War of Words in Oakland
- 01.20.10, 13:17
- 134 Comments
I wouldn’t have seen Guy Saperstein’s recent, brief letter to the Trib from over a week ago had BaseballOakland’s Garth Kimball not responded to it. In fairness, I’ll put both here in their entirety. First, Saperstein’s letter:
Need business plan
The City of Oakland, after many years of doing nothing to keep the A’s in town, have come up with three potential parcels of land, none very attractive for a baseball stadium site. But what the city’s proposal lacks is any business plan, let alone a viable business plan.
The A’s have been losing $30-plus million a year in Oakland for some time — an amount subsidized by Major League Baseball. No team owner wants to lose $30 million a year, nor can MLB be expected to continue subsidizing the A’s.
Unless Oakland produces a viable business plan for building a new stadium as well as successfully operating the team in Oakland without losing tens of millions of dollars every year — a plan that works not only for the team but also the city and its taxpayers — those who think finding a few parcels of land is enough to keep the A’s in Oakland are simply misleading the public.
Guy T. Saperstein
And now Kimball’s response:
My Word: Oakland A’s fans deserve better ownership
Guy Saperstein and the A’s ownership continue to distort the truth in an attempt to destroy the A’s fan base and to get Major League Baseball approval to move out of Oakland.
Saperstein’s Jan. 8 letter to the editor, “Need business plan,” about A’s ballpark sites failed to disclose that he is an A’s co-owner. He also wrote that Oakland does not have a ballpark business plan. Yet, Oakland officials recently announced that the city and MLB officials together have fully analyzed three waterfront sites and provided detailed ballpark and economic redevelopment plans to MLB’s Blue Ribbon Committee.
Saperstein mentioned the Jack London Square sites are just a few parcels of land and not very attractive for a stadium. Those three proposed sites total more than 90 acres and are ideal MLB stadium sites. Also, since when is a waterfront ballpark with wonderful transit options and beautiful views not attractive?
Saperstein also claims the A’s are losing $30 million per year. According to Forbes magazine, the A’s are one of MLB’s few teams that regularly turn a profit, due to their low payroll and their sweetheart Coliseum lease from the city of Oakland and Alameda County.
Meanwhile, A’s co-owners Lew Wolff and John Fisher have done nothing but depress attendance and hurt their own bottom line by providing poor customer service, trading away fan-favorite players, threatening to move every year and excluding many fans by tarping off the third deck.
Wolff has repeatedly stated he exhausted all efforts in Oakland. Yet, city officials last year quickly found two new excellent waterfront ballpark sites. All it took was effort and working with, not against, city leaders.
A new ballpark in Oakland certainly would be successful. However, what we need even more is ownership like the Haas family provided; an A’s ownership that will reach out to the entire East Bay and an ownership that will be committed to staying in Oakland and winning.
Oakland is a wonderfully diverse city with great transportation options. We deserve better than Wolff, Fisher and Saperstein, who whine instead of trying to win. The team should be put up for sale and a new ballpark should be built in Oakland.
As the 31,000 people (and growing) who have joined the “Let’s Go Oakland” Facebook page illustrate, A’s fans are yearning for MLB to grant the city of Oakland its first real chance since the Haas years to retain its team and return it to glory.
Saperstein warns about misleading the public. Unfortunately, if A’s fans and the public have been misled by anyone, it’s Wolff, Fisher, Saperstein and their fellow A’s co-owners. We deserve better.
I’ve mostly refrained from commenting on the Oakland plan simply because I don’t know much about all of the details. However, I wasn’t impressed with what I saw coming out of the press conference and I’m not sure the panel will be either. In light of the large amount of information that Fremont has released, Oakland has to come up with something approaching that level of detail to give an impression that they are really trying, not just posturing. And that’s why the one criticism I made at the time was that Oakland should be focusing on one site, not three. Now I suppose I can let loose:
- Instead of buying web ads all over the place for Let’s Go Oakland, supporters could have used the money to get a feasibility study completed. A study for three sites might be prohibitively expensive, one site would be more cost-effective. The 2002 HOK study is incredibly outdated, another one is needed for any Oakland site.
- Saperstein refers to a lack of a business plan. Kimball’s retort is that Oakland supplied redevelopment and ballpark plans. That’s not what Saperstein, the rest of A’s ownership, and MLB are looking for. We know why JLS is the preferred area in Oakland for several reasons, not the least of which is that there are plenty of business interests at JLS that would love to have an anchor like a ballpark where none exists currently. But it’s not about them. It’s about the A’s and MLB – how can you make it work for them? Simply claiming that it would be successful, and then citing figures from 20 years ago when a massive sea change has taken place since then, isn’t going to cut it. On the public side, Mayor Dellums has alluded to funding sources outside the city to help pay for land and infrastructure costs. Okay, since that’s a wildcard among wildcards, what is that funding? Will any of the Oakland options be dependent on this funding? How much of a risk does that entail?
- Saperstein claims that the A’s lose $30 million a year – not for them, for MLB – and the annual revenue sharing check is proof of that. Kimball then cites the Forbes income numbers, which are bolstered by revenue sharing in the A’s case. In other words, the A’s are a long time money-losing franchise for MLB. If you’re focusing on just the A’s or Oakland, you’re missing the big picture.
- While certain details of Oakland’s plans have been available to the panel and some of the media, they’re not available to the public. There’s a press release. There is no dedicated website, no pictures or downloadable documents, not even a FAQ. In fact, if you click on the “New Ballpark” link at BaseballOakland, you get a “Page not found” error. Let’s Go Oakland’s page hasn’t evolved past the petition drive stage. It’s great to rally the troops through a Facebook page, how about giving them something to chew on as well?
What I will agree with Kimball on is that Oakland deserves a fair chance to keep the A’s in town. I hope that through the process put forth by the panel, they’ll have that chance. What I’m afraid of is that Oakland is focusing its resources too much on P.R. and not on the meat of a deal, which if true doesn’t do anyone any good. That said, Kimball’s closing plea is for the A’s to be sold to someone more Oakland-friendly. Thanks for the oh-so-predictable cop-out. Let’s try proposing something a little more practical, shall we?
ob – if i were coming into this situation i would do what i needed to do to make sure i get the most people to the games as possible plain and simple because that would be my job and right now ownership is not doing that.
Tell the “it’s all about the money” to Marco Scutaro and Rafael Furcal.
San Jose doesn’t own all the land at Diridon South yet. It’s just a “plan” to buy it up and lease it to the A’s. San Jose has said, “We WILL provide the land, and the A’s will pay for the ballpark.” Mayor Dellums, after his talks with the BRP panel, said, “We WILL provide the land, and the A’s WILL pay for the ballpark.” This is how business deals get started. The fact that the A’s have responded to Mayor Dellums by saying, “No comment..” is simply a business choice by them.
There is no more signed paperwork between the A’s and San Jose than with Oakland. All this is about what the cities and the team are negotiating in principal. If the City of Oakland says they’ll provide this land, then it’ would normally be the responsibility of the A’s to look it over and say, “Yeah, if you clear that land out, that works for us….” or, “No, this location is not good enough..” They’ve chosen not to conduct business in a typical way, but instead, have involved the parent franchiser and SF Magazine as their proxies for some kind of weird real estate developer PR campaign.
I don’t ignore the pre-existence of AT&T Park. I just don’t think it’s any more of a factor than Candlestick was when Oakland built the Coliseum. AT&T will be 15 years old by the time a JLS park is completed. The East Bay has more people than the West Bay, and the A’s are a better team with a greater history. Nothing you can say suggests a new ballpark for the A’s in the East Bay can’t do better than a 15 year old park for the Giants in the West Bay.
BigMal, care to elaborate a little more? How would you go about achieving this goal? It’s easy to state how you want things to be, a little more difficult to come up with sound solutions.
As Saperstein points out – there is no business plan. Fremont has at least partly identified how it would acquire the land – TIF and county help. San Jose has acquired part of its site and has banked land for the rest. Oakland? Lots of fuzzy talk there.
Besides putting a winning team on the field, here are some other suggestions if the A’s want to increase attendance:
A) Open up the 3rd deck, at least for Giants, Yankees, and BoSox games, or all weekend games, if not all games.
B) Market the team by (indirectly) pointing out how the weather is nicer, the ballpark has more history and is more convenient, the team is more successful, etc. Concerts by John Fogerty or Carlos Santana instead of Jordin Sparks…
C) Pay up for big name talent in the TV booth
D) Open a dialog with the host city, and make statements that indicate the existing ticket buying fanbase is not in fact regarded as suburban Mogadishu. This probably requires the replacement of Lew Wolff as managing partner.
“I just don’t think it’s any more of a factor than Candlestick was when Oakland built the Coliseum.”
This is patently absurd.
- The Coli and the Stick are 21 miles apart; AT&T Park and a JLS ballpark would be only 6 miles apart. When you factor in drivetimes (and the lack of transit and hideous road access to the Stick), the difference is far greater.
- The Stick was a monstrosity the day it was built. The Coli had an immediate and substantial advantage over the Stick on location, weather, transit, accessibility, and venue quality. Conversely, AT&T Park is a gem and will be just as much a gem when it’s fifteen years old. The A’s will be fortunate to equal AT&T Park, but there’s no way they can outclass it the way the Coli outclassed the Stick.
- Fifteen years? Seriously? Wrigley is a gem 100 years later. Age matters, but not nearly as much as other factors. Tropicana Field is a much newer venue, but Wrigley still wins hands down on nearly every measure.
- And again, you continue to ignore the importance of first mover advantage, and the East Bay’s lack of corporate base. You have argued previously that SF, the East Bay, and North Bay together have almost as many Fortune 1000 companies as the South Bay itself. (It is debatable whether this is the best measure, and it’s kind of a pathetic argument in and of itself, but I understand it’s the best you can do on this point). Even accepting your premise that we should measure seven counties against two, this is barely enough to support one MLB team, but clearly not enough to support two. The Giants have the advantage in that what corporate base there is in this area is primarily in SF itself. They also have the advantage of having established relationships with most of the companies in this area interested in supporting an MLB team. If the A’s try to go head-to-head in this regard, they’re going to lose.
- BTW, I love the way when you’re trying to lay claim to corporate base, you count seven counties with the East Bay, but when you’re arguing population it’s just two against two. Nice.
A) Out of the 9 games played against the Red Sox, Giants and Yankees, only 3 of the games were sellout. The other 6 games averaged 25,572. What good would it do opening up the 3rd deck, if you can’t even come close to selling out the downstairs?
B) Post game concerts are great, but I don’t see it as being a long-term solution. Besides, I have to believe it’s not cheap putting these events together. How many of these concerts would you have, because you’ll need to have a lot of these in order to make a dent in the attendance figures.
c) Agreed, the A’s need better talent on the TV side. It’s obvious the Giants recognize the importance of having good announcers. IMO, you can’t even compare the two broadcast teams.
D) Not really sure how a dialog with the host city would impact attendance, but I would agree that the A’s need to do a lot better job of taking care of their fanbase, especially their season ticketholders. We’re both A’s and Warriors season ticketholders. I have never received a phone call or email from my A’s account rep. I don’t even know whether I have one. My Warriors account rep on the otherhand regularly emails me, and calls me at least twice during the season to make sure everything was okay. Just little things to convey their appreciation for our support.
There is publicly available info on San Jose and Fremont plans, with no input from the A’s (Fremont’s plan has info from the A’s but it was compiled during the Pacific Commons saga). High level, for certain, but still there is a plan. Oakland has nothing like that.
The PR campaign is actually Oakland’s at this point. Throwing shit against the wall and saying “See we told you there are spots in the city where we could one day maybe buy land and lease it to the A’s! Look at our facebook page! We have 7,000 signatures on a petition” looks to be a last gasp effort to save face more than a real effort to build a baseball stadium.
Argue, if you want, that the A’s belong in Oakland. But don’t pretend Oakland is doing much worthwhile especially compared to what San Jose or Fremont has done. In San Jose case, they did it without any guarantee of ever landing a team and at one point while the A’s were bound for Fremont.
What on earth does attendance for a single game have to do with the quality of the building?
Yes, 57,000 people will go to a dank mausoleum to see a playoff game against the Yankees. I was one of them, so I can attest: It remained dank and mausoleum-like through the course of the game, just as it had all season.
Same with the twenty-game win streak. I went to several of those games. Still dank. Still mausoleum like.
Face it, 57,000 would show up for a playoff game against the Yankees if they played it in a landfill.
Pretty much every web page and publication I’ve seen has the Coli last or next to last of MLB venues. See thesportsroadtrip.com.
Here’s the link: ESPN Ultimate Standings
There is a link on the right to look up your team, and also a description of how they put the rankings together. I don’t think it explains very well, so check out this press release that goes into it a tad further.
Franchise Scoring
Oakland Athletics direct link.
“Ownership – overall commitment and effort owner makes to players, coaches and fans, as well as a willingness to spend money and commit to winning:”
And surprise, they don’t actually say anything about the owners, but they do mention that the stadium sucks.
ML,
Someone at BaseballOakland must have read this post because the “New Ball Park” link now has three PDFs of the potential sites to view instead of the “Page Not Found” error.
Nah, those tabs have always been up and working. It was just down yesterday for some reason.
I want to be impressed, but laying down PNC Park overhead a satellite photo and then adding a few circles to show transit doesn’t indicate that much work was done there. Maybe it’s in other documentation, not those PDF’s. I’d like to see that they did more than what I can bang out in an hour or two.
Actually the city of San Jose owns most of the land at the Diridon site right now. I believe it’s approx. 10% that they do not currently own.
So in other words, the owners don’t suck, the stadium sucks. Big shock there. The Coliseum with the demise of the Metrodome is now the worst stadium in MLB.
The A’s ranked 101th (not 119th). The Raiders among the 10 worst @ 116th. There is a common theme among the write-ups for the two Oakland teams
A’s: “universally reviled Coliseum, voted the worst stadium in baseball (and one away from the worst in pro sports)”
Raiders: “Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum has been likened to a prison cell”
The A’s overall ranked 101/122. But ownership is ranked 119/122.
Ah, a second look explains the discrepancy. Each category is individually ranked. The A’s ownership ranked 119th, two notches above the stadium. Something tells me though, if they secure a new park, they will rank much higher (regardless of where that stadium might be built).
beat me to it
Absolutely, but coaching at 110/122 and fan relations at 89/122 are also both pretty terrible. That wouldn’t necessarily change with a new facility.
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When ownership is ranked fourth to last and fan relations is in the bottom fourth, it’s pretty clear that the ownership is not handling the situation very well. Say what you will about where the ballpark should be located, but Wolff & Co. have some bad PR skills.
Your right, the Coli was ranked 121, but you can still have a good ownership in a lousy facility, and the A’s unfortunately don’t.
What I’ve noticed is how much the A’s ownership ranking has dropped since after the ’05 season.
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2005-84, 2006-74, 2007-105, 2008-115, 2009-119
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We’ve even managed to drop lower than Al Davis and the Raiders….so sad!
Also if you sort by MLB alone, Lew Wolff and Co. was dead last in 2009. We have managed to also stay within the bottom 10 out of 30 teams in MLB since 2005.
PR Skills issues granted… but any list that ranks the awesomeness of sports franchises that is a) produced by ESPN and b) ranks any owner below Jeff Lurie or Al Davis is not something I would be using as evidence of anything.
Tps is right. A new ballpark in Jack London Square will be closer to the A’s fanbase strongholds of north Oakland, Piedmont, Walnut Creek and Danville along with the wealthy communities of Lafayette, Orinda, and Moraga. Let’s use the Fox Oakland Theater as an example of how a beautiful venue in Oakland competes favorably with any theater in San Francisco. The Fox Oakland has brought people from throughout the Bay Area and even from San Francisco to Oakland. The Fox is hands down the best small concert venue in the Bay Area. Oakland will have no trouble competing, since as TPS mentioned, it will be a new venue in a wonderful waterfront setting. Another example of how Jack London Square out did San Francisco is when 60,000 people showed up at the Oakland “Eat Real Festival” last summer. Jack London Square was greatly praised by event organizers and by patrons. The festival was a great success and outdrew the sister event in San Francisco by tens of thousands. Putting a beautiful ballpark in Jack London Square will siphon off much of the traffic which now heads over the Bay Bridge for baseball. There are far more people in the East Bay then in San Francisco or the Peninsula. There are about 2.7 million residents in Alameda and Contra Costa counties compared to 1 million in SF and the Peninsula. A beautiful urban waterfront ballpark on Victory Court in Jack London Square would be the new hot ticket in town. At&T Park would be yesterday’s news to many East Bay residents. The only thing stopping this from happening is a chicken little ownership whose had a hard on for the South Bay from day one. These cowards want to run away from the Giants like little girls instead of meeting them head on Oakland’s home turf in the absolute center of the Bay Area. What a bunch of whinny cowards!
C’mon, the Eat Real Fest was a 3 day event in JLS while the Street Food Fest in SF was 8 hrs in a two block area. I went to both events and thought both were successful.
You’re absolutely right Dan. My mistake.
Marine Layer, How come sometimes the “Reply” link doesn’t come on?
Yeah, I wanted to reply to one of your posts above.
First off, SF and San Mateo counties have a combined population of around 1.6 million, not 1 million.
Since you want to compare number, SF & SM with a combined population 1.6 million = 2.86 million for the Giants. CC & A with a combined populationof 2.7 million = 1.40 million for the A’s. What’s up with that?
The “Reply” link is only active for the first 4-5 levels of the thread. After that it’s gone.
Marine Layer,
I was one of those 57,000 fans against the Yankees in the playoffs. I sat in the now closed third deck. I stopped going to games when I realized that Lew Wolff was jerking Oakland around. I was at a game where Wolff spoke to the fans and promised that he would try very hard to build a new ballpark in Oakland. Wolff’s spoke during a game in which Walter Haas was honored. Wolff made a promise to Oakland Athlethics fans. After that point, all he did was propose one impossible plan, when he was renegotiating his sweetheart deal with Oakland, and then later, quickly threw out other locations like the Coliseum parking lot and quickly dismissed them because of “power lines” and other excuses. He then delayed and delayed until his self-imposed Oakland deadline expired. He lost my business, my family’s patronage, along with many other fans’ patronage by being disingenuous. Now, he won’t get one red cent from me, from my family, and from many of my friends, until he commits to Oakland. I’m not willing to contribute one dime to Lew Wolff’s Relocation Fund.
So you only come to games when the A’s are in the playoffs? Thanks for your support, so-called Oakland A’s fan.
Once again, you don’t refute any of my points. Here’s one thing you should recognize about your protest: it doesn’t help your cause, it only hurts your cause because it fits into a much broader pattern that goes well back, beyond the so-called carpetbagger era.
The better thing to do? Get a bunch of Oakland partisans. Show up to A’s games with bags over your heads or with Lew Wolff masks with a circle and a slash overlaid. You’d get more media attention, which is what you want right?
FC, You’re right. As of 2008 the US Census Bureau sates that San Mateo County had 712,000 residents and SF had 808,000. So, a little over 1.5 million. Also, the attendance numbers a reflective of one ownership which takes pride in its community and has ingrained itself into the fabric of said community by investing in that community with a beautiful new waterfront ballpark. Giant fans know they have their team win or lose, good or bad, for their lifetime and probably for their kids lifetime. They’ve responded with 2.7 million fans. On the Oakland side of the bridge attendance has gone down since 2005. In this period of time we’ve had an ownership who has alienated the fanbase at every turn with constant talk of relocation, closing off the third deck, trading fan favorites, denigrating their host city and ballpark at every opportunity, etc. If you remember the Oakland A’s were drawing about 2.2 million fans when Wolff took over. The Oakland A’s now are last in the league in attendance with 1.4 million fans. Same stadium but an owner who openly talks about relocation and who has actually drawn up plans in another city. An owner who advertises this proposed relocation during the team’s broadcasts to the current fanbase in Oakland?Berkeley, Walnut Creek/Concord, the North Bay, and San Francisco. And you have to ask why one team draws 2,7 and the other 1.4? FC, I think you know the answer.
how does what navigator said come out to mean he only attends playoff games ??? not a good look ML
Pure drivel. Attendance is down because the team is in the midst of a cyclical downturn in performance, which happens for virtually all teams (especially those in small markets).
If your argument had any validity at all then why, pray tell, did Oakland fans abandon ship at a MUCH faster rate for Mr. Haas when performance slipped than they have for Mr. Wolff?
Possiblity A: “Owner love” has little to do with attendance.
Possibility B: Mr. Wolff is beloved by a rational fanbase who appreciates his effort to build a new privately-financed ballpark in the home market without trying to extort money from cities.
There is no Possibility C.
I’m not so sure that they “abandoned ship” only in Oakland. MLB attendance as a whole slipped significantly between 1990-1995. Yes, the A’s lost a very significant number, but look at other teams …
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Anaheim Angels > 1,000,000
St. Louis Cardinals > 700,000
San Francisco Giants > 7,000,000
Chicago White Sox > 1,300,000
San Diego Padres > 800,000
Kansas City Royals > 1,200,000
Minnesota Twins > 700,000
Oakland Athletics > 1,600,000
New York Mets > 1,500,000
Toronto Blue Jays > 1,000,000
Pittsburg Pirates > 1,100,000
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Overall attendance dropped in MLB significantly between 1990-1995. It wasn’t until 1998 when baseball was “saved.” So sure, performance is an issue, but so are overall trends in baseball.
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http://www.ballparksofbaseball.com/1990-99attendance.htm
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You forgot Tropicana Field, the Toronto Skydome, that massive airplane hangar in Phoenix, etc. Also, that Houston ballpark isn’t anything to write home about either. The Coliseum has a beautiful field, comfortable seats with backs, plenty of leg room, a modern restaurant and club behind home plate, plenty of rest rooms, a BART station, green grass, blue skies, great food, cold beer, etc. I remember having a guest from out of state at an A’s game for the first time. He looked at the beautiful field, the gorgeous day, the sunshine and said “this is a beautiful stadium.” He was from out of the area and hadn’t been conditioned. I also remember an interview with actress Penny Marshal, (of Lavern & Shirley fame) in an interview at the Coliseum before a playoff game. She was asked about the stadium and responded, “It’s nice, I like it better than Boston.” Again, someone who wasn’t told what to think, but just made a personal observation based on comfort and personal appeal.
Thank you :)
I’ve been to all of those parks. The only advantage the Coliseum has is the climate it’s in. Everything else, from amenities to seat angles to foul territory is better in all of those parks – even the Trop and Rogers (Skydome).
The original name of the team was, in fact, the Philadelphia Athletic, which was later corrupted into Athletics.
Marco Scutaro was loved in Oakland, was a clutch player in Oakland, and seemed to enjoy performing for Oakland fans as they recited his name in unison. Do you actually think that Marco didn’t sign with the A’s because he thinks the Coliseum is “ugly?” More than likely it had to do with his desired role on the team or personal grievances against management.
You are no troll Nav.You are passionate Oakland A’s fan like myself, who loves and respect the Oakland A’s legacy. Many so-called A’s fans here are ignoring the real facts of the slimy dealings MLB and the previous 2 A’s owners have dealt this once proud franchise. It’s hard to imagine that there’s 3 worse owners in all of sports than the A’s. They are: the Atlanta Thrashers (#120); NJ Nets (#121); and the Phoenix Coyotes (#122).
You’re telling me that a dome is better than the Coliseum?
It’s Bud Selig, the owners lackey, we don”t support. Besides him saying the A’s should of never come to Oakland, he turned a blind eye to steroids; created the idiotic idea of using the All Star Game to determine which league has home field for the World Series ; and caused the cancellation of the 1994 World Series among other things.
The commissioner’s office is supposed to be an impartial, arbitrary office between owners and the players (union). Before selling the Brewers to his daughter for $1, he was owner, chairman and king poo-bah of the Brewers. How can that go uncontested?
If you’re a true baseball fan, he is The worst Commissioner EVER!!
Not at all. However, three of the four you cited have retractable domes. Not all domes are created equal. The great Mediterranean, dry climate that we pay extra to enjoy here in the Bay Area is not to the Coliseum’s credit. It’s to the region’s credit. Those domes made the best of their environment. The Coliseum may well do the worst for its environment.
And if you want to credit the climate to the Coli, then I should give it a demerit for being so cold during April and May nights. Call it even, then?
Well said, Eric.