When last we checked in on the Oakland A’s stadium situation, team execs had just released a plan where they would build a stadium (and maybe a whole bunch of other stuff) at Howard Terminal on the downtown waterfront, and the city of Oakland would spend $855 million on building them unspecified “infrastructure,” in response to which Oakland city officials had gone Hmmm naaah. What’s a self-respecting sports team owner to do next? You know what:
“The future success of the A’s depends on a new ballpark,” A’s owner John Fisher said in a statement. “Oakland is a great baseball town, and we will continue to pursue our waterfront ballpark project. We will also follow MLB’s direction to explore other markets.”
Yep, Fisher has finally played the move threat card, asserting he may take his team and go, well, somewhere, if he doesn’t get his way in Oakland. And, also in sports owner tradition, he did so by passing the buck to his league as the one that really wants him to get a stadium or else, something MLB provided cover for with a statement of their own:
MLB released a statement Tuesday expressing its longtime determination that the current Coliseum site is “not a viable option for the future vision of baseball.”
“MLB is concerned with the rate of progress on the A’s new ballpark effort with local officials and other stakeholders in Oakland,” MLB said. “The A’s have worked very hard to advance a new ballpark in downtown Oakland for the last four years, investing significant resources while facing multiple roadblocks. We know they remain deeply committed to succeeding in Oakland, and with two other sports franchises recently leaving the community, their commitment to Oakland is now more important than ever.”
(Note the inclusion of the passive-aggressive jibe about “two other sports franchises leaving” Oakland recently. Whoever wrote that statement clearly has better feel than MLB commissioner Rob Manfred.)
Back to A’s president Dave Kaval, who has been spearheading the stadium lobbying campaign:
“We’re going to immediately start working with the league on exploring other markets and working hand in hand with them to identify which ones make the most sense and pursuing that right away,” Kaval told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “We need to keep our options open. People know, we can’t even keep the lights on here at the Coliseum.”
All this is, on the one hand, unexpected because both the A’s owners and MLB have long insisted they wouldn’t move the team out of the Bay Area, even while kicking the tires on seemingly every place in the Bay Area; and at the same time totally expected, because this is just how it’s done when stadium talks stall. If nothing else, it gets everyone talking about How will Oakland keep the A’s from moving? instead of The A’s want $855 million for WHAT?, and that’s worth the price of putting out a couple of press statements and maybe enraging a few fans.
I know you all have lots of questions, so allow me to both ask and answer them for you:
Are the A’s really going to move?
Probably not? Sure, they’re likely to go kick the tires on lots of other cities clamoring to get their own MLB franchise. But it’s hard to overlook these numbers on TV market size:
DMA Name Ranking No. Homes 2021 San Francisco-Oak-San Jose 6 2,653,270
Sacramnto-Stkton-Modesto 20 1,459,260
Portland,OR 21 1,315,470
Charlotte 22 1,290,660
Nashville 29 1,102,340
Las Vegas 40 833,510
Yes, the A’s currently have to share the Bay Area with the San Francisco Giants, so their media rights there aren’t quite worth double what they would be in Portland (or triple what they would be in Las Vegas). But they’re still a really strong reason for the team to stay put.
But the Raiders!
The Las Vegas (née Oakland) Raiders, as you are probably aware, play football, not baseball. And the NFL has a dramatically different TV rights structure, where pretty much all TV money comes in from national networks, and is then shared equally among all the teams, whether they play in huge markets or in Green Bay. Add in that NFL teams only have to worry about selling tickets to eight home games a year, not 81 like in MLB, and it’s far easier for football owners to take their teams to a city of whatever size, so long as they’re being offered a tasty enough stadium deal.
Sorry, but you know I love to link to that Jerry Reinsdorf “savvy negotiator creates leverage” story. But anyway, yes, this is a leverage move, first and foremost — though one of the great things about being a sports team owner is that there is no downside to threatening first, and deciding whether you’re serious later.
So what happens next?
If all goes well for Fisher, the media goes nuts speculating on all the places he could possibly move the A’s, preventing him from having to do so much as put out a press release naming names. (Ideally, this would be accompanied by actual investigations of whether those cities are viable options offering better stadium deals than Oakland, but you know it’ll just be “where the A’s will move, ranked” — oh look, here we go already.) If the news cycle demands an extra booster shot of threatdown, we could maybe see Kaval fly to Vegas or Portland and meet with local officials there, because that often works.
At the same time, expect to see lots of frantic repositioning among Oakland city officials to swear that they are totally in favor of helping fund a new stadium, when did they ever say otherwise? In fact, here are some right now:
Justin Berton, a spokesperson for Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, said in a statement: “We share MLB’s sense of urgency and their continued preference for Oakland.
“Today’s statement makes clear that the only viable path to keeping the A’s rooted in Oakland is a ballpark on the waterfront. … Now, with the recent start of financial discussions with the A’s, we call on our entire community — regional and local partners included — to rally together and support a new, financially viable, fiscally responsible, world class waterfront neighborhood that enhances our city and region, and keeps the A’s in Oakland where they belong.” …
Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas said in a statement Tuesday that the council “is committed to keeping the A’s in Oakland.”
So is that it? Fisher and MLB put out a couple of press releases, and Oakland city officials fold and offer him whatever he wants?
Not at all. There’s a huge difference between “We support a downtown Oakland stadium” and “We want to spend $855 million on a downtown Oakland stadium,” which is where all the haggling will come in. But, as noted above, this shifts the conversation from Should Oakland give John Fisher a pile of money? to How big should the pile be?, and that’s the most important win a team owner can ask for at this stage of negotiations.
How much money should Oakland offer to keep the A’s?
See, even you’re doing it now! You’re assuming the A’s will leave without a sufficient offer!
You’re talking to yourself, you know.
Writer’s prerogative.
Anyway, what’s a reasonable (or “fiscally responsible,” as Schaaf put it) amount to spend on infrastructure for an A’s stadium depends on lots of things, including:
what “infrastructure” means (will any of these “seismic improvements” and “vehicular grade separation” actually benefit Oakland residents, or mostly just the A’s?)
what actual benefit Oakland would get from the team redeveloping a swath of downtown instead of playing at the Oakland Coliseum site (in real present-day dollars, not projected out to the year 2064 like Kaval tried to do)
what additional costs the city would end up with from a whole lot of new development (if it even happens, given that the A’s term sheet says Fisher isn’t required to build anything but the stadium, and also all the public infrastructure spending has to be done before even that happens
On that last bullet point, the last time we went through this was with the Montreal Expos, at which point Washington, D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams responded to an utter lack of competing offers with Sure, I’ll give you whatever you want. So history is not exactly optimistic that everyone will arrive at a price that works for both sides, if that’s even something that’s possible.
You mentioned the Oakland Coliseum site. Is that still an option?
There’s going to be lots of tea-leaf reading into MLB’s statement that the Coliseum is “not a viable option for the future vision of baseball” in Oakland — does that mean the current Coliseum, or something new on the Coliseum site, or what? I already got an email last night from the East Oakland Stadium Alliance, which is mostly made up of Howard Terminal port unions and businesses worried about a stadium getting in the way of their ships and trucks, arguing that “the Coliseum location is the ideal place to build a new stadium, as it already has freeway access, public transit, and more than enough space to create a ‘ballpark village’ that could revitalize East Oakland.” All of which is true (well, maybe “revitalize” is a stretch), but would Fisher settle for developing the Coliseum site if getting Howard Terminal in shape proves to be more expensive than either he or the city can stomach? Will Schaaf and the city council force him to make that decision? And what about Naomi? Tune in again tomorrow, and tomorrow’s tomorrow, and on and on into the future vision of baseball.
62 comments on “A’s owner threatens to move team out of Oakland to [throws dart at map] to gain $855m in public cash”
Neil, the market size thing matters a whole lot less than 18 months ago. RSNs are not paying big rights fees anymore, and RSN rights fees were the primary differentiator between large and small markets.
Also, be fair about the $885 million. A government’s role is to handle infrastructure. I’m not disputing that some of that (the $395M portion, if memory serves) looks like site-specific work, but a lot of it ($590M, I think) looks like typical transportation related expenses.
You mentioned “vehicular grade separation”. According to new ballpark.org, a major hangup for the city is that the city wants pedestrian grade separation for rail transit, which is more expensive, takes more time and may not even be feasible.
Agreed that it is starting to matter less, but there’s a big difference between less and “not at all,” as in the NFL. All other things being equal, Fisher would much rather be in Oakland than in Portland or Las Vegas. (And Portland and Vegas don’t even have stadium plans as advanced as in Oakland, so things are a fair bit less than equal at present.)
Nashville feels like the move, to me. I would need to look into it more, but Nashville has spent public money on soccer and auto racing recently. The Preds’ arena is considered a successful “public investment” among pols and locals. The city is hip and young. They don’t have a major league summer sport.
And if you compare Nashville and some of the other areas in “SEC Country” it can draw from to Oakland’s true market (East Bay, Sacto and maybe the central valley), the market difference isn’t too vast.
The other issue — and not to get political on a sports blog — is the current direction of Oakland, the Bay Area and in some ways California. What major league sports team wants the spectre of crowd limits, a local media that parrots every activist’s delusional racism accusation, “climate change” regulations, etc.? If you’re able to be in an awesome city like LA or New York, you deal with it. For Oakland?? I don’t know about that.
The next sports team (or for that matter, corporation of any kind) that moves out of a city because it’s too woke will be the first one ever, I believe.
Absolutely correct. There is a first time for everything, like California’s census numbers declining…
“Feels” and “to me” are doing all of the work here in a stuoendously fact free and very political “not to be political” post.
Conservatives stopped watching sports because Trump told them too. Pretty much the only sports fans left are people who agree with all those things.
” a local media that parrots every activist’s delusional racism accusation, “climate change” regulations, etc.?”
Explain, and illuminate those of us who are not as politically savvy as you, Ben.
Go on….
I live in the SF-OAK-SJ DMA (in Santa Clara county, where the A’s would have been 10 years ago if not for BS “territorial rights.”) The sports channel that shows A’s games isn’t even offered by the local cable company, and hasn’t been for years. Do Nielsen homes and media rights matter if people can’t even get it?
It matters so long as the sports channel is willing to pay the A’s for the rights. What they do with them after that isn’t Fisher’s problem.
I noticed a long time ago there’s plenty of room in the parking lot around the Coliseum to build a ballpark that would spare the need to create a lot of new infrastructure. Knock that and Oracle arena down and the destination with bars and other entertainment could possibly be built if the A’s want to create that kind of stadium neighborhood. From what the port area looks like I think that has as much of a chance of success as building in their desired site.
The Coliseum site is already entitled for new stadium development and has been for years. The A’s came out publicly with a preliminary plan for redevelopment of the Coliseum site even if they built a stadium at Howard Terminal, an explicit admission that the Coliseum site is in fact viable for development.
The A’s play here is the same game plan they used in San Jose with the Earthquakes. We build a stadium on problematic site A, if you let us develop/make tons of cash on a mixed-use development at site B. If they put the new stadium and parking at the Coli, that’s a whole lot less land on site for what they really make money on–housing, offices, retail, etc.
Except for the fact that, you know, it worked in San Jose, and the fact that they will still seek to develop Howard Terminal even if they were to build at the Coliseum site. And you could reasonably assume that waterfront non-stadium development would be worth more per square foot than equivalent development on an equivalent area at the Coliseum site, which undercuts the central argument here. The Coliseum site (and adjacent properties not technically part of the property that the team has either acquired or seeks to acquire) is also more than large enough to create a large and highly profitable mixed use development even with a stadium and associated parking. The team has admitted this — they’re just gaslighting at this point.
Actually, the Quakes deal was different as I recall. The Quakes preferred (and now actual) site wasn’t problematic. The problem was they wanted to take an industrial/commercial site in south San Jose that they already ownedand change the zoning to medium and high density housing and use the profits to build the stadium.
They weren’t asking the city for a handout or TIFF, unless you consider the infrastructure costs and future losses of business tax revenue from the rezoning of the commercial property.
Speaking of sports rights, and a little unrelated, I live in the south Florida market. The Marlins, heat, and panthers are shown on what used to be the fox sports channels (now “Bally sports”).
We cut the cord, and these local broadcasts are totally unavailable to us through any of the steaming services.
And while we can buy any of the league passes for the sports teams, our local teams are blacked out on them.
I guess it’s accurate to say that the owners do not care about people actually watching their games, so long as they have made money on the broadcast rights.
It’s kind of strange, but makes me realize how little I care about the teams/sports overall, too.
I only stream sports that aren’t on basic cable channels. Have never once considered getting anything else. Or I go to my local pub and support them, which is an option again as things are opening back up.
Exactly right, Dave. There are teams that own their own RSNs, in effect. They certainly care who (and how many) watch their games. The ones with the fixed rights fees from third party broadcasters? Not so much.
I have the exact same problem in Chicago for the White Sox. In order to watch the White Sox I would have to pay about $60 a month for cable, or about $65 a month for Youtube TV, the benefits of either would consist ONLY of being able to watch White Sox games routinely.
I’m not jumping on that.
As a decades-long Oakland A’s fan who no longer lives anywhere in the vicinity of Oakland, I’d just like to say that there has for a really long time been an unfilled niche in Oakland for someone to advocate for the preservation, restoration, and marketing-as-historical of the Oakland Coliseum (which for completely obvious reasons I will not call RingCentral Coliseum in this post).
Mount Davis can and should be taken down and returned to open, sunny bleachers. The now totally redundant arena next door can be taken down too, and replaced with your dream of plazas and businesses, ringed by new housing, which there is plenty of room for. And although the building and area have issues with pipes and sewage and electrical, it is no harder to fix this than to start over in the port area. The expense of doing so is significantly lower than the expense of changing downtown and port traffic patterns.
Because the Oakland Coliseum is the last remaining post-war, pre-1970s economic crisis, built for dual-use ring stadium, it is architecturally significant, and now is the time (and the East Bay is the audience) to make the case that those big, cheap, simple slabs of concrete were always the people’s stadiums, full of cheap seats and cheap food and cheap beer. The A’s can’t and shouldn’t compete with the Giants over Silicon Valley and posh San Francisco and Marin, but an imaginative management would have spent the last 20 years spinning the A’s as the little team who could rather than as neoliberal cost-cutting wonks (which, admittedly, is what they are). Such a management would have prioritized selling tons of $20 tickets to people who take BART. We are, after all, the people who caused the A’s to outdraw the Giants in the late 1980s and 1990s.
(Yes the opposition at that time was some bad Giants teams and Candlestick – the Giants are way more formidable to compete with now – but the point that gets lost is that there was nothing automatic about SF becoming the dominant team in the market, and thoughtful use of present resources could counter SF’s lead even now.)
I propose some enterprising left-union type (that would be me but living in the western time zone) start a blog called “The Oakland Coliseum Forever” with a good picture of the beautiful pre-Mount Davis Coliseum with the hills in the backdrop on the front (https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/4k8rey/just_a_reminder_how_nice_the_oakland_coliseum/). Stories about Rickie Henderson, great society blue collar wealth in the Bay Area, and what a serious commitment to build out east Oakland for the residents who live there would look like. Every time I think about this I think “this would have made a difference 15 years ago, when I still lived there.” And then I think shit, we’re still at square 1. Why not now?
Not to hate, but the pic on that reddit post makes the Coliseum look exactly how I remember it from TV: a cheap, inoffensive, stadium equivalent of public housing.
In a way the Coliseum site makes sense for baseball, but not in a city like Oakland. For MLB to work in a city like Oakland the stadium needs to be tied to a residential development, and that development needs to be high-end. The Coliseum site is not and never will be a location for high-end housing. Howard Terminal has a chance to be. This is not like the Braves and Cobb County or the Rams and Inglewood. This is Oakland.
This is a wildly inaccurate set of assertions, easily disproven by a laundry list of mixed income housing developments and mixed use developments that have been successfully built around the Bay Area (and in many other places) in areas that were previously considered industrial, high crime, low income, etc.
Sounds backwards to me. Why does residential development need a baseball stadium? If housing is the goal, then develop these sites for housing, eliminating the sports stadia. It would be a far better return on investment, with buildings whose occupants might actually pay taxes and shouldn’t require massive public $$dough.
We seem to be skipping over the question: Why does Oakland “need” a baseball stadium or baseball team?
Oakland doesn’t “need” a baseball team, and if the cost of keeping one is $885 million dollars that could be better used elsewhere, Oakland should say sayonara. But some us like baseball, and my post points to the cheapest way to keep something that can actually be popular and good. Why are you on a sports site, however left its politics, at all if you think we should simply dismiss the idea of having baseball?
I don’t dismiss the idea of having baseball, any more than I dismiss the idea of having bowling. I don’t want either of them provided at public expense. They are entertainment, and should be paid for by those who enjoy them.
Look, I can’t even tell whether we’re disagreeing here – I don’t know whether you actually read my initial post, which isn’t about the city paying for anything, it’s about developing a constituency for maintaining and improving the current building. We may have a disagreement about the meaning of “paid for by those who enjoy them,” which could easily be a libertarian position against a state deciding to pay for any collective good. Seems to me that while the city owns 50% of the current site, keeping the present facility while building infill housing around it and having publicly paid infrastructure improvements to the sewers, electrical, etc. wouldn’t be such a bad choice for the public. And that there’s nothing wrong with thinking about package deals that include baseball and housing even if you don’t “need” to.
Cheap, inoffensive, filled with working people is good. Public housing is good. But of course what the working people of the world really need is another playground for the 1%
Amen, Kenny. Professional sports were once the entertainment of the masses. They haven’t been for quite some time. Ordinary taxpayers used to be forced to pay for modest facilities that they could then afford to go to. Now we pay ten times as much to create high end palaces that very few of us can afford to go to.
Welfare for billionaires and millionaires is a uniquely capitalist concept.
“Not to hate, but the pic on that reddit post makes the Coliseum look exactly how I remember it from TV: a cheap, inoffensive, stadium equivalent of public housing.”
2 more & you can hit for the none-too-thinly-veiled racism cycle Ben.
Take a knee, Bud.
Ben: We Oakland A’s fans are good with that. A cheap, inoffensive ballpark. We like mixed-use developments and mixed-use housing (even my cousins in the Oakland hills are good with this). A hot dog and bottled water works for us at the game (I’ll be spending the night in their small back bedroom).
I think your best choice might be to drive over the Bay Bridge to Oracle Park. There you can be served a sushi platter and a glass of Chateau d’Esclans Les Clans rose wine from the park’s private wine cellar. After the game, I’d recommend a high end development Air B&B, for example a Grand Residence in the Millennium Tower.
Ben: We Oakland A’s fans are good with that. A cheap, inoffensive ballpark. We like mixed-use developments and mixed-use housing (even my cousins in the Oakland hills are good with this). A hot dog and bottled water works for us at the game (I’ll be spending the night in their small back bedroom).
I think your best choice might be to drive over the Bay Bridge to Oracle Park. There you can be served a sushi platter and a glass of Chateau d’Esclans Les Clans rose wine from the park’s private wine cellar. After the game, I’d recommend a high end development Air B&B, for example a Grand Residence in the Millennium Tower.
Mixed-income housing (spell check doesn’t work for wrong word usage).
Kenny: Love the idea. Reminds me of Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree. Tear down Mt. Davis. A little touch up here and there. The old gal won’t look so bad after all.
As an Northern California resident since 1974, having lived off and on in the Bay Area for short periods of time (as well as having many friends and family there), I’ll shed a tear when the Coliseum is torn down (from the many memories of being there).
I don’t see myself rushing down to the new A’s sports palace if one is built. Quite the opposite. I’ll be less inclined to take in a game there.
Aaaah, Rickey Henderson spelled wrong, sorry.
But did Rickey Henderson spell Rickey Henderson wrong?
As the self professed “greatest of allllll-tiiiimme”, does it matter? And isn’t any way he spells his own name therefore going to be “right”???
Rickey don’t like it when Rickey can’t spell Rickey’s name.
As a soccer fan I think this shows why I like promotion / relegation. Teams that cannot compete drop to levels they can while teams with ambitions and changing favorable local demographics can rise.
It’s not perfect I admit but maybe it is better than the franchise system.
Bingo!
American capitalism at its finest. You buy your way into the private club and you get to hang out there for as long as you want.
Isn’t it about time the Sacramento Kings were relegated. Say like NCAA Division I where they would be competitive. Currently, the Kings have the longest playoff drought of current NBA franchises at 17 years.
Neil,
If Fisher gets serious with Las Vegas, it seems to me he is more interested in a real estate deal that he make out like a bandit for that having a sustainable sport franchise. The Las Vegas A’s at the box office will be no more successful than the Oakland A’s already. While I am a self-professed Portland MLB booter, the portland diamond group was very mum on this development( I don’t think they want to deal with Fisher). As you pointed out the flaws with the Vegas market go beyond the TV market data. (They work at night and it doesn’t have the incomes one would expect on the West Coast).
As I have been preaching on this site for some time, unless you have some white knight pol or group of pols like DC did in another city, Fisher is more likely to weaken his negotiating hand than strengthen it.
I get marketing emails from the A’s (since I go to games from time to time) and the email from Dave Kaval really rubbed me wrong. As far as I’m concerned, if they’ve got a better opportunity elsewhere, they should just move. And yes, I’m fine with the Raiders moving.
Does a baseball team really think it is so damn important that it can send out threatening emails to their fans like that? “Pay up, or we’ll go elsewhere!” And they send out these threats in a two-team market for baseball? Really not building goodwill with this approach.
What’s inexplicable to me is the ongoing craptalk about the Coliseum location. They already have half ownership of the property and there’s plenty of space for development there. The team needs a regional fanbase and the Howard Terminal is an awful place in terms of transportation — and will continue to be even if the city pours a billion dollars into infrastructure. Why would they want to move closer to the Giants instead of offereing an alternative that is easier to get to?
One thing that occurred to me: if they are clearly stating that they won’t build a new stadium at the Coliseum, then there’s absolutely no reason for them to get any preference during negotiations to buy the other half of the Coliseum property from the city.
Fisher can certainly offload the portion (or share of) the coliseum site he already “owns” if he wants. However, what is still not clear to me is whether he owns a specific section of the site or just owns 50% of the entity that controls the whole site.
My assumption has always been that it is the latter, and there is no demarcation line somewhere on the property that defines the half he owns and the half he doesn’t.
This could very much complicate unloading his “half” in the event he does decide to give up on Oakland (which he won’t, for the reasons Neil has pointed out). It’s a bit like owning a half duplex or a fourplex suite. The most likely buyer is the person or persons who own the other unit(s), and that can often limit the property’s appeal (and more importantly, price).
I don’t blame the A’s for making the big ask at HT. The city said they wanted them there and if your defacto partner wants you to move to a specific spot that has really high development costs, I think it only natural that you would seek to have that partner cover the excess costs. Whether the $855m ask is legitimately for the excess costs is another matter entirely… I assume it is just a negotiating position (as Neil said, move the discussion from whether to put money in to how much… and $450m of taxpayer money seems like a bargain compared to $855m amiright???)
Still, 30+ comments on an A’s stadium post. If only everybody who has this level of interest would buy a ticket!
They bought a 50% stake in the overall site, but not a specific physical portion of it. They didn’t buy a stake in the entity that controlled it, which was a joint public authority between the City of Oakland and Alameda County. So now there are two separate entities that own the site 50/50 — the A’s (or Fisher) and the City of Oakland — and they don’t jointly manage it.
I’ll add that to the south side of the creek channel that runs along the south side of the site, the City of Oakland also owns the Malibu Lot and Home Base Lot separately from their stake in the main Coliseum site (which lies to the north of said creek).
Every parcel of land (within a municipality) has a legal description and title. To get legal title to any parcel of land, there must be an entity to own it… that can be a municipality, a corporation, or an individual, and a formal transaction in which they take ownership (which can be a token sale for $1 etc).
So if the A’s ownership is the legal owner of this land they either have to own a parcel of land itself (which I agree is not likely as the land was and is controlled by the JPA) or own the interest in the land that was held by Alameda via the JPA.
In either case, they must legally own something in order to own the land or an interest in it. If a private entity (like Fisher’s companies) can hold an interest in the joint authority, that might be possible. But it is unlikely that a government entity like the JPA could accommodate a private co-owner. The JPA was, as far as I can tell, never set up as a corporate entity with share structure etc. It was also set up as a governing body as opposed to an actual (government or private controlled) corporation as I recall.
So, unless the JPA has been replaced by a successor body to co-own the site with Fisher… what is it that the A’s own and how to they own it?
Do they just have an agreement to purchase the Alameda County interest that has not yet been exercised?
If they have not purchased either a specific parcel of land or some/all of the shares in a corporation that owns the land, how exactly do they “own” it?
The Oakland-Alameda County JPA ceased to exist. If there is a public-private replacement between the City of Oakland and the A’s/Fisher, that has never been made public to my knowledge. Alameda County has nothing to do with the site anymore in terms of ownership stake, they completely divested their share to the A’s. I am positive that the A’s don’t own a specific geographical portion of the site though. If you happen to find out something about how the current arrangement is structured, I’d be interested to see it.
All things being equal, Fisher would really rather be in $an Jo$e than Oakland, if not for those BS Giants territorial rights (disclaimer: I’m a $J resident). But I digress.
I used to hear “$200 million” being thrown around on how much the City of Oakland was willing to spend on infrastructure for the A’s at HT. Even that number was jaw dropping to me, especially with Oaklands past/current fiscal issues. $855 MILLION FOR INFRASTRUCTURE?!!! I tell yah what; if Schaaf and the City of Oakland vote in favor of that amount, it would be the greatest taxpayer heist in sports history! The Raiders $600 million in Nevada would be considered child’s play to that amount (LOL!).
Assuming Schaaf/Oakland don’t give in to those public subsidy demands (if they do, kudos to Fisher!), I hope MLB allows the A’s to explore $J again and finally work out a deal for those BS territorial rights. The A’s 40-35 miles down the road from SF/OAK would not have hurt the Giants 10 years ago, and they definitely wouldn’t hurt them today!
I agree that the ‘swap’ the Haas family agreed to in return for letting the Giants explore San Jose turned out to be BS deal for the A’s… as the Giants never moved and thus it ended up being a gift according to MLB.
Having said that, that is the way that MLB rolls and the current A’s ownership certainly knew that when they bought the team.
I would also suggest that the reluctance to allow the A’s to move there might have more to do with MLB seeing it as a potential expansion location 10-20 yrs down the road than any great love for the Giants ownership.
Don’t they now have an empty arena right behind the stadium? Tear it down, build the new stadium in its place, and tear the old one down. The problem isn’t the location, the problem is that it’s a crumbling dump. Hell, at one point it was the worst stadium in two different leagues, which is actually kind of impressive.
Maybe it’s time to say that word again, Contraction. Tampa and Oakland would of course be the two teams I’m thinking of. My deal would be saying to the the two owners, get you stadiums in order or the teams go away. Would need to cut a deal with the union which will never happen and the other owners to buy out these two teams. Expand rosters by one which would cover 28 jobs lost. The two teams don’t draw well which would not be a hit for teams that collect visiting team shares.
Since the union will never let contraction happen, Let the other MLB owners help pay for the new stadiums instead of the tax payers. As soon as MLB says, the current ballparks are not adequate, then they should put their money where their mouth is.
Since the MLB will never help fund a ballpark and it appears the towns of Oakland and Tampa/St Petersburg are not rushing to finance stadiums, then maybe Orlando and bribing the Giants to allow a move to San Jose will work. Orlando would draw from the Space Coast Area, Daytona Area, Orlando as well as from the West, Lakeland, Tampa, and St Pete. Basically it opens the team up to a larger pool of people who can now travel. As for the Giants allowing Oakland to move, basically part of the money the A’s would have to pay would be the money for the Giants to allow the move. There has to be a number they will accept.
Then there is make the current situation work. Build a ballpark where the A’s play now or get creative and do something with the Coliseum. Same thing with the Rays. Maybe you can do something outside the box and do something creative with the Trop or that property. There is no easy answer unless someone is dumb enough to actually give these owners money to build their palaces.
Orlando? Seriously? If the Marlins and Rays have proven anything, it’s that regular season baseball in Florida does not work.
Steve: Agreed.
However, Orlando/Orange County seem to love throwing public monies at stadiums. Much like their counterparts in Las Vegas/other cities in Clark County/Clark County.
TOT (Transient Occupancy Tax). Whatcha gonna do with it? Build shiny, new stadiums with it! Or plow it back into the suffering business sectors of the city. Most certainly the former and most certainly not the latter.
Contraction. Oakland and Tampa Bay? This wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that neither Oakland, nor St. Petersburg, are willing to throw 100’s of millions of dollars at billionaire owners (Sternberg is not a billionaire, Sternberg is not a billionaire ….. although, he think he’s one) of MLB franchises in their cities for a shiny, new sports palace? Insert smile emoji here.
I thought contraction was about the MLB franchises attendance. I thought contraction was about a community’s commitment to a professional franchise (not only the elected’s, but the business community and fans as well). I though contraction was about the viability of the professional sports franchise, both short and long-term.
I did not think contraction was about a shiny, new sports palace with shiny, new accoutre for that “fan day experience.”
One word. Marlins. MLB’s franchise with the worst performance when it comes to attendance (yes, know Marlins began life in 1993.. Chose 1998 as Tampa Bay became MLB franchise that year, thus the Citrus Series. Plus it was one year off the Marlins first World Series Championship in 1997). Previously provided both Oakland and Tampa Bay’s attendance figures for the same time period (will be happy to do so again).
The only sound you here in Miami’s ballpark (10 years old and the clock is ticking) on game day ….. is crickets.
If contraction is about shiny, new digs, shouldn’t both the Cubs and Red Sox be shown the door?
However, I do find your arguments for both the A’s and Rays ballpark situations to have merit.
Tampa would be a candidate for contraction. They are always near the bottom of the league when it comes to attendance even with their success. Only Miami is worse. Miami will never be contracted because of their shiny ballpark and the politicians who are the hook for the cost and would fight hard to prevent that from happening. Oakland is 24th to 29th when it comes to attendance year in and year out.
Cities are not going to throw money at teams to get them like in the past, not when ball parks reach the 1 billion mark to build with infrastructure. Now if an owner wants to pay 100%, that’s another story, but when will that happen?
If you check the numbers before 2020, (the last time we had full ballparks), Tampa, Miami, and Oakland are three of the bottom 5 times in attendance.
Keep in mind the league will never contract, but based on logic, maybe it is time instead of holding cities hostage to spend money they don’t have, or just live with what you have and make it work.
People thought outside the box renovating Wrigley and Fenway. I know the Coliseum and the Trop are not historical significant or even good ballparks in today’s age, but there could be someone out there that could work magic and make them workable.
The A’s and Rays are both turning good annual profits, in non-pandemic years, anyway. Why would MLB want to pay to contract them?
The teams complain about their stadiums where they can’t make the money to be competitive. That is the language they use to scare municipalities to help finance their new ballparks. The Coliseum site has been ruled out for no logical reason other than MLB does not want it there.
I am not for contraction and it should be the last response, but I believe it can’t be taken off the table, If MLB is now going to take the path of saying the A’s should look elsewhere, but not help them fund their dream home, then what will they do if no one wants to build a new home for them or give tons of tax credits or financial assistance? Will that be calling their bluff and MLB will say, stay where you are?
Will MLB force them to sell to someone who will relocate and pay for a ballpark themselves?
There are only so many options and maybe the product is watered down. The more teams added, the additional players who were not going to be in the majors are now playing at that level. This is a different subject.
Again contraction is the last response, but I believe it can not be taken off the table. If nothing works out as the teams and MLB want, what do you do? Or is all a bluff and they say, they were only kidding.
Phil: My point was if contraction were to happen which it won’t (for the reasons you so eloquently pointed out earlier), Miami should be top of the list (even with their shiny, new bobble) as they only outdrew Charlotte/Indianapolis by 192,000 in 2018 and Las Vegas by 160,000 (yes, get Aviators moved into shiny, new ballpark is Summerlin that year) and now their attendance is in the same league as the Expos historic lows of 2000 – 2004. Yes, get out of the box solutions for Fenway and Wrigley (too bad Cubs spring training field in Avalon is more. Marlins could relocate there https://www.visitcatalinaisland.com/blog/post/a-step-back-in-time-chicago-cubs-on-catalina-island/ https://sabr.org/bioproj/topic/catalina-island/ Just 1 hour away from LA by ferry boat).
Believe Kenny’s argument above as to Coliseum being the last of its breed has its merits. That it too could be brought to code and retrofitted for today’s world (believe most A’s fans would not find this problematic. A’s fans do not require Russian Caviar and French Campagne as their counterparts across the bay do. However, John J Fisher, A’s organization and MLB would never find this solution acceptable in a million zillion years. No, no this would never do as it fails to bring in additional “revenue enhancements” for the A’s and “a fan experience” that a shiny, new ballpark brings). Yes, always ✔️ numbers being former auditor and bean counter.
Oakland A’s
Oakland Alameda County Coliseum. 09/18/1966
Note: In 16 of 22 seasons, the Oakland A’s have drawn more fans through turnstiles than the Tampa Bay Rays, with the San Francisco Giants just across the bay, in a stadium 24 years older where there are no doors on the toilet stalls!
Left off.
2019 97-65 .599 1,670,734 20,626 (23rd) ✔️
My point. The ballpark and MLB/MLB’s billionaire owner wants (wants differ from needs. A famous man once said, “you can’t always get what you want, you get what you need”) for a shiny, new ballpark is not a basis for contraction.
If MLB/MLB’s billionaire owner doesn’t like the building his business is in and the city won’t pony up public monies to build your new building for your business, you sell your business. It’s how American capitalism works.
Or move your business to a city that will pony up public monies for a new building for your business.
This part is proving to be one of the most recent trick in the book, not just for stadiums, but all kinds of eco devo projects. ” how much existing tax revenue would be siphoned off by drawing a tax increment financing district that encompasses virtually the entire downtown waterfront (much of which is already developed)”
Plus the related whole repay to the developer taxes paid by users of the development.
Give me a TIF district large enough and a city in which to place it, and I can fund anything.
Neil, the market size thing matters a whole lot less than 18 months ago. RSNs are not paying big rights fees anymore, and RSN rights fees were the primary differentiator between large and small markets.
Also, be fair about the $885 million. A government’s role is to handle infrastructure. I’m not disputing that some of that (the $395M portion, if memory serves) looks like site-specific work, but a lot of it ($590M, I think) looks like typical transportation related expenses.
You mentioned “vehicular grade separation”. According to new ballpark.org, a major hangup for the city is that the city wants pedestrian grade separation for rail transit, which is more expensive, takes more time and may not even be feasible.
Agreed that it is starting to matter less, but there’s a big difference between less and “not at all,” as in the NFL. All other things being equal, Fisher would much rather be in Oakland than in Portland or Las Vegas. (And Portland and Vegas don’t even have stadium plans as advanced as in Oakland, so things are a fair bit less than equal at present.)
Nashville feels like the move, to me. I would need to look into it more, but Nashville has spent public money on soccer and auto racing recently. The Preds’ arena is considered a successful “public investment” among pols and locals. The city is hip and young. They don’t have a major league summer sport.
And if you compare Nashville and some of the other areas in “SEC Country” it can draw from to Oakland’s true market (East Bay, Sacto and maybe the central valley), the market difference isn’t too vast.
The other issue — and not to get political on a sports blog — is the current direction of Oakland, the Bay Area and in some ways California. What major league sports team wants the spectre of crowd limits, a local media that parrots every activist’s delusional racism accusation, “climate change” regulations, etc.? If you’re able to be in an awesome city like LA or New York, you deal with it. For Oakland?? I don’t know about that.
The next sports team (or for that matter, corporation of any kind) that moves out of a city because it’s too woke will be the first one ever, I believe.
Absolutely correct. There is a first time for everything, like California’s census numbers declining…
“Feels” and “to me” are doing all of the work here in a stuoendously fact free and very political “not to be political” post.
Conservatives stopped watching sports because Trump told them too. Pretty much the only sports fans left are people who agree with all those things.
” a local media that parrots every activist’s delusional racism accusation, “climate change” regulations, etc.?”
Explain, and illuminate those of us who are not as politically savvy as you, Ben.
Go on….
I live in the SF-OAK-SJ DMA (in Santa Clara county, where the A’s would have been 10 years ago if not for BS “territorial rights.”) The sports channel that shows A’s games isn’t even offered by the local cable company, and hasn’t been for years. Do Nielsen homes and media rights matter if people can’t even get it?
It matters so long as the sports channel is willing to pay the A’s for the rights. What they do with them after that isn’t Fisher’s problem.
I noticed a long time ago there’s plenty of room in the parking lot around the Coliseum to build a ballpark that would spare the need to create a lot of new infrastructure. Knock that and Oracle arena down and the destination with bars and other entertainment could possibly be built if the A’s want to create that kind of stadium neighborhood. From what the port area looks like I think that has as much of a chance of success as building in their desired site.
The Coliseum site is already entitled for new stadium development and has been for years. The A’s came out publicly with a preliminary plan for redevelopment of the Coliseum site even if they built a stadium at Howard Terminal, an explicit admission that the Coliseum site is in fact viable for development.
The A’s play here is the same game plan they used in San Jose with the Earthquakes. We build a stadium on problematic site A, if you let us develop/make tons of cash on a mixed-use development at site B. If they put the new stadium and parking at the Coli, that’s a whole lot less land on site for what they really make money on–housing, offices, retail, etc.
Except for the fact that, you know, it worked in San Jose, and the fact that they will still seek to develop Howard Terminal even if they were to build at the Coliseum site. And you could reasonably assume that waterfront non-stadium development would be worth more per square foot than equivalent development on an equivalent area at the Coliseum site, which undercuts the central argument here. The Coliseum site (and adjacent properties not technically part of the property that the team has either acquired or seeks to acquire) is also more than large enough to create a large and highly profitable mixed use development even with a stadium and associated parking. The team has admitted this — they’re just gaslighting at this point.
Actually, the Quakes deal was different as I recall. The Quakes preferred (and now actual) site wasn’t problematic. The problem was they wanted to take an industrial/commercial site in south San Jose that they already ownedand change the zoning to medium and high density housing and use the profits to build the stadium.
They weren’t asking the city for a handout or TIFF, unless you consider the infrastructure costs and future losses of business tax revenue from the rezoning of the commercial property.
Speaking of sports rights, and a little unrelated, I live in the south Florida market. The Marlins, heat, and panthers are shown on what used to be the fox sports channels (now “Bally sports”).
We cut the cord, and these local broadcasts are totally unavailable to us through any of the steaming services.
And while we can buy any of the league passes for the sports teams, our local teams are blacked out on them.
I guess it’s accurate to say that the owners do not care about people actually watching their games, so long as they have made money on the broadcast rights.
It’s kind of strange, but makes me realize how little I care about the teams/sports overall, too.
I only stream sports that aren’t on basic cable channels. Have never once considered getting anything else. Or I go to my local pub and support them, which is an option again as things are opening back up.
Exactly right, Dave. There are teams that own their own RSNs, in effect. They certainly care who (and how many) watch their games. The ones with the fixed rights fees from third party broadcasters? Not so much.
I have the exact same problem in Chicago for the White Sox. In order to watch the White Sox I would have to pay about $60 a month for cable, or about $65 a month for Youtube TV, the benefits of either would consist ONLY of being able to watch White Sox games routinely.
I’m not jumping on that.
As a decades-long Oakland A’s fan who no longer lives anywhere in the vicinity of Oakland, I’d just like to say that there has for a really long time been an unfilled niche in Oakland for someone to advocate for the preservation, restoration, and marketing-as-historical of the Oakland Coliseum (which for completely obvious reasons I will not call RingCentral Coliseum in this post).
Mount Davis can and should be taken down and returned to open, sunny bleachers. The now totally redundant arena next door can be taken down too, and replaced with your dream of plazas and businesses, ringed by new housing, which there is plenty of room for. And although the building and area have issues with pipes and sewage and electrical, it is no harder to fix this than to start over in the port area. The expense of doing so is significantly lower than the expense of changing downtown and port traffic patterns.
Because the Oakland Coliseum is the last remaining post-war, pre-1970s economic crisis, built for dual-use ring stadium, it is architecturally significant, and now is the time (and the East Bay is the audience) to make the case that those big, cheap, simple slabs of concrete were always the people’s stadiums, full of cheap seats and cheap food and cheap beer. The A’s can’t and shouldn’t compete with the Giants over Silicon Valley and posh San Francisco and Marin, but an imaginative management would have spent the last 20 years spinning the A’s as the little team who could rather than as neoliberal cost-cutting wonks (which, admittedly, is what they are). Such a management would have prioritized selling tons of $20 tickets to people who take BART. We are, after all, the people who caused the A’s to outdraw the Giants in the late 1980s and 1990s.
(Yes the opposition at that time was some bad Giants teams and Candlestick – the Giants are way more formidable to compete with now – but the point that gets lost is that there was nothing automatic about SF becoming the dominant team in the market, and thoughtful use of present resources could counter SF’s lead even now.)
I propose some enterprising left-union type (that would be me but living in the western time zone) start a blog called “The Oakland Coliseum Forever” with a good picture of the beautiful pre-Mount Davis Coliseum with the hills in the backdrop on the front (https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/4k8rey/just_a_reminder_how_nice_the_oakland_coliseum/). Stories about Rickie Henderson, great society blue collar wealth in the Bay Area, and what a serious commitment to build out east Oakland for the residents who live there would look like. Every time I think about this I think “this would have made a difference 15 years ago, when I still lived there.” And then I think shit, we’re still at square 1. Why not now?
Not to hate, but the pic on that reddit post makes the Coliseum look exactly how I remember it from TV: a cheap, inoffensive, stadium equivalent of public housing.
In a way the Coliseum site makes sense for baseball, but not in a city like Oakland. For MLB to work in a city like Oakland the stadium needs to be tied to a residential development, and that development needs to be high-end. The Coliseum site is not and never will be a location for high-end housing. Howard Terminal has a chance to be. This is not like the Braves and Cobb County or the Rams and Inglewood. This is Oakland.
This is a wildly inaccurate set of assertions, easily disproven by a laundry list of mixed income housing developments and mixed use developments that have been successfully built around the Bay Area (and in many other places) in areas that were previously considered industrial, high crime, low income, etc.
Sounds backwards to me. Why does residential development need a baseball stadium? If housing is the goal, then develop these sites for housing, eliminating the sports stadia. It would be a far better return on investment, with buildings whose occupants might actually pay taxes and shouldn’t require massive public $$dough.
We seem to be skipping over the question: Why does Oakland “need” a baseball stadium or baseball team?
Oakland doesn’t “need” a baseball team, and if the cost of keeping one is $885 million dollars that could be better used elsewhere, Oakland should say sayonara. But some us like baseball, and my post points to the cheapest way to keep something that can actually be popular and good. Why are you on a sports site, however left its politics, at all if you think we should simply dismiss the idea of having baseball?
I don’t dismiss the idea of having baseball, any more than I dismiss the idea of having bowling. I don’t want either of them provided at public expense. They are entertainment, and should be paid for by those who enjoy them.
Look, I can’t even tell whether we’re disagreeing here – I don’t know whether you actually read my initial post, which isn’t about the city paying for anything, it’s about developing a constituency for maintaining and improving the current building. We may have a disagreement about the meaning of “paid for by those who enjoy them,” which could easily be a libertarian position against a state deciding to pay for any collective good. Seems to me that while the city owns 50% of the current site, keeping the present facility while building infill housing around it and having publicly paid infrastructure improvements to the sewers, electrical, etc. wouldn’t be such a bad choice for the public. And that there’s nothing wrong with thinking about package deals that include baseball and housing even if you don’t “need” to.
Cheap, inoffensive, filled with working people is good. Public housing is good. But of course what the working people of the world really need is another playground for the 1%
Amen, Kenny. Professional sports were once the entertainment of the masses. They haven’t been for quite some time. Ordinary taxpayers used to be forced to pay for modest facilities that they could then afford to go to. Now we pay ten times as much to create high end palaces that very few of us can afford to go to.
Welfare for billionaires and millionaires is a uniquely capitalist concept.
“Not to hate, but the pic on that reddit post makes the Coliseum look exactly how I remember it from TV: a cheap, inoffensive, stadium equivalent of public housing.”
2 more & you can hit for the none-too-thinly-veiled racism cycle Ben.
Take a knee, Bud.
Ben: We Oakland A’s fans are good with that. A cheap, inoffensive ballpark. We like mixed-use developments and mixed-use housing (even my cousins in the Oakland hills are good with this). A hot dog and bottled water works for us at the game (I’ll be spending the night in their small back bedroom).
A’s fans aren’t Giants fans. And vice versa. Giants fans aren’t A’s fans.
I think your best choice might be to drive over the Bay Bridge to Oracle Park. There you can be served a sushi platter and a glass of Chateau d’Esclans Les Clans rose wine from the park’s private wine cellar. After the game, I’d recommend a high end development Air B&B, for example a Grand Residence in the Millennium Tower.
Ben: We Oakland A’s fans are good with that. A cheap, inoffensive ballpark. We like mixed-use developments and mixed-use housing (even my cousins in the Oakland hills are good with this). A hot dog and bottled water works for us at the game (I’ll be spending the night in their small back bedroom).
It’s why A’s fans aren’t Giants fans. And vice versa, Giants fans aren’t A’s fans.
I think your best choice might be to drive over the Bay Bridge to Oracle Park. There you can be served a sushi platter and a glass of Chateau d’Esclans Les Clans rose wine from the park’s private wine cellar. After the game, I’d recommend a high end development Air B&B, for example a Grand Residence in the Millennium Tower.
Mixed-income housing (spell check doesn’t work for wrong word usage).
Kenny: Love the idea. Reminds me of Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree. Tear down Mt. Davis. A little touch up here and there. The old gal won’t look so bad after all.
As an Northern California resident since 1974, having lived off and on in the Bay Area for short periods of time (as well as having many friends and family there), I’ll shed a tear when the Coliseum is torn down (from the many memories of being there).
I don’t see myself rushing down to the new A’s sports palace if one is built. Quite the opposite. I’ll be less inclined to take in a game there.
Aaaah, Rickey Henderson spelled wrong, sorry.
But did Rickey Henderson spell Rickey Henderson wrong?
As the self professed “greatest of allllll-tiiiimme”, does it matter? And isn’t any way he spells his own name therefore going to be “right”???
Rickey don’t like it when Rickey can’t spell Rickey’s name.
As a soccer fan I think this shows why I like promotion / relegation. Teams that cannot compete drop to levels they can while teams with ambitions and changing favorable local demographics can rise.
It’s not perfect I admit but maybe it is better than the franchise system.
Bingo!
American capitalism at its finest. You buy your way into the private club and you get to hang out there for as long as you want.
Isn’t it about time the Sacramento Kings were relegated. Say like NCAA Division I where they would be competitive. Currently, the Kings have the longest playoff drought of current NBA franchises at 17 years.
Neil,
If Fisher gets serious with Las Vegas, it seems to me he is more interested in a real estate deal that he make out like a bandit for that having a sustainable sport franchise. The Las Vegas A’s at the box office will be no more successful than the Oakland A’s already. While I am a self-professed Portland MLB booter, the portland diamond group was very mum on this development( I don’t think they want to deal with Fisher). As you pointed out the flaws with the Vegas market go beyond the TV market data. (They work at night and it doesn’t have the incomes one would expect on the West Coast).
As I have been preaching on this site for some time, unless you have some white knight pol or group of pols like DC did in another city, Fisher is more likely to weaken his negotiating hand than strengthen it.
I get marketing emails from the A’s (since I go to games from time to time) and the email from Dave Kaval really rubbed me wrong. As far as I’m concerned, if they’ve got a better opportunity elsewhere, they should just move. And yes, I’m fine with the Raiders moving.
Does a baseball team really think it is so damn important that it can send out threatening emails to their fans like that? “Pay up, or we’ll go elsewhere!” And they send out these threats in a two-team market for baseball? Really not building goodwill with this approach.
What’s inexplicable to me is the ongoing craptalk about the Coliseum location. They already have half ownership of the property and there’s plenty of space for development there. The team needs a regional fanbase and the Howard Terminal is an awful place in terms of transportation — and will continue to be even if the city pours a billion dollars into infrastructure. Why would they want to move closer to the Giants instead of offereing an alternative that is easier to get to?
One thing that occurred to me: if they are clearly stating that they won’t build a new stadium at the Coliseum, then there’s absolutely no reason for them to get any preference during negotiations to buy the other half of the Coliseum property from the city.
Fisher can certainly offload the portion (or share of) the coliseum site he already “owns” if he wants. However, what is still not clear to me is whether he owns a specific section of the site or just owns 50% of the entity that controls the whole site.
My assumption has always been that it is the latter, and there is no demarcation line somewhere on the property that defines the half he owns and the half he doesn’t.
This could very much complicate unloading his “half” in the event he does decide to give up on Oakland (which he won’t, for the reasons Neil has pointed out). It’s a bit like owning a half duplex or a fourplex suite. The most likely buyer is the person or persons who own the other unit(s), and that can often limit the property’s appeal (and more importantly, price).
I don’t blame the A’s for making the big ask at HT. The city said they wanted them there and if your defacto partner wants you to move to a specific spot that has really high development costs, I think it only natural that you would seek to have that partner cover the excess costs. Whether the $855m ask is legitimately for the excess costs is another matter entirely… I assume it is just a negotiating position (as Neil said, move the discussion from whether to put money in to how much… and $450m of taxpayer money seems like a bargain compared to $855m amiright???)
Still, 30+ comments on an A’s stadium post. If only everybody who has this level of interest would buy a ticket!
They bought a 50% stake in the overall site, but not a specific physical portion of it. They didn’t buy a stake in the entity that controlled it, which was a joint public authority between the City of Oakland and Alameda County. So now there are two separate entities that own the site 50/50 — the A’s (or Fisher) and the City of Oakland — and they don’t jointly manage it.
I’ll add that to the south side of the creek channel that runs along the south side of the site, the City of Oakland also owns the Malibu Lot and Home Base Lot separately from their stake in the main Coliseum site (which lies to the north of said creek).
Every parcel of land (within a municipality) has a legal description and title. To get legal title to any parcel of land, there must be an entity to own it… that can be a municipality, a corporation, or an individual, and a formal transaction in which they take ownership (which can be a token sale for $1 etc).
So if the A’s ownership is the legal owner of this land they either have to own a parcel of land itself (which I agree is not likely as the land was and is controlled by the JPA) or own the interest in the land that was held by Alameda via the JPA.
In either case, they must legally own something in order to own the land or an interest in it. If a private entity (like Fisher’s companies) can hold an interest in the joint authority, that might be possible. But it is unlikely that a government entity like the JPA could accommodate a private co-owner. The JPA was, as far as I can tell, never set up as a corporate entity with share structure etc. It was also set up as a governing body as opposed to an actual (government or private controlled) corporation as I recall.
So, unless the JPA has been replaced by a successor body to co-own the site with Fisher… what is it that the A’s own and how to they own it?
Do they just have an agreement to purchase the Alameda County interest that has not yet been exercised?
If they have not purchased either a specific parcel of land or some/all of the shares in a corporation that owns the land, how exactly do they “own” it?
The Oakland-Alameda County JPA ceased to exist. If there is a public-private replacement between the City of Oakland and the A’s/Fisher, that has never been made public to my knowledge. Alameda County has nothing to do with the site anymore in terms of ownership stake, they completely divested their share to the A’s. I am positive that the A’s don’t own a specific geographical portion of the site though. If you happen to find out something about how the current arrangement is structured, I’d be interested to see it.
All things being equal, Fisher would really rather be in $an Jo$e than Oakland, if not for those BS Giants territorial rights (disclaimer: I’m a $J resident). But I digress.
I used to hear “$200 million” being thrown around on how much the City of Oakland was willing to spend on infrastructure for the A’s at HT. Even that number was jaw dropping to me, especially with Oaklands past/current fiscal issues. $855 MILLION FOR INFRASTRUCTURE?!!! I tell yah what; if Schaaf and the City of Oakland vote in favor of that amount, it would be the greatest taxpayer heist in sports history! The Raiders $600 million in Nevada would be considered child’s play to that amount (LOL!).
Assuming Schaaf/Oakland don’t give in to those public subsidy demands (if they do, kudos to Fisher!), I hope MLB allows the A’s to explore $J again and finally work out a deal for those BS territorial rights. The A’s 40-35 miles down the road from SF/OAK would not have hurt the Giants 10 years ago, and they definitely wouldn’t hurt them today!
I agree that the ‘swap’ the Haas family agreed to in return for letting the Giants explore San Jose turned out to be BS deal for the A’s… as the Giants never moved and thus it ended up being a gift according to MLB.
Having said that, that is the way that MLB rolls and the current A’s ownership certainly knew that when they bought the team.
I would also suggest that the reluctance to allow the A’s to move there might have more to do with MLB seeing it as a potential expansion location 10-20 yrs down the road than any great love for the Giants ownership.
Don’t they now have an empty arena right behind the stadium? Tear it down, build the new stadium in its place, and tear the old one down. The problem isn’t the location, the problem is that it’s a crumbling dump. Hell, at one point it was the worst stadium in two different leagues, which is actually kind of impressive.
Maybe it’s time to say that word again, Contraction. Tampa and Oakland would of course be the two teams I’m thinking of. My deal would be saying to the the two owners, get you stadiums in order or the teams go away. Would need to cut a deal with the union which will never happen and the other owners to buy out these two teams. Expand rosters by one which would cover 28 jobs lost. The two teams don’t draw well which would not be a hit for teams that collect visiting team shares.
Since the union will never let contraction happen, Let the other MLB owners help pay for the new stadiums instead of the tax payers. As soon as MLB says, the current ballparks are not adequate, then they should put their money where their mouth is.
Since the MLB will never help fund a ballpark and it appears the towns of Oakland and Tampa/St Petersburg are not rushing to finance stadiums, then maybe Orlando and bribing the Giants to allow a move to San Jose will work. Orlando would draw from the Space Coast Area, Daytona Area, Orlando as well as from the West, Lakeland, Tampa, and St Pete. Basically it opens the team up to a larger pool of people who can now travel. As for the Giants allowing Oakland to move, basically part of the money the A’s would have to pay would be the money for the Giants to allow the move. There has to be a number they will accept.
Then there is make the current situation work. Build a ballpark where the A’s play now or get creative and do something with the Coliseum. Same thing with the Rays. Maybe you can do something outside the box and do something creative with the Trop or that property. There is no easy answer unless someone is dumb enough to actually give these owners money to build their palaces.
Orlando? Seriously? If the Marlins and Rays have proven anything, it’s that regular season baseball in Florida does not work.
Steve: Agreed.
However, Orlando/Orange County seem to love throwing public monies at stadiums. Much like their counterparts in Las Vegas/other cities in Clark County/Clark County.
TOT (Transient Occupancy Tax). Whatcha gonna do with it? Build shiny, new stadiums with it! Or plow it back into the suffering business sectors of the city. Most certainly the former and most certainly not the latter.
Contraction. Oakland and Tampa Bay? This wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that neither Oakland, nor St. Petersburg, are willing to throw 100’s of millions of dollars at billionaire owners (Sternberg is not a billionaire, Sternberg is not a billionaire ….. although, he think he’s one) of MLB franchises in their cities for a shiny, new sports palace? Insert smile emoji here.
I thought contraction was about the MLB franchises attendance. I thought contraction was about a community’s commitment to a professional franchise (not only the elected’s, but the business community and fans as well). I though contraction was about the viability of the professional sports franchise, both short and long-term.
I did not think contraction was about a shiny, new sports palace with shiny, new accoutre for that “fan day experience.”
One word. Marlins. MLB’s franchise with the worst performance when it comes to attendance (yes, know Marlins began life in 1993.. Chose 1998 as Tampa Bay became MLB franchise that year, thus the Citrus Series. Plus it was one year off the Marlins first World Series Championship in 1997). Previously provided both Oakland and Tampa Bay’s attendance figures for the same time period (will be happy to do so again).
1998 54-108 .333 1,730,384 21,363 23rd
1999 64–98 .395 1,369,421 17,118 27th
2000 79-82 .491 1,218,316 15,041 28th
2001 76-86 .469 1,261,226 15,765 29th
2002 79-83 .488 813,118 10,038 29th
2003 91-71 .562 1,303,215 16,089 28th (World Series Championship)
2004 83-79 .512 1,723,105 21,539 26th
2005 83-79 .512 1,852,608 22,872 27th
2006 78-84 .481 1,164,134 14,372 30th
2007 71-91 .438 1,370,511 16,920 30th
2008 84-77 .522 1,335,076 16,482 30th
2009 87-75 .537 1,464,109 18,075 29th
2010 80-82 .494 1,524,894 18,826 27th
2011 72-90 .444 1,520,562 18,772 29th
2012 69-93 .426 2,219,444 27,401 18th (renamed Miami and moved into their shiny new digs, with over 80% paid for by Miami-Dade County and City of Miami))
2013 62-100 .383 1,586,322 19,584 28th
2014 77-85 .475 1,732,283 21,386 27th
2015 71-91 .438 1,752,235 21,633 28th
2016 79-82 .488 1,712,417 21,405 27th
2017 77-85 .475 1,583,014 20,295 28th
2018 63-98 .391 811,104 10,014 30th
2019 57-105 .352 811,302 10,016 30th
The only sound you here in Miami’s ballpark (10 years old and the clock is ticking) on game day ….. is crickets.
If contraction is about shiny, new digs, shouldn’t both the Cubs and Red Sox be shown the door?
However, I do find your arguments for both the A’s and Rays ballpark situations to have merit.
Tampa would be a candidate for contraction. They are always near the bottom of the league when it comes to attendance even with their success. Only Miami is worse. Miami will never be contracted because of their shiny ballpark and the politicians who are the hook for the cost and would fight hard to prevent that from happening. Oakland is 24th to 29th when it comes to attendance year in and year out.
Cities are not going to throw money at teams to get them like in the past, not when ball parks reach the 1 billion mark to build with infrastructure. Now if an owner wants to pay 100%, that’s another story, but when will that happen?
If you check the numbers before 2020, (the last time we had full ballparks), Tampa, Miami, and Oakland are three of the bottom 5 times in attendance.
Keep in mind the league will never contract, but based on logic, maybe it is time instead of holding cities hostage to spend money they don’t have, or just live with what you have and make it work.
People thought outside the box renovating Wrigley and Fenway. I know the Coliseum and the Trop are not historical significant or even good ballparks in today’s age, but there could be someone out there that could work magic and make them workable.
The A’s and Rays are both turning good annual profits, in non-pandemic years, anyway. Why would MLB want to pay to contract them?
The teams complain about their stadiums where they can’t make the money to be competitive. That is the language they use to scare municipalities to help finance their new ballparks. The Coliseum site has been ruled out for no logical reason other than MLB does not want it there.
I am not for contraction and it should be the last response, but I believe it can’t be taken off the table, If MLB is now going to take the path of saying the A’s should look elsewhere, but not help them fund their dream home, then what will they do if no one wants to build a new home for them or give tons of tax credits or financial assistance? Will that be calling their bluff and MLB will say, stay where you are?
Will MLB force them to sell to someone who will relocate and pay for a ballpark themselves?
There are only so many options and maybe the product is watered down. The more teams added, the additional players who were not going to be in the majors are now playing at that level. This is a different subject.
Again contraction is the last response, but I believe it can not be taken off the table. If nothing works out as the teams and MLB want, what do you do? Or is all a bluff and they say, they were only kidding.
Phil: My point was if contraction were to happen which it won’t (for the reasons you so eloquently pointed out earlier), Miami should be top of the list (even with their shiny, new bobble) as they only outdrew Charlotte/Indianapolis by 192,000 in 2018 and Las Vegas by 160,000 (yes, get Aviators moved into shiny, new ballpark is Summerlin that year) and now their attendance is in the same league as the Expos historic lows of 2000 – 2004. Yes, get out of the box solutions for Fenway and Wrigley (too bad Cubs spring training field in Avalon is more. Marlins could relocate there https://www.visitcatalinaisland.com/blog/post/a-step-back-in-time-chicago-cubs-on-catalina-island/ https://sabr.org/bioproj/topic/catalina-island/ Just 1 hour away from LA by ferry boat).
Believe Kenny’s argument above as to Coliseum being the last of its breed has its merits. That it too could be brought to code and retrofitted for today’s world (believe most A’s fans would not find this problematic. A’s fans do not require Russian Caviar and French Campagne as their counterparts across the bay do. However, John J Fisher, A’s organization and MLB would never find this solution acceptable in a million zillion years. No, no this would never do as it fails to bring in additional “revenue enhancements” for the A’s and “a fan experience” that a shiny, new ballpark brings). Yes, always ✔️ numbers being former auditor and bean counter.
Oakland A’s
Oakland Alameda County Coliseum. 09/18/1966
1998 74-88 .457 1,232,343 (28th) 15,214
1999 87-75 .537 1,434,610 (26th) 17,711
2000 91-70 .565 1,603,744 (24th) 19,799 ✔️
2001 102-60 .630 2,133,277 (20th) 26,337 ✔️
2002 103-59 .636 2,169,811 (18th) 26,788 ✔️
2003 96-66 .593 2,216,596 (16th) 27,365 ✔️
2004 91-71 .562 2,201,516 (19th) 27,179
2005 88-74 .543 2,109,118 (19th) 26,038
2006 93-69 .574 1,976,625 (26th) 24,403 ✔️
2007 76-86 .469 1,921,844 (26th) 23,726
2008 75-86 .466 1,665,256 (27th) 19,965
2009 75-87 .463 1,408,783 (30th) 17,392
2010 81-81 .500 1,418,391 (29th) 17,511
2011 74-88 .457 1,476,791 (30th) 18,232
2012 94-68 .580 1,679,013 (27th) 20,729 ✔️
2013 96-66 .593 1,809,302 (23rd) 22,337 ✔️
2014 88-74 .543 2,003,628 (24th) 24,736 ✔️
2015 68-94 .420 1,768,175 (26th) 21,829
2016 69-93 .426 1,521,506 (29th) 18,784
2017 75-87 .463 1,475,721 (29th) 18,219
2018 97-65 .599 1,573,616 (26th) 19,427 ✔️
2019 97-65 .599 1,670,734 (23rd) ✔️
2020 36-24 .600 ✔️
Tampa Bay
Tropicana Field.
03/03/1990
1998 63-99 .389 2,506,293 (14th) 30,942
1999 69-93 .426 1,562,827 (24th) 19,294
2000 69-92 .429 1,449,673 (27th) 18,121
2001 62-100 .383 1,298,365 (28th) 16,029
2002 55-106 .342 1,065,742 (28th) 13,157
2003 63-99 .389 1,058,695 (29th) 13,070
2004 70-91 .435 1,274,911 (29th) 15,936
2005 67-95 .414 1,141,669 (30th) 14,095
2006 61-101 .377 1,368,950 (29th) 16,901
2007 66-96 .407 1,387,603 (29th) 17,131
2008 97-65 .599 1,811,986 (26th) 22,370 ✔️ WS
2009 84-78 .519 1,874,962 (24th) 23,148
2010 96-66 .593 1,864,999 (22nd) 23,025 ✔️
2011 91-71 .562 1,529,188 (28th) 18,879 ✔️
2012 90-72 .556 1,559,681 (30th) 19,255
2013 92-71 .564 1,510,300 (30th) 18,646 ✔️
2014 77-85 .475 1,446,464 (29th) 17,858
2015 80-82 .494 1,287,054 (30th) 15,322
2016 68-94 .420 1,286,163 (30th) 15,879
2017 80-82 .494 1,253,619 (30th) 15,477
2018 90-72 .556 1,154,973 (29th) 14,259
2019 96-66 .593 1,178,735 (29th) 14,552 ✔️
2020 40-20 .667 ✔️ WS
Note: In 16 of 22 seasons, the Oakland A’s have drawn more fans through turnstiles than the Tampa Bay Rays, with the San Francisco Giants just across the bay, in a stadium 24 years older where there are no doors on the toilet stalls!
Left off.
2019 97-65 .599 1,670,734 20,626 (23rd) ✔️
My point. The ballpark and MLB/MLB’s billionaire owner wants (wants differ from needs. A famous man once said, “you can’t always get what you want, you get what you need”) for a shiny, new ballpark is not a basis for contraction.
If MLB/MLB’s billionaire owner doesn’t like the building his business is in and the city won’t pony up public monies to build your new building for your business, you sell your business. It’s how American capitalism works.
Or move your business to a city that will pony up public monies for a new building for your business.
This part is proving to be one of the most recent trick in the book, not just for stadiums, but all kinds of eco devo projects. ” how much existing tax revenue would be siphoned off by drawing a tax increment financing district that encompasses virtually the entire downtown waterfront (much of which is already developed)”
Plus the related whole repay to the developer taxes paid by users of the development.
Give me a TIF district large enough and a city in which to place it, and I can fund anything.