From Let’s Go Oakland leader Doug Boxer:
Let’s Go Oakland is hosting a press conference at 11 am to release the results of an Economic Study regarding a Waterfront A’s Ballpark. Stay tuned for the actual report. We will post it after the Press Conference.
Jane Brunner will be speaking. While this is too short notice for anyone here to attend, we should have our own insight soon. More to come.
The report is available here.
newballpark.org 
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the report will claim that the ballpark will bring a large positive economic impact to the city of Oakland… just a hunch.
Will they talk about Oakland and Alameda County paying for the ballpark or do they expect Wolff to pay for it himself and grant him no real estate permits to build homes, offices, etc that would help pay for the park? This would be the plan in Fremont and SJ – underwrite the cost of the ballpark with profits from other development.
If MLB says, Oakland or nothing, I have to wonder if the team then goes up for sale. Good luck finding a buyer under the above conditions.
@pjk… no idea until we see the report. It should detail what a stadium would cost and what they expect the city to contribute.
I anticipate Oakland’s contribution to be in the range of $0.00.
Pingback: Tweets that mention Oakland Press Conference at 11 AM - -- Topsy.com
Probably the same contribution as San Jose’s.
What “real estate permits” are we talking about in SJ? Have any polls asked people in San Jose if they support giving the A’s “real estate permits for homes and offices” to attract the team south? I know the Fremont plan would include something along the lines of a large, mixed-use development plan, but I’ve not read a single word about that in connection to San Jose.
I would think the city would love the kind of exposure this release would bring. Why the secrecy? Regardless, kudos to Oakland for moving forward with this report.
@tps- I think perhaps there is a bit of confusion about the original Earthquakes stadium proposal and the Cisco Field (assuming it would be Cisco Field in San Jose) plan.
Uncle Lew and the crew bought a bunch of industrial land in San Jose (I think Edenvale? it has been a long time) and it was under the same premise as the Fremont Ballpark plan. Rezoned, build houses, profits help finance the soccer stadium.
I don’t think the current plan is to use that property and develop it/use profit to help pay for the stadium. But I guess it is theoretically possible if we all squint hard.
the report is up here
From the study, the average A’s ticket price over a 5 year span:
2004 $18.70
2005 $19.70 <- Fisher/Wolff buy team
2006 $23.80
2007 $24.90
2008 $29.60 <- Swisher, Haren, Harden, Blanton, Scutaro dealt
60% price increase in 5 years, accompanied by 24% decrease in annual attendance over the same period.
Wolff and his money men must be enjoying playing the three sister cities against one another. With all the delays in getting a decision by Bud and MLB I suspect they too are involved with Wolff’s dating game.
According to the report a new JLS stadium will only generate a conservative 13% increase in attendance over the historical 5 year average.
tbone–LW is pretty clear what he wants–and its San Jose–so how do you come up with that he is enjoying playing 3 cities against each other? What he will enjoy is a green light to negotiate with SJ, get approval from it constituents and get a shovel in the ground for a new ballpark–
The report also states that currently, visiting teams don’t typically stay in hotels in Oaklnad or Alameda County, thus they weren’t considered a financial factor in thier estimates. Visiting teams stay in San Francisco.
I’m shocked they were so honest that a new ballpark in Oakland would have a minimal impact. And that undoubtedly uses inflated numbers like most studies of this kind. Are they throwing in the towel this early? Because a report like this isn’t going to make MLB want to stay in Oakland…
“From the study, the average A’s ticket price over a 5 year span”
This study simply parroted the completely worthless “Fan Cost Index” numbers on “average ticket price;” these numbers bear zero relation to what is actually costs to attend an A’s game. As has been pointed out previously, the FCI numbers exclude premium seating, of which the A’s have virtually none and which for other teams includes most of the first and second deck. The FCI numbers then make a calculation based on posted season ticket holder prices, assuming every seat in the ballpark were sold. These assumptions of course bear no relation to reality, particularly in the A’s case, and completely ignore the massive discounting the A’s do.
@tps ,@bartleby Also remember that about 10k of the cheap seats were removed from the equation in 2006.
The premium seating exclusion has no bearing on the year to year price change in tickets. The same thing is being measured one year to the next, and it went up 60% in 5 years. If you increase ticket prices that much, you should expect some attendance loss, and the need for some deep discounting to fix what you broke.
The premium seating exclusion is highly relevant when comparing A’s ticket cost data to other teams, typically the main use for this data. I agree that it is not relevant to year-over-year comparisons of the A’s own ticket sales.
However, the data is fundamentally worthless anyway. If you read the footnote explaining the methodology, it’s not based on actual sales data (most likely because the teams do not share this data). Instead, as far as I can tell, they took season ticket prices, assumed the entire stadium was sold out to season ticket holders, weighted each price category by the number of seats in that category, then averaged them out.
This method does not consider $2 nights or any other discount deals. Further, as we all know, the A’s have a minimal season ticket base. So this method tells us virtually nothing about how much people actually paid for A’s tickets.
The big jump in 2008 does tell us that the A’s apparently raised season ticket prices in certain categories in 2008. However, given the likelihood that the vast majority of these tickets were not sold on a season ticket basis, the value of this information is dubious.
@LoneStranger
Certainly the A’s hoped elimination of these cheap seats would drive average achieved price higher. However, given that most of those cheap seats sat unsold before the closing of the upper deck, and thousands of cheap seats remained for most games afterward, it is questionable how successful this was. The FCI data sheds no light on this, because it is not based on actual sales data and its methodology is fatally flawed.
@LoneStranger
On further reflection, you’re probably right that the upper deck closure was what caused the big jump in the FCI average ticket prices. Based on the FCI methodology, the elimination of 10,000 of the cheapest season ticket seats would have caused this number to jump. But since only a tiny fraction of these upper deck seats were sold on a season ticket basis, and since other comparably priced seats remained unsold on a season ticket basis, my point remains that the effect this had on the true cost of attending A’s games was likely very modest.
bartleby, you’ve completely missed the point. We don’t care how much people actually paid to attend A’s games. We care about the average price fans would have to pay to fill the stadium like we want. Attendance flows, in large part, from these prices. When you are unable to increase demand by reaching post-season, common sense would tell you to combat attendance problems with lower prices. The A’s however, increased the face value of their tickets significantly ’07 -> ’08 while the team was diving headlong into a rebuild which involved dealing most of their best and most popular players. As for the “massive discount”, there are only a dozen or so $2 Wednesdays, involving what, maybe 25,000 or so Wednesday night ticket sales all season long… It’s the other 2+ million potential ticket sales that we should be concerned with.