The 16 Teams Most Likely to Move in the Next Five Years

In the last several years, every major sport has seen one or more of its teams relocate.  Whether its through mismanagement or just poor financial times, a lot of teams have had to move.  Forget about the Hartford Whalers and the Quebec Nordiques, numerous teams have decided to uproot themselves and their fan bases to look for greener pastures.  Teams like the Montreal Expos, Vancouver Grizzlies, Atlanta Thrashers and the Houston Oilers have all moved in the name of better financial options. 

These days, teams are more likely than not, when facing tough times, to decide to look for bigger arenas, larger corporate and government givebacks and more financial stability rather than weathering the competitive storms.  Here are some teams from each league that I forecast to be moving in the next three to five years.

NHL

Phoenix Coyotes

New York Islanders

Dallas Stars

Columbus Blue Jackets

MLB

Arizona Diamondbacks

Tampa Bay Rays

New York Mets

Kansas City Royals

NFL

Jacksonville Jaguars

Minnesota Vikings

Oakland Raiders

St. Louis Rams

NBA

Sacramento Kings

Atlanta Falcons

New Orleans Hornets

Toronto Raptors

It's a reach, I admit, that the four baseball teams will be moving.  The most likely team to have moved, the Marlins, are moving into a brand new stadium and will not be moving for the time being.

The point is, we'll be seeing a lot more teams moving in the short term.  In fact, the NHL and the NBA may be faced with contraction. No league is immune to these issues.

 

Some Hartford Whalers to Include in NHL

NHL12 includes a legends mode that will showcase old players from the 1970's and 1980's.  I don't really know, but with NBA 2K12 coming out with its own Legends mode that includes such players as George Mikan and Cedric Ceballos (no, really), I figured that "legends" is a very loose interpretation of anyone who played a long time ago - whether they were legends or not.  I would like to see some old Hartford Whalers all stars show up in the legends section in NHL13.

Rick Ley, Kevin Dineen, Mike Rogers, Pat Verbeek, Mike Liut, Mark Howe and Andre Lacroix all have places in NHL13.  And in fact, the game producers would be well served in including players from all of the defunct teams.  I would love to be able to play with the Quebec Nordiques right before they moved to Denver.  That team was stacked!

Maybe include the teams from the WHA could be included as well.  Again, the New England Whalers, Houston Aeros and the Winnipeg Jets (old style) could all play major roles in the new NHL13 Legends Experience.

Bring back the Brass Bonanza so I can hear it at venues other than the Boston Garden, please.