Link:

OAKLAND, Calif. — Oakland Athletics owner and managing partner Lew Wolff announced today the A’s have reached an agreement to purchase a 143-acre parcel from Cisco Systems with the intent of constructing a baseball park in the City of Fremont.

The state-of-the-art baseball-only stadium will be named Cisco Field as part of a 30-year naming rights agreement, which is valued at $4,000,000 million annually, with the potential for annual increases based on inflation. This naming rights agreement is transferable at any time. As part of the naming rights deal, Cisco will be granted an undisclosed amount of guaranteed print, radio and television exposure.

360 Architecture, with offices in Kansas City, Mo., Columbus, OH and San Francisco, and Gensler, with offices worldwide, will serve as the primary design companies for the ballpark.
Cisco Field will be located in Fremont, which is approximately 20 miles to the south of McAfee Coliseum, five miles north of the Santa Clara County line and 12 miles from downtown San Jose. With a population of over 210,000 people and an area of 92-square miles, Fremont is the fourth most populous city in the Bay Area and California’s fifth largest city in area. The ballpark site is proposed to be located on the west side of Interstate 880 off the Auto Mall Parkway.

The partnership with Cisco also includes a broad marketing and business agreement which will underscore the A’s commitment to create a unique fan experience by leveraging state-of-the-art network technology throughout the ballpark and franchise operation. As a result, Cisco Field will be one of the most technologically advanced stadiums in the world and will demonstrate the positive role technology can play in sport, entertainment and connecting communities. Cisco’s technology will be used to enhance every facet of the stadium, from ticketing and concessions to management of game day operations.

The partnership allows Cisco to utilize the facility for corporate and community events and to create a Cisco Customer Solutions Center at the ballpark in an effort to showcase the use of networking technology in a stadium. Cisco becomes the “Official Technology Partner of the A’s and Cisco Field” and the A’s will deploy Cisco technology to serve the needs of Cisco Field and the baseball village.

Groundbreaking on the project will commence once the A’s gain approval from the City of Fremont, Alameda County and other government agencies.
The estimated cost of the ballpark is between $400-500 million (excluding land) with construction time taking between 24-36 months.

The anticipated funding for the ballpark will be a combination of private equity and the application of the value of land use entitlements that will be generated by the activities of the ballpark and the adjacent ballpark village developments. The public assistance sought will be in the form of processing the development activity in the most efficient manner possible, the agreement that benefits generated solely by the development will in part or in total be used to facilitate the development program in a manner that will not impose on general fund or bonding issues on local government and other aspects of public-private cooperation that will stand the test of public acceptance.

“Today marks the beginning of a new era in A’s baseball in the Bay Area,” said Wolff. “Cisco Field will become a destination attraction that will be enjoyed by baseball fans throughout the Bay Area and beyond for generations to come. The location of the ballpark will able us to significantly expand our market place while giving our fans a unique experience at what promises to be one of the most exciting venues in the country. We thank Cisco Systems for the will and ability to make this new standard in fan and sponsor experience a reality. We have a number of rivers to cross, but once the value of what Cisco and the A’s are committed to accomplish is clear to the citizens of Fremont and Alameda County, we are confident our plans will add to the economic, social and community base of the region we serve.”

“The A’s are more than just a great baseball team, they are a symbol of the Bay Area, and Cisco is proud to play a role in ensuring they continue to call it home,” said Cisco President and CEO John Chambers. “Technology is changing every aspect of our life experiences and for Cisco, this is an opportunity to harness the power of our own innovative technologies to create a truly unique experience that transcends sports, connects communities and takes the fan experience to a whole new level.

“Cisco intends to be aggressive in ensuring the entire Bay Area community, particularly younger fans, have the opportunity to enjoy the A’s experience. We have a vision for how to make Cisco Field the model for all sports franchises,” he concluded.

“This announcement of a new ball park for the Oakland Athletics ensures the long-term stability of the club in the Bay Area,” said Major League Baseball Commissioner Allan H. (Bud) Selig. “I congratulate Lew Wolff of the Athletics and John Chambers of Cisco for developing a partnership that will benefit the community as well as the A’s and Cisco.

“As the landscape of baseball economics has changed dramatically in recent years, the importance of new ballparks that maximize the fan experience and expand club revenues, enabling the home team to remain competitive, can not be understated.”

Up to date information on the progress of Cisco Field can be obtained on the team’s official website Oaklandathletics.com. The Cisco Field link will include an overview of the project, artist renderings, videos, a virtual tour and ballpark facts and figures. Fans may also offer their suggestions regarding any aspect of Cisco Field through a special feedback section. Fans suggestions will be compiled on a weekly basis and forwarded to A’s management.

The A’s will continue to operate under its current lease agreement at McAfee Coliseum through the 2010 season, with the addition of three one-year club options through the 2013 season. Opened in 1966 and home of the A’s since 1968, the Coliseum is the eighth oldest ballpark in the Major Leagues behind Fenway Park (1912), Wrigley Field (1916), Yankee Stadium (1923), RFK Stadium (1961), Dodger Stadium (1962), Shea Stadium (1964) and Angel Stadium (1966), although both Yankee Stadium and Angel Stadium have undergone significant renovations over the years. The Coliseum is one of only four multi-purpose stadiums in the Major Leagues, including Dolphin Stadium in Miami, The Metrodome in Minneapolis and Rogers Centre in Toronto.

One of the American League’s original franchises, the Athletics have won nine World Series championships and have captured 15 American League pennants. Only the New York Yankees (26) and St. Louis Cardinals (10) have won more World Series championships than the A’s. Since 1968, the A’s have captured four World Series titles, six American League pennants, 14 AL West Division titles and one AL Wild Card. The A’s are one of the most community-minded teams in all of sports as the organization continues to support numerous charitable organizations in an effort to improve the quality of life of people throughout the Bay Area.

Headquartered in San Jose, Calif., Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com/. For ongoing news, please go to newsroom.cisco.com.

From the A’s press release:

Oakland A’s Owner and Managing Partner Lew Wolff will be making a major announcement tomorrow at 11:30 a.m. PT regarding the team’s quest for a new ballpark in the Bay Area.

The announcement will be available live on oaklandathletics.com at 11:30 a.m. PT. FSN Bay Area will also show the broadcast.

From Cisco’s press release:

Oakland Athletics and Cisco Systems To Host Press Conference

Who: Oakland Athletics and Cisco

What: The Oakland Athletics and Cisco will host a press conference for a special announcement.

Where:
Cisco’s Executive Briefing Center
300 Tasman Drive, San Jose, CA (Building 10)
408-526-4000

When:
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. PT
Doors open at 10:30 a.m. for TV camera set-up

Public can view the press conference live on FSN or via live webcast at http://www.oaklandathletics.com. A replay will be available following the event at http://www.oaklandathletics.com

Update: I have a credential, but unforseen circumstances will force me to be unable to attend. I’ll be streaming along with many of you.

The sheer number of articles covering the A’s-Cisco deal can cause anyone to miss a few not-so-minor details, including yours truly. The biggest one comes from Barry Witt’s 11/9 article (emphasis added in bold italics):

Lew Wolff has said he would fund part of the expected ballpark’s expected $400 million or more price tag through profits that would be created if the city agrees to convert Cisco’s industrial-zoned land to housing uses. He gave no details of that plan to council members Wednesday, but in a September discussion with the Mercury News editorial board, he suggested those profits would be given to the city, with the understanding the city would become an investor in the ballpark.

As outlined by Wolff, the city would “reinvest the money in a ballpark, provided you guys build it, you guys take care of any overruns, and you guys run it with no obligation on our part for operational deficits.”

“The city can continue to have the ownership, or the percentage they put into it,” he said. “If they put in” $200 million “and we put in 200, it’s 50-50.”

In past interviews Wolff suggested that the city would end up owning the ballpark, and I wondered how that could happen on private land with private financing. Now it’s starting to make sense. Once you start talking overruns and deficits you get into dangerous territory. Witt clarified the context in the quote. Wolff is speaking as a voice of the city, with “you guys” being the A’s.

Elephants in Oakland interviewed Field of Schemes author Neil deMause about the A’s Fremont overtures.

The effort to get the Olympics to the Bay Area in 2016 is already over before they could get started. The bid’s anchor venue was supposed to be the new Candlestick Point stadium, but now that the Yorks have declared the project too expensive and have moved their focus to Santa Clara, the bid has blown up.

A source familiar with the discussions between Santa Clara and both the Quakes and the 49ers told me that the two projects are in fact not competing for the same land next to Great America. The 49ers are looking at the Great America parking lot while the Quakes may end up using another site nearby. There’s plenty of open space in Santa Clara to do both as long as they aren’t co-located.

Rumors about the A’s-Cisco partnership and the team’s possible move to Fremont took less than 48 hours to be overshadowed by another team’s announcement: The 49ers were giving up on San Francisco and were leaning towards a Santa Clara home near their training facilities and Great America.

49ers owner John York and his staff hastily arranged a press conference for Thursday at the Santa Clara Hilton. During the press conference, York proceeded to bore the media to tears with explanations about why the Niners’ plans for a huge football-retail-housing complex at Candlestick Point wouldn’t work. He even used a slide presentation, which went over like gangbusters as I was listening to his spiel on KNBR. Not surprisingly, many members of the media accepted York’s supposed trials and tribulations as a rationale for heading down the Peninsula. Shortly afterward, the media picked up on the fact that York failed to explain how the stadium was going to be financed.

Now that talks are back on with San Francisco, it’s unclear whether the Santa Clara announcement was real or merely a threat to SF pols. It’s probably a little of both, but elsewhere lies a third way for the Niners. And unlike the first two explanations, this one actually looks smart.

Wednesday also marked the opening of the A’s/Quakes South Bay office on the ground floor of the Fairmont San Jose. Lew Wolff was there to exhort the amassed soccer fans, who so far are ecstatic about having truly local ownership that wants to build a proper home for Earthquakes 4.0. Sites being considered include Diridon South, the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds, and SJSU South Campus near Spartan Stadium.

The dark horse candidate is Santa Clara. That site just happens to be the same one that the 49ers are targeting for their stadium.

• Is it possible for separate football and soccer venues to exist on that land? No. There isn’t enough land for both unless you want people to park in Sunnyvale.
• Is it possible for football and soccer to share a venue? No. A typical NFL stadium seats 60-65,000, has 100-200 luxury suites, and 5-10,000 club seats. A model MLS soccer specific stadium (SSS) holds only 20-25,000 and has a fraction of a NFL stadium’s suites and club seats. Wolff’s three-year option with MLS calls for a SSS to be built for the Quakes. A shared situation with the A’s or 49ers will not work, the Quakes have to be the marquee tenant.

I’ve heard that Wolff has had some pretty fruitful initial discussions with Santa Clara pols. For York, that’s bad news because the Plan B (Candlestick Point is Plan A) is Santa Clara. What happens when Plan B gets eliminated? You lose leverage, that’s what. On the other hand, Wolff has had well scoped Plans A, B, and C (which city you affix to A-C may be dictated by what you believe Wolff’s motives are) and has so far come out looking pretty clean. That just goes to show how despite the similar situations (difficult cities to get a stadium deal done) it’s all about execution. The main things going for York at this point are that his 49ers are a ton more valuable than the Quakes and the Niners (as long time residents) have a good relationship with Santa Clara. By making the announcement, York has effectively taken Santa Clara off the table for the Quakes indefinitely. It doesn’t matter at this point whether or not it can be paid for. As long as attention is focused on the Niners he doesn’t have to do anything else.

Where I come from they call that a cockblock. For once in your tenure as owner, Mr. York, well played. Well played indeed.

Fixation on BART has made it seem like the other transportation solution in the area, good old-fashioned rail, has been ignored. That’s easy to do since the Capitol Corridor and ACE systems are less than twenty years old and neither is as visible as BART in the East Bay. Trains can help fill the gap that not having BART creates, but only if it’s done in a smart way to maintains the convenience that BART riders enjoy.

Capitol Corridor is a commuter service that runs between Auburn/Sacramento and Oakland/San Jose. It was launched in 1991 and has grown impressively ever since. Capital improvements used to reduce congestion on the rails it shares with Union Pacific, Amtrak, and ACE have allowed CC to increase its schedule to 32 trains per weekday and 22 trains per Sat/Sun/Holiday. Despite the fact that CC has to share rails with other passenger and freight services, its on time performance is 85%. Compare that to BART, whose on time performance is 91% with much greater schedule frequency but also a completely separated guideway that it doesn’t (and can’t) share with anyone else.

11 Bay Area stations are along the Capitol Corridor, from Fairfield to San Jose. Union City’s station is being planned, though today’s report of funding problems for the Dumbarton Rail project makes Union City’s development less certain. The original Pacific Commons plan called for a station to be built at the end of Auto Mall Parkway, over one mile from the project development area. Should the “A’s Town” project move forward, formal discussions about the Pacific Commons station will commence. Keith Wolff has reportedly been in contact with Capitol Corridor (among multiple transit agencies) about the possibilities.

Here’s the aerial photo from last April showing the BART WSX extension, station, and routes from Warm Springs to Pacific Commons. Note the location of the ACE/Amtrak station.

Even though the station is unencumbered by a freeway or other obstacles, it’s still over a mile away from PC. This is because much of the land is either protected preserve or is earmarked for other uses, such as a public park next to the planned station. From here there are two options:

• Keep the station where it was originally planned. This will incur less capital cost, but the ongoing need for shuttles from the station to PC may cost more in the long run. By shuttle, I mean either buses or some form of rail transit.
• Add a short 3/4 mile, double-tracked rail spur that terminates within the project boundaries. Getting the fans right to the doorstep eliminates the need for a mode switch or transfer. This convenience this provides would go a long way towards convincing fans that rail is a preferable method of travel. Below is a close-up.

Having a separate terminal station has other advantages. It creates queueing areas for special event trains, so special A’s trains coming from either Sacramento or San Jose/Gilroy could end their routes at the station. Existing track can be freed up for use by regular service trains and unrelated uses such as freight. The cost of the station would be $10-25 million depending on how elaborate it is (multiple platforms, station buildout).

Since some of the preserve space would be affected by building the spur, other project land would have to be reclaimed as new preserve area. I’m guessing around 9-10 acres. Here’s another photo of the area that includes a train station overlay and a bus depot.

What about BART? As you can see from the table below, there are two existing stations from which serve both BART and CC. Richmond’s location at the end of a line makes it useless as a transfer station, so only the Coliseum station can function in that manner. Should the Union City station come online that’ll create three. If you’re worried about having BART and CC sync, the two groups should have incentive. As I wrote yesterday, BART faces a sizable loss in ridership without a good solution for A’s fans. This allows them to create a smooth, single transfer solution for many East Bay and San Francisco fans.

It also doesn’t hurt that BART runs Capitol Corridor on behalf of the CCJPA. Even more incentive to get them working together, no? And how’s this for impact: Should Capitol Corridor recover only 10% of those displaced BART riders I wrote about yesterday, CC’s ridership would go up about 10%.

I’d like to see Translink get into the solution, but I’m not holding my breath. CC conductors are going to use bar code scanners at some point in the future, might as well get them to read smart cards as well. Travel times for the BART and CC are comparable (CC slightly slower), and CC fares when applying multiride discounts are also comparable. Times shown include a 6 minute jaunt from an established Fremont BART or Amtrak station to Warm Springs or Pacific Commons, respectively. The key will be to make that transfer as painless as possible, and that’s the challenge. That’s where Translink comes in.

Tri-Valley fans aren’t served by Capitol Corridor. ACE goes to Dublin, Livermore, and out to Tracy and beyond, but let’s see how their service ramps up before we start looking to ACE as a solution. As it is now, ACE only runs 8 trains per day – only on weekdays.

One couple of housekeeping note first: The long dormant “Scoreboard” feature on the sidebar has been redone with a different question, “Does the outlet/media figure support the A’s-Pacific Commons ballpark plan?” The question and the associated reactions may change as details are revealed. I’ve linked the columns by Gwen Knapp, Ray Ratto, Carl Steward, Mark Purdy, and Dave Newhouse so far.

With all of the talk about not having BART to service the Pacific Commons site, I decided to look into this further. We all know that no BART will equate to some indeterminate loss of A’s fans, but their substitutes may end up being South Bay fans. That’s not something I can quantify at this point, but it’s a reasonable assumption.

What about the effect on BART? Unlike the A’s, there’s no easy substitution for BART if A’s fans don’t ride it. Some fans may take BART & MUNI to Giants games, but it’s most likely that BART will suffer a ridership loss. The question is: How big?

Let’s start with actual BART ridership. According to the 2005 Annual Report, BART’s fiscal year ridership was usually under 100 million one-way trips or “exits” as they call them. The average ticket price was around $2.50.

Using the 15-25% BART riders-as-attendees figure cited previously, I produced the table below. It uses a sliding scale in which with larger crowds, a higher percentage of fans use BART. The total attendees using BART was 528,750, which may be overestimating things a bit (it works out to 25% of all A’s fans) but for now we’ll go with it for the sake of argument. The following table shows how much A’s fan trips to the Coliseum factor into total BART ridership.

1% may not sound like much, but it’s actually disproportionately high compared to the actual effect the A’s have on the local economy, which is more in the neighborhood of less than 0.1% of the Bay Area’s Gross Regional Product. Credit goes to A’s fans who utilize BART so well. 1 million rides means that A’s-related BART usage is actually heavier than all of the annual activity on some low usage stations such as Castro Valley or San Bruno.

Let’s use the worst case scenario for BART, in which no Warm Springs extension is built. Fans who no longer use BART for A’s games simply wouldn’t use BART at all for baseball, not even for Giants games. That includes a shuttle scenario to Pacific Commons, which I personally don’t think will work when coming from the existing Fremont BART station because of its cost and limited use. If we assign a $3 value for each one-way trip, the lost revenue would come to over $3 million per year. For a public transit agency that has trouble making ends meet, $3 million in lost revenue is nothing to sneeze at. The only thing that helps BART is that they’re pretty heavily subsidized, so the hurt won’t be too bad. Still, it could mean job cuts, higher fares, or other ugly solutions to this market change.

Contrast this with the A’s situation. In the model below, those same BART riding fans would be split into two groups: those who would drive to Fremont, and those who would stay home. The split is an even 50-50. I haven’t done any surveys or seen any numbers to back this assertion, but it’s a reasonable starting point. The “$ per fan” figure comes from two sources: an average ticket price of $25 per game, and $10 of concessions. If that 50% that would still attend drives instead, you get roughly 1000 additional cars per game, whose parking revenue would offset the loss somewhat.

Obviously, the money the A’s would lose on paper dwarfs what BART would lose. However, there’s a big difference between the two in that the A’s have other sources of revenue (besides the parking) to offset this loss. The team’s also expected to perform well at the gate for at least the first two years (numerous sellouts) so the attendance/concessions revenue would be maxed out anyway. That two year stint (perhaps longer) may end up being the waiting period required before BART finally comes to Warm Springs.

As for BART, they’ll take a decent hit. It’s not even close to enough to justify the cost of building WSX by itself, but it could contribute to revised ridership numbers that could boost the cases for both the WSX and San Jose extensions (the current numbers are admittedly dubious). Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty, who has championed the A’s-to-Fremont cause, is also a MTC commissioner who controls much of the regional transit money. He has the power to push funding in the right direction.

Tomorrow I’ll present a scenario in which BART would be used to the ballpark. Implemented correctly, there’s an opportunity to keep many of those lost BART riders and keep the costs low.

Update 11:27 p.m. – Trib reports that the Alameda County Board of Supervisors has approved the Coliseum lease extension, finalizing the A’s stay in Oakland through at least 2010.

Also, according to Chron the 49ers have given up on staying in San Francisco. Santa Clara may be next. I hope that the Yorks aren’t trying to game the city into giving them a big handout, because it’s not happening.

Update 10:07 p.m. – Chron’s Patrick Hoge has more details:

Unlike many stadiums surrounded by parking, this one would be swathed in shopping, Wasserman said. Ballpark patrons would park elsewhere and be shuttled in, he said.

Now that’s an unusual idea. If people coming on transit have to take a shuttle, why not have everyone? It’s baseball with the inconvenience of waiting for a bus to an airport long term parking lot.

Barry Witt has the scoop again: Cisco and the A’s have sealed their part of the deal. Among the highlights:

Wolff, who declined to speak to reporters today, told council members the development would be something like San Jose’s Santana Row — featuring condominiums stacked above street-level retail — with the major addition of a high-tech ballpark filled with Cisco-produced infrastructure.

The Santana Row comparison is a bit ironic since Wolff was a known critic of the plan when it was initially proposed in San Jose several years ago. A downtown advocate, he felt that Santana Row would effectively sink any chance for retail in downtown San Jose (which it did – restaurants and clubs are only half of the retail picture). Once Santana Row showed remarkable success, Wolff acknowledged it. Now it’s Wolff who will attempt to create something along that scale in Fremont.

In a previous comment thread, Bleacher Dave posed the idea that Fremont officials might be upset by having the initial press conference/presentation at Cisco’s San Jose headquarters than in Fremont. I don’t think this is a big deal at all. How else are Wolff and John Chambers going to dazzle the media if not in front of gigantic video screens at Cisco?

Tuesday’s midterm elections didn’t have any issues that directly affected the A’s, but some legislation passed that impacts the market enough to make ownership notice.

• In Sacramento, voters soundly defeated Measures Q & R, which would have raised and allocated money for a new Downtown Sac arena for the Kings. Over the last month, both items became doomed when the Kings pulled their support of the measures due to disagreements over deal terms, particularly parking agreements.
• Propositions 1A and 1B passed by their necessary margins, paving the way for needed transportation infrastructure improvements all over the state. The Bay Area could receive up to $4.5 billion of Prop 1B’s $19.9 billion total. $1.3 billion of the regional money will go towards mass transit, but let’s be realistic about what that means – $1.3 billion doesn’t go that far when considering the number of large projects out there. Some small but not insignificant amount will help with the BART Warm Springs extension and maybe even with planning for the San Jose extension, but the money can’t pay for everything.
• San Jose’s new mayor will be Democrat Chuck Reed. A fiscal conservative, Reed is not the go-to guy if anyone’s looking to facilitate a sweetheart deal for the A’s in downtown San Jose. Reed did vote for the ballpark EIR study and I came away from several meetings thinking the Reed would go with the downtown site if that’s all the A’s wanted, but as we now know from the larger scope of the A’s plans, the site itself won’t be enough.
• Proposition 90, the eminent domain compensation measure, was defeated. A similar measure passed in Oregon two years ago and resulted in billions of dollars of compensation claims against local and state governments. Prop 90 wouldn’t have been relevant in the Fremont Pacific Commons situation, but should that fail and the A’s look elsewhere, it could come to the forefront.

More on transportation later today.

Update (3:05 PM) – Paul T. Rosynsky and Chris De Benedetti report that the press conference could take place at Cisco headquarters in San Jose. And MLB spokesman Richard Levin chimed in on the city name issue:

“There are no rules on the books (regarding names),” said Richard Levin, spokesman for Major League Baseball. “It is something the commissioner would have to deal with.”

Cue the commish.

Update (2:48 PM) – Barry Witt reports that Lew Wolff will meet with Fremont City Council members this week to give them a sneak peek at the Pacific Commons development plans.

KCBS sports reporter and one-time fill-in radio play-by-play man Steve Bitker has learned that “the Oakland Athletics will soon announce plans to move the club to Fremont, and build a new stadium complex there.” In addition, MLB commish Bud Selig will fly in next week, probably to give it his blessing. Selig and the MLB office have been uncharacteristically quiet regarding the A’s efforts. That’s a sharp contrast from the Marlins’ situation, which appears to have MLB instead of the team negotiating directly with the pols.

With the expectation that Cisco officials will also be present, Fremont may be the place for the announcement. The forecast for November 14: Scattered showers. Apropos?

Bitker’s scoop is an interesting one. As a tenured Bay Area media guy and former A’s employee he’s got tons of access to local sports franchises, but he has “inside baseball” going the other way too. His wife, Alice Lai-Bitker, just happens to be Alameda County District 3 Supervisor.

In other news, the San Jose Earthquakes/Oakland A’s South Bay office will officially open this Wednesday, November 6. Check out Soccer Silicon Valley for more details.

Not much has been heard from the Vegas camp for several months. In SI writer Ian Thomsen’s Inside the NBA column, flamboyant mayor Oscar Goodman talks about Sin City’s prospects for a pro sports franchise, namely a NBA team such as the Kings. While commissioner David Stern’s stance on not allowing a team in Vegas until the city’s casinos take NBA games off the books hasn’t changed, Goodman will keep trying, starting with selling the experience of the sure-hit 2007 All Star Weekend.

What about baseball? I’ll let the following blurb speak for itself (quotes attributed to Goodman):

On Major League Baseball, which two years ago appeared to be the frontrunner to move a team to Las Vegas:

“It died. I spoke to (baseball commissioner Bud) Selig because the Marlins had come out to see me and I wanted to pursue that. They called me and they said that Selig didn’t want them talking to me. I called (the commissioner’s office) up and verified that, and I wasn’t about to make an enemy. I’ve had (NFL commissioner Paul) Tagliabue that I’ve had to contend with, so I didn’t want to make an enemy out of Selig too.”

So much for the Vegas conspiracy. Oooh, here’s one: Selig was really saying that in not allowing the Marlins to talk to Goodman, he’s reserving the A’s to pursue Vegas. R-i-i-i-ght.