Despite the setback on live sporting events because of the COVID-19 pandemic, work is still under way to try to get Major League Baseball back in Montreal.

“Even during the pandemic, my partner Stephen Bronfman has been working very hard and things are still moving along faster than I imagined,” Stingray Digital Group Inc., CEO Eric Boyko told BNN Bloomberg on Friday. “It’s always too early to say because the pandemic’s not finished, but I would say there’s been a lot of work behind closed doors and a lot of things moving forward.

"As you know with baseball, they always listen to us everywhere we speak, so they’ll probably do a transcript on this. So, we’ve got to be very careful what we say because they don’t like it if we talk too much on radio, TV, or with the papers.”

Boyko is part of a group of Montreal-based executives working to get baseball back to the city for the first time since 2004.

The group includes Bronfman, fellow Claridge Inc. executive and former Montreal Canadiens president Pierre Boivin, Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. co-founder Alain Bouchard and former Cirque du Soleil chair Mitch Garber.

Bronfman’s father Charles was the majority owner of the Montreal Expos from their inception into Major League Baseball in 1968 through 1990.

Montreal has been without a big-league team since the Expos left after the 2004 season for Washington and became the Nationals. Since 2014, Olympic Stadium has hosted Toronto Blue Jays pre-season games.

The Tampa Bay Rays and the Montreal group were in discussions in 2019 about a shared season, with the team playing half of its 81 home games in each location. Rays owner Stu Sternberg said in June of 2019 that an ideal scenario would see new open-air stadiums in both locations ready for use in the 2024 season.

Those talks were said to be on hold until at least 2028 - in accordance with Rays' existing use agreement for Tropicana Field - after the mayor of St. Petersburg, Fla., said in December 2019 that those negotiations had ended.

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