A Glimmer of Hope Shone: The New Ballpark that Could’ve Saved the Montreal Expos

During the 1990s, the Montreal Expos struggled. Their dilapidated stadium resulted in catastrophic attendance numbers, and the loss of critical ticket and concession revenue led to a regular stream of the team’s most skilled players leaving the moment they became free agents. The 1994 player strike, which canceled the final two months and the entire postseason, effectively ended what had been easily the best season in team history–a nail simply too massive to remove from the Expos’ coffin.

In 1998, the community saw a ray of light when Labatt Park, a new downtown home for the Expos, was announced, along with a $100 million, 20-year sponsorship arrangement with the Labatt Brewing Company. As Expos president Claude Brochu explained at the time, Labatt would have paid the team $5 million each year from 2001 to 2021. The agreement included $40 million in naming rights for the new stadium and $60 million as the team’s major sponsor. Brochu stated that the $5 million per year alone was not intended to make the Expos championship contenders (the Expos have consistently had the lowest payroll in Major League Baseball), but rather was viewed as a critical step toward strengthening the team’s financial stability over time.

The new open-air, natural grass stadium was chosen for its convenient location, two blocks south of the Molson Centre, home of the Montreal Canadiens, and flanked by Rues St. Jacques, Rue de la Montagne, Rue Notre Dame, and Rue Peel. The AXOR Group and Provencher Roy & Associés Architects created the design for the new ballpark. It had an oval-shaped construction with a transparent outer glass wall that provided a panoramic view of Montreal’s skyline.

The stadium’s capacity was set at 36,287 seats, which was extremely little for a new ballpark at the time, with the option of expanding by another 2,000 with right-field bleachers. The stadium has 64 executive boxes, two dugout boxes with 18 seats each, a 257-seat Diamond Club between the dugouts, and a party area behind the right-field wall (perfect for hosting parties!).

Since 1977, the Expos have been tenants in Olympic Stadium, which was considered a cutting-edge stadium when it debuted for the 1976 Summer Olympics. However, poor construction (the stadium really began to come apart in 1991, requiring the team to travel for a month), a lemon of a retractable roof, terrible sightlines, and a highly uninviting atmosphere for baseball resulted in an often half-empty (on a good day) venue.

Shortly after the initial presentation of the proposed ballpark, the Expos acquired a new owner, Jeffrey Loria, who presented the Labatt Park concept again in February 2000. Loria intended for the team to move into the state-of-the-art open-air stadium in 2002. Expos president David Samson stunned many when he revealed that the stadium’s naming rights were still available and that no contract had been struck with Labatt’s. He did not hesitate to openly speculate that Molson, one of Labatt’s biggest competitors, may consider buying the rights. The pressure worked, and the initial $100 million deal over 20 years was ultimately finalized eight weeks later.

Things took a turn for the worse in January 2001, when Labatt and the Expos’ partnership came to an abrupt end. Labatt, the Expos’ primary sponsor for the past 15 years, decided to end the arrangement, claiming the need to increase their return on marketing spend elsewhere. The decision dealt a huge blow to the Expos, resulting in a $2 million reduction in annual sponsorship revenue.

Paul Wilson, Labatt’s vice president of public affairs in Quebec, indicated that business concerns influenced the decision. He highlighted that the brewery had no choice but to cut relations after the new owners failed to secure local television rights and move forward with the stadium project. Jeffrey Loria, who appreciated the brewery’s long-standing support, expressed disappointment over Labatt’s resignation but downplayed the significance of their decision, stating that the Expos will simply seek new complementing sponsorship partners.

In 2001, Jeffrey Loria prioritized acquiring the struggling Florida Marlins over assuring the Expos’ long-term success. A convoluted series of conversations, facilitated in part by MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, began to unfold. The plan, authorized in January 2002, envisaged Loria selling the Expos to Major League Baseball, Marlins owner John Henry purchasing the Boston Red Sox, and Loria eventually taking ownership of the Marlins. The 29 team owners also authorized a contraction plan for 2002 that would have removed the Expos and the Minnesota Twins of the American League. However, the player’s union finally stopped the plan.

With MLB taking over the Expos, the team’s future in Montreal was uncertain, and any plans to build a new stadium were swiftly abandoned. While under MLB ownership, the Expos were prohibited from incurring any extra player salaries, thereby destroying their chances of fielding a competitive club. After three seasons under MLB ownership, the Expos relocated to Washington, D.C. and became the Washington Nationals.

Of course, this made the Labatt Park concept mostly obsolete. In a final blow to the project’s heritage, vandals demolished the original model of the proposed ballpark (which was later donated to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame) in 2005.

Jeffrey Loria’s Marlins won the World Series just a year after leaving the Expos in 2003. And the former Expos, now based in Washington, would win a World Series championship in 2019, marking the 50th anniversary of the Expos’ inaugural season.