Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association have discussed realigning its leagues and divisions, ESPN.com's Buster Olney first reported on June 12.

Naturally, even whispers of changes to MLB, with its arrangement of teams that hasn't changed since 1998, have triggered widespread analysis on how the game would be affected by altering the current structure of 16 teams in the National League and 14 in the American League.

A "simple realignment" plan of transferring one N.L. team to the A.L. would even out the leagues, and fix a ridiculous format that has a four-team A.L. West division and six-team N.L. Central division. However, having an odd number of teams in each league would necessitate interleague games be played all season long (a notion that has already made traditionalists' heads spin). In addition, simply swapping the Houston Astros to the A.L. West wouldn't fix other existing competitive balance issues, like the handicap placed on any A.L. East team that doesn't have the good fortune of being located in Boston or New York.

One avenue that could solve several of the issues brought up regarding simple realignment hasn't been widely discussed: expansion. Expanding MLB to 32 teams would create even-numbered and balanced leagues, along with creating the opportunity for two eight-team divisions in each league. If that plan included two or three wild card teams in each league, many of the competitive balance issues, like league unevenness and division disproportion, are solved in one fell swoop.

It has been seven years since the last wave of expansion in the four major North American sports. The addition of the Charlotte Bobcats to the NBA ended a 16-year era of expansion that lasted from 1988 through '04. In that timeframe, the NHL created nine new franchises, the NBA added seven teams, the NFL brought in four teams, and MLB saw four new clubs join the league.

While the NHL may have overextended themselves with expansion and relocation of teams into the southern United States, all four leagues have remained healthy into the 2010s.

Major League Baseball has not only remained healthy, but grown substantially since Arizona and Tampa Bay joined in 1998. Attendance across the game of baseball has been strong over the past decade. Major League Baseball posted its lowest league-wide attendance of 2010's in 2003, with 67.7 million fans packing into stadiums that season. But after that, total attendance rose to as high as 79.5 million in 2007, before falling slightly to 73.1 million in 2010. The decrease from '07 to '10 was mainly the result the Mets and Yankees, two of the biggest draws in baseball, moving to smaller new stadiums in 2009.

Despite an ongoing recession, league-wide revenues have grown over the past few years, especially national TV money. Nearly all signs point to MLB being healthy enough to add two more teams, and expansion to 32 would solve the league's realignment issues. It all seems perfect. So there has to be a catch.

Actually, there are a few.

"Expansion often times comes when leagues are in need of revenues," notes sports business expert Maury Brown, who runs the website The Biz of Baseball. "Right now, owners will say, 'Why cut up revenues 32 ways? We're happy with 30.'"

Certainly the current contingent of Major League owners would not want to slice the national revenue pie up even more. But couldn't the nine teams in violation of MLB's rules on debt service use the financial leg-up that new franchise fees could provide?

"Sure. But, for the ying there's the yang," replies Brown. "The teams in compliance would scream. The 21 clubs (within MLB's debt rules) beat nine clubs that have over-leveraged."

Even if MLB and its owners were interested in adding two more teams, the issue becomes were those new franchises would be located. 

"While revenues have grown to $7 billion over a sour economy," says Brown, who worked with the Oregon Stadium Campaign that tried to lure the Montreal Expos to Portland. "The ability for cities to fund stadiums is nearly impossible at this stage."

That sour economy is the key. A new ballpark for the Florida Marlins, set to open next year, is the only NFL or MLB stadium to be approved for construction since the current recession began in 2008.

"I think in general, no one is spending on anything right now, and won’t be for a few years, because of the economy," says Neil deMause, writer of the stadium financing book Field of Schemes. "There was a bubble in the sports ticket and sports suite economy for several years, in the same way there was in the greater economy, where everybody just thought things be worth more and more. And that (attitude) is over."

With the Marlins moving into their new stadium next year, Major League Baseball focus is on securing new stadiums for the Oakland Athletics and Tampa Bay Rays. Both the A's and Rays have become disenchanted with their current facilities, which they believe are largely responsible for the teams finishing in the bottom five in attendance over the last decade.

The two teams look to be in for some long battles ahead as they try to move around their respective bays, discussions that deMause says will keep the two franchises in their current stadiums for the next five years, at least.

The Athletics have designs on moving to nearby San Jose, which is within the territorial rights of the cross-bay San Francisco Giants, a plan that MLB commissioner Bud Selig isn't likely to approve.

In Florida, the Rays want to move across Tampa Bay from Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg to a new ballpark in the city of Tampa. St. Pete mayor Bill Foster won't hear of it, threatening to sue any entity that interferes with the Rays, who are bound by their lease to play at the Trop through the 2027 season.

With no sides looking to budge on these two stadium discussions, it's difficult to imagine that MLB would also be willing to take up negotiations to try to finance new stadiums (likely with a lot of public money) in, say, Charlotte or Montreal, markets that could conceivably be viable for supporting teams in the future.

That's where the peculiar situation of MLB revenue sharing comes in as an impediment to expansion.

"Any of these cities could conceivably be no better or no worse than the current smaller markets," says deMause. "But they likely wouldn't pay into the revenue sharing system. Either they or somebody else would then be at the bottom of the barrel in revenue."

While moving Major League Baseball to a system with 32 teams and four total divisions is ideal on the field (deMause called the theoretical alignment "awesome"), it's not likely that the current owners would support such a plan financially any time soon.

If MLB does ever plan an expansion, both Brown and deMause suggest looking at New York City. With 19 million people and plenty of business capital in the metropolitan area, deMause suggests MLB "could easily put even two more teams in New York." Brown agrees, adding that the market size and corporate base would trump any problems with two teams New York teams playing at home on the same day.

For the foreseeable future, though, any Major League Baseball realignment will occur within the current 30 teams.

"Baseball, at least in terms of the number of teams, seems to be kind of at a 'Let's not mess with what's working' level," concludes deMause. "More likely, you'll see the fifteen and fifteen with three divisions in each league rather than the one big division, just because baseball owners are hesitant to take risks."

Such aversion to risk means that MLB will just be shuffling its cards for now.

 

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