Expos President Claude Brochu on Friday "revealed a
plan that is flawless in its conception: either the
corporate community and the baseball fans in Montreal will
ante up between [C]$75 and [C]$80 million by purchasing
18,000 seat licenses over the next year or the team will be
sold," according to Jack Todd of the Montreal GAZETTE. If
the PSL campaign is not successful, "Brochu made it clear
the Expos will be sold -- immediately." Brochu: "I could
sell this team tomorrow for between [C]$230 and [C]$240
million. This is not a choice between baseball at the
Olympic Stadium and baseball downtown. It is a choice
between baseball downtown and no baseball at all." Brochu,
asked if the team would play in Montreal in '99 if the
financing is not in place to begin construction on a new
stadium next year, said, "No." Todd wrote the team
commissioned $800,000 worth of studies and the "figures
Brochu is using show the provincial and federal governments
losing up to $77 million a year in tax revenue if the Expos
leave town" (Montreal GAZETTE, 6/21).
REAX: In Ottawa, Wayne Scanlan, on Brochu's press
conference: "Brochu threw a strike. ... Brochu said he
expected no direct subsidy. ... Brochu was earnest without
being dour. He was direct, blunt, but not threatening;
optimistic without sounding dreamy or daft" (OTTAWA CITIZEN,
6/21). But in Montreal, Ted Blackman wrote: "This self-
defeating scheme promises only one sold seat -- Brochu's,
first-class, closest flight to Virginia" (GAZETTE, 6/22).
In Montreal, Jeff Blair: "There was no political presence at
Brochu's news conference on Friday, not even a glimmer of
moral support" (Montreal GAZETTE, 6/22).
