A Nashville MLB Expansion team needs to be in the works. Major League Baseball is looking to expand for the first time since 1998 under a new collective bargaining agreement, bringing clubs to two new cities. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, who is still trying to finalize a CBA deal, has repeatedly hinted at beginning the expansion process once a deal is reached. It’s kicked off a scramble among numerous cities to pitch and push for one of the two coveted spots.
Nashville, Tennessee, a historic Negro Leagues town, is one of the most deserving cities in the United States. In fact, Tennessee is a historic baseball state for Black baseball leagues, hosting the Memphis Red Sox and Knoxville Giants. None of those teams are on the level of the Homestead Grays, Kansas City Monarchs, or St. Louis Stars, but it’s still a rich location not just economically, but culturally. It’s high time MLB expanded its presence in the South and reached beyond Atlanta.
Nashville MLB Expansion Team Push Comes After Years Of Campaigning
Nashville has backed a major push for MLB to come to the area for the last few years, starting with its initial push in 2019.
A group, Music City Baseball, formed in 2019 with the sole goal of securing an MLB team already had renderings and concepts of a retractable-roof stadium near Nissan Stadium, home of the Tennessee Titans. Music City Baseball, led by founder John Loar and joined by former Arizona Diamondbacks executive Dave Stewart, went all-out in their initial push to woo baseball executives in New York.
Over the last seven years, the group’s push has been relentless as it built what could only be described as a lineup of wartime generals. Philadelphia Phillies executive Dan Dombrowski joined the group in 2020, with managers Bruce Bochy, Tony La Russa, and even Don Mattingly playing a role. Former MLB Players R.A. Dickey and Barry Zito have also been part of the push to bring baseball to Nashville.
While the group was supposed to push for a presentation in 2021, nothing of the sort really came of it, if it ever happened, due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. In 2023, the group tried again as Manfred began planting seeds about an expansion idea, which former Athletic Dave Stewart quickly jumped on. In 2024, Loar remained optimistic about the timeline for getting a team despite the sheer number of obstacles and hurdles to get any team off the ground.
“We think that the brand that we’ve developed over the years, and the relationship that we have with the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum is important,” Loar told the Nashville Banner in 2024.
The team name would also pay homage to one of the more historic Negro League teams of the 1940s and 50s: The Nashville Stars.
Rich Negro League History Makes Nashville Prime Candidate For Expansion
Nashville played a major role in the expansion and history of the Negro League Baseball leagues from the 1920s to the 1950s. In fact, the entire state of Tennessee had a major footprint in that league during that time.
The team the new Nashville club would be based on, the Nashville Stars, had brief stints in the Negro Leagues from the 1930s to the 1950s. While the team itself has little documented history, Music City Baseball points to that team specifically, along with its partnership with the Negro League Baseball Museum, as a driving force.
More notable teams from the state include the Memphis Red Sox, which played for over 20 seasons and won one league championship in 1938. Though limited, four players from the team found success in the league, including Dan Bankhead, the first Black pitcher in MLB history. Some players from the Nashville Elite Giants also found success after the team moved to Baltimore, including Turkey Stearnes and Roy Campanella. It’s not a glorious history, but some significant historical players have come from the city itself or indirectly from moves in the Negro Leagues.
Today, what remains of Sulphur Dell is now occupied by First Horizon Park, which hosts the Triple-A Milwaukee Brewers affiliate Nashville Sounds. Even outside of the Negro Leagues, baseball has been around for over 100 years in the area, thanks to the Nashville Americans and Vols.
A 2022 New York Times profile noted that black kids in the city wanted to play baseball but couldn’t because of costs and limited access to the sport. Bringing a team to the area might spur investment in the city and bring more Little League and independent leagues to the state and surrounding areas in Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Kentucky. The economic boom would be great, of course, but the cultural impact an MLB team would bring to the city is valuable and cannot be replicated.
