Take Me Out To The Ball Game: Geography and Central Place Theory

Take Me Out to the Ball Game | Do Geography Lab

Do Geography Lab · Urban Systems

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Major League Baseball may eventually grow from 30 clubs to 32. Where should the next two teams go? Build a market, draw its territory, and discover why the neat geometry of central-place theory collides with the unruly geography of actual cities.

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Central-place theory asks

How large a market is needed to support a high-order function?

The geographical trap

A city’s population is not the same thing as its market.

01

Threshold

How many people does a team need?

Set three assumptions. The model calculates the minimum market needed to sustain your attendance target.

Your market threshold

3.13 million people
2.4m visits÷2.4 games/fan÷32% buyers

This is a teaching threshold, not an MLB formula. Its purpose is to make your assumptions visible—and therefore debatable.

02

Range

A market occupies space

Select a candidate and change its plausible draw radius. Existing clubs do not disappear simply because your new circle reaches their fans.

Schematic North American baseball market mapNashville
existing club selected candidateschematic geography
03

Model failure

Change the question; change the winner

Central-place theory sees market size and distance. Baseball’s real geography also contains firms, growth, inherited loyalties, stadiums, borders, and politics.

    The lesson is not that one ranking is secretly correct. It is that every ranking contains a theory about what a “market” is. Changing the variables changes the geography.
    04

    Decision

    Award two expansion clubs

    Choose a pair. A defensible answer must discuss threshold, range, market overlap, and at least one factor the central-place model omits.

    Committee report

    Two franchises remain unclaimed

    Choose two cities. There is no answer key hiding beneath the map—only arguments that use geography well or badly.

    What would Christaller miss?

    Exit prompt

    Defend one of your cities in 100–150 words. Then identify the strongest geographical argument against your own choice. A good committee member can see both.

    Data and model notes

    Candidate populations are rounded teaching estimates based primarily on the U.S. Census Bureau’s Vintage 2025 metropolitan and combined-area estimates, with Canadian markets treated as rounded regional estimates. “Regional market,” overlap, corporate support, baseball culture, and stadium readiness are instructor-built scenario variables—not official MLB ratings or forecasts. MLB currently has 30 clubs; Commissioner Rob Manfred has repeatedly discussed 32 as a desirable future structure while tying formal expansion to unresolved franchise and stadium matters.

    An original Rand-McKay “Do Geography” lab · Central-place theory through the geography of baseball

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