By the mid-1980s, the Montreal Expos were losing money every year. They played in one of the smallest media markets in Major League Baseball. They needed a financial lifeline to keep up with other teams in free agency — perhaps via a run of success on the field and at the turnstiles.
Many who remember the trajectory of the Expos franchise in the 1990s remain tortured by how close the team came to turning things around. Three ownership groups and one strike-shortened season later, the Expos were ticketed for relocation. In 2005, the franchise moved south and officially became the Washington Nationals.
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Netflix poses an interesting, if only slightly misleading, question in a new documentary tracing the final chapters of the Expos’ history. “Who Killed the Montreal Expos?” is available to stream beginning Tuesday.
Hall of Fame players Vladimir Guerrero, Larry Walker, and Pedro Martinez reminisce about the Expos’ last hurrah. So does Felipe Alou, the team’s 90-year-old former manager.
“That they’re still feeling that raw pain surprised us,” director Jean-François Poisson told Newsweek Sports.”Emotions were palpable, especially among the team’s former employees, like the man who personified the Youppi! mascot.
“As for the players and Felipe Alou, they shared great memories. It’s clear that playing in Montreal was special, different, and that they are grateful to have been part of this unique adventure despite its painful end.”
It doesn’t take 92 minutes to understand what was happening to the Expos on the field. The team was among the best in baseball in 1994, when major league players went on strike and the World Series was cancelled. From 1995-2001, many of the Expos’ best players were traded or allowed to leave in free agency. They enjoyed one winning season during that seven-year stretch.
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“Who Killed the Montreal Expos” digs deeper. The turmoil created by the revolving door of owners infected the clubhouse. Olympic Stadium, the Expos’ home since the 1976 Olympic Games, was crumbling. The local economy in Quebec was not doing much better. The team’s local French-language television rights contract was cancelled.
“These actions created bad press around the team to the point that baseball was no longer part of the conversation,” Poisson said.
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The answer to the titular question, then, is a bit complicated. Still, the Expos’ downfall is not without its villains. Former owner Jeffrey Loria declined to be interviewed. So did Lucien Bouchard, who was the Prime Minister of Quebec at the time. Commissioner emeritus Bud Selig does not appear in the film.
Former owner Claude Bronchu and David Samson, Loria’s right-hand man with the Expos (and later the Florida Marlins), were left to sift through the rubble of the team’s final years in Montreal.
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“Personally, I was fortunate enough to work at the games during their last four years,” producer Marie-Christine Pouliot told Newsweek Sports. “Being there for the final game was incredibly special — it was a day filled with raw emotion. That’s when I truly realized how much the Expos meant to so many people and how deeply they were woven into Montreal’s identity.
“I will keep my opinion for myself on who I blame” for killing the Expos, she added, “but I will invite the viewers to make their own by watching the documentary.”
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