It’s been 22 years since Canada’s original Major League Baseball franchise left Montreal for Washington, D.C., but Vancouver’s mayor hopes to bring another MLB club to his city on the West Coast.
In a press release issued yesterday, Ken Sim, the mayor of Vancouver, British Columbia, announced that he would bring a motion before the city council that would, if passed, authorize the city government to open a competitive bidding process to identify an ownership group to bid for an MLB expansion franchise.
“This is an opportunity to bring something truly special to our city,” Sim said in the press release. “An MLB team would be a significant step forward for our city and create lasting memories for fans across generations.”
Vancouver should become the next home of a Major League Baseball team.
With the MLB publicly expressing interest in expansion in the near future, we see an opportunity to position our city as the next home for a franchise.
This could be an opportunity to bring something truly… pic.twitter.com/wB35VrX8Cb
— Mayor Ken Sim (@KenSimCity) April 14, 2026
Vancouver, located on British Columbia’s Lower Mainland, is the home of Canada’s only affiliated minor league team, the Vancouver Canadians of the High-A Northwest League. The club, an affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays, plays at Nat Bailey Stadium, a 6,500-seat ballpark built in 1951.
“Our city has a strong sports culture and a proven track record of supporting professional teams,” Sim said in the press release. “With the MLB publicly expressing interested in league expansion in the near future, we see an opportunity to position Vancouver as the next home for a franchise.”
Previously, Vancouver hosted Triple-A baseball at Nat Bailey Stadium from 1978-99, when the ballpark was home to a Pacific Coast League franchise also known as the Canadians. The team was affiliated at different times with the Oakland A’s, California Angels, Chicago White Sox, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Milwaukee Brewers.
The biggest hurdle to Vancouver being awarded an expansion franchise would be a venue. With just 6,500 seats, Nat Bailey Stadium is too small a ballpark to host an MLB franchise.
BC Place, the home of the B.C. Lions of the Canadian Football League, was built as a multi-purpose stadium that could host baseball. Originally built with an air-supported roof similar to both the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis and the Tokyo Dome, BC Place has hosted Triple-A Vancouver Canadians games several times in the 1980s, including Games 1 and 2 of the 1985 PCL Championship Series, MLB spring training games in 1984, 1986, 1993, and 1994, and was proposed to host select Seattle Mariners home games during the 1990s.
The stadium has since had the air-supported roof replaced with a retractable roof as part of a C$150 million renovation between 2008-10, which was done in advance of the stadium hosting the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympics.
More recently, the Arizona Diamondbacks examined BC Place as a potential emergency venue in 2018, according to a 2020 report by Sean Fitz-Gerald of The Athletic, when Chase Field in Phoenix, the Diamondbacks home park since they began play in 1998, was experiencing problems with its roof.
“Portland, Las Vegas, Charlotte, Nashville in the United States, certainly Montreal, maybe Vancouver, in Canada,” Manfred was quoted by The Athletic when asked where MLB could potentially expand in the future. “We think there’s places in Mexico we could go over the long haul.”
With 54,500 seats post-renovation, BC Place would be the second-largest stadium in MLB by seating capacity were it to become the home of an expansion or relocated franchise.
Several other cities are potentially vying for an MLB expansion franchise, though MLB commissioner Robert D. Manfred has previously stated that the league would not expand until new stadiums had been secured for both the Athletics, who left Oakland for Sacramento and are awaiting the completion of a stadium in Las Vegas, and the Tampa Bay Rays, who have been seeking a new ballpark to replace the long-outdated Tropicana Field for over a decade.
Among other cities interested in an MLB expansion franchise are Nashville, Tennessee, Charlotte, N.C., and Montreal, though there remains no public timeline on when Major League Baseball would seek bids for an expansion franchise.
The league last expanded in 1998, when the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Rays joined the league.
Photo: U.S. players run drills during a practice for the Women’s World Cup soccer final under the open roof of BC Place in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Saturday, July 4, 2015. There are 23 venues bidding to host soccer matches at the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada.(AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
