Nashville Stars could be MLB's next team, first Black-owned club

Major League Baseball might get a little more diverse...provided a specific team can be added in Nashville. 

Music City Baseball LLC is trying to acquire a team, either through expansion or relocation, in Nashville. According to USA Today's Bob Nightengale, the team would be called the Nashville Stars and would be the first MLB club to be named after a Negro League team. 

The organization hopes to become the first team in baseball history to have African American majority ownership. They'd be just the second team in all of sports to be majority Black-owned, joining Michael Jordan's Charlotte Hornets.

“This is what baseball should do,’’ Dave Stewart, the three-time World Series champion and one of only five Black GMs in baseball history, told USA TODAY Sports. “They should open the doors to Black ownership, diverse ownership. This is the time for baseball to do something they’ve never done. For what this country is going through, and what baseball is going through, there will be a residual effect. This is history.

“Think about it, we’ve never had Black ownership in baseball. There’s Magic [Johnson] and [Derek] Jeter, but that’s not real Black ownership because their stakes are so small. This is real. And now is the time.’’

The Music City Baseball group is led by businessman John Loar, former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa and Negro Leagues Baseball Museum president Bob Kendrick. Former Boston Red Sox general manager Dave Dombrowski also joined the group on Monday.

Nashville is expected to submit its official proposal to MLB at the 2021 Winter Meetings. 

The league would like to eventually expand to 32 teams, but the Tampa Bay Rays are the leading relocation favorite. Tampa is exploring the possibility of splitting games between Tampa and Montreal, though it seems a bit unrealistic at this point. The Oakland Athletics are another a relocation candidate, but the city would be quite irritated if another one of its teams jumps ship as the Raiders will play in Las Vegas beginning this season and the Warriors moved across the bridge to San Francisco at the beginning of the 2019-20 campaign. 

Having baseball in Nashville, though, could be wildly successful. The city already has the Predators (NHL) and Titans (NFL) while the Grizzlies (NBA) play in Memphis. If MLB were to accept this proposal, they'd be raking in the cash.