With its booming population and growing list of prominent companies relocating here, Nashville could sustain a Major League Baseball team, according to one of the city’s top professional sports executives.

The opening of First Tennessee Park, the city-funded home for the Triple A Nashville Sounds, offers another opportunity to take stock of Music City’s potential to one day be home to a big-league team.

The National Football League’s Tennessee Titans have been an unmitigated success, selling out every home game in franchise history. The Nashville Predators of the National Hockey League have steadied financial operations and upped home attendance — selling out 32 of 43 games at Bridgestone Arena this season.

And in the future, Nashville could handle a big-league baseball squad, too, said Predators CEO Jeff Cogen. A decade ago, Cogen worked as president of MLB’s Texas Rangers. In Nashville, Cogen and COO Sean Henry, have revitalized the Predators. Cogen said the biggest question is how to pay for a ballpark that would cost around $600 million.

But if Nashville could figure out a way to pay the expensive bill, Cogen said the framework is in place to make big-league baseball work here, even with two professional teams already in place.

“The next thing you’d have to turn your attention to is could the market sustain it,” Cogen said. “Are there enough seat-buying people, are there enough suite-buying people and are there enough corporate-buying people? My answer will surprise you, I think there are.

“The Titans obviously have answered that question yes. We’re in the process of answering that question yes, and pretty soon that answer will be yes. Maybe next year. It’s easier in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Boston, because to fill 40,000 seats you have to have a smaller percentage of the population. But I believe the market is robust enough, and corporate-laden and technologically savvy that we have the right mix of corporate and individuals that could support Major League Baseball, if there were facilities.”

Nashville Mayor Karl Dean, an avid baseball fan, said he believed Nashville could be a big-league city in the future.

Dean was elected Nashville’s mayor in 2007 just before the national recession hit and hampered his ability to pursue financing for a new Sounds stadium. When the local economy rebounded and Dean breezed to re-election, he was able in 2013 to negotiate a land deal and financing package that ended a decade of discussions about a new facility for the Sounds. But, Dean told The Tennessean that he foresees a day when Nashville adds an MLB franchise.

“Today we’re celebrating a new home for minor league baseball in Nashville, and we expect that to be a big hit for years to come,” Dean said. “But with the growth that’s expected in Nashville and Middle Tennessee over the next 20 to 30 years, and with the success of our pro football and hockey teams since the late 1990s, I think there’s a very strong chance that Music City will also be a Major League Baseball city someday.”

Former owner pursued expansion franchise

If circumstances were a little different two decades ago, Nashville might already be home to a big-league baseball team.

When Phil Bredesen was mayor in the 1990s, he led the city’s efforts to attract the Predators and Titans. But Bredesen, who was not an avid sports fan, wasn’t initially seeking to bring pro sports to Music City.

His first priority was to upgrade the downtown arena so the city could host top-tier touring music acts who were skipping Nashville because Municipal Auditorium was too small. Once the plan to build what is now Bridgestone Arena was put in motion, the Bredesen administration sought an anchor tenant but didn’t care if it was a professional hockey or basketball team. The city’s pursuit of those pro sports attracted then-Houston Oilers owner Bud Adams to contact the city about relocating his franchise here.

“You have a mayor who had no real interest in any sports,” said Nashville attorney Jim Murphy, who worked for the Metro Legal Department and served as a legal adviser to the Bredesen administration in the ’90s. “He had no bias between any of those opportunities. I would think if it had been a baseball team that was interested in coming, he would have probably looked at it just as hard.”

Former Sounds owner Larry Schmittou had major league dreams and actually worked to bring a team to town. Schmittou led the effort for Nashville to apply for an MLB expansion franchise, which ultimately went to the Colorado Rockies and Florida Marlins in the ’90s.

Schmittou believes Nashville would have been a successful MLB city if it had been baseball and not football or hockey that arrived in Music City first. He said a consultant report at the time indicated Nashville could draw 2 million fans paying typical MLB ticket prices.

But Schmittou wondered if, by choosing football and hockey instead, Nashville had missed its chance at an MLB team long-term.

“You would have to put me in the category of thinking it could not support that,” Schmittou said. “I base that on the fact that other cities of similar size, even larger than Nashville, have tried to have three or more teams. It almost always happens that one of them fails.

“Who would fail here? The hockey team? The baseball team? I certainly can’t envision it being the NFL team… There’s only so much advertising dollars, discretionary income dollars to go around, and it’s even more expensive now than when I looked at it.”

New park an opportunity for Nashville

There have been no public discussions about the MLB expanding and adding teams to new markets. If Nashville were to land a team in the near future, it would likely come in the form of an existing team relocating here. The Oakland Athletics and Tampa Bay Rays have had media reports questioning their long-term futures in their current markets.

Jason Bennett, who worked in sales and marketing for the Sounds and now is a partner at Nashville-based firm Alliance Sports Marketing, said the new stadium is an opportunity for fans and corporations to show they could support baseball on a higher level.

Bennett said the Nashville area’s major corporations such as Bridgestone Americas, Nissan, Ryman Hospitality and others would interest teams looking to relocate, but the key is for corporate Nashville to show its support for baseball by getting behind the Sounds now.

“I think Nashville could, down the road, support a Major League Baseball franchise,” Bennett said. “I think the important thing now is this transition where fans show support for the Sounds. And it’s up to corporate groups in town to show big-league baseball that they can get behind and support a major-league quality team with a Triple A team at a new ballpark.”

Reach Nate Rau at 615-259-8094 and on Twitter @tnnaterau.