Warriors – San Francisco is the center of the SF Bay Area. There’s only one team in the Bay Area. They used to be called the San Francisco Warriors. They’ve never been the Oakland Warriors. There’s no reason they shouldn’t move to San Francisco for a new arena and Oakland fans don’t have a problem with that.

Raiders – Uh, it’s the RAIDERS. Why use logic to explain their behavior? History shows they’ll go where the money is. The Raiders want a new stadium. If they can build it in the Coliseum parking lot they will. The A’s have to leave first.

San Jose Market – I didn’t say it’s a horrible market. I said it’s NOT SUPERIOR to Oakland. Big difference, kiddo.

GoA’s – Other than presuming that rich people always know what they’re doing – what’s your point? Wolff’s investment and development happens where is best for his business. What that means in real life is where he knows people and can get things done. Clearly Lew Wolff is not an Oakland guy and he’s smart enough to not try and work his routine in a town that doesn’t appreciate it. This says nothing at all about Wolff’s skills as a businessman or Oakland’s ability to function as a city.

The Giants – The Giants are obviously going to defend their territory. It’s part of the valuation of the team. Why would they do otherwise? They have a region of nearly 2 million people that is threatened. They have a ballclub there and have surely spent years working to make the people in that area fans of their product. The Giants rightfully have no delusions about absorbing A’s fans. It’s not going to happen. If the A’s move from Oakland to San Jose the Giants lose. Now, since this is real life and not theory, let’s suppose that the kinds of things that tend to actually make a difference are involved. I’d guess that the Giants heavy opposition has to do with specific investments of specific part-owners of the Giants. There is a faction in that ownership group that cares. The reasons are probably selfish and probably have nothing to do with baseball. That’s usually how it goes in business. In american capitalism it is practically a sin to leave money on the table. The Giants are doing what they can to leverage the situation should it not work out in their favor. Angelos was able to extract major concessions out of MLB when the Nationals showed up in DC. You’d call the Giants irresponsible if they behaved otherwise. And I’m sure the A’s would do the same if the Giants wanted to build a ballpark in Pleasanton.

The population of the city of San Jose is a geographic quirk more than a relevant factor. The South Bay (San Jose) metropolitan area has a population around 1.9 million. The East Bay Oakland metropolitan area has a population around 3 million. Those numbers are widely available. Oakland is at the geographic center of the Bay Area and has access via proximity and transportation options to the San Francisco market as well. JLS *already* has a direct ferry connection to downtown San Francisco. There is also BART and the Bay Bridge. Meanwhile downtown San Jose is a 40-60 minute drive for the bulk of the SF Bay Area population. San Jose is at an extreme end of the larger Sf Bay Area region. The valley is completely built-up and I’ve never encountered any suggestion that the population would match that of the East Bay within 30 years.

You ignored my Forbes-sourced statistics showing the Sharks as a money loser. Also, NHL does not compare well to MLB because it has half as many games and half as many seats. Sure 17k sell-outs are great but if that arena needed to fill 45k seats twice as often they may not have quite the track record. Throw in the competition from another major sport and you start seeing why the population figures matter. While the A’s have not drawn as well as most would like in their current location they *have* supported the team for real. The Oakland A’s have not gone out of business and the worst years of attendance were the direct result of bad ownership and other factors that don’t tell you much about the fanbase. Charlie Finley? MLB Strike? Mt Davis? These events all depressed attendance. Haas? Billy Beane? These factors DROVE attendance. A weak playoff A’s team in a lousy facility in Oakland drew 2 million plus fans for 5 years in recent history at the same time that the competing MLB club had a new ballpark, one of the all-time greats in MLB history putting on a show, and even won a world series. The A’s also had poor TV and Radio coverage in those years and little media presence thanks to disinterested ownership that was publicly advocating relocation and a league that was publicly discussing the A’s as a contraction target.

Oakland can definitely compete as an MLB market given a proper new facility. That much is obvious. Further, the Warriors are likely to leave Oakland proper freeing up more fan dollars for the A’s.

The 49ers stadium is not an MLB stadium. There are so many market differences for MLB and NFL that the comparison is meaningless.

….So why did the 49ers not really consider Oakland and instead are moving to the South Bay? They could have partnered with the Raiders to build half a new stadium (all that would be needed) in the Coliseum parking lot. They could have spent less money and had more parking available and great BART access. But they’re going to spend more money to go to the interior South Bay anyway. Guess they didn’t get the memo….

…San Jose has more than twice as many people, more disposable income and far more corporations than Oakland (needed to privately finance a ballpark). San Jose also has a better history of major sports support (Sharks sell out every year whether the team is good or not; A’s have drawn poorly for most of their 44 years in Oakland, despite 4 World Series, 6 AL pennants and 15 playoff appearance.) If the East Bay has all this wealth as you say, it’s certainly not using much of it to buy A’s tickets.

re: A’s profit…Take away league revenue-sharing (subsidies) and what kind of profit would the A”s have? The A’s are heavily subsidized by MLB; the Sharks stand on their own.