It’s gotta be hard to be tasked with demanding $855 million in public money while threatening to take your team and leave town if you don’t get it, without making your team’s owners look like bad guys. Oakland A’s president Dave Kaval, who has that as his job description, has spent the last couple of weeks whipsawing between slagging the cheaper Oakland Coliseum site as unworkable and tweeting excitedly about Las Vegas sporting events, all of which has made him look like a bit of an asshole to A’s fans.
Kaval, meanwhile, appears to have been trying to get out ahead of any blowback by blaming “the media” for reporting on the stuff he’s been doing to get media attention:
I wouldn’t call it journalism! Those dollars only exist IF we build the project! https://t.co/7ujnewBY9g
— Dave Kaval (@DaveKaval) May 29, 2021
Do you think the SF based media has been fair to our visionary Oakland project? https://t.co/nffxKuXvhl pic.twitter.com/yB3anyWqe4
— Dave Kaval (@DaveKaval) May 29, 2021
This is exactly what I am talking about with the SF Media https://t.co/zhDpj8p01E
— Dave Kaval (@DaveKaval) May 29, 2021
All this was laid out on Friday in a long column by Alex Shultz, sports editor of the San Francisco Chronicle’s sister web publication SFGATE, who notes that Kaval is cleverly trying to draw attention away from his own efforts to sway public opinion on the A’s stadium plans (which is, again, precisely his job, nothing wrong with that if you’re good with “swaying public opinion by any means necessary” as a vocation) by charging that the local media are the real ones trying to sway public opinion by, uh, reporting on his team’s plans:
There have been RUMORS AFOOT alleging that it’s in the best interest of the Chronicle (which, again, I have nothing to do with) to do damage to the good name of the Athletics — and thus the Howard Terminal proposal will be abandoned and Oakland will be left with almost nothing.
Shultz goes on to note that while media organizations certainly love them some clickbait, the underlying incentives in the news game actually should encourage more cheerleading for Kaval’s Howard Terminal plan: “Having the A’s around is certainly better than the alternative of no A’s at all. Plus, if the A’s move to Howard Terminal, that opens up angle upon angle upon angle for every publication around here. It’s local! It’s politics! It’s sports! So many angles to explore!”
What Kaval seems to be doing here has less to do with the merits of the A’s plans or the reporting on it, and more to do with trying to win support by painting somebody else as the real villain: I know I threatened to take your team away, but really it’s the media that wants to take your team away by saying that I’m threatening to take your team away! This may sound like next-level threat jiu-jitsu, but really it’s just standard PR strategy. And it’s adaptable, too: If Kaval next week wants to blame Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf for trying to fob off A’s owner John Fisher’s demanded $855 million in infrastructure spending on Alameda County, or Alameda County officials for saying, Who, us?, that’ll work, too.
One more quote from Shultz’s column, because it’s an important point to remember for anyone who wants to be media literate in a world where the media are our best source of both information and disinformation:
Every single editor and reporter has strong opinions and beliefs and biases and blind spots. Anyone in journalism who pretends otherwise is absolutely lying to you and shouldn’t be trusted. That includes people who present themselves as centrists, which is in itself an ideology with plenty of biases.
What matters is how editors and reporters make their case — how they show their work, basically. You should trust the writers and reporters who are open and honest and provide necessary context and unimpeachable, fact-based assertions.
Needless to say, that goes for this site as well: I certainly have beliefs and blind spots (though I like to think they’re informed by the 25 years I’ve been researching this stadium crap), and I encourage you to question my reporting in the comments. Constructive criticism makes me a better reporter! That’s different, though, from just picking fights in order to paint yourself as a white hat (or in this case, green hat), which is what Kaval appears to be doing — again, that’s his job, and more power to him for that. But you’ll forgive me, Shultz, and anyone else who is more interested in accuracy than in winning a battle for treating Kaval as, well, a villain for reaching for the space lasers.
I think at the time of the July vote if it happens we will have a much clearer picture of this story. My impression is that Las Vegas is by far the easiest locale to obtain either public funds or favorable land deals. if Oakland doesn’t come through they would be foolish to not to see how far they can get with them. If I were them I would say if you can get us some kind of deal (maybe not 100% of what they want) in no more than 10 months you got a team. Otherwise it just makes more sense to continue with the East Bay
Las Vegas already shut down (or at least expressed real reservations, which is rare for them) about the public funding mechanisms that would likely be needed for a stadium there. The Vegas “effort” is not mature or anywhere even remotely close to advancing.
BUT…a nice land donation is still very much on the table; which in itself is a form of public financing. And as mentioned previously, the A’s would automatically get back on MLB’s revenue sharing program for being in a small market; to the tune of $70 million per year! Vegas could be more advanced than we think.
Where are you getting $70m a year from?
NdM,
Got it from the newballpark.org site; from last week or week before.
It’s wrong — or, at least, unlikely in the extreme. The Marlins are the only team that currently gets anything like $70m a year, and that’s only because they have fewer fans than players. If the Las Vegas A’s were getting that level of revenue sharing, it would only be by achieving world-historic levels of fan indifference.
Perhaps it’s wrong (?), but in Vegas would be a lot more than what they’re currently getting in Oakland, which is $0!
Only if they remain in the bottom half of MLB teams in revenue. If their revenue goes up, their revenue-sharing payments go down.
This is a bit like saying that people will flock to lower-paying jobs, because it will make their income taxes go down.
If its more trouble than its worth they will look at the current site or Portland . As far as the effort not mature. Well they have to have something if they get shot down. Wouldn’t that weaken their hand with Oakland if they got nothing going on with Vegas?
Yes, it would (i.e. does) weaken their hand. They have misplayed it so far and there’s no indication that they have any even remotely plausible non-Bay Area backup if they get shot down in a July vote.
Portland probably is a better expansion candidate than relocation by the A’s. There is no ballpark in Portland, not even a minor league park that could be suitable on an interim basis. Several sites have been examined for future construction, with one being a current favorite, but Portland has similar problems to Oakland’s, i.e., very little appetite for use of state and local funds (other than possible creative use of tax breaks and/or infrastructure subsidies, which, coincidentally, are on the table in Oakland). The private investors who are bankrolling Portland’s pursuit of an MLB team are nice and all, but there is no indication the owner of the A’s (or the Rays) wants to sell the team.
Supposedly the Portland stadium would be privately financed. If they try to build downtown, zoning is a bigger problem than public financing
Public financing.
True that.
History never repeats itself.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Dome
Regardless whether it is stadium financing or any other topic, demonizing those who disagree with you is not in any way constructive. If they have documented/demonstrable ulterior motives then it is perfectly ok to show those… in Kaval’s case, his actual job is an ulterior motive – to get as many tax dollars from the people of Oakland as he can.
There’s nothing wrong with talking about what Oakland is getting for this money in the project he is pushing versus what Oakland could be getting for the same amount of money spent elsewhere.
Kaval is looking like the Grade III kid who punches someone else and then complains about class violence to the teacher when they get punched back.
If he really feels his treatment at the hands of “the media” is too much he can always quit and find another job. He doesn’t have to do this if he doesn’t want to.
Excellent post NdM! Many of the pro-Howard Terminal contingent (or all!) are highly intoxicated on the Kaval Kool-aide, especially the “free money!” angle of the massive TIF proposal. However, as a $an Jo$e resident, I do admit the Bay Area media is extremely biased towards all things SF, especially the sports media. If it’s not the Giants, Niners or Warriors, it doesn’t mean $h*t to them! But in the case of covering Howard Terminal, there’s no SF media bias, just reporting/covering the obvious; a fantasy ballpark proposal that will require an enormous amount of public financing to bring to fruition.
I wouldn’t say the Mercury News is biased toward SF. Generally local papers are biased toward the power brokers in whatever their local city is — even if they’re trying to be “adversarial,” it’s still hard not to adopt some of the worldview of people you spend all day talking to (and who can deny you access if they don’t like you, etc.).
Respectfully disagree NdM. I ended my subscription to the Mercury years ago because of their heavy focus on the Giants and Niners; even the Sharks got less play as the home team. The Mercury News also dropped “San Jose” from their title, in an apparent attempt to attract readers from San Mateo and Alameda Counties; “San Jose” would’ve apparently turned them off. We’re now the largest US city without its own dedicated newspaper. I don’t think we’ll ever see The Chronicle drop “San Francisco” from its title to attract area readers.
Hard disagree with this, as a native of the South Bay. And the “bias” in sports coverage made perfect sense. The Giants have for a very long time (even when they have been bad) been the more popular of the two MLB teams in the Bay Area and have a farm team in San Jose. The Niners have had a training facilities in Santa Clara for almost 20 years, now have the stadium there, and also have been the more popular and successful of the (formerly 2) Bay Area NFL teams. The Warriors have gotten plenty of coverage from all over (and not shockingly more when they’re good) because they are the only NBA team in the market. The Sharks also have gotten plenty of coverage, despite hockey being far and away the 4th most popular of the Big 4.
The Mercury dropped San Jose from the title because of ongoing (and damaging) print media consolidation, ad they actively cover a broader area, now being the big daily paper for the entire South Bay and some of the peninsula. It wasn’t some conspiracy to discredit San Jose. Similarly, the Oakland Tribune ceased to exist ad was merged into the East Bay Times, which also absorbed other East Bay papers. Again, not a conspiracy to discredit Oakland.
Thanks for the reasoning behind The Mercury News dropping “SJ” from the name. Makes sense, but I still don’t like it. Northern California’s largest city should have it’s own dedicated newspaper (like that much smaller burgh 40 miles to the north). San Jose should also have its own MLB team (as well as NFL, NBA), but that’s another topic for another day..
What does “dedicated” even mean though? There’s no major city paper that exclusively covers it’s titular city: not the NYT, not the LA Times, not the Chicago Tribune, not any of them. They all cover the wider metro areas and/or regions that they are a part of.
Anon, perhaps “dedicated” was the wrong word; a newspaper with the primary, host city in the name is probably more accurate. The Mercury should’ve kept “San Jose” in the title, even if it now serves smaller, surrounding areas due to “consolidation”: just like the NYT, LA Times, etc.
What’s funny is that San Jose is actually the largest and most populated city in the Bay Area. Technically both San Francisco and Oakland are suburbs of San Jose.
Kind of cute for the person demanding the 800 million dollar handout to suggest journalist are biased. As if he was the unbiased objective one.
It’s alright to get the location you want when you pay all the costs, otherwise, work with the locality.
We all know where this is going, a new stadium next to the current one, probably for 800 million dollars in the end.
I dunno know. That’s a pretty big ask of MLB.
San Jose is only the 3rd largest city in California, largest in Northern California, with a population of 1.1 million. A MSA of approximately 2 million (34th) and CSA population of 8.84 million (5th). MLB has only allowed Pittsburgh (PA not CA) with a MSA of 2.31 million (28th), Cincinnati with a MSA of 2.23 million (30th), Kansas City with a MSA of 2.175 million (31st), Cleveland with a MSA of 2.04 million (33rd) and Milwaukee with a MSA of 1.58 million (40th) to have MLB franchises. I think San Jose’s MSA deficit of .31 million is a deal breaker.
With high income locales like Atherton, Hillsborough, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Menlo Park, Portola Valley, Saratoga and Woodside, most in the top 100 wealthiest in the nation within a short drive, doesn’t sound like San Jose has the necessary revenue potential / sources nearby.
I think the real deal breaker, San Jose cannot built a downtown ballpark on the San Francisco Bay with an ask $885 million for infrastructure from the city resulting in $12 BILLION IN PRIVATE INVESTMENT and $7 BILLION IN ECONOMIC IMPACTS AND OTHER BENEFITS!
No, I think it’s best San Jose remain a baseball backwater who’s territorial rights belong to MLB’s San Francisco Giants.
Antonio: Serious question. Would San Jose taxpayers support an ask from the A’s to build a ballpark (given MLB removal of San Francisco Giants territorial rights)?
I sensed a hint of sarcasm in your opening paragraphs regarding $an Jo$e’s “only” population and wealth (both of which blow Oakland, and many other American cities, out of the water!), so I’ll go straight to your question: No, San Jose residents would never support what the A’s are asking for in Oakland! Even someone like myself, who was a huge proponent of the A’s in $J, would balk at $855 million in public financing. However, our Silicon Valley corporate support and high disposable income would make any talk of a public contribution (other than perhaps land and minimal infrastructure costs) a moot point. Why? Because the A’s franchise value would go through the roof and they would make money hand over fist in $an Jo$e. It’s the reason Lew Wolff tried to move down here in the early 2010’s. The $855 million the A’s want from Oakland is a reflection of how difficult it is to build there. Wouldn’t be the same in $J.
Good catch (sarcasm).
MLB stands for “malfunctioning lobes of the brain.” San Jose has what few cities have going for it (including Charlotte, Las Vegas, Montreal, Nashville, Orlando, Portland and Vancouver). Climate. Population. Wealth. Access to East Bay and Central Valley in all areas. Did I forget to mention wealth beyond your wildest dreams (A’s could maximize profits by reducing ballpark size, increasing corporate, luxury and loge boxes ….. club and premium seating, all which would sellout in a hot New York City minute).
John J and Kaval are wasting energy. Should be having behind the scenes discussions with MLB, San Francisco Baseball Associates LLC (above; reasons why Giants don’t want to relinquish territorial rights to San Jose), cities of Oakland and San Jose.
Howard Terminal is an exercise in futility. Oakland needs to take ownership for this as well. How about both come together to build a grocery store in West Oakland (that is a food desert with many of its 25,000 residents lacking transportation, as well as hire and train locals residents to work in the store ….. provides economic and other benefits that a shiny, new ballpark won’t).
“We don’t have time for rational solutions”
~ George Carlin
It’s amazing how some media outlets enjoy engaging in pure stadium speculation. I know Neil has written a little about the Chicago media fueling rumors of a new Bears stadium at Arlington Park but a new team could be added to the Arlington Park stadium derby. The Daily Herald, which last month had a story about the possiblitly of the racetrack being the new home of the Bears is now spitballing that the White Sox could move there instead.
Despite the writer admitting there’s nothing to suggest the Sox actually leaving the South Side anytime soon as well the team saying that there is too much time left in their the lease to consider moving. If the Rays do relocate it would be fitting if Jerry Reinsdorf threatened to move the team again to Tampa/St. Pete. Perhaps George Lucas will determine where the team plays in a decade. Until then the Daily Herald will probably have a story two weeks from now about the Bulls and/or Blackhawks eyeing Arlington Park.
https://www.dailyherald.com/news/20210515/is-a-bears-move-to-arlington-park-realistic-other-nfl-towns-show-what-has-to-happen
https://www.dailyherald.com/news/20210605/could-the-chicago-white-sox-make-a-move-to-arlington-park
https://www.awesemo.com/sideaction/30-percent-of-the-chicago-white-sox-have-allegedly-been-sold-to-mystery-buyer-for-a-boatload-of-money-bjs/
Yeah, I almost wrote about this yesterday, then thought, “Do I really want to dignify that nothingburger of a story with an item of its own?” and figured I’d leave it until the Friday roundup.
The media aren’t the bad guys and neither are the A’s. The bad guys are the people who don’t care about sports teams in there community. If there are any bad guys. The A’s have been here for almost 60 years. It was a good run. Oakland is not interested in being a professional sports town. I don’t know why we insist on making good guys and bad guys. If Oakland thinks their money is better spent on other things there’s no shame in that. If the A’s think they can be more successful somewhere else there’s no shame in that either. I look at it like any relationship, this was good while it was good but let’s agree we have to move on. No need to get ugly. Just be honest and let it go. I wish them well but make no mistake they’re leaving.
“The bad guys are the people who don’t care about sports teams in there community.”
I’m not interested in the professional sports franchises in my city. And haven’t been for the last 20 years. Does that make me a bad guy?
The city’s coffers were emptied to build their stadiums.
Civic pride in having a professional franchise? The teams are the laughing stock of their leagues. The billionaire owners of the franchises are just happy to be a member of the gentlemen’s club. Oh sure, they talk a good game. However, every year is the same old thing.
If the billionaire owners are more content with their profits than a successful franchise, by successful I mean a contending team, why should I care?
To be honest, I’d feel a greater sense of civic pride if my city stopped throwing money at stadia and addressed “wedge issues.” City infrastructure. Food deserts. Homelessness. Policing (police just shot and killed another black man just over a week ago (justified?). Racial injustice. Rents rising so rapidly they create their own issues (no, I don’t have all the answers to the issue. However, the rapid gentrification of once was a low income neighborhood is not a solution in and of itself*).
A city that addresses the needs of its residents would fill me with a greater sense of civic pride pride than current professional sports franchises. If that makes me the bad guy, so be it.
*An article in last week’s newspaper was about a landlord’s successful conversion of all his rent controlled buildings. The resultant, rents have increased 4 to 5 times, driving out all the previous tenants. The landlord’s commentary was unprofessional (cocky, gleeful and smug in circumventing the city’s rent control policies) in driving out low-income residents (stereotyping these former residents) and replacing them with urban professionals. Profits are one thing. Greed is another.
Whereas I care quite a lot about pro sports franchises in my community, but don’t think they should be allowed to extort large sums of public money by pretending they’ll leave if they don’t get it. It takes all kinds!
But it’s FREE public money NdM!!! Stop being a lazy journalist! ;)
Since 3 of 4 professional sports franchises are originally from New York and Philadelphia, marking them “return to sender.”
I’ve come to prefer the local little league or soccer league matches at the park (yes, know that metrics is now used as basis for player advancement from Tee ball and Pee Wee leagues). I’ve actually found myself smiling, enjoying the game again.
Todd A,
I agree they are going to do some serious tire kicking with Las Vegas but if Vegas tries to act like they are the boss in any negotiations with the A’s, the A’s will go right back to their current site or possibly even bury any new ballpark search.
The Oakland waterfront will eventually be residential like every other coastal city next to water, and they don’t need the A’s as a development partner. That’s the reality here.