SB Nation Reacts: Expansion chatter is in the air

Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across MLB. Each week, we send 30 polls to plugged in fans from each team. Astros fans, sign up HERE to join Reacts.

Major League Baseball has had a tumultuous calendar year with a pandemic ongoing, lost revenues abound, and a looming CBA battle with players next winter. All in all, not exactly a sport filled with fuzzy feelings right now. But that hasn’t stopped the conversation of expansion in recent years and the steam is only picking up.

In fact, it appears if commissioner Rob Manfred is intent on expansion happening, sooner or later. It’ll probably happen sometime within the next 10 to 15 years if I have to guess. That said, 53 percent of fans who participated in the recent survey don’t want the league to expand. A slight majority, sure, but still a majority.

There are currently 30 teams in Major League Baseball and any expansion plan would have to include an even number of teams to keep the number of teams in each league balanced. 79 percent of fans who voted believe that in the event Major League Baseball expands, two teams should be added. One to each league would keep AL and NL balanced with 16 teams each.

Expansion usually means that a city already without a team in that particular sport receives one (well, most of the time). Manfred recently listed places like Montreal, Charlotte, Portland, Nashville, Vancouver, and Mexico (likely Monterrey) as potential expansion cities. The city of Montreal stands out for obvious reasons while other areas would be new to the major league circle. In the results below, fans generally ranked Nashville and Montreal as the two cities they would like to receive an expansion franchise.

To vote in the Reacts surveys and have your voice heard each week, sign up here.