Sacramento switches focus from Kings to A’s
With hope fading to keep the Kings in town in spite of an uncooperative Maloof family, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson and civic booster group Think Big Sacramento will officially start the process of luring MLB, and particularly the A’s, to the Capitol. The Bee has a report with quotes from the mayor and sports industry experts from Andy Dolich to former Pirates owner Kevin McClatchy, who is acting as an informal advisor to the effort. KFBK’s Rob McAllister tweeted that an announcement will be made tomorrow at 11 AM.
View from the northeast has rail platforms to the right and original train station on the other side of the arena.
The now-dead arena plan always had a stadium or other commercial component as a backup just in case the arena was derailed. The key component remains the same: $250 million in public funds from the sale of future parking revenues. $200k in EIR and other studies were approved by the City Council in April with this in mind. Johnson wants an anchor for the railyards, the 240-acre brownfield north of the train station and downtown proper. The ballpark will cost $500 million, leaving some question as to where the rest would come from. Even if the Kings leaving Sacramento is entirely ownership’s fault, it simply won’t look good that a city with a lone major sports franchise lost said team. MLB isn’t going to provide the money, leaving the rest of the financing on the shoulders of the team – a dicey proposition for a small market. The River Cats have historically been top attendance performers at Raley Field. The revenue demands for the A’s could be 4-6 times what the River Cats are pulling down at Raley, in keeping with higher attendance and premium seating requirements.
Lew Wolff has expressed zero interest in moving the A’s to Sacramento, having noted that he was friends with late River Cats owner Art Savage. They probably shared notes on the viability of Sacramento in the past, and Wolff, knowing that an invasion by the A’s would force Savage’s team to move in kind, probably considered such an effort out of bounds. McClatchy’s an interesting choice as a sounding board in that he’s sort of the perfect guy to be a consigliere here. Sacramento’s a small market with less corporate support than Pittsburgh, and McClatchy notoriously ran the Pirates on the cheap during his entire tenure, despite a brand new, publicly-financed stadium in PNC Park.
The timing of the announcement, just prior to the All Star Game in Kansas City, is designed to get the attention of MLB owners, all of whom are expected to be assembled for the festivities this week.
View of the Sacramento Railyards from the existing Amtrak platform
There’s a bit of a technical issue with the ballpark concept. The rendering near the top of the post shows the arena snugly fitting between the existing rail terminal and the new passenger platforms, which are under construction. The wedge-shaped lot where the arena/ballpark would sit is only around six acres in size. While that’s fine for an arena, it’s too small and compromised for a ballpark. The only way to make a ballpark work might be to build part of it over the new rail platforms, though that could prove costly. The pro-arena/ballpark group obviously prefers a new ballpark to a refurbishment of Raley Field due to the nature of the public financing aspect: Sacramento isn’t going to foot the bill for something happening in West Sacramento. Besides, as I’ve explained before, Raley Field may have been conceived to be easily expandable, but it wasn’t built that way.
It’ll be interesting to see how far this gets and whether this idea gets any traction. There will be many fans and citizens who are interested. Others may want to stick with the Kings until the end and consider the baseball interest a distraction. Whatever the reception, the effort adds yet another wrinkle to the ongoing saga of the A’s quest for a new ballpark.
Lakeshore, you’re again working on the assumption that cities are people and that the cities own their teams and most importantly that these cities care that a few fans “love” them. They don’t. These teams are businesses, and like all businesses they’re in the business of making money. They can do that more effectively in the cities they’re moving to because Oakland hasn’t shown them love where it really matters, showing up to games, buying tickets and providing them with corporate sponsors/suite buyers, and they haven’t been doing that for the A’s. Is it fair to Oakland, no. But then life isn’t fair, particularly to Oakland. There’s a reason it’s one of only two shrinking cities in the Bay Area. It’s not like the A’s and Warriors are the first businesses to leave. Hell they’re two of the last. Even Mayor Quan’s white knight Knauss’ company Clorox has been leaving town.
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Chi, stop with the personal attacks or ML is liable to ban your ass.
California is broke.
Oakland is broke. Oakland Voters rejected a parcel tax that would’ve added cops … Quan isn’t going to play a game of political suicide by asking for more taxes for a ball team.
We are waaayyy past the point where the aesthetics are the main focus of building a park. The problem right now is that Oakland does not have a site other than a place where MLB doesn’t want a park (Current home), a place that is too expensive to even begin (Victory Court and CC), and a corporate base that is minimal at best, based on what the Giants have snatched up in the same radius.
This Sacramento thing, even though it had to be reported, isn’t a news story. Kinda like, hey if you’re marriage doesn’t work out and I happen to still be single, give me a call. Not much there there.
Alameda County voters got screwed by Mt. Davis, and it was a joke when the financing was first reported in ’95. There is no public money available, and probably never will be. If Oakland wants to play, they gotta pay.
@Chi – On one hand you like Coliseum City yet on the other hand you don’t think Save Oakland Sports and the Mayor are capable of getting it done. I have trouble making sense of your comments. There’s zero depth there.
To answer your question, a three-venue Coliseum City is pure pipe. One or two venues is far more realistic. Pick your battle and move forward.
He who defends everything defends nothing
@Lakeshore – KJ may be a “Cal” guy, but he was a Sacramento guy for 18 years before he set foot on campus anywhere near the East Bay.
@Dan – Oakland hasn’t shown up to games???? Well, maybe since the A’s owner has publicly declared at every opportunity that he wants nothing to do with Oakland (now in full-blown contempt), the fans should continue to show up and finance his departure? Absurd. If you know anything about Oakland it is brimming with civic pride. You could sell anything with “Oakland” on it and you couldn’t make enough of them to sell. The only thing you can’t do is tell them to go to hell and that you’d rather be on the other side of one of the Bay Area’s bridges. Oakland people have slogged through everything that city has thrown at them to this day and they won’t give up. It doesn’t have to be pretty or popular for them – Oakland people have incredible fortitude. In the years prior to the Lew Era, attendance was fairly sturdy. In some years, better than the Giants, who are surrounded by a city with 3x the population of Oakland.
I don’t care what you say: that whole “We don’t care what you think, we’re going to represent” attitude that the Warriors have enjoyed for 30 pitiful years came directly from the heart of Oakland. Who else in the Bay Area has to have such blatantly foolish pride, even in the face of their own hating, inter-Bay neighbors, let alone the rest of the world at large? That attitude only comes from full-heartedly believing enough in something that you don’t care if anyone hates you for it. It’s not my fault that short-sighted owners don’t recognize this about Oakland. I shamelessly represent Oakland at every opportunity.
Oakland never cared that much about winning; it’s all about the TOWN. You can’t quantify the heart of a target-demographic with a market study commissioned by some analyst from places elsewhere. The only thing Lew thinks is that there’s more money in San Jose. That does not inherently translate to butts in seats.
Despite the fact that not one of those THREE teams has won much in the last 10 years (maybe the most pitiful era in any single city’s sports history), attendance has been suprisingly good for a rag-tag, second-rate city with an apparently inadequate sports facility. Those fans never cared that they couldn’t get a quiche at the concession stand – the owners do. Can you blame the fans for not showing up at A’s games now? Apparently you can.
Lakeshore, A’s attendance is well documented, and it’s been bad more than just the last few years. It’s been bad the bulk of their time here other than 3-4 years in the late 80′s and early 90′s.
Lakeshore, you are saying that the team that refuses to put “Oakland” in it’s name has seen a big benefit because of the civic pride said team has engendered in Oaklanders?
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That’s interesting.
Jeffrey, I am not sure what it is but the Warriors have perhaps the most loyal fans in the NBA and I wonder if that would be the case if they were in another city in the Bay Area.
I’d say to the two most consistent fanbases are those of the Warriors and the Sharks and neither has much to do with the city in which they play. It’s about being the only option in that particular sport in a large and wealthy region.
@ Dan – yeah, the last 10 years of so after they traded their top pitching staff and most of the good players (circa Lew era) have seen sagging attendance. Prior to that dismantling of the team, the A’s were fine in Oakland. Now, I don’t know where you get your data (lew.com?), but I have hundreds of actual pictures from about 15 years of A’s baseball in Oakland. I was there frequently and that place was always full of fans. Otherwise, the A’s would not have lasted in Oakland as long as they have. Besides, what’s to guarantee that attendance will be better in San Jose? A new park? I’m pretty sure a new park would have the same effect in Oakland.
@ Jeffrey – you make a good point. Still, despite that and despite being an apparently inadequate facility, the fans never seemed to mind one bit that the team played in Oakland. SF largely couldn’t be bothered with the Warriors until “We Believe” because of the historical association with losers and simply being in Oakland. Only when they got a whiff of winning did SF respond. Prior to that, I’d bet that the Warriors crowd was predominantly East Bay. And of course the Sharks benefit from San Jose!!!! I don’t know that many people (3?) from the central Bay Area who venture down to SJ with any reliable regularity just to watch Sharks games – the Sharks LIVE off of the South Bay.
@nobody in particular – I am sincerely trying to figure out why Oakland gets so little love. Funny how everyone only attributes negative qualities to Oakland, like there is nothing redeeming at all. If the city weren’t occupied with middle-class minorities and high proportion of criminal incidents, Oakland would be the ideal place to develop in the Bay Area. The worst part? Oakland really isn’t as bad as it seems, I swear. People who are not from Oakland have their stories so muddled up that they are too scared to give Oakland an objective look – people readily admit they are too scared to even go. So how much stock should we put in opinions that are based almost primarily in image? From nearly every real estate indicator, Oakland has more to offer than San Jose, San Francisco and Sacramento. If it weren’t for the fear people have, Oakland would be the jewel in the Bay Area’s crown. You are smirking right now.
Lakeshore, you can find attendance data on many sites. ESPN.com, for instance. Baseball-reference.com. What you will find is that the A’s have been in the lower half of MLB attendance all but 7 seasons since moving to Oakland. Consider, that in that same timeframe they have been in the playoffs 15 times, and in contention for a playoff appearance deep into the season many other seasons, and that is objectively a bad record of drawing fans across 4 ownership groups and 4 decades.
From 1971 through 1975 the A’s were 7th, 5th, 8th, 11th and 6th (out of 12) in AL attendance. They finished first each year. They won the World Series three years in a row. They’ve never been this dominant, they were better than the Bash Brothers, they were better than Moneyball, yet the attendance was fair to weak. Sure, Charlie O was a bad owner, but does a bad owner keep you away from going to see the best team in baseball? This doesn’t make sense to me. Now, they continued to rank in the bottom of attendance into the late 70s but that, at least, made sense as the A’s well and truly sucked. The teams of the 1980s were more logical (good team good attendance, bad team bad attendance) in their attendance patterns. My source is baseball-reference.com
As for the Moneyball era, the best they could do was rank 6th out of 14 AL teams In 2003 Even though they’d been putting together damned good seasons for 4 years in a row. Please note, this isn’t to hate on Oakland, just looking at the numbers. It’s simply baffling that out of two of the three stretches where the A’s were consistently putting good to great teams on the field and they were struggling to achieve even an average attendance rank in the AL (and were often failing to reach average).
Atlanta, Baltimore, Cleveland, San Francisco, etc. all had poor or less than stellar attendance before their new yards, for various reasons. Build a new park in Oakland or San Jose or Pacheco and people will fill the yard up. Discounting Oakland as a center of sports pride because the region hasn’t historically been baseball crazy isn’t completely fair. Oakland HAS hosted a packed arena for the Warriors, supported the Raiders with total sellouts before they left (and have supported the team better than L.A. did since they returned, even with the PSL debacle). experienced the Haas boon and is a city with immense pride and passion that, yes, I haven’t seen in many other cities. Funding and corporate support is totally in question right now, but I’m fully convinced of Oakland’s strong sense of civic pride.
I’m wel aware that Oakland has civic pride and for many good reasons, it has many wonderful places and some great history. It’s simply that they’ve had rather lackluster baseball attendance even when they’ve had a good team. The Haas era was actually fairly logical, attendance was great … When the team was great. When the team was poor (think 1983-1986 and 1993-1997) then attendance was poor.
As for the Warriors, their support has been impressive, especially considering the general mediocrity of he product most seasons. One wonders though how things would work out if they had another local NBA team as competition. I mean, if you’re an NBA fan the Warriors are your only option to see that level of play.
@eb: Atlanta was consistently in the top 5 in NL attendance at Fulton County … Once they started winning. Look at their stats from 1991-1996 then compare with the 6 years before. Baltimore got Camden Yard in 1992 and a winning record, beginning a mid 90s run of decent, competitive baseball. Their attendance before was reflective of their record. Same with the Tribe. Sure, they had terrible attendance before the Jake, but they were also consistently awful. The Giants also generally had pretty bad teams in the 1970s to the mid 80s while at the ‘Stick. In all your examples, winning brought the crowds, losing didn’t.
One lesson for the A’s might be, where ever they ultimately build a new park, they need a winning team on he field.
Bayareanative, why only include AL attendance figures? It excludes half the league? And honestly, I don’t think it matters all that much except from one angle: presages of premium seats for private financing of a stadium. The only reason I responded is because lakeshore made a statement that was patently false. The A’s, as measured against MLB attendance, have done very poorly. One night I am going to go through all the seasons from 1968-2012 and see how many times a playoff team has been in the bottom half of MLB attendance. I can’t imagine it has happened more often than the 8 times it happened on Oakland. I wonder if it ever happened in Baltimore? Anyway… Attendance of average Joel’s is only really important if you are countIng on them to buy expensive ticket packages to help fund stadium construction.
Ps bayareanative, stop looking at baseballalmanac.com and instead use baseball-reference.com. Their attendance breakdowns are not partitioned by league.
Jeffrey: I was using baseball-reference.com and that’s how they partitioned it (at least as I was able to figure it out)? Still I think we’re in agreement on the bigger points, A’s attendance seems oddly untethered from on-field performance which doesn’t seem to be he case for other clubs.
@Jeffrey The Orioles were either on the cusp, at half or lower 5 of the 8 times they were in the playoffs since before Camden Yards. I’m just saying that the A’s would have drawn poorly in the Bay Area no matter what city they played in during their time in the Bay Area under the same circumstances. It is a false claim that Oakland or even the Bay Area has ever really been a baseball hotbed, I won’t argue that. It’s always been the NFL, until At&t and the 2010 WS helped change that. A new stadium will do well in whatever city it gets built, the where is just a matter of preference at this point.
@eb – A matter of preference, or a matter of where it can be built with private funds?
Yep. That’s the odd thing… They don’t get the boost from winning that other teams do, with a few exceptions