Friday roundup: Every Illinois mayor wants the Bears, Rob Manfred says the quiet parts loud

Spend the entire week watching the Nevada legislature debate a Las Vegas stadium bill for the Oakland A’s and man, does the other news pile up. Plus, there’s some additional A’s news/fallout, because of course there is. Onward:

  • Not only is the mayor of Naperville offering up his suburb as the new home of the Chicago Bears, so too is the mayor of Waukegan, who sent a letter to the team on Monday saying she has lakefront sites available. Neither Naperville nor Waukegan is offering up any construction money or tax breaks so far like the Bears owners want, but sure, that’s a good way to get mentioned on telly. Also to create leverage for Bears execs to turn up the pressure on Arlington Heights and Chicago to provide more subsidies, but that’s a small price to pay for getting your town its 15 minutes of fame. Mundelein and Downers Grove, what are you waiting for?
  • MLB commissioner Rob Manfred opened his mouth about the just-approved Las Vegas A’s stadium bill, and a lot of words fell out, including “What is it that Oakland was prepared to do? There is no Oakland offer, OK?” and “Academics can say whatever they want. I think the reality tells you something else” and (of Oakland fans packing their stadium on Tuesday to chant “Sell the team!”) “It’s great to see what is, this year, almost an average Major League Baseball crowd in the facility for one night.” This made him instantly trend on Twitter, and earned snippy replies from Oakland mayor Sheng Thao (“If they had proposed a similar project in Oakland, we feel confident a new ballpark would already be under construction”) and economist J.C. Bradbury (“Seriously?”), and every A’s fan who noted that the new Vegas stadium will barely be large enough to hold an average MLB crowd (“You absolute ghoul Manfred”). Meanwhile, MLB’s relocation committee to evaluate the A’s move will be headed by the Milwaukee Brewers owner who is trying to extract public money from his own city for stadium upgrades, surely he will give it a full and fair evaluation.
  • Kansas City Royals spokesperson says the team is down to two sites for a potential new stadium, one in K.C.’s East Village and one in North Kansas City. Meanwhile, team owner John Sherman doesn’t have a firm plan for how to pay for a stadium, and hasn’t even made concrete demands from Kansas City or North Kansas City. with one unnamed city official complaining that the stadium talks are like “fighting with Jell-O.” Give it time, man, Sherman hasn’t even threatened to move his team to Waukegan yet.
  • The Charlotte city council voted unanimously to spend $65 million on a new tennis complex to lure the Western & Southern Open to town from Cincinnati, something that Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles called “creating jobs in this community that need those jobs.” The Western & Southern Open happens once a year and only lasts nine days, so it’ll be tough to wring many full-time-equivalent jobs out of that, but maybe Lyles figures there’ll be a ton of hiring for the “world-class pickleball facility” to be built next door.
  • And finally, back to Manfred, who also took a dig at Arizona voters who turned down spending $500 million in tax breaks on an Arizona Coyotes arena: “I’m hopeful that whatever went on with the Coyotes is not an indication of a lack of public support to fulfill the public part of that partnership to keep the Arizona [Diamondbacks] facility a first-class major league facility.” Hey, Marc, are you sure he’s not a robot?

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41 comments on “Friday roundup: Every Illinois mayor wants the Bears, Rob Manfred says the quiet parts loud

  1. It was actually more than an average MLB crowd. Ok, by a few hundred but still more…..

  2. Being a Friday roundup, here’s a piece about Messi coming to Miami. It talks about the temporary stadium the club plays in now, and the plans and challenges for the future.

    BTW it I highly unlikely Messi will ever play in the proposed stadium.

    https://theathletic.com/4608535/2023/06/14/lionel-messi-inter-miami-stadium-house/?amp=1

    1. Good article. Yeah, Inter Miami will need to play their home games at Hard Rock Stadium.

  3. Manfred should resign. When the A’s draw 8,000 a game in 7 years and the county is on the hook for stadium costs, don’t come crying to me. Traffic and the expensive tickets will keep locals away. Tourists and gambling junkies will be too busy at the nickel machines.

    1. Manfred is doing the exact job the owners pay him to do. They don’t honestly believe that Vegas is going to be a better baseball market than the Bay Area. They don’t care. That’s never been what this is about.

      If he died tomorrow, the next commissioner would be the same kind of lawyer making the same kinds of moves.

      1. Sad but 100% true. He’s not still employed because the owners dislike what he’s doing. Same with Goodell, etc.

        1. They get paid to be the scapegoat so fans don’t blame the actual owners.

          But since the commissioners are the leagues’ main spokesmen, they should at least know something about how not to make a PR problem worse.

          1. I wonder if those two factors overlap at a certain point: You don’t want a commissioner who sounds too smart, or he’ll make the individual owners look like morons by comparison.

          2. Some of the individual owners are doing an excellent job of that on their own…

  4. I don’t see how the Coyotes and Diamondbacks are connected. The Diamondbacks have decent attendance. The Coyotes can’t draw flies

    1. Translation from Manfredese: “Don’t you Arizonans try any of this ‘voting’ nonsense with one of my teams.”

      1. Right.

        The Dbacks have decent attendance but are still angling for a new stadium or a massive renovation of the old one.

        That also illustrates none of this is really about attendance figures or whether a team “works” in the way fans usually think about it. It’s about rent seeking.

    2. Aqib spelled out the typical mentality of Dumb Sports Fans and the Sports Media in Murica to make one sport equal another. You seldom see that in the UK where football, cricket, etc. are each in their own silo.

          1. You called him dumb because and then implied UK sports are somehow better, all evidence to the contrary.

          2. Wait, did Chucky call Aqib dumb? Can commenters please try to more precise in their flamewars, so it’s easy for the rest of us to follow? (Also not engage in flamewars, as the whole “no personal attacks” directive and all.)

  5. Well full marks for that whole “reframing” exercise, Man-Fred.

    Attempting to spin a positive out of one of your franchises leaving a market for one that is just half it’s existing home’s size, while accepting about half of the subsidy money on offer in the existing location… man, that is a wholehearted effort at reframing.

    I am sure that this secures you at least one vote from your employers next time your contract is up. Just 15 to go! (and most of those will be paying into the welfare fund that Failson Fisher is determined to keep feeding out of).

    I am now hoping even more that the A’s don’t get the votes they need from their fellow owners to approve the move. I am relatively sure that they will, but still, a guy can dream…

    1. As a (former) Oakland taxpayer, with great residual affinity for the city, I hope the A’s do leave, and save Oakland from itself.

      1. There’s certainly merit to that position. I feel Oakland has been treated badly (very badly) by the team and MLB. That said, seeing sad sack Fisher and his yappy little lap dog leave town has to be seen as a win.

        And if (our) speculation is right and Oakland becomes a candidate for expansion sooner rather than later, well, then they hit the jackpot. The trifecta would be the city keeping the franchise’s ‘history’ and IP, but that may be too much to hope for given who the departing owner is.

        1. While MLB does have a track record of eventually replacing teams that moved (Montreal is the only exception so far) and left a city vacant, that hasn’t been the case for when 2 team cities became one team cities. Philly, St Louis and Boston remain one team cities. New York went from 3 to 2. So it comes down to do you see Oakland as it’s own city or do you see the Bay Area as one market. If the Giants had moved when they were talking about it in the 90s would MLB be looking to go back to San Francisco or would they let Oakland have the whole market?

        2. Oakland WILL NOT become an expansion candidate if MLB ever decides to come back to The Bay. Again, see why the Warriors and Raiders left Dodge for far greener (literally $!) pastures. Add that Oakland pols have failed for nearly 25 years to get something done for the A’s, lack of corporate support/disposable incomes in Oakland proper and unfortunate rep as a crime-laden city. Again, $an Jose/Santa Clara County would be the most obvious destination for a hypothetical expansion franchise, considering we’re wealthy beyond imagination and over 40 miles from SF.

          But since we’re going to become a 1-team market all for the $#@! giants, don’t see expansion ever happening for us.. at least not in my lifetime. $%#@! the giants!!!

          1. I totally agree that San Jose makes so much more sense than Oakland. It’s much further away from SF than Oakland is, and there’s a lot of disposable income there from both the personal and corporate side.

            I know people who had no idea what hockey was that ended up buying season tickets to the Sharks. Things have died down a bit after 20 years and the team has performed horribly of late, but it’s still a strong market.

          2. “Oakland pols have failed for nearly 25 years to get something done for the A’s”- they offered a ton of money, should they also have sold the A’s their children? At some point you draw the line. Sometimes when you lose, you really win.

  6. There’s likely a lot we don’t know about this though, don’t think your average billionaire doesn’t have multiple angles here. This is portfolio management that has little to do w sports. For instance real estate is a major driver for this, who knows what is in the portfolio for bay area real estate even if they do relocate and the location in vegas is on pricey real estate as well. Usually they make it coming and going just reframe it for the public and press. The A’s leaving the field in the SFB area is a wonderful thing for the Giants no more fractured market, hmm who has shares in the Giants and backroom deals and such? TV rights also for a new market are lower but a primary driver of profits as well.

    Obviously the main gambit is public money for private gain, that’s a very old scam. GK Chesterton wrote about this way back when in his utopia of usurers collection. And it applies to armaments, foundations and all sorts of other places not just sports. Surely someone is getting development rights surrounding the stadium in vegas for luxury condos and such hmmm. Also Vegas is about sports betting which is worth a lot of coin especially now that it’s being taken over and legalized by the bigger syndicate. Similar to grass/herb etc

    1. There are many pieces at work, Howard, I agree.

      But do you really think the A’s leaving will improve the Giants operation (or bottom line) at all?

      Is it likely that any of the current A’s fan base will become Giants fans? I have my doubts.

      They might gain a few tv viewers, but again, there wasn’t much stopping those people from watching the Giants if they wanted to anyway.

      I’m not saying there will be ‘no’ difference, but I don’t think it will be a gold mine for the Giants

      1. This generation: probably not. Future generations will switch though, unless baseball dies with its average-age-of-57 TV viewers.

  7. Not sure if you saw this. The 49ers have bought themselves a City Council, and now they’re trying to get rid of the Chief of Police.

    https://www.sfgate.com/49ers/article/santa-clara-elected-police-chief-49ers-18156605.php

  8. Let’s be optimistic and assume the Tropicana teardown starts in Summer of 2025, that takes maybe 6ish months? Construction starts in Early 2026, how the hell are they going to have a retractable roof ballpark ready for opening day 2028?

    https://www.ktnv.com/news/ballys-executive-tropicana-likely-wont-be-touched-for-up-to-2-years

    1. Summerlin here we come!

      You AL west tv viewers are ok with 2am local starts, right?

  9. I’m an A’s in grief and rage over Manfred’s sarcastic insults and lies. It’s become clear that the business side of this move makes no sense and MLB just wants to have a team in Vegas to be even closer with gambling money. Rather than just say that, they decided to scapegoat the city and fans knowing that Culture War Media(tm) would do the rest of the work for them. It’s why every single article on the internet about this saga will always have someone flying in off the top rope with #hottaeks about the city Oakland and its residents, almost always from someone with no personal ties to the Bay Area. Manfred, Fisher et al don’t have to say it, that Oakland and East Bay narrative – parts true and false – has been the public conception for years. Makes it all the more fun when every third comment or tweet is someone telling you that you didn’t exist and deserve to lose a team.

    This is why I don’t think Oakland will be considered seriously for expansion. I’m sure Mayor Thao can find Joe Lacob or a Silicon Valley billionaire to put in an expansion bid with Howard Terminal as the centerpiece, but it’ll be ignored. MLB and Manfred are gonna vilify us and the city forever to justify those future 7500 crowd of bored tourists on comped tickets – “We had no choice/Better than if we stayed in Oakland!” I cannot imagine letting Oakland get another team with the prospect of it becoming much more successful than the A’s and embarrassing a fellow country club member. They’re gonna cede all of that to the Giants, who will also be financially rewarded for fighting over the A’s proposed relocation to San José, then threatening to go thermonuclear and sue the league if Bud Selig’s “blue ribbon commission ” greenlit the move. The Dodgers and other teams may hem and haw, but horse trading will happen and smooth it over.

    We can delude ourselves into thinking something else will happen and it’ll work out. It’s central to A’s fandom. Bud Selig said decades ago that the A’s moving to Oakland was a mistake, and now his former lieutenant can finally “correct” it. It’s the end of the line for us.

    1. Ian, I feel your pain (and that of all A’s fans).

      I don’t believe Fisher bought the team with any intention other than to move it (somewhere). He was offered more than enough taxpayer funding to get a new stadium done in Oakland. And more than he is getting from Vegas, where he will be playing to avg crowds that make the A’s recent season averages seem like old Yankee stadium.

      That said, don’t give up hope.

      MLB may be all about insulting Oakland at the moment, but when they get around to trying to sell expansion teams they are going to confront a serious problem:

      There aren’t any better and bigger expansion candidate cities in the nation.

      Sure, the Yankees and Mets could agree to make NY a three team market again. Or maybe Portland or San Antonio or the Carolinas will decide that ML baseball is what they really need and that they will do anything to make that happen.

      But neither is very likely and, as a fairly recent economic study of the US’ major sports markets and what ‘excess discretionary spending capacity’ sports fans in those markets have showed, there aren’t any markets left with the ability to sufficiently support a major league baseball team. And at least three or four of the current ones cannot support the teams they have beyond a subsistence level.

      Twelve MLB teams have an avg attendance of less than 22,000 this season. Ten teams finished last season with an avg attendance below 20,000.

      https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/2022-misc.shtml

      IF MLB actually wants expansion money, it is going to have to admit to itself that there are no more New Yorks, Chicagos or Los Angeles’ out there.

      The largest MSA in the nation without MLB is about half the size of the market Fisher is in the process of vacating (#13).

      Vegas is #29 (2.3m) behind Sacramento (#27; 2.4m), Portland (#25; 2.6m), San Antonio (#24; 2.6m), Charlotte (#23; 2.7m) and Orlando (#22; 2.8m).

      It’s another Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus or Indianapolis – not a major market. No matter how many times the owner’s gutless mouthpiece Manfred says it is.

  10. What if all US cities with market size started their own League, say The League of Metropolitan Solidarity? Every city signs a non-compete, and those without franchises will refuse offers from franchises in exchange for a portion of metro league dues.

    1. If the cities were the founding partners they can do what they want. But I don’t think a baseball league has to be a publicly owned asset to work.

      I’m not saying I think this will happen… but if a billionaire or small group of billionaires who were as fed up with MLBs antics as many of us on this forum seem to be were interested in recreating something like the PCL of the 1950s… here are the cities that are ‘available’ with their CMA/MSA population

      Portland (2.5m)
      Tacoma (1m)
      Oakland (1-2m depending on where you draw boundaries)
      San Jose (2m)
      Sacramento (2.4m)
      Spokane/CdA (750k)
      Boise (750k)
      Salt Lake City (2.7m)
      Colorado Springs (770k)
      Tucson (750k-1m, again, depending on how big a net you use)
      Reno (500k)

      and, of course, if you aren’t affiliated with MLB there is nothing preventing you from putting teams in MLB markets like Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles (they won’t do well at the gate, but they do give you a spot in the marketplace to sell advertising… which over the long haul is important).

      If you are willing to cross the border (and why not), you have three mid sized cities without anything like high level baseball (single A or less).

      Vancouver (2.6m)
      Edmonton (1.4m)
      Calgary (1.5m)

      There’s also going to be a flood of non major league talent with nowhere to play coming out of college over the next few years as MLB has begun the process of ‘rationalizing’ their minor league system. As ever, the MBAs can’t see past their all consuming desire to cut costs and pad bonuses…

      That’s 14 host cities of which 8 have populations significantly over 1m (not including LA, SF, Sea). Maybe 2 or 3 of those included have populations too small or too diffuse to make a franchise work. But even so, if (like Lamar Hunt showed – twice) you have both the patience and the capital to make it work, it certainly could. And if the league has something akin to central or shared ownership, one or two money losing franchises in place to make up numbers is not a significant issue.

      In ten years could it be a money spinner like MLB?
      No. But it could certainly be profitable – especially if the league owner(s) also committed to broadcasting their sport on ad supported local tv and/or direct streaming.

      I’ve paid to watch college, A, AA and occasionally AAA baseball. Don’t tell Kaval, but before I knew who owned it I actually paid to see Golden Baseball League games… It’s not Major League quality, but it is fun in the way baseball used to be fun. And you can take the whole family for under $100 (maybe under $75).

      1. A group of people (including Andy Zimbalist!) tried this in the ’90s, and the wall they ran into was TV contracts: Nobody was going to take a chance on a fledging baseball league if it might lose them a shot at a future MLB deal.

        You might think that in the era of multiple streaming platforms this wouldn’t be such an issue, but MLB already has deals with Disney (ESPN), Fox, Warner (TBS), NBC (Peacock), and Apple. I guess a new league could try to cut a deal with Netflix or Prime, but you have to think those platforms are angling for a piece of the MLB pie eventually, whether through a new contract, or a merger with someone who has a current contract, so they have no reason to risk that by signing up to broadcast the Renegade Baseball League.

        1. I agree with everything you said there (didn’t know about Zimbalist though… then he found mining the miners was a better business plan…).

          But it all comes down to capital and patience. Do the new owners want to build something or not? This would not be an income stream for a decade or more.

          Anschutz and Hunt were rumoured/thought to be down around $350m at the bottom of the MLS trough.

          They were patient. And committed. And now they are selling individual franchises for that much (I still think that’s a fake economy at work, but nevertheless, they ARE selling them).

          The same would be true of the Pac-Ren league… In addition to paying their own production costs for their tv and radio broadcasts and building their own 10-15k stadia in some locations, the league owners would have to at least consider running their own streaming service.

          It’s a massive investment. So were the AFL and MLS.

          Is there a business model that says it’s ok to lose money for a decade or two (and not small money) before turning things around? Well, the losses might be so great that it seems like a folly… but then, how many times did investment consultants say Amazon and Tesla were going to run out of money and fold before they got to the level they needed to actually turn a profit?

          And both could have folded… but they didn’t.

          Like I said, I’m not saying it’s going to happen. But if two to ten very, very rich people wanted to make it happen, it is certainly possible to do. We also have ample evidence that when people who aren’t really, really rich but think they are try to start sports leagues or franchises, they tend to fail spectacularly.

          Even though I don’t care for either the XFL or Jeff Bezos, I was really, really hoping he would be the one to buy it. Then you’d have stability and a guarantee that the league will be around for ten years or longer… and now both fans (some of whom still clutch their Seattle Dragons or SF Demons season tickets from past efforts) and tv networks/streaming partners have a reason to be interested.

          Fox broadcasts NFL. They have also invested/committed to invest some $500m in trying to develop the USFL (ii). Compared to what they spend on NFL rights, it isn’t crazy…

  11. Exactly how many concerts/other events are planned for the East Gastonia Tennis Complex. Charleston is only having 20 or so non-tennis events a year. Charlotte has numerous more venues better located in the region in comparison

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