ESPN’s Jeff Passan didn’t mince words this week: if MLB had to pick a city for its next franchise in the West today, the answer is Salt Lake City. Not because of hype — because of structure. Utah’s capital already has an identified owner, a signed public-private funding agreement, and a development site where construction is actively underway. While every other candidate is still in conversation mode, Salt Lake City is three steps ahead.
The Three Boxes Nobody Else Can Check — All at Once
Passan’s analysis, published September 8, 2026 on ESPN, frames the expansion race around three simple questions: Is there an owner? Is there stadium money? Is there a site? Salt Lake City answers yes to all three.
- Owner: The Larry H. Miller Company — the same family group that once owned the Utah Jazz and the Triple-A Salt Lake Bees — leads the Big League Utah coalition and has committed $3.5 billion toward the Power District, a 100-acre development on the west side of the city that includes the proposed MLB stadium site.
- Public funding: In 2024, Governor Spencer Cox signed two state laws — HB562 and SB272 — that together provide $900 million each in long-term public funds for the project. That’s $1.8 billion in signed legislative commitments. No other candidate city is even close to that level of political execution.
- Site: The Fairpark neighborhood development is already underway. The ground isn’t just identified — it’s being built on.
Nashville Was the Favorite. It’s Not Anymore.
For years, Nashville was talked about as the frontrunner for an Eastern expansion slot. As of September 2026, it arrives without a confirmed owner, without closed financing, and without a defined site. According to Passan, that reality has led several current MLB owners to openly question whether Nashville can meet the deadlines Commissioner Rob Manfred has set. The gap between the two cities isn’t close.
What Utah’s Governor Is Actually Arguing
Spencer Cox isn’t just the state’s chief executive — he also sits on the Big League Utah advisory board. In his ESPN interview, he made the case that Utah punches above its weight class as a sports market:
«It’s not enough to have a market. You need people within that market who actually care about the product. And that’s where Utah outperforms a lot of other places. We’ve proven it time and again with the Mammoth, with the Utah Jazz — where the numbers, not just the media numbers but all of them: spending, suites, sponsorships — are more on par with a larger market. I think that’s what makes Utah truly unique and fascinating. That’s why we’ve gotten so much attention. I know that’s why the league is looking at us very seriously.»
The data backs him up. The Salt Lake City combined statistical area recorded 2,705,693 residents in the 2020 census, ranking it 28th in the U.S. by market size. It’s not Houston or Chicago — but its track record of sports spending makes it competitive well beyond what the raw population number suggests.
The Timeline: Nothing Is Imminent, and That’s Fine for Utah
Manfred has said he wants two expansion cities chosen before his planned retirement in January 2029. New teams, in the best-case scenario, wouldn’t take the field until 2032 or 2033. The expansion fee is estimated around $2.5 billion, per Passan’s report.
There are structural brakes Utah can’t control. MLB cannot formally advance the expansion process until a new Collective Bargaining Agreement is signed — the current CBA expired in 2026 — and until the situations of the Oakland Athletics (in the process of relocating to Las Vegas by 2028) and the Tampa Bay Rays, whose future in Florida remains unresolved, are settled.
That last point matters: if the Rays can’t secure a stadium in Florida, Salt Lake City could become a relocation destination rather than an expansion franchise — which would accelerate Utah’s timeline considerably.
For now, Big League Utah has been building its case since 2023. HB562 includes a key detail: the public funds earmarked for the Fairpark neighborhood only activate if Utah lands an MLB franchise before 2032. It’s an incentive with an expiration date — and that gives the bid real urgency. The board is set. MLB just has to decide when to sit down and play.
