News for 3/14/11
- 03.14.11, 19:17
- 59 Comments
Today’s hearing for Santa Clara County and the City of San Jose may set the stage for a proper settlement between the two parties over $62.9 million in redevelopment funds owed to the county. The Merc’s Karen de Sá has the details, including this bit from County Supervisor Dave Cortese, who has long been a ballpark backer:
“This is what we call a straight breach of contract, it’s not that much different than if somebody got behind on their car or house payments — you gotta settle up,” said board president Dave Cortese. “The difference is, this isn’t money for a car payment, this is money that needs to go toward all the services the county provides, everything from emergency rooms to a regional park service, libraries and courthouses. There’s no end to the hardship that would result in us being out of pocket $63 million.”
City Attorney Rick Doyle is among those who believe a deal can be reached by Wednesday, which is when the State Legislature is supposed to hear the new budget proposal.
Santa Clara is set to wrap up its work to protect RDA funds for the 49ers stadium project tomorrow.
San Diego is considering a Diridon-like transfer of 135 RDA-owned properties to the City.
Longtime NY Times baseball writer and anti-blog curmudgeon Murray Chass keeps up the weekly trickle of nationally-sourced articles pushing for the A’s to move south. This one follows a widely used AP piece last week. I sense a strategy in there… Chass’s column comes two years after a similar entry at his site, the difference this time being the appearance of Bill Neukom on the scene.
Jonah Keri’s new book about the Moneyball-style rise of the Tampa Bay Rays is out. The book is titled The Extra 2%: How Wall Street Strategies Took a Major League Baseball Team from Worst to First.
Added 3/15 1:00 AM – In Sunday’s edition of the Chronicle, Matier and Ross reported that Denver attorney Paul Jacobs was hired by Oakland to be its lead negotiator for the Victory Court project. The $455 per hour hiring, which wasn’t publicized immediately because it was done in closed session, is a big deal because Jacobs is prominent in the Western US for working on stadium deals. His biggest claims to fame are his role in putting together the resources that eventually created the Colorado Rockies, and the ballpark and land development deal around PETCO Park. As is often the case in the stadium game, Jacobs isn’t batting 1.000. More recently he worked on the aborted Pacific Commons project in Fremont and was retained by the City of Oceanside in its efforts to figure out a football stadium deal for the Chargers. One thing I’m curious about is whether or not the firm Barrett Sports Group was brought in. The last two links include mentions of Barrett Sports Group, the “other half” to Jacobs, with both hired as a package deal of sorts. Jacobs handles the real estate stuff, while BSG takes care of facility planning and financing. BSG counts A’s and Giants ownership as two of its many current or former private sector clients.
Being from San Jose I echo Bartleby’s statements on the Sharks being the only team in such a large city.
Do I like Hockey? No, but I root for the Sharks because they are the only team my home town has despite the fact it is by far the largest City in the Bay Area.
@jk- Terrible comparison with the Warriors, for the simple fact they are the only NBA team in a 8 million person market as Jeffrey points out
The Warriors get fans because there is no other option.
To put it in perspective:
-The Warriors are 12th place in the West and are top 10 in attendance.
-The Hornets are 7th in the West and are bottom 7 in attendance.
If the Hornets were in San Jose they would be selling out every game no problem with the quality team they have. The Warriors in turn would lose 2k fans per game and still would be in the top half in attendance despite a bad team.
That tells you right there the Bay Area is in fact a 2-team NBA market, with the Kings leaving it is only a matter of time before San Jose gets a team….probably sooner than later.
The A’s on the other hand have direct competition 10-12 miles away with the Giants who have the best ballpark in MLB and are defending WS champions.
The A’s need to get as far away from the Giants as possible to succeed from a business and fan perspective.
Briggs is correct despite the A’s having much better teams from 68-99 they outdrew the Giants only 17 out of 32 years……that tells you something right there.
Oakland even with the Raiders gone for 15 years did not get good attendance and with ATT Park so close a new ballpark would not change the A’s still getting revenue sharing from the league.
It is ironic that the Hornets or the NBA itself will be in the South Bay before the 49ers and A’s….WOW
bartleby… There are several factors that have contributed to San Jose beating the NHL Sunbelt Jinx… It isn’t JUST because of San Jose on the jersey, though that is part of it for some folks. For instance… The Bay Area has a lot more people than most of the other non traditional markets… That helps. The Sharks draw from as far away as Sacramento… That helps. The Bay Area is place where folks from all over the globe come to live… That helps.
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It would be speculation to say that an NHL team anywhere in the Bay Area would draw just as well. Pointless, really, because there is no way to disprove/prove it. The bottom line is that the NHL finally made the Bay Area work in San Jose, and while South Bay pride may be part of the reason the team draws well, it certainly isn’t the only and I don’t think you can say it is the most significant. I can definitely say that there is no correlation between hockey attendance and mlb attendance, in general. That is simply math.
San Jose isn’t on the jersey. A Shark biting a hockey stick is.
twas a metaphor
Has anyone picked up The Extra 2%? Just out of curiosity, are there any A’s fans here who didn’t like Moneyball?
FWIW there is an “SJ” on the Shark’s home alternate jersey. ;)
@ jeffrey “It isn’t JUST because of San Jose on the jersey”
I agree. However, I think this is a much bigger factor in San Jose’s case than for other Sun Belt NHL teams. San Jose is the tenth largest city in the US, but has less name recognition than any of the other top ten and many cities that are far smaller. Large numbers of folks on the East Coast cannot find San Jose on the map. As such, San Jose suffers from a bit of an inferiority complex. So I think the civic pride factor attached to Sharks games is a much bigger factor than it is for NHL cities like Phoenix, Anaheim, Tampa, Atlanta, Miami or Nashville, all of which have other major league teams AND are well known by the world at large for other reasons.
“The Bay Area has a lot more people than most of the other non traditional markets… That helps.”
A little, but if you’re looking at the Bay Area as a whole, it has an unusually high number of teams for a market of its size. The Bay Area is not that much larger than Miami or Atlanta, but has six professional teams compared to four in those markets. And as is constantly pointed out by pro-Oakland folks, San Jose is not terribly convenient for folks in the North Bay. Although I don’t have statistics to prove it, my sense is that Sharks attendance is largely Santa Clara county driven, whereas the Warriors draw far more widely through the region.
“The Sharks draw from as far away as Sacramento… That helps.”
Do you have any evidence that the Sharks draw more than a token number of people from Sacramento? If Sacramento represented a significant part of Sharks attendance, I would be very, very surprised.
“The Bay Area is place where folks from all over the globe come to live… That helps.”
How so? Do you think a big part of Sharks crowds are made up of Finnish emigres?
“It would be speculation to say that an NHL team anywhere in the Bay Area would draw just as well. Pointless, really, because there is no way to disprove/prove it.”
All true, but I’m going to speculate anyway. There is some reason why hockey has succeeded in San Jose but struggles in other non-traditional markets. There are five professional teams bunched up in a relatively small area in San Francisco and Oakland. I don’t believe if the Sharks played in Oakland they’d be doing anywhere near as well. What reason do non-hockey fans in San Francisco and Oakland have to adopt the sport? They have plenty of sports choices a stones-throw away already. Whereas in San Jose, before the Sharks came you had to be very committed to want to try to see a professional sporting event on a weeknight. There’s no doubt in my mind a lot of people in the South Bay became hockey fans largely because it was convenient.
“The bottom line is that the NHL finally made the Bay Area work in San Jose, and while South Bay pride may be part of the reason the team draws well, it certainly isn’t the only and I don’t think you can say it is the most significant.”
I never said it is the most significant. But I do believe it is significant, and would be an even bigger factor with a big-time sport like MLB. People down here are very excited about the possible validation, and I know a number of Giants fans who would adopt the A’s if they came down here because of convenience and/or civic pride.
“I can definitely say that there is no correlation between hockey attendance and mlb attendance, in general. That is simply math.”
There may not be a direct correlation. However, I do think Sharks attendance is a strong clue about the hunger for major-league sports in the South Bay generally, for reasons which may not apply to the same extent in other hockey markets.
Looks like they appreciate Oakland’s renaissance in Los Angeles:
http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-tr-oakland-20110320,0,7449157,full.story
@David–cool article. I’ve seen several similar articles the last few years in other publications like the NY Times on Oakland’s great food scene. Haven’t seen any on San Jose’s though. They do have a Spaghetti Factory in downtown SJ, where as Oakland’s at JLS was torn down due to it not being earthquake safe and the new expansion/renovations at the Square.