April 03, 2006
Play (hard)ball!
It's a baseball Opening Day tradition: the throwing out of the first franchise relocation threat of the season. This year's entry, it will come as no surprise, came from the Florida Marlins, whose owner Jeffrey Loria declared yesterday that while the team is "still looking at all our options ... our talks with San Antonio are serious." How serious? Loria has invited San Antonio officials to join him today at the Marlins' season opener "to learn more about San Antonio." You think Jerry Reinsdorf gets royalties for this?
With Loria handling the saber-rattling for once, it was left to Marlins president David Samson to talk about what the Fish would actually need in order to relocate. And the bottom line, he told the San Antonio Express-News, isn't the luxuriousness of their corporate suites, but the size of their cable contract. "Naming rights, suite deals, season-ticket sales, corporate support - without all of that there is no franchise," said Samson. "But TV revenue is the engine that keeps the train rolling. ... The biggest issue we are having right now as we go through the numbers in San Antonio is trying to figure out where we fit in the broadcast market."
That'd be #37 in the U.S., according to the Nielsen figures. But the bigger problem is that the Houston Astros currently view San Antonio, even though it's not technically their MLB-designated "territory," as part of their media market, with Astros games being broadcast there on Fox Sports Southwest. Admitted Samson: "A TV territory would have to be carved out and then monetized." In other words, last year's Baltimore Orioles-Washington Nationals deal has set the precedent: Either the Marlins or MLB would have to indemnify the Astros for encroaching on their media domain, adding tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars to their relocation costs. Add in that San Antonio officials aren't offering any more public money than Florida has (the Marlins' share would go down, but only because of a crazy-low $300 million stadium price tag - sound familiar?) and that the whole deal would be contingent on a November referendum of San Antonio voters, and this move still sounds like a longshot - sorry, make that a "serious" longshot.
—Neil deMause
Splitting BWI into DC and B-more still left MLB with the 8th & 24th largest TV markets, respectively. Houston by itself is still pretty large, but more than once I've heard it called a "small" market, there's no telling what the Astros would say if San Antonio were taken away from them.
Posted by Jonathan Judd on April 4, 2006 10:53 AM
Well, we know what they'd say: "Show us the money." The question is how much money they'd get away with asking for - San Antonio isn't in the Astros' territory, but D.C. wasn't in the Orioles' either, and Peter Angelos still got his payday.
Posted by Neil on April 4, 2006 12:58 PM
And just think, if San Antonio gets its act together quick enough, they could even jump in the Roger Clemens derby. BTW, is San Antonio really a smaller TV market than Hartford-New Haven?
With Austin just 78 miles up the road, it wouldn't just be San Antonio that the Astros would lose, and that would make the move even MORE prohibitive.
Has anyone else noticed that Miami-Dade County is just sitting back watching this play out, knowing the Marlins aren't going anywhere?
Posted by LeftWingCracker on April 4, 2006 07:54 PM
"Monetized". I like that word! lol
Posted by Fishtownguy on April 9, 2006 06:02 AM