This is a great, great headline:
Mayor Gets Tough With MLB, Writes Letter
The mayor is San Jose’s Chuck Reed, and you can read the letter (which begins plaintively, “When will the A’s be moving to San Jose?”) by clicking on the link. Which is more than Bud Selig will likely do with it.
According to Mayor Reed’s letter, High Tech CEO’s tell him that they have greater difficulty recruiting talented overseas workers without a MLB team in town. Who would have thought!
Didn’t Mayor Chuck also write a similar letter to a local paper a year or two ago??? Or am I confusing one mayor who’s city is dying because of a shortage of professional sports teams with another?
At this point a YES or a NO just needs to come out of Selig’s mouth… 4 years of “studying” either oakland or san jose is way to long.
Nice to see Carl Guardino, CEO of Silicon Valley Leadership Group has written in support of Mayor Reed and his request to resolve this impass one way or another. Anyone who believes in free markets (isn’t this America) should be outraged by the gints attempts to restrict a team from moving 40 miles further away from them because of so called “territorial rights” that were arbitrarily given to them by the A’s when the gints tried to relocate to San Jose in the early ’90’s. As Geuy says–No would be better than bs aimless wandering on this situation–at least the court battle could begin…
I would never defend the used car salesman turned commish…. but it isn’t really accurate to suggest he and his amazing timeless blue ribbon panel are still studying the issues.
They’ve studied them.
And both Wolff and the Giants know what the next step is. The Giants have said they consider San Jose to be their territory. Unless and until MLB disagrees (which they don’t), the next step has to be Wolff approaching the Giants with some form of compensation for the territory. Once that is agreed, the Giants can inform the commissioner that they no longer have an objection to the move, and permission can be granted.
Everyone knows what the next steps are. The fact that the A’s (and perhaps the Giants) don’t want to take those steps is irrelevant.
It’s unlikely there will be a court battle (that disappoints me, as I think if the A’s could get the issue into a courtroom they might well be able to restore their territorial claim to San Jose – ceded to the Giants conditionally in the late 1980s, as I recall). Wolff & Co are pals of the commissioner for one thing. He owns the A’s partly because of his relationship with Selig. Thing two, no team dependent on revenue sharing can afford to put MLB office noses out of joint.
At the risk of being repetitive (about another league and team), Wolff has no more ‘right’ to be in San Jose than he does to be a second team in Boston, or the third in NY or Chicago. He owns the Oakland MLB franchise, not a portable business he is entitled to set up anywhere he chooses. You get what you pay for, and Wolff/Fisher didn’t pay for anything other than the Oakland A’s.
What surprises me is that the SJ mayor would send this letter… Since in that the last 6 months or so it seems that the giants have come down from their stand of “over our dead body” to ” its up to MLB to decide the a’s to san jose”. Also there was a leak about some “guidelines” that MLB gave the A’s for what they had to do to move to SJ. No details just that they guidelines were given to the A’s.
These things suggest that there is movement on the issue being worked out, I guess the SJ mayor and company are not involved in those meetings for him to send this letter.
The blue ribbion committee has been meeting both with oak and sj officials over the past 4 years but from the letter seems like these city officials dont really know where the decision stands.
From newballparok.org, a blog devoted to this issue, it seems MLBs reservations about san jose is the financial plan to pay for the privately financed park. Seems MLB is not convinced, but i am sure if san jose said:
“here is blank check to pay for the ball park or even here is half the money to pay for the ball park”
There would be no territorial rights issue or blue ribbion panel.
@Geuy–LW was informed of the letter from Mayor Reed and supported it–tells me he is frustrated with something going on–rather than a case of SJ not knowing what is going on–
@SJA’s that’s is even more interesting, seems then that at least from the A’s and SJ point of view they have provided all information and nothing new will be brought to the pannel. So they feel a decision needs to finally be made…
I don’t think it’s news that SJ and Wolff feel a decision needs to be made. But as John Bladen notes, a decision *has* been made: “You guys work out this territorial rights thing, and we’ll be over here to approve it the minute you do.”
It seems to me that the reason MLB is dragging their feet on this is that they do not want a second MLB stadium privately financed. It would set bad precedent…again
Neil, correct me if I am wrong, SF Giants park is only “privately” financed baseball stadium? I quote privately because i think SF did give the giants some breaks on the land and taxes…
When the SF Giants hosted the All-Star game it was 7 or 8 years after the stadium had opened, most parks get the All-Star game soon after they open. Local papers said the reason for such a long wait by the Giants was because MLB was punishing them for privately financing their ball park.
So if the A’s do the same and their financial plan does not work MLB will have to deal with that mess, not something they want to deal with.
Setting precedent and a risky financial plan in the view of MLB, what better way to hide that than under “Territorial Issues”.
SF got the most private money of any recent stadium, but St. Louis wasn’t that far off (say, 66% vs 90%).
I really doubt that this has anything to do with MLB’s approval of a move to San Jose or not, though. This holdup is about one thing, and one thing only: The Giants want to be paid through the nose for their territorial rights, and the rest of MLB isn’t going to overrule them. This might change if the Steinbrenners et al ever decide they’re more sick of sending revenue-sharing checks to the A’s than they are afraid of having another team try to horn in on their territory, but that day doesn’t seem to be near.
All other two team markets NY, Chi, and LA share the entire territory ( all counties), so if the Angels wanted to move across the street from the Dodgers they theoretically could, they are in their own territory.
In the Bay Area the territory is split by counties 5 for SF and 2 for the Oak but what does that really mean?
You can watch both teams on TV, buy merchandize of both teams, see advertisements (bill boards specifically) of both teams in any of the bay area counties. The Giants have their team stores in the counties that are A’s “Territories”…
Corporate sponsors which most are in Santa Clara County (Silicon Valley) sponsor both teams… Sponsor in the A’s territory also sponsor the Giants.
I dont get it lol…
Well said Geuy- makes no sense whatsoever ever- which is why some form of litigation may need to be imposed- Reed is an attorney as is Liccardo- doubt they would just make idle threats-
If MLB rules had to make sense, we’d be living in a very different world.
HAHAH!! MLB rules that was funny….
@SJ A’s, if they did bring litigation i think we would see that TR would not hold up in this case and MLB would say its reasoning for “holding up” TR would be financial concerns.
I think that the A’s would draw bigger crowds in san jose, especially if they win. But would they draw enough fans and sponsors to pay of the stadium debt if they dont win as much?
Those are the things that MLB would like guarantees, if they were their the TR issue would be a non issue.
@geuy- success of Sharks, Earthquakes attendance and ‘9ers in selling their PSL’s shows how strong the Slicon Valley market is. LW wants off the dole- $30M per year until he builds his new park- that should be all MLB needs to see is that the A’s will no longer qualify for revenue sharing-
Mayor Chuck-ie doesn’t understand how MLB “works” or he would not have sent or make public such a naive letter. The A’z sat on their hands for decades about rescinding the SC territory and want the area on the cheap, which the Gi-ants (being a smart baseball organization and business) don’t have to give in to.
If SJ turned over a blank check to Wolff-ie Larry Baer would dig his heels in even deeper. His franchise has a mortgage on their place so why should they make moving easier for the A’z to invade the Gi-ants established market and not have the same financial obligations. No sane business owner/operator would let that happen.
Speculating on MLB/Selig abhoring privately financed buildings is just speculation. Several new mallparks have in part with private capitol and there’s many more that were built with largely taxpayer $$$’s since 2000. “TelCo.” Park did not start a trend for franchise only financing. Gi-ants show that with the right administration and financing a privately financed mallpark can be a success.
Gi-ants hosting the ’07 ASG wasn’t “punishment”, they were not in any hurry and they wanted to make sure that those holding PSL’s would hang on until at least then.
They raised $50 million to $60 million through the personal-seat license sales.
Read about their PSL policies…
http://sfgiants.seasonticketrights.com/FAQs.aspx?cid=10
Comparing NHL/MLS “success” to what would be financial success in MLB is an apples/oranges situation.
@paul- the mortgage for AT&T is paid off in 2017- given that the Sharks typically outdraw Oakland on any given night is not irrelevant- given that the ‘9ers are doing quite well in selling their PSL’s and given that SJ has the 2nd highest level of personal income- not to mention SV having more fortune 1000 companies than both sf and oakland combined- any wonder why the ‘9ers chose SV to build a stadium- rule number 1-follow the money-
@SJA’s, the sharks, earthquakes and niners PSL sales all point to a lot of money in the south bay. But i think that even those numbers have not convinced MLB that the A’s plan would work. For what ever reason…
To pay off a privately financed park debt, the A’s need to be in san jose that plan will not work in oakland. A lot of fans hoped that the a’s could make it work in oakland but unfortunately the economics in oakland are really bad for many reasons.
@Paul w, what does “Gi-ants established market ” mean? How would the A’s building a ball park in that “market” affect the Giants? Do companies in Santa Clara County ONLY advertise with the Giants? Do fans who live in Santa Clara county ONLY attend Giants games? Then suddenly the if a’s start playing in san jose, companies will ONLY advertise with the A’s and all giants fans in santa clara would be A’s fans??
How would the length of owing a PSL by fans affect when a team will get awarded an All Star game?
So Giants logic would be: we dont want an all star game so that our PSL holders hold on to the PSLs they bought and not sell the PSLs to people who want PSLs?
I dont get how those are related.
“At this point a YES or a NO just needs to come out of Selig’s mouth… 4 years of “studying” either oakland or san jose is way to long.”
Better way too long than way too quickly. There’s way too much money involved for this to be taken lightly. Selig is on a stall tactic.