Menu
Facilities

Astros Owner Considers Moving Team's Spring Training Site To Florida's East Coast

Astros Owner Jim Crane yesterday said that he is "considering moving the Astros’ spring training operations to sites on Florida’s east coast, including Palm Beach County," according to Joe Capozzi of the PALM BEACH POST. Crane said that possible sites "range from Port St. Lucie, where the New York Mets train, to as far south as Fort Lauderdale." The Astros train in Kissimmee "under a lease that expires in 2016." Crane would "love to move his team closer to Palm City in southern Martin County, which is home to his Florida Golf and Yacht Club." Crane said, "We’ve been looking in this area, primarily because you have the Mets and you have the Marlins and the Cardinals. You get two more teams in this area and (if) the Mets can get someone else, it would really solidify baseball on the east coast and make the travel schedules easier." He added, "The consensus is (with) the density in this area, in particular around the West Palm Beach airport and in Jupiter and to Stuart, I think you could draw from all over. When you look at what the Cardinals and Marlins have been able to do here, it does draw a lot of people into the area and they spend a lot of money" (PALM BEACH POST, 3/13). MLB.com's Christina De Nicola noted Crane "envisions a Spring Training home where his organization shares the facility with another team, limiting travel and building a fan base in a densely populated area." While he "doesn't yet have a city in mind, Crane likes the Interstate 95 corridor as far south as Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and as far north as Stuart, Fla." Crane said, "We still have a contract with Kissimmee for a couple more years, and they're treating us great and it's a nice location" (MLB.com, 3/12).

AIMING FOR THE STARS: Astros GM Jeff Luhnow said, "There's a lot of frustration among our fan base and as the new group in charge we recognize that frustration and the best thing we can do to make the Astros great again is build our own system, build our own players." He added the Astros are in the "position where we can deploy close" to $20M "worth of resources into signing international free agents and amateur players through the draft." Luhnow said the new CBA "will have the effect it was intended to have, which is the teams that are finishing last in baseball are going to have an opportunity to close the gap talent-wise with those teams that finish ahead and that's what it was intended to do" ("Behind The Dish With Keith Law," ESPN.com, 3/12).

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 25, 2024

NFL meeting preview; MLB's opening week ad effort and remembering Peter Angelos.

Big Get Jay Wright, March Madness is upon us and ESPN locks up CFP

On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

Shareable URL copied to clipboard!

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2013/03/13/Facilities/Astros-ST-Site.aspx

Sorry, something went wrong with the copy but here is the link for you.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2013/03/13/Facilities/Astros-ST-Site.aspx

CLOSE