Speaking of weird, Oakland A’s owner and clothing-store oligarch John Fisher’s push for a new stadium at Howard Terminal accompanied by around a billion dollars in public “infrastructure” spending, which seemed to moving along fairly smoothly after the Oakland city council approved the project’s final environmental report last month, has had a strange week as well:
- The Seaport Planning Advisory Committee, a state advisory body that seems to meet only once a year or so, voted 5-4-1 yesterday to oppose using Howard Terminal for anything other than port uses. A’s president and stadium czar Dave Kaval called the vote a “very disappointing setback,” while noting that the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, the state agency that actually has jurisdiction over things like adding landfill to the bay for a stadium project, can still reject the committee’s recommendation if it wants.
- Kaval immediately turned around and told the Nevada Independent that he’s looking at five sites in Las Vegas for a stadium, and could pick one within a month. And though the Independent reported that this would be a $1 billion, 30,000-seat stadium — yep, $1 billion for the smallest MLB stadium in a century — Kaval declined to indicate how much public money he would be asking for, saying, “until something is established that I can take to the county commissioners or to the governor or the other elected folks, it’s kind of premature to even understand what type of financial structure would be appropriate.”
- All this is happening against the backdrop of the A’s trading pretty much every established player on their roster — Chris Bassitt, Matt Olson, and Matt Chapman are already out the door, and Frankie Montas and Sean Manaea could be next — for a bunch of young prospects who people are already speculating will be the next batch of young players to barely have the ink wet on their souvenir jerseys before being shown the door. This is likely to further decimate the team’s fan base, which has already seen so many fire sales over the past two decades that last fall A’s fans were openly mocking offers of a free Olson jersey as a perk for buying season tickets, with one saying, “Matt Olson jersey? Are you kidding? Matt Olson might not even be with the team in April.” (Good call, Margie Kahn.)
The first two items are just the usual bureaucratic wrangles and jockeying for leverage, but trading away every player who fans know the name of is maybe not quite in the standard playbook for how to build public support for a billion-dollar stadium subsidy. Sure, it’s possible that Fisher and Kaval and that guy who wrote Moneyball are planning a campaign of “If you don’t give us a stadium, we’ll keep trading every A’s player as soon as they hit puberty,” but driving away all your fans is not historically a great way to build a groundswell of fan support for your stadium subsidy demands. Or it’s possible that Fisher et al. are secretly trying to salt the earth in Oakland so they can have an excuse to move to Vegas, but 1) they don’t really need an excuse to move to Vegas, since it’s unlikely other MLB owners would stand in their way at this point, and 2) they would still need to find someone in Vegas willing to help them pay for their $1 billion micro-dome, and blowing up their Oakland stadium plans is a lousy way to create leverage.
Or, you know, Fisher and Kaval and Billy Beane could just be really bad at this, and be thinking, “We don’t have our billion-dollar payday yet, and even when we do it’s money we could just keep instead of spending it on players, so keep right on dumping any player who threatens to earn more than the big-league minimum. It’s arguably the most rational approach to maximizing baseball team revenues, as teams like the Miami Marlins have shown by collecting TV money and league revenue-sharing checks regardless of whether any fans turn out to see their bargain-basement players; whether it ends up coming back to haunt them in their stadium lobbying, we’ll just have to wait and see.
“It’s possible that Fisher et al. are secretly trying to salt the earth in Oakland so they can have an excuse to move to Vegas.”
aka the Rachel Phelps plan, aka the Shad Khan plan.
How’d that work out for them?
Well we’ve not seen the ending of the latter movie yet…
One thing that both MLB Owners and Players agree upon is expansion. The issue that has prevented that is the Stadium issues of the A’s and Rays. There is little doubt Vegas will get an MLB team, it’s just a matter of when. I suspect the A’s issue will be determined in June with the full vote concerning Howard’s Terminal and the probability is they will be singing Elvis’s “Viva Las Vegas” soon after that.
What’s interesting is that we’re not hearing anything from Vegas or Nevada regarding the A’s. With the Raiders, Vegas was jacked. It’s all they talked about. All over the news there. Meanwhile there is little hype on their end regarding the A’s (if any at all), just the As continually threatening to relocate there.
Not sure why people think an MLB team in Las Vegas is a foregone conclusion. Yes it’s growing but it’s not a particularly large market and is probably nearly saturated with the Golden Knights and Raiders.
I think that they can probably squeeze in a 3rd team. The problem is that the NBA has been sending strong hints that Vegas and Seattle will get expansion teams. That makes 4 teams and that just seems like too many. Someone will feel the hit.
The NFL is teflon plus you have a large swath of fans from Oakland and even more from LA then you have fans of the visiting team who probably circle Vegas as weekend getaway option over cold weather places so you don’t really need much support from Vegas locals.
Still, trying to support 3 other sports that are less popular than the NFL and need local support will make it a tough go
Exactly, Maxwell. If MLB had been first in the door, I could see it maybe working in Las Vegas. As the third or fourth option? Not likely.
And as Robert says so well above, the people in Vegas who are going to have to vote to spend public money on this are strangely quiet. Even Goodman has only mumbled about “maybe free land or something”.
Compare that to the Raiders talk…
John Bladen all Goodman ever said was “whereever the A’s end up, we wish them luck”
Matthew: Wrong.
It took less than ten seconds (including the typing time) to google about a dozen quotes from Goodman about the A’s in Vegas.
These included:
“Goodman tweets ‘Las Vegas is Excited’ about the possibility”;
“Probably a 40% chance they come here, a 60% chance they stay where they are” Goodman says.
“Las Vegas has always been open to conversations with major league sport franchises seeking new locations. For over 20 years these talks have included dialogue with league commissioners, and for the @Athletics
these have been occurring since 2019.”
And that’s just a small sample of the recent comments. Just none about LV actually kicking in any money or doing anything other than suggesting free land “or something”.
Her A’s comments often get lost in all the insane garbage she also spews, or memories and talk of Oscar’s Angels, but she’s said a fair bit about them. She just hasn’t said anything about money.
There’s no buzz in Vegas to bring in the A’s. None. Not a peep from the media, the city, the state, anyone. Contrast this if you will to the buzz surrounding the Raiders when it was nothing more than a rumor. The city was going nuts. The casino moguls were hyping it. The elected officials. The papers were already hiring Raider people away from the bay area papers. Anticipated like The Rat Pack and the Sands coming back to life. Meanwhile, crickets regarding the A’s. Does Vegas even want the A’s? We’re just hearing the A’s threaten to move there
My understanding is that once the EIR we complete the litigation was to follow. The was what the judicial review was about. The A’s concern was that it would drag into the mayoral race
Neil, Oligarch is too European…I’m sticking with Denim Fail Child
I’m sure the BCDC, which will be lobbied like crazy, will override the committee recommendation in June and approve the A’s plans. But approvals (whether EIR’s, city, whatever) were never the main issue with this project: that would be FINANCING of this gargantuan BOONDOGGLE. Especially now with interests rates rising/inflation skyrocketing, your talking about billion of dollars potentially being spent at the worst site in the Bay Area (in terms of ingress/egress) in the (relatively speaking) poorest city with the poorest corporate support/disposable incomes.
Former owner Lew Wolff once said it would be easier building an A’s ballpark on Treasure Island/SF Bay than at Howard Terminal. Why this HT proposal by the A’s has never made any sense to me and others. Unless….
Agreed Antonio.
While it’s certainly fair for people to look at Kaval’s public comment (or at least his public comment strategy…) and say “they want out, they’re going to Vegas, done deal”, there’s another possibility: Namely that they don’t see any way to get the stadium they wanted built even if they get the ~ $1Bn dollar subsidy they are asking for.
The HT site has always been problematic. Both sides of the argument can (and have) engage in hyperbole, but even with the application of vast quantities of public money, HT may be a non starter.
I would just hope that when anyone in a decision making position in Oakland considers the HT proposal they remember that Fisher could build a really nice stadium at the coliseum site – one he already owns – for less than $500m. He could then build revenue producing commercial space around that stadium and vacuum up those dollars as well.
And yet here we are.
That used to be the original plan if the Raiders ever left. They left. So what happened!!??
The proper thing for fans to have done when offered a free Matt Olson jersey is to accept, but demand that the team store provide that jersey in the colours of whatever team he is ultimately traded to.
Ditto Chapman. Ditto Bassit. Ditto everyone else on the roster who makes more than $2m annually.
Incidentally, there is a great article on the Washington Post about who the Reds highest paid players this year will be. Ken Griffey jr isn’t at the top, but he’s way higher up the list than I would have thought.
Neil, you are wonderful! Thanks for that “the man who wrote moneyball” link!
It sent me down awesome rabbit filled holes! First, the blog “Fire Joe Morgan” then Morgans Wikipedia page, where I read a hilarious anecdote in the broadcaster section about Joe arguing with Bill James. My laughs for the day amidst all this “lets burn tax dollars on stadiums” angst. You rock!
Vegas makes no sense for MLB. The “region” for the RSN would be the smallest in MLB. And there’s no stomach for public money. A domed MLB stadium is direct competition for the raiders stadium when it comes to large events. People forget that the Raiders stadium deal came around because Sheldon Adelson got convention center expansion money added to the stadium funding. Without that, casinos weren’t that excited about adding an NFL team. I don’t see a gaming company giving up valuable strip land for a stadium, and the Clark county commission is not going to fund it.
So when this BOONDOGGLE Howard Terminal plan blows up in Oakland, then what?… (side note: June BCDC vote requires 2/3 approval of 27 members to override last weeks recommendation. Ouch!)
If past history is any guide, they’ll move up the coast a mile and try again. Where would that put them, Emeryville?
They should sell the team to Joe Buck, Troy Aikman and Al Michaels. The three together have the dough to build at the Coliseum site.
Fisher has a net worth of $2.5B. This isn’t about who has the cash — if the project looks profitable, then pretty much anyone could take out a bank loan for it — it’s about an owner who is either proposing a money-losing project because he wants the subsidy to make it profitable, or is proposing subsidies for a money-making project so he can boost his profits.
I get it. I being sarscastic. My announcer reference tried to highlight the absurdity that three guys talking between commercial breaks will reap hundreds of inflated dollars. It’s getting to the point where I probably need a new hobby. One that doesn’t insult the consumer or the taxpayer. But with the money printing…the inflation…the chaos created by these same group of ‘elites’ – we then turn to the same group who craeted the mess to clean it up?
As a boy in 1971 I grew up watching the A’s. This is not the same game. It’s turning into a cartoon with banker’s Federal Reserve Notes. The players are so pampered and divas that they don’t even want to play the extra innings. They might break a finger nail and jeopardize a $200M payout…one where they don’t care if they win or not. It’s shoe contracts, and now digital properties I don’t even understand… These ballparks are just magnets for taxpayer funded real state kingdoms paid for with zero percent interest rates. It’s sick…Like I said…I think I need a new hobby.