The Edmonton Riverhawks have proved to be a massive hit in the Alberta capital and the conversation about whether the city could see the return of Triple-A baseball is gaining steam.
Fresh off an impressive 9,000 sell-out crowd on Canada Day, the Riverhawks are only in their second season of action in the West Coast League (WCL), a summer baseball league that is primarily made up of college-level players.
Season-wide, the Riverhawks are atop the WCL with an average attendance of 4,409 people per home game. This comes just a season after the Riverhawks set a league record with over 100,000 total fans showing up to home games.
The team has confirmed to Daily Hive that they have received interest from higher-tier baseball leagues about the possibility of bringing a pro team to Edmonton but did not mention what kind of leagues were expressing interest.
There is next to no chance that an MLB team will come to Edmonton any time soon as the city lacks a proper stadium and would not be given a team before other Canadian cities like Montreal or Vancouver, but the possibility of a minor league team should be in the cards.
The next best thing would be a Triple-A baseball team that is an affiliate of a major league team.
The city has a history with Triple-A baseball, having had the Edmonton Trappers play in the Pacific Coast League (PCL) between 1981 and 2004 with connections to seven different MLB teams during that span, including the Montreal Expos. The team was eventually sold in 2004, and new ownership opted to move the team to Round Rock, Texas.
Having Triple-A baseball return to the Alberta capital would be monumental for the city’s sports scene. Re/Max Field, which once hosted the Trappers, looks like it could still play the part of a Triple-A ballpark as it is both newer (opened in 1995) and has a higher capacity (9,200) than a few of the other stadiums currently active in the PCL.
In fact, outside of stadiums in Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa, Re/Max Field is one of the largest baseball stadiums in the entire country. This makes Edmonton a prime target to once again bring Triple-A baseball back to the country for the first time since the Trappers left town for Texas.
PCL games averaged 6,737 fans during the 2023 season, which is a little over 2,000 more than what the Riverhawks are drawing this season.
There are some issues regarding the geographical situation. Right now, Triple-A baseball is divided into two leagues: the PCL and the International League (ICL).
Similar to the Trappers, any Triple-A Edmonton team would join up with the PCL, but this would make for quite a hectic travel schedule. Right now, the closest team in the PCL to Edmonton would be the Tacoma Rainiers in Washington, and the furthest would be the Sugar Land Space Cowboys in Texas.
It would stretch things out just a little bit more, but the distances are much easier to travel in a Triple-A league than in a Double-A or Single-A league.
With interest growing in Edmonton as a baseball market and the stadium in such good shape, the dream of Triple-A baseball returning to the city may not be as outlandish as once thought.