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According to a Ken Gray of the insufferably-difficult-to-navigate Ottawa Citizen, "a report expected to be released on Friday by City of Ottawa staff will say that the municipality has reached a memorandum of understanding with Beacon Sports of Boston to bring Double-A affiliated baseball to Ottawa in 2013, a source working for an Eastern League team says."

Beacon Sports Capital, it should be noted, has one Eastern League club listed among clientele on their website: Jays affiliate the New Hampshire Fisher Cats.

baulderdash77 wrote:New Hampshire is a quality AA location, it'll be too bad to see them go but I would prefer an Ottawa based team.

Buffalo next and we'll have great locations.

Ottawa has big plans to bring Double-A baseball to town for the 2013 season, but if it happens, do not expect to see Toronto Blue Jays prospects playing for the home team.

The City of Ottawa announced Thursday it has a tentative partnership with a Boston firm to upgrade Ottawa Stadium. The firm, Beacon Sports Capital, is committed to finding an Eastern League team willing to relocate.

The announcement sparked speculation that the Jays might move their Double-A team from New Hampshire after their current player development contract (PDC) expires at the end of the 2012 season.

General manager Alex Anthopoulos said the Jays have not been involved in the Ottawa discussions and have no plans to leave New Hampshire. "All this stuff is news to me," he said.

Anthopoulos said he was unaware of Thursday's announcement, although he acknowledged that putting a team in Ottawa would be good for baseball in Canada. But New Hampshire is good for the Jays, he added.

"We're thrilled with New Hampshire," Anthopoulos said. "They have the best ballpark in the Eastern League, unbelievable ownership and unbelievable management. It can't get any better for us than New Hampshire."

The Ottawa "agreement in principle" was announced as a recommendation from city staff and is expected to win council approval Feb. 22. In effect, it would commit taxpayers to $5.7-million in stadium upgrades without knowing the identity of the team.

Besides finding a team, Beacon would contribute $5 million for stadium improvements and secure a lease that would pay the city $257,000 per year for a decade.

Richard Billings, Beacon's chief operating officer, said in an interview that he would have no comment until after the agreement receives council approval. He refused to answer questions about which team Beacon is trying to lure to Ottawa.

Thursday's announcement said Beacon is targeting an existing Eastern League team.

Despite the best efforts of several intelligent men with plenty of experience as owners and managers of sports teams, Triple-A baseball failed in Ottawa. So what's going to be different about Double-A?

The Ottawa market is dominated by the NHL Senators, and baseball won't be the only new entry into the field. Professional football and soccer teams are being added over the next few years at a refurbished Lansdowne Park. For minor-league baseball to succeed if it returns to Ottawa next year, several things have to fall into place:

More population growth: It's good news for Ottawa's sports team owners that the city is, according to the latest census, one of the fastest-growing in the country, but are there enough people to support three new teams, plus the Senators and 67's? The Conference Board of Canada recently determined that a city can support total annual attendance at professional sporting events equal to its entire population. So, if metropolitan Ottawa is 1.2 million, that's how many tickets people will buy for all the pro sports teams combined. The formula is based on higher-priced professional teams, so you might reasonably expect more capacity for junior and minor-league teams. However, the Senators have about 800,000 tickets to sell each year. The new Canadian Football League team will be aiming to sell 200,000 or more. That doesn't leave a lot of capacity in the market for the 67's and the new soccer and baseball teams.

Interest in the majors: It will help if Beacon Sports Capital Partners, with whom the city is negotiating a 10-year lease, is successful in making the team an affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays. For the Double-A franchise to thrive, more people will have to follow baseball at all levels. The Triple-A Lynx suffered when interest in Canada declined after the 1994 strike that cost the Montreal Expos a run at the World Series. And it didn't just happen here. Minor league teams disappeared from several other Canadian cities. Is fan interest sufficiently higher now? The Blue Jays have lots of exposure on national television, which will help. It wouldn't hurt if they had a few surprisingly good seasons, and maybe a run for a playoff berth, in the next few years.