Washington Nationals Franchise History

The Montréal Expos joined the National League in 1969, along with the San Diego Padres. After a decade of losing, the team became a winner in the early 1980s, winning their only division championship in the strike-shortened split season of 1981. That team lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers 3-2 in the National League Championship Series. After several mediocre years in the late 1980s, the team rebounded in the early 1990s. In 1994 the Expos, led by a talented group of players including Larry Walker, Moisés Alou, Marquis Grissom and Pedro Martínez, had the best record in major league baseball when the strike forced the cancelation of the remainder of the season. After the disappointment of 1994, the Expos began to lose players, money and fans. Ownership squabbles, the decimated fan base, a difficulty in selling broadcasting rights, and numerous other issues led to the team being bought by MLB in 2002.

After several years in a holding pattern, MLB began actively looking for a relocation site for the Expos. Some of the choices included Oklahoma City; Washington D.C.; San Juan; Monterrey, Mexico; Portland, Oregon; Northern Virginia; Norfolk, Virginia; and Charlotte, North Carolina. In the decision-making process, Commissioner Bud Selig added Las Vegas, Nevada to the list of potential Expos homes. Charlotte, Portland and Las Vegas have since become the front-runners for potential future homes of the Florida Marlins, should that team relocate in 2008 at the earliest (even though it's now more likely that it would relocate to San Antonio, Texas in that event.)

On September 29, 2004, MLB officially announced that the Expos would move to Washington D.C. in 2005. The move was approved by the owners of the other teams in a 29–1 vote on December 3 (Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos cast the sole dissenting vote). In addition, on November 15, 2004, a lawsuit by the former team owners against MLB and former majority owner Jeffrey Loria was struck down by arbitrators, ending legal moves to keep the Expos in Montréal.

The team's relocation to Washington was contingent on a financing plan for the Nationals' stadium — a plan that was the subject of much debate on the D.C. City Council.

The ballpark proposal is controversial; many city residents oppose government subsidies for a multi-billion-dollar private business and would prefer the land and money to focus on schools rather than a ballpark. Three Council members who supported Mayor Anthony Williams's plan were ousted in September 2004's Democratic party primary. An opinion poll conducted by the Washington Post found that approximately two thirds of District residents oppose the mayor's stadium plan.

Due to the history of Washington franchises (See Washington Senators), there are doubts about whether Washington will actually be a better market for a pro baseball team than Montréal long term. Major League Baseball does not express such doubts, and proponents of the move argue that the failure of previous franchises has more to do with poor business decisions and financial management on the part of their owners than with any lack of popular support in the region itself.

Some analysts have pointed out that Washington may be less suited than some other cities to support baseball because it is primarily an African-American city (59%), and that African-Americans generally support baseball less than whites. Past Washington Senators teams have blamed poor attendance partially on lack of attendance by African-Americans. Washington has larger and whiter suburbs than it did in the 60s, so some analysts believe this will be a less important factor than in the past. Still, both versions of the Senators only finished in the first half of the American League in attendance in 9 out of 71 seasons; the worst percentage of any team in Major League Baseball history that played for more than two seasons, including the Expos. The only season the Senators finished with more than one million in attendance was 1946, when baseball attendance was radically up nationwide due to the return of servicemen from World War II.