Supreme Court leaves San Jose antitrust suit off calendar, A’s really not moving anywhere anytime soon

Judging from some of the reader comments back when I reported on San Jose’s antitrust lawsuit over not allowing the Oakland A’s to move there getting rejected by an appeals court last January, some people were still holding out hope that the Supreme Court would tell MLB where to stick its territorial rights rules. Y’all can stop hoping now:

The Supreme Court of the United States returned from its summer recess to grant appeals on the approximately 2,000 petitions submitted to it over the break, but took no action today on City of San Jose vs. Major League Baseball, a strong indicator that it will allow the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to stand.

The Supreme Court could still try to sneak the San Jose case in with a late acceptance, or ask the Solicitor General for an opinion on whether to hear the case, but neither of those is very likely. MLB’s antitrust exemption may be one of the Supreme Court’s stupidest rulings ever, but like the ruling that corporations are people, at this point it’s so well established that it’s going to take something far more cataclysmic than the fate of the A’s to get the courts to even think about overturning it.
Meanwhile, A’s owner Lew Wolff publicly gave up on San Jose months ago, so this isn’t likely to change his leverage much in seeking a new stadium in Oakland. Not that we’ve heard much about that lately, but presumably he’s just hoping that Mark Davis takes the Raiders to Southern California and gets out of his way in the battle for Oakland Coliseum land. Hey, maybe he’ll bring the team with him the next time he goes to get his hair cut.

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2 comments on “Supreme Court leaves San Jose antitrust suit off calendar, A’s really not moving anywhere anytime soon

  1. The antitrust ruling on MLB was pretty terrible, but the Citizens United ruling was next-level bad. Money > People.

  2. Frankly, I believe since it was an action created by the MLB, which gave the Giants territorial rights to a location being sought by the A’s, the league should provide mitigation funds to the Athletics for their stadium construction. However, I still believe Oakland is too close in proximity for Lew Wolff & Co., to effectively compete with the Giants. This being the case, I believe the team should move to Sacramento.
    The A’s can control a market which is ripe for a major sports franchise. Its understood that Sacramento has yet to develop a corporate base sufficient to certain franchise standards. But the A’s are part of a monopoly, and they are seeking to build one of the smallest ballparks in baseball. I’m certain they can find a naming rights sponsor who will provide a cash infusion significant enough for their operations.

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