Cisco CEO John Chambers chimes in
- 12.26.09, 23:38
- 129 Comments
I hope everyone’s having a good holiday break. It’s good to get away from the everyday hustle and bustle, which for me includes monitoring and posting on this here blog.
But enough about me. Thanks to GoA’s, who caught the SJ/SV Business Journal’s Q&A with Cisco CEO John Chambers. Chambers was named Executive of the Year by the publication in the most recent issue (subscription required). While most of the interview was geared towards the tech industry and his company’s health, Moryt Milo managed to get a ballpark-related question in the mix.
MM: Let’s change gears. I would like to ask whether we have a chance of seeing a Cisco Stadium with a Major League Baseball team in San Jose.
JC: We want the South Bay to have the A’s. We think it’s important for creating an environment for our children. Not only is it about education, because clearly it is, but it’s about job creation and an environment that will attract companies and individuals to this area. Having sports teams in the South Bay is an element of that, and we very much want to see the A’s here. So we are trying very hard. I think it’s pretty good odds that it will happen.
So far this is the first comment I’ve seen that showed Cisco’s interest in having the A’s local to them in the South Bay. While Oakland hasn’t been shut out – and there’s no reason to shut out Oakland until everything shakes out – Chambers’ affirmation of bringing the A’s into the South Bay fold is revealing. Remember that Cisco didn’t get involved until Keith and Lew Wolff started talking with Cisco about developing the networking giant’s dormant Fremont parcels. When the Fremont plan imploded, Cisco remained committed to the sponsoring the A’s efforts to remain in the Bay Area.
However, there is some question as to how Cisco and Chambers defines “Bay Area.” While Cisco should be expected to retain naming rights whether a ballpark is in the South Bay or East Bay, there is no doubt that Cisco would prefer that its premier technology showcase be conveniently located to its headquarters, and Downtown San Jose is about as convenient as you can get (Santa Clara is close as well). I wonder if Cisco’s eventual naming rights deal may be more lucrative if it’s tied to a San Jose or Fremont ballpark.
That brings me to a tangent. In light of all the threats of lawsuits and bad intent coming from the A’s, there’s one major piece the barristers are missing: Fremont. Even if they were to argue that the A’s were obligated to try for a ballpark in the East Bay, that doesn’t preclude the team from putting most of their resources behind Fremont. You can question the wisdom of the plan, but the fact remains that Wolff/Fisher put tremendous amounts of money and time into the original Cisco Field concept. Nowhere in the Coliseum lease or in any other covenants are the A’s required to try X number of times or put Y effort into Oakland. There’s only a $250,000 fee if the A’s leave Alameda County, which shows that the Coliseum Authority considered the possibility of that happening. Otherwise, why have it in there?
Going back to Chambers’ argument – it sounds like what most boosters of a particular city or municipality would say when trying to bring in a team. The difference between Chambers and other boosters is that he’s backing his statement with nine figures and a company that’s in the Dow. That’s nothing to sneeze at.
AthleticsNation is predicting another last-place finish for the A’s next year.
Loser Wolf has taken our team from first place to the cellar.
A’s Fan – GoA’s – doesn’t that bother you?
Probably not.
You girls and the Loser don’t care about baseball, it’s all about shopping malls.
Hey you’re right let’s reminisce about the great tradition… in Philadelphia. Those were the days… 5 World Series trophies! That that, Phillies! why did they ever leave Philly!? Connie Mack Stadium was a perfectly fine place to watch a game. I could buy 10-cent standing-room tickets and sneak into the MVP section, or I could just watch the game from the rooftops across the street for a penny.
If you care about winning than you should be all for a new stadium in San Jose- where the team will actually be able to make some money and up the payroll.
I can see you appealing to sentiment and East Bay loyalty if you’re taking an Oakland-only stance, but if all you care about the A’s making more cash and buying better players and winning ball games, you should be 100% pro-San Jose.
So why were they revived after just two seasons?
How are tax-payers so vulnerable to a privately financed stadium.
“Normalized”???? You’re warping the data, plain and simple. Do you actually think your arbitrary formula means anything? 11 games here or there isn’t going to make a difference unless it means something. They didn’t make the playoffs. They were unde .500. They finished in 3rd place. So they went from putrid to simply crappy. They were bad leading up to ’95, so the fans stayed away in ’96 because the team was expected to remain bad. You can argue that performance in previous years ALSO impacts the perception of a team. Slightly overacheiving by winning 11 additional meaningless games while a sub-.500 team wouldn’t have an impact on the attendance of any of the 30 teams in MLB.
It’s very convenient of you to lump everybody not named Walter Haas and point to their “carpetbagging” as the only variable to support your argument. Basically Haas spent a few million out of his pocket to keep superstars like Rickey Henderson, by handing out a $4 million contract, the largest in baseball at the time. $4 million these days wouldn’t get you Coco Crisp.
You can’t turn back the clock, gj. What worked in 1989 would never work today. You are asking for the impossible owner.
Also, to include data from th ’70s through the 2000′s is also not acceptable. There are enormous differences in culture, economics, media coverage, demographics, that completely render any comparision between the eras invalid.
Might as well throw in the data from 1929 Philly A’s: 104 wins but only 839,176 attendance. That’s like a negative bazillion by your normalization!! Should we chalk that one up to the carpetbaggers as well? I guess Connie Mack was from Massachusetts, so yeah!
Yea and they play in Santa Clara by the way. Or have you not noticed.
Well if you are also down for putting more money in a billionares pocket who doesent care if the community sinks or swims let alone a championship ballclub I’m all down for a new stadium in Hawaii too.
They have the worst SOCCER stadium situation in the MLS. If Mr. Wolff was so great, how come a 15,000 seat soccer stadium in SJ hasn’t been built yet?
Youre right at least the Connie Mack teams knew how to play baseball.
I’m not asking for any kind of owner. In fact, I like Lew Wolff (I guess I need to work on my online sarcastic voice). I’m just pointing out that if the Oakland boosters are waiting for another owner like Haas, even if their dream comes true it is only going to get them so far. It’s not like the team is going to be one of the leaders in attendance. Also, I don’t get how you think my analysis means nothing. I never said it was perfect. Of course there are other factors at play that will influence attendance. I only corrected for one of those variables. I thought this was clear in the linked post above (which from your comment I’m guessing you didn’t read).
If you think the analysis is useless, maybe you should check out this beyond the boxscore link. They’re a lot more stats savvy than me and they did very similar stuff to what I did, but only for the 2009 season. You can also check out Jeffrey’s work on attendance. He came to similar conclusions as me, but averaging attendance figures over decades.
The Earthquakes stadium is a hell of alot further along after just 3 years–than what Oakland has been able to accomplish over the past 15—they have a site—not just an identified site but one that is in the hands of the Earthquakes, the have the EIR done, they have initial designs done—AFTER 3 YEARS!!! All the same thing that SJ has been able to do for the A’s and they still don’t have a guarantee of the team—its called capable city leadership–something that Oakland doesn’t have today and has never had in the past—
Al…regarding your second post,
Calm down. You are obviously confused. First I take the A’s attendance and I figure the % difference for the ave AL attendance FOR THAT YEAR. So it doesn’t matter if the year is 2009 or 1929 (what a team!), you are still going to get an idea of how turnout was for the team THAT YEAR. So if I look at 1929 and they are first in wins, but last in attendance, I think that means something. So why not look at the 70s and the 00s and point out that nobody showed up when the team won in those years? The data shows those years were less successful than the 80s in terms of normalized attendance. The important issue is how to interpret that data. Is the reason for the lack of success the same (i.e. Carpetbagger owners?)? Or is the reason for the lack of fan support unrelated (70s the team was new to the region, 00s the stadium was ruined and AT&T was poaching A’s fans). I suppose you would think the latter. Point noted.
This is a stadium blog. If we want to talk about the 1989 World Series we read and comment on posts by 67Marquez. But, just to show you we do what we can regarding nostalgia:
http://newballpark.org/2009/12/22/and-now-a-message-from-the-ghost-of-christmas-present/
http://www.athleticsnation.com/2009/11/17/1160420/greener-grass-episode-6-its-all
I hate not having preview
Dude anybody can draw pictures, the bottom line is it hasn’t happend yet. None of LW’s projects have happened yet.
Yup–but not everyone can identify a site and actually buy the land…not everyone can actually do an EIR…and not everyone can actually begin the design process—surely not Oakland—that is for sure—if your gonna hold LW accountable for having all the peices together but not having a shovel in the ground after 3 years, than what are you doing about your Oakland leaders who don’t even own a peice of land yet to put a shovel into—-and thats after 15 years. I’d double down on LW—not on Oakland leaders or cheerleaders–
Ah OK, I didn’t see your post way up in the middle of the thread. I interpreted your latest posts as implying a cause and effect relationship. Sorry, I guess this whole debate really has me swinging at anybody in sight. My bad.
You’re right in that my opinion is that the reasons for disparate “normalized attendance” figures are not the same throughout those 40 years.
If you don’t want to put money in billionaire’s pockets, don’t watch major league baseball period. Actually, forget it. It doesn’t matter if you go to games or not. That billionaire will actually get MORE money in his pocket if the team continues to draw poorly, thanks to revenue sharing.
In other words. You don’t matter, none of us do. We root for a billionaire’s personal property playing against, but financially supported by, other billionaires’ property. I suggest you accept that as a fact of life.
a band playing, the only timeslot is in the 7th inning stretch. i saw a band play at a boxing match in berlin before the fight. a blog devoted to the newtransbay terminal would be good also. the new transbay terminal, not a station but a terminal, is a good idea.
ML = Wolff = Dufus
Congratulations Howard S! You’re the first commenter ever to be banned. Happy New Year, and go troll somewhere else!
Youre right at least the Connie Mack teams knew how to play baseball.
.
Why thank you, sir.
But don’t forget that I traded away many popular stars in my day.
The Quakes left their built-in-1933 30,000 seat college football stadium…to go play in a built-in-1942 30,000 seat college football stadium. Genius.
Its a soccer only stadium–Santa Clara doesn’t have football—that was expanded to 20,000 to accomodate the Quakes….and the Quakes didn’t leave—the league took them away—-and realized the error in their way and returned a new franchise within 3 years–thanks to LW–btw–location of the new stadium is right across the railroad tracks from the current one-
Mark’s referring to Robertson Stadium, home of the Houston Dynamo.
Got it–my bad—
I’ll go one further. I’m grateful that we have LW as an owner. For all the talk that’s gone on through the years, he’s the one who is making things happen. Results are what matter, and Wolfe has shown that no matter what obstacles are thrown up, he’s determined to see this project through to the end.