No statement I have seen better exemplifies Oakland’s strategy than this quote by City Administrator Fred Blackwell from the SF Business Times: “San Francisco has given the Warriors a waterfront offer that they could not refuse,” said Fred Blackwell, assistant city administrator, in a statement. “And in the end, we will leave a space for [...]

Just like that, Coliseum City is in jeopardy. The interwebs are abuzz with reports that the Golden State Warriors and the City of San Francisco are going to announce a Pier 30/32 arena deal as soon as this week. The team has issued a non-denial denial, and the rumor appears to have multiple sources, which [...]

Thanks to a spectacularly bad lease negotiated by St. Louis pols, the Rams have the right to a “top tier” stadium as long as they stay near the Gateway Arch. This week, St. Louis found out just what “top tier” (top eight) means. The City gulped and tabulated just how much it’ll cost for the [...]

There’s been a wide range of reaction from Bud Selig’s non-update yesterday. Gwen Knapp: “No decision means ‘no’ to the A’s. They aren’t getting the rights to San Jose, not yet, not soon, not even over Larry Baer’s stone-cold corpse.” Mark Purdy: “And no action was taken — although Wolff’s quotes do indicate the blue-ribbon [...]

While the City of San Francisco continues its schmoozing of the Warriors, Kings ownership is going to war with Sacramento. Apparently the Maloofs hired a former FBI agent to look into the signatures provided by supporters of ThinkBig Sacramento, a civic group whose focus is to keep the team in the capital city. That caused [...]

According to Matier & Ross, the City of San Francisco has sent a letter to the Warriors urging the team to work with the city on a new arena deal in SF. A month ago it was revealed that W’s ownership was looking at Piers 30 & 32, which were removed from the America’s Cup [...]

As of yesterday’s Minnesota legislature-approved stadium plan for the Vikings, Minnesotans have approved some $1.85 billion in new venues since 2005-06. Only a year ago it was believed that the Vikings drew the short straw as the University of Minnesota’s football program (TCF Bank Stadium) and the Minnesota Twins (Target Field) got funding before the [...]

Last summer, we followed the City of Oakland’s budget process with more attention than we normally would. The reason for the coverage was that the City was doing some financial trickery in order to make the budget work. In order to fill a $58 million budget deficit, Mayor Jean Quan tried to pass a parcel [...]

From the end of Joe Stiglich’s recap of Tuesday night’s thrilling walk-off slam win (courtesy of Mark Purdy, I assume): A’s owner Lew Wolff said Tuesday that he would be willing to meet with Don Knauss, the Clorox chief executive officer who is spearheading the latest effort to keep the team in Oakland. But Wolff, [...]

The following letter was placed in today’s Tribune (PDF). An Open Letter to John Fisher, Majority Owner of the Oakland A’s May 8, 2012 Dear Mr. Fisher: After five years of failed efforts to move the A’s out of Oakland, the time has come for you to sit down with Oakland and Alameda County officials [...]