Charlotte column urges unified North Carolina push for MLB team

A Charlotte column has put a harder question in front of North Carolina baseball boosters: if Major League Baseball really expands to 32 teams, is Charlotte willing to help turn Raleigh’s pitch into a statewide bid, or keep watching from the sidelines?

The answer matters in Wake County because a true expansion chase would not just be about civic pride. Earlier reporting put a potential MLB expansion fee at about $2.2 billion, a scale that all but guarantees the winning side would need wealthy ownership, stadium financing, and political backing far beyond one metro. Tom Dundon, the Carolina Hurricanes owner, said in October 2023 that he wanted to bring MLB to North Carolina and believed Raleigh was the best place in the country for a new team. He also thought the facts backed that up.

Those facts start with growth. Wake County says it has more than 1.2 million residents and is adding about 66 people per day. The county says it has gained more than 103,000 people since 2020, while issuing 9,472 building permits in 2024. Raleigh’s 2024 population estimate was 499,637, according to Census Reporter, and a state demographer update said the city crossed 500,000 last year. The Raleigh-Cary metro is estimated at 1,562,009 people, while the broader Triangle is pegged at 2,148,648.

That is the case MLB Raleigh has been making to the league and to local power brokers. The campaign says Raleigh and Durham form the largest U.S. TV market without a locally or regionally broadcast MLB team, and it argues the Triangle is one of the strongest expansion markets because of its population, corporate base, and room for a stadium footprint. The new push from Charlotte supporters changes the political calculation more than the market math. A unified North Carolina bid would look more serious than a Triangle-only campaign, especially if Charlotte banks, energy companies, manufacturers and law firms were willing to help.

But a statewide front would also widen the list of people who might be asked to pay. In Wake County, that means more pressure on roads, utilities, transit planning, land use, and development priorities that are already being stressed by fast population growth. If Raleigh becomes the center of a real expansion campaign, local leaders would have to weigh whether baseball belongs ahead of other needs, or alongside them. On paper, Charlotte belongs in the conversation. In practice, the question is whether the whole state is ready to absorb the cost.