Vancouver has a partner for its Major League Baseball expansion push. City council picked The Show Vancouver over other bidders, putting real estate developer Zack Ross and the roster of sports-industry veterans he’s assembled in charge.
Sportsnet‘s Ben Nicholson-Smith broke the news on Wednesday; the city’s own announcement confirmed it later that day. TSV now works alongside city staff to court MLB for an expansion franchise.
Ross runs Cape Group, a Vancouver real estate developer. His partners at BRS Sports include Jac Sperling, who has a hand in launching three North American expansion franchises and helped land the NHL’s Kraken for Seattle; Ray Baker, who sat on the public authority that financed and built Coors Field for the Rockies; and Tim Romani, who founded a venue-development firm CAA later folded into CAA Icon, touching more than $20 billion in sports and entertainment projects, from the Clippers’ Intuit Dome to the Calgary Flames’ future Scotia Place. Sperling called Ross “the right person at the right time for this once-in-a-generation opportunity.”
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Populous — the firm behind Yankee Stadium, Citi Field, and Truist Park — will design the ballpark, while Gensler takes on the surrounding mixed-use development. Neither the city nor TSV has said where any of it might go.
BC Place hosted MLB exhibition games before. The Blue Jays, Mariners, and Expos all played there between 1984 and 1994, but a 2011 renovation — $500 million for a retractable roof and a new scoreboard — put an end to that.
The selection follows a Request for Expressions of Interest process Mayor Ken Sim set in motion this spring, when council directed staff to find a qualified ownership group able to bankroll the effort. Submissions closed June 19, and the city picked TSV within its self-imposed end-of-July window.
Council has now directed staff to work out a memorandum of understanding covering how the two sides will collaborate while TSV vets possible stadium locations. TSV is footing the entire bill and bearing all the risk itself. “No decisions have been made regarding a potential MLB franchise or ballpark location,” the city said. Any stadium proposal would still face council’s ordinary approval process.
MLB hasn’t expanded since the Diamondbacks and Rays joined in 1998, and while commissioner Rob Manfred has said he wants the league at 32 clubs before his term ends in January 2029, an expansion committee likely won’t exist before 2027. Nashville and Salt Lake City are still the names most reporters point to for the two open spots, while Vancouver tends to land a tier down, alongside Portland, Charlotte, and Orlando.
A Research Co. poll this spring put support at 72% of British Columbians, and roughly 150 B.C. leaders signed on to a public letter backing the bid. Former Vancouver mayor and B.C. premier Mike Harcourt has also lent his name to the push.
