What’s going on lately with Oakland A’s execs’ war of words (and tweets) with city officials over the team’s $855 million subsidy demand? Why, I’m so glad you asked!
- The Oakland city council put out a factsheet that said, “The City and A’s are in agreement on nearly all of the terms approved by the Council on July 20, 2021. Limited differences remain between the parties with regard to how to fund the Community Fund.” That’s a funny way of saying, “There’s this $360 million that the A’s want us to pay for and we want someone else to pay for, you know, details,” but I guess it’s not technically wrong.
- A’s president Dave Kaval replied Friday: “We still remain apart on the economic terms. We’re still working with the city to see if we can bridge some of those gaps.” Then he added, “We’re running out of time. We only have a lease here through 2024 and the facility here is probably 10 years past its useful life. So we need to know and have a better sense of the direction that we’re going to have as a club. Because you have a major-league baseball team, you need a major-league stadium, and we’re in a dangerous situation where that may not happen.” None of which actually means anything in particular, if you think about it — it’s not like there’s some major-league certification test that the Oakland Coliseum could suddenly fail — but “past its useful life” is an official-sounding phrase, let’s go with that.
- As for building on the Coliseum site, Kaval said, ‘This site does not fit the 21st century vision for baseball in North America. You need a downtown urban location to be successful” — insert your own list of successful MLB franchises that are not “downtown,” it’s not hard — “especially in a two-team market where you have the Giants in a similar stadium on the waterfront, and we’re going to do everything we can to have a stadium that can be at the level or eclipse what they have at Oracle Park in San Francisco.” (The A’s were playing the Giants at the time, so this was presumably meant to shame Oakland into keeping up with the Joneses.)
- Kaval said all this while hanging out on the field before Friday’s game and waiting for reporters to start asking him about the stadium talks, for which The Athletic said you have to give Kaval “points for availability,” though saying things like this to the media is literally Kaval’s main job.
- Meanwhile, many fans trying to attend that night’s highly anticipated A’s-Giants game were stuck in their cars for hours because the team closed many of its parking lots to anyone without a prepaid pass. Kaval immediately issued a statement not really explaining why the team was suddenly unable to find parking spaces for 40,000 fans at a stadium that holds over 60,000 and which people have been driving to for more than 50 years, instead saying the parking fiasco points up the “ongoing operational challenges of this ballpark location and why the A’s need a new ballpark in an urban site where parking can be dispersed,” notwithstanding that “dispersing” cars to auxiliary lots is exactly what caused Friday’s problems.
So, pretty much business as usual in terms of empty verbiage on both sides. Alameda County still has to vote on approving an A’s $495 million tax-kickback district in October, and the city is presumably still looking around for additional public funding that wouldn’t come out of its pocket, whether it’s that state infrastructure slush fund or the federal infrastructure spending bill that may finally pass in a month or two, maybe. Meanwhile, Kaval is off for another visit to Las Vegas at some undisclosed time, because that’s why they pay him the big bucks. The one thing everyone does have, actually, is time, but pretending the clock is running down is part of the playbook, so expect more sky-is-falling pronouncements from Kaval between now and October.
As we would say in the military, “What a $#@! Cluster-$#@!”
It’s a sad day when America’s fighting forces can only afford grawlixes in place of the actual profanity that made this country great.
LOL NdM,
I became a Profanity Expert during my time in the Navy from 1989-93.
Why so hot over City of Oakland / Oakland A’s? Thought you lived in San Jose, were a Quakes fan.
“There’s this $360 million that the A’s want us to pay for and we want someone else to pay for, you know, details,” but I guess it’s not technically wrong.”
That’s only one point of disagreement—can’t get any more limited than that!
As ownership has treated its fans poorly for years. The last few years reminds me of the Phillies’ last years in the Vet (which, admittedly, was not cared for)…where ownership complained that the facility was substandard and then was surprised when attendance fell.
As for the parking, likely another case where Management didn’t want to pay the going rate for labor because it’s “too high.”
Unless Kaval has a deal ready to go with Vegas he is wasting anyone who is interested in this story’s time. It like threatining your girlfriend stop texting your ex or Im going to start seeing a victoria secret supermodel. Is negotiation one of those skills you van learn from just youtube videos like cooking because it sure seems like it
I’d also add MG that if there’s a deal in place (anywhere) we probably won’t hear about it until the off-season at the earliest. No need to really screw up the rest of the season for the fans.
Mark Davis says hi.
Tell Mark I said hi as well! LOL. If I recall, the announcement that the Raiders relocation to Vegas was approved by the NFL came in the Spring/off-season (2016?); not during the regular season. Of course they played in Oakland for a few more years after, but that’s besides the point.
I’ve always felt that Fisher & Kaval are about ten years past their useful lives as Baseball execs too. Too bad no-one wants to interview me about the impact this is having on Oakland baseball.
On another note… bridging a gap usually means working at it from both sides to meet in the middle. Anyone ever seen someone trying to build a permanent bridge by starting on one side and working across?
It tends to end badly.
Sure, Kaval is just doing his job. But he’s doing it both shamefully and badly. That shouldn’t please anyone, especially his boss.
I searched high and low on the maps of Las Vegas, and I couldn’t find a downtown urban waterfront location. Now, if you go 400+ miles north-northwest in the same state, you can find such a site in downtown Reno on the Truckee river.
Maybe he wants to demolish the Venetian and build there???
Haven’t been to an A’s gave in a couple decades. When a game was a sellout or an event at the Oakland Arena was going on simultaneously making a cluster f— to get out of the parking lot- I would park by the freeway (for free) When the game was over I’d sprint out of the lot (past fans stuck in the bottleneck) then walk over the freeway overpass- get in my car & I escape on Edgewater…It’s years later those free spaces have long gone to tow-away zones and with the crime in Okalnd now your car would be broken into and or stolen.
I watch on my Tv connected to my laptop via hdmi for free on tons of sites that have MLB.Tv with no blackouts. I have choice of home or road announcers. Wherever the A’s plan to play I will be watching…not a dime from me. And no fake vaccine mandates to worry about.