It has been 26 years since the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays became the MLB's newest teams — which is the second-longest gap the MLB has ever gone between adding expansion franchises.
Yet, that gap is almost certainly coming to a close in the next decade — and when it does, the MLB already has set its sights on two US cities to receive teams.
According to a report from ESPN MLB insider Jeff Passan, although there are no current plans to expand the MLB into new cities, the financial benefit of doing so, "has left the game preparing for a 32-team league as an inevitability, according to owners, high-ranking league sources and other team personnel".
While expansion talk was seldom discussed in recent years, that all changed earlier this month, when incumbent MLB commissioner Ron Manfred — who announced last week that he would be retiring from the position in January 2029 — told ESPN that he, "would like the [expansion] process along and [cities] selected" by the time he retires.
It has also been widely reported that, when the inevitable expansion does occur, it will include adding one team on the West Coast and another team along the East Coast. While there are more than a half-dozen contending cities at the moment, two are seen as favorites: Salt Lake City, Utah, and Nashville, Tennessee.
Both of these prospective cities make a ton of sense for a potential MLB franchise. Nashville and Salt Lake City are the 26th and 27th biggest media markets in the United States, respectively, and both regularly rank among the United States' fastest-growing cities.
While Nashville has long been at the top of a potential MLB expansion list — and currently sounds like a slam dunk to get a team when the league does elect to expand — Salt Lake City has only become a main contender in the past six months, when they supposedly surpassed Portland, Oregon as the premier West Coast expansion city, in the minds of MLB owners.
Of course, all of that could change before Manfred and the MLB actually start making expansion moves.
Currently, the cities which are being considered for expansion in addition to Nashville and Salt Lake City are: Charlotte, North Carolina; Portland; San Jose, California; Austin, Texas; Vancouver, British Columbia; and Mexico City.
Although the MLB becoming a 32-team league is still at least a few years away, baseball fans in these cities can dream about eventually receiving a team — especially those in Nashville or Salt Lake City.
