Salt Lake City MLB Expansion News: All about rumored baseball team in Utah

MLB expansion seems all but guaranteed, with commissioner Rob Manfred expressing the league's interest in adding two new teams. Several cities are vying to be the next teams to join the league, including Las Vegas, Portland, Nashville, Charlotte and Montreal.

Salt Lake City can now be added to the list of potential cities to be granted an MLB franchise. A consortium led by former Utah Jazz owner Gail Miller has expressed interest in bringing a baseball franchise to Utah.

"A group led by the former owner of the Utah Jazz plan to bring a MLB expansion team to Salt Lake City, per @JeffPassan," Talkin Baseball tweeted.

Big League Utah will join the likes of the Portland Diamond Project and Nashville's Music City Baseball as some of the organizations looking to benefit from MLB expansion. While the MLB has not committed to further growth, commissioner Rob Manfred has been on the record as saying, "I would love to get to 32 teams."

The Salt Lake City coalition behind the project includes the Larry H. Miller Company, as well as local business leaders and former MLB players Dale Murphy and Jeremy Guthrie.

The former Utah Jazz owner has cited the region's population growth, economy, and baseball history as key reasons why Utah would be an attractive destination for a future MLB franchise. Utah's population of 3.3 million has grown by a higher percentage than any other state from 2010 to 2020, something that the group has also highlighted.

"On Wednesday, the Miller family and the Larry H. Miller Company announced a coalition of Utah leaders has been convened to position Salt Lake City as an ideal market for @MLB," the Deseret News tweeted.

The group has also highlighted Salt Lake City's media market, which is larger than four current MLB teams, including the San Diego Padres, Kansas City Royals, Cincinnati Reds and Milwaukee Brewers.

A look at the last time MLB expansion occurred

If Utah is set to become the next expansion team in Major League Baseball, it would be the first new franchise since 1998. That season saw the Tampa Bay Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks join the MLB, pushing the total number of teams to 30.

"MLB Twitter reacts to the 1997 MLB Expansion Draft that introduced the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays into the MLB," Old MLB Tweets tweeted.

The addition of the Diamondbacks and Rays helped balance out the MLB, while also helping the league re-arrange the divisions.