“I was looking at the problem from an angle different than the antitrust injury pov (which is not a “standing” issue, btw; that’s separate in A/T cases under Associated Gen. Contractors, et al.).”
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It has been called a standing issue by some courts and not called a standing issue by other courts. I believe you yourself referred to it as a standing issue in an earlier thread. In any event, you’re really splitting hairs here. I doubt most readers of this blog care about whether it’s technically a standing issue anymore than they care about the technical difference between a writ and an injunction.
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“In any event, harm to competition is the key to antitrust injury. I suppose you could look at it this way: If cities did compete in a market for pro-sports franchises, the leagues’ restrictions on relocating, etc., would injure that competition. It’s pure phantasm, however. There is no such market.”
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Of course cities compete in a market for pro-sports franchises. Has it escaped your notice that San Jose and Oakland are in exactly such a competition right now, notwithstanding the fact that San Jose has to fight with one arm legally tied behind its back?
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“That there is injury is undeniable.” How is a city injured by something that might happen not happening? Does San Jose have an agreement with the A’s to move the franchise to town? What is the specific nature of the existing business relationship between San Jose and the A’s? Without that, you have no state-law tortious interference claim.
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As I understand, the A’s and San Jose have a contract for the Diridon land sale, which would be sufficient to support a tortious interference with contract claim. Regardless, a formal agreement is not a requirement to bring a tortious intereference with prospective economic advantage claim. The name of the tort pretty much says it all: It requires “…intentional and improper interference with another’s prospective contractual relation whether by inducing a third person not to enter the relation or preventing the other party from acquiring or continuing the relation.”
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So to answer your question, yes, the law provides recourse for something that might happen not happening, in certain circumstances.
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“Finally, the damages calculations you outlline make no sense. The routine tortious interference damage calculation typically concerns what the defendant earned in profit after tortiously taking the business deal away from the plaintiff. I was negotiating with Co. X for a 5 year contract to provide services for $1M per year, but the defendant lied to Co. X about the capacity of my firm and tortiously wrested the client away. Damage calculations start at $5M (then pare down toward actually provable expected profits for the 5 years). Your calculations are ephemeral and speculative by comparison.”
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Don’t be absurd. The courts have several measures of damages they can employ, and discretion to choose the one which best fits the facts. The right to host an MLB team is extremely valuable, as evidenced by the fact that municipalities regularly spend hundreds of millions of scarce public dollars to do so. You can say there is actually an active market for this rights, with valuations supported by actual transactions involving real money. This type of valuation is actually far less “emphemeral and speculative” than any measure I can think of that the Giants might use to value their territorial rights in a theoretical lawsuit.

San Jose has an agreement to sell land to them via options and let them build on that site with the A’s. Like the LA Coliseum Authority MLB is not allowing San Jose to negotiate with other teams to bring a team to this site regardless if a ballpark sits there or not….that is relative to the argument of anti-competitive behavior and Rule of Reason.

T-rights however are still a big question mark and Tampa Bay proved that years ago and Selig tucked his head between his legs paid them 15M to shut up and awarded them an expansion franchise…..tells you something very distinct. The Curt Flood Act of 1998 still is vague on how far it extends as well in repealing the MLB ATE.

My next argument that LA did not have is the Media Market.

The A’s/Giants share media market wise the entire area. Baltimore-Washington do not as each city has its own nightly news. The fact the entire market is shared media wise helps San Jose’s argument. A team cannot relocate 35 miles away to another city in the same media market becaue of another competing business is 100% anti-competitive behavior….This is so obvious, the ATE would be on a tight rope with this argument.

San Jose people can watch A’s games no problem on TV. Yet they cannot have the team play in their city?

This shows clearly by “Rule of Reason” San Jose has been the victim of anti-competitive behavior in a worse fashion than the LA Coliseum was….The A’s already exist in the same media market. The Giants argument is so flawed from this perspective what lawyer would want to argue their case in any kind of court I ask? Kangaroo Court? LOL!

It is not the giants right to fight for the so-called San Jose territory, they have no claim to it, their claim to it is anti-competitive, and even the ATE may not help them. The San Jose mayor Reed also said that what the giants are attempting is very anti-competitive. Despite their “army of lawyers ” (can they really afford that anyhow ? – they are on a limited budget) The giants do not have the leverage you believe they do. The A’s may actually be in a better financial position, and better able to fight legal battles than the giants can. The fact is that the MLB ATE is not very solid, can be be beaten (as mentioned before, the Tampa Bay owners group has done it previously) and the A’s have a good chance of defeating it if they have to. What the giants are attempting and what actually may occur are two different scenarios.

SJ is a great market for baseball. At the very least there is plenty of disposable income in SJ, which is always going to be attractive to a real estate investor..er, I mean dedicated MLB ownership group. Maybe the A’s can’t move to SJ because SJ is, in fact, in the best interest of baseball. Only problem for the A’s is: the Giants figured that out a few years ago and are already there. The Silicon Valley marketing efforts they’ve been up to for years are now paying off. Do you honestly think they’re going let the A’s move right into the middle of that market without a pretty good fight? The A’s want SJ for the same reasons the Giants don’t want to let them move there.