AUSTIN, Texas — A newly formed group is trying to bring a Major League Baseball team to Austin.
Derrik Fox, an Austin sales executive, and Matt Mackowiak, an Austin public relations and political consultant who chairs the Travis County Republican Party, founded Austin Baseball Commission LLC in early July.
“We want to build the largest, broadest community effort in the history of this city,” Mackowiak said.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has said he expects an expansion process by 2029. Reports state the league could expand from 30 teams to 32 teams.
“Salt Lake City’s further along, Portland’s further along, Nashville’s further along,” Mackowiak said.
Mackowiak and Fox tout the region’s growth, economy and fan support of Austin FC and the University of Texas.
“Austin is a market that is maturing literally on a daily basis and becoming not just a major national market, but a global market with global events,” Mackowiak said.
“Between us and San Antonio, you’re going to have a top 20 TV market,” Fox said.
Austin FC, a Major League Soccer team, became the city’s first major professional sports team in 2021. But Austin is still the largest city in the U.S. without a team in the “big four” major leagues: National Football League, National Basketball Association, National Hockey League and Major League Baseball.
Mackowiak and Fox said they’ve started speaking with people in the baseball world and Austin Mayor Kirk Watson’s team.
“We’ll be speaking to city council members,” Mackowiak said. “We’ll be speaking to county officials. We already have in Williamson County. We will be in Travis and Hays very soon.”
They’ll also look for an investor group to put up the funding, which Mackowiak estimates as “a $4 billion enterprise … roughly”.
Another big question: Where to build a domed stadium from a starter list of seven sites spread across the region?
“These are the kind of things we’re going to explore: What are the incentives Hays County can offer? Travis County, Williamson County, city of Austin, state of Texas, understand what all those pieces are and, in the end [we'll] try to put together the absolute strongest bid to give us the absolute best chance,” Mackowiak said.
He added that access to mass transit and environmental issues will also be factored in.
But could the MLB’s two Texas teams, Texas Rangers and Houston Astros, intervene?
“This idea that we have to ask Dallas’s permission if we can have nice things is ridiculous,” Mackowiak said, noting it’s the owners of the current 30 MLB teams who will have the final say.
“It’s going to create more rivalries, more interest and therefore more revenue for all,” Fox said.
On Tuesday, officials with Round Rock Express, the local minor league affiliate for the Texas Rangers, referred KVUE to remarks CEO Reid Ryan recently made to the Austin Business Journal in a July 17 article. Those include, "If baseball was to expand and they were wanting to come to Central Texas, without a doubt, we would want to be a part of it."
All sides say they’re still very early in the process.
KVUE also reached out to Major League Baseball, the Texas Rangers and the Houston Astros for reaction on Tuesday but did not hear back.