Major League Baseball is coming to Nashville . . .

. . . for the next week.

The league’s annual winter meetings start Sunday at the Gaylord Opryland Resort, and what an interesting time it is for this city to flirt with that league. There’s romance in the air.

Kind of makes it a little disappointing when you realize this week won’t have a thing to do with MLB expansion or ulterior motives. Winter meetings have been held in Nashville before, actually. The event is a big deal for MLB and its teams. Not so much for the host city if it doesn't have an MLB team.

And this one doesn’t.

Not yet.

Might want to check back in a year.

“I'm optimistic that 2024 is going to be the year that (MLB) expansion is going to be discussed and moved forward,” said John Loar, managing director of Music City Baseball, the group working to bring a major league team to Nashville. " . . . I think 2024 is a big year for that conversation."

Indeed, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said during the summer that once stadium situations in Oakland and Tampa Bay were resolved, the league would begin the process of perhaps growing from 30 to 32 teams. It's falling into place. The A’s are moving to Las Vegas. The Rays appear settled.

It's looking like sooner rather than later, it'll be time for Nashville to show its hand and see how it stacks up with the rest of the cities at the big-league table.

Music City Baseball has spent years preparing its pitch. Jerseys already hang in its office. It has resurrected the Nashville Stars brand and backstory, enticed local investment and partnered with some big names and heavy hitters in sports and entertainment.

Former MLB pitcher Dave Stewart has played a leading role. TSU football coach and Tennessee Titans great Eddie George was added to the board of directors, as was Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.

The group’s public relations efforts have been remarkably effective. By now, Nashville’s selection as the first of two MLB expansion candidates is widely assumed as a foregone conclusion.

USA Today’s Bob Nightengale wrote in September that, “Nashville remains the clear-cut favorite for one team, while the second city remains wide-open between Montreal, Salt Lake City, Oakland, Portland and Charlotte.” In June, The Athletic published a poll that showed MLB players backing Nashville (69%) as the best potential expansion city. Montreal was second at 10%.

Manfred even offered in April that "Nashville is on everybody's lists" for expansion.

Sounds great, right? It's nice to be popular.

The groundswell for MLB in Nashville carries so much momentum that it has become easy for outsiders to overlook two massive questions that need to be answered:

Where are they going to play?

Who is going to be able to pay for all of this?

Nashville’s effort lacks a controlling owner to help cover the $2 billion (or more) expansion fee and the price tag of a new stadium that would have to be constructed between now and the team’s first pitch. Money will be an essential part of this process.

Getting that downtown ballpark wouldn’t be a small feat, either. Not in a city with stadium fatigue over negotiations on the new Titans stadium.

Loar said Music City Baseball has inquired about the old PSC Metals scrapyard land on the East Bank. The group also has looked near Tennessee State’s campus. Murfreesboro could be an option, as could Williamson County. There's a lot of uncertainty and a lot to be decided. Decisions that a team owner probably should make.

And then you look at Carolina. Tom Dundon, owner of the NHL's Carolina Hurricanes, told the North Carolina Sports Network that he's on board with trying to bring an MLB team to the state, either in Raleigh or Charlotte.

The right owner can mean everything in an expansion bid. Nashville SC would be a USL team if John Ingram hadn’t stepped in to fuel the city’s Major League Soccer bid with plans to build GEODIS Park.

Asked about finding that owner (or owners) in 2024, Loar said: "I feel good about it . . . I think there will be a lot of people interested in being involved in this opportunity in Nashville.”

How about an existing MLB owner and team relocating here, à la the Titans? Nashville has become that other city MLB teams like to use as a threat to move. The Rays once had that come up. And the Baltimore Orioles. And the Chicago White Sox.

Meaningless.

“I don't see any team moving here at this point,” Loar said.

That means it'll have to be through expansion. And that'll be a fight.

Nashville can win. Nashville perhaps should win. But it shouldn't be assumed right now.

Reach Tennessean sports columnist Gentry Estes at gestes@tennessean.com and on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter) @Gentry_Estes.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Major League Baseball is nearing expansion. Will Nashville be ready?