.

“Most people believe the West is going to come down to Portland and Salt Lake,” says Craig Cheek, founder of Portland Diamond Project, the group spearheading the city’s MLB drive.

PDP president Craig Cheek believes the two expansion teams would have their opening days in 2030 or 2031 (courtesy Portland Diamond Project)

Media outlets through the country are saying so, and are saying that at this point, the Utah capital is ahead in the race.

The subject of expansion occupied only a few minutes on Manfred’s 25-minute interview that touched on various subjects, but it caught the attention of the PDP leadership team.

“We get excited and highly motivated when the league office — and the commissioner in particular — confidently makes comments about expansion and realignment of divisions and what it could mean for rivalries,” Cheek told me in a recent 45-minute interview.

Major League Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement (CBA) ends after the 2026 season.

“Expansion will be a hot topic during negotiations,” Cheek says. “It should be a subject matter that both the league and union can agree upon.”

Manfred expects the new franchise sites to be selected by 2029, but “they won’t be on the field by the time I am done,” he said.

Says Cheek: “We think the earliest date (for expansion teams to begin play) is 2030. A lot of people are handicapping 2031 as the logical date.”

While 2029 is a long way off, there is no time to waste in preparation. PDP officials have a site — the Zidell Yards property in Portland’s south waterfront — and $800 million in privately backed bonds through the Oregon legislature toward construction of a stadium.

“If they get through the CBA without a big work stoppage, that is going to put us into late 2026 or early ’27,” Cheek says. “If everything goes well, we can put shovels in the ground in ’27.

“It takes 30 to 36 months to build a ballpark. Our goal is to have Zidell Yards shovel-ready next summer.

If the CBA got signed around the end of ’26, then we will be prepared. If we got the green light and go-ahead, we would be shovel-ready about a year from now, or maybe a little bit more.”

The Athletic recently handicapped six candidates for expansion franchises, including Portland, and projected Nashville and Salt Lake City as the leaders in the clubhouse.

“Big League Utah” got the jump on Portland with broad bipartisan political support, a large stadium site and up to $900 million in public funding for ballpark construction. And BLU has an ownership group —  the Larry H. Miller Company. Miller, who made his fortunes in auto dealerships, was the long-time owner of the NBA Utah Jazz. His wife, Gail, assumed ownership after Larry’s death and sold the Jazz in 2020 for $1.6 billion and the car dealerships for a collective $3.2 billion in 2021. The Millers currently own the Salt Lake Bees of the Triple-A Pacific Coast League and Real Salt Lake in Major League Soccer.

The Miller Company is now an investment firm built on — according to its website mission statement — the Miller family’s legacy of business leadership, community building and philanthropic ventures. An MLB ballpark is the proposed centerpiece of a 100-acre development in the heart of Salt Lake City’s westside, to which the Miller Company has pledged more than $3.5 billion.

“With Gail Miller and their group, they are one turn of the dial ahead of us,” Cheek concedes. “Because they pulled Gail forward as the billionaire, it puts (them) in a very confident position.”

Cheek does not have a “whale,” or general partner (GP) who can be the major financial might behind a stadium project and expansion franchise.

“That is the missing piece for us, and we know that eventually you have to close that loop,” he says.

The Dean of Portland Sports is now on BlueSky.

Soon after PDP began operations in 2017, Cheek and managing partner Mike Barrett spoke in general terms of a pair of wealthy businessmen in Northern California who were interested in filling that bill. Today, their roles with Portland’s MLB movement have lessened.

“They are still active, still working on things, but we are now in active and advanced negotiations with multiple parties,” Cheek says. “We are under NDAs (non-disclosure agreements), so I cannot disclose names. I would hope that not too far down the road we will be able to announce (a principal owner). At that point, I think we rise right back up.”

With the skyrocketing valuations of MLB franchises as well as expansion fees, several major partners are forming ownership consortiums.

“MLB has lagged behind the huge appreciation of NFL and NBA (franchises), but because (MLB franchises) are still big real estate plays and expensive ballparks, you are starting to see consortiums coming together,” Cheek says. “Even Tom Dundon (the prospective new owner of the Trail Blazers) has announced several partners in his group.”

Dundon’s apparent purchase of the NBA franchise hasn’t had much effect on interest of potential MLB-to-Portland franchise investors, Cheek says.

“We had a couple of our locals snooping around the Blazer deal,” he says. “If you had Portland roots and were a sports fan, you were interested.”

Some locals have committed to being limited partners (LPs) in Portland’s prospective MLB franchise.

“I am not going to disclose names or amounts,” Cheek says, “but there is a big affinity with Portland sports. People are excited about ownership that will keep the Blazers in Portland, and are also excited about adding baseball to the portfolio.”

There are no rules against someone having LP ownerships for multiple teams. Some of those with such interests have spoken with Cheek about being involved with the prospective Portland franchise.

“You are seeing people who have either owned other sports franchises or parts of them, and now they are excited about stepping up into a bigger role,” he says. “Those are some of the leads we have gotten and some of the people we are speaking with right now.”

The price tag for stadium and expansion fees will not be for the fainthearted.

Craig Cheek says PDP are in “active and advanced negotiations with multiple parties” with interest in ownership of a prospective MLB expansion franchise in Portland (courtesy Portland Diamond Project)

“The entire enterprise is going to wind up being $5 to $5 1/2 billion,” Cheek says.

The new Las Vegas stadium that will house the Athletics, under construction now, was estimated to have a cost of about $1.75 billion.

“Everybody knew that figure was low, that the ballpark was going to top $2 billion,” Cheek says. “We have targeted $2 billion (for a Portland ballpark).”

That is for a stadium that has a retractable roof and seats in the 32,000 to 33,000 range.

“We will have SRO (standing-room only) for another 5,000 or so,” Cheek says. “We would like to flex (capacity) close to 40,000 for a big series or the playoffs, but the base of the bowl will be 32,000 to 33,000.”

PDP has a leg up on the cost of the ballpark through the money appropriated from income tax on salaries of players, coaches and staff members of MLB clubs that play in Portland.

“We get to put $800 million against construction of the ballpark,” Cheek says. “There is going to be some city support as well. We get to look at banking relationships, and we will announce a banking partner soon.”

Presumably, there will be stadium naming rights as a source of income, too.

► ◄

Estimates of the price of expansion fees have risen dramatically over the past year or two.

“The last number the commissioner mentioned was $2.2 billion,” Cheek says. “A lot of people believe it will creep up to $2 1/2 billion, or it may even reach $3 billion.”

MLB would keep a certain percentage — perhaps five to 10 percent — and distribute 1/30th of the rest to each of the clubs throughout the league.

“Let’s say they fetch $3 billion for each of the two (expansion) teams, $6 billion between them,” Cheek says. If the league kept 10 percent, that would still mean something like $90 million per franchise. “It’s a big payday,” he says.

Cheek says expansion costs would be covered primarily by equity. Private equity (P&E) companies are authorized by MLB to invest in franchises.

“Sports franchises are now an asset class,” Cheek says. “MLB has approved that private equity can be 30 percent of your capital stack, but one partner can’t be more than 15 percent. You can have two 15-percent partners; at 16 percent you are the GP.”

Cheek offers companies such as Octos Global Solutions, Blue Owl Capital and Dial Partners as examples of potential partners on an expansion franchise’s capital stack.

PDP executives believe they need to have an equity number approaching the size of the expansion fee.

“We need to be able to show that we have a person, or people, with the liquidity to take a lion’s share of the expansion fee,” Cheek says. “Liberty Media Company in Atlanta is grandfathered in, but they won’t allow a corporation to come in now. Nike or Disney can’t own a team, but a principal can. Out of that $2.2 to $2.5 billion, you need a pretty big slug of that coming from one person.”

A 16 percent cut of $2.5 billion would be $400 million. Prospective principal owners, Cheek says, “would need to show they can stroke that half-a-billion-dollar check pretty easy.”

The league would likely allow the principal to apportion the amount over time.

“A minimum of three years, most likely five-to-seven years to spread out the payments,” says Cheek, who adds that a lot of potential principals are CEOs, chairmans or founders of major companies.

In 2023, Matt Ishbia purchased the Phoenix Suns and WNBA Mercury for $4 billion.

“He guaranteed it and put a big chunk up, but now he is going to cash out options of stock,” Cheek says. “He will make his payments and complete the sale. It is likely that somebody would be in a similar situation (in purchase of an MLB team). They don’t have to drop the $2 billion at once. They can put a big chunk down and pay it off over time.”

► ◄

Cheek says he is friends with John Loar, managing partner at Music City Baseball, which is leading Nashville’s expansion franchise bid. Cheek finds it ironic that pundits have identified Nashville as the leading candidate out of the East.

Says Cheek: “John said, ‘Craig, I would trade places with you in a heartbeat. I have no public subsidies from the state because of the (NFL) Titans deal. We are looking, but I don’t have land tied up. And I don’t have a billionaire (prospective principal owner).’ ”

“Nashville has a lot of energy,” Cheek says. “It is a unique market and they have been building up a sports and entertainment hallmark there. But John would tell you about us, ‘You have a waterfront site and you have bagged an $800 million financing instrument from your state.’ ”

As for the Salt Lake City set-up, Cheek offers this:

“I don’t think their site is all that compelling. We have a natural rivalry with Seattle; they don’t have any natural rivalries. We are a West Coast time zone; they are Mountain time zone. Portland comes out very favorable on every demographic in comparison.”

Metropolitan Salt Lake City has 1.2 million population. Portland’s metro area is about 2.5 million, or about double the market size.

“However, they have leaped the curb, and most people think Salt Lake is credible and very viable (as a candidate for an expansion team),” Cheek says. “It will come down to us two (in the West). Once we finish the play, I like our chances. I like all of the things we are putting together.”

► ◄

In February, PDP signed a purchase and sale agreement for the Zidell Yards property.

“It is fully under contract,” Cheek says. “We haven’t fully paid for it, but it is under contract and we are paying for it. We are in control and ownership of the site.”

PDP hired consultants to do due diligence on the land; that was completed in July.

“We believe we have a really solid road map,” he says. “There were no deal-breakers on the site. There is lots of complexity, lots of things we will work through environmentally. But in terms of any big flashing red signs? We didn’t get any. We got the green light. We can build the ballpark there.

“Now it is about just working through the level of detail to put the best plan on that site. Everything is moving forward. We were thrilled to get through the milestone and now believe we have our site.”

Cheek says his group has had “weekly meetings” with representatives of the city of Portland. The additional help from the city that he mentions will come from tax increment financing attached to finishing development of the area surrounding the Zidell Yards property.

“The whole South Waterfront area is maybe 160 acres,” Cheek says. “Ours is the last 33 acres to be developed. A lot of that (funding) will go to infrastructure — the roadwork, the electric grid, those kind of things — around the ballpark.”

Utah’s $900 million is coming primarily from taxes from the likes of car rentals, hotels and game tickets.

“We got the lion’s share from a creative jock tax,” Cheek says. “Maybe we will look at supplementing that with some ticket tax revenues and those kinds of things, but right now we feel good. We are trying not to burden Oregon taxpayers with any of this. What’s in place will allow us to build a world-class ballpark.”

PDP is still working with Populous architectural group, headquartered in Kansas City, Mo., and TDA Architecture, which designed Nike’s original Beaverton campus and Matt Knight Arena in Eugene. Also, with local construction companies Hoffman and Colas.

“We have a great team and great local ties, which is cool,” Cheek says. “We will put a lot of locals to work.”

The Athletic reports that Dundon and his administrative group with the NHL Carolina Hurricanes are brainstorming prospective MLB stadium sites, modeling sponsorship and ticket sales figures and communicating with local and state officials and businesses leaders in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area. He has the backing of North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, who spoke in support of the plan earlier this year.

“I haven’t met Tom yet, but he sounds like he is a baseball guy,” Cheek says. “My personal opinion, Raleigh is not in the pole position out East. I think it’s Nashville, and Charlotte is a better market than Raleigh. There is money in Montreal, but the league doesn’t see Montreal as the preferred market. But I wouldn’t bet against Tom. He has been quite successful with what he has done.”

► ◄

Cheek is working on his own timeline now.

“I want to be done with this whole thing by next summer,” he says. “I want to have all the zoning, the entitlements, the transportation studies, all the things done on Zidell Yards so that we are shovel-ready. I will be spending every waking moment from now until next summer on completing our capital stack, one that is vetted by MLB, so they know who these people are and that they approved them.

“The good news is, after eight years working on this, we have at least put ourselves not only in the conversation, but right at the top of the list of markets that would make sense (for MLB expansion). I still believe we are going to be a great fit.”

► ◄

Readers: what are your thoughts? I would love to hear them in the comments below. On the comments entry screen, only your name is required, your email address and website are optional, and may be left blank.

Follow me on X (formerly Twitter).

Like me on Facebook.

Find me on Instagram.