Matier & Ross have the results of two polls – one conducted by an independent Oregon pollster, another commissioned by the Giants – gauging San Jose and Santa Clara county resident interest in an A’s move south.
The poll of 400 Santa Clara County voters found that the half living in San Jose were split, 45 to 44 percent, on whether they approve of the A’s moving to town.
Countywide, support for the move was slightly better, 45 to 37 percent.
The survey was conducted Oct. 26 to 28 by Oregon pollster Rick Lindholm, who tells us he added the A’s question to a broad survey of Santa Clara County opinion “to get a benchmark of what was going on.”
The survey pretty much mirrors what the Giants, who are opposing the move, found in their polling – but sharply differs from what A’s boosters in Santa Clara found in their survey.
A Giants poll of 528 county voters, including 275 from San Jose, conducted from April 21 to 27 found respondents leaning 2 to 1 against the move if it meant spending public money, and rating a new ballpark as dead last among seven possible spending priorities in the county.
M&R also make mention of a poll conducted by SJ/SV boosters whose results haven’t yet been released. As I understand it, this particular poll is also a broad-based poll covering a number of issues. Results aren’t expected to be publicized until the full P.R. effort begins, whenever that is. The Giants poll is emblematic of the shadiness of polling, since the questions were designed to elicit certain responses. I don’t know what the questions were from the SJ/SV poll, but I suspect that the issue was worded differently in order to elicit the opposite response.
newballpark.org 
So why are the Giants worried about territorial rights? Get any compensation for them that you can and than run all the way to the bank because according to their pollster it won’t happen—best of both worlds….unless of course the poll is worded as ML suggested to get the response that you want-
Notice they threw in the part about public spending. Gee, I wonder if that swayed opinions at all.
NT,
Welcome to the blog! Things have been pretty dry over at SJInside. Anyhow, I agree wholeheartedly with your post. Here’s a question I hope get’s thrown out when the PR machine get’s underway:
“Do you favor an A’s ballpark in downtown San Jose if the construction is privately financed with NO public spending?”
Of course, you’ll have “Howard Jarvis”-types stating that the land acquisitions are a form of public subsidy, but it isn’t. Sell the land to Lew Wolff or lease it at market rates and it’s all good!
By the way, I don’t believe a public vote will be necessary for said ballpark, but I’ll leave my thoughts on that one for a future thread.
This is sort of meaningless as of right now. I imagine the San Jose boosters poll phrased the question like Tony suggests.
It’s interesting that the focus is starting to shift away from Territories as the big barricade and more towards how San Jose residents will vote.
The only polls that really matter are the ones with a final tally after the election. While the polls serve as important for the SJ baseball group, the Giants are wasting money. Maybe Old Mr. Selig will sign, seal and deliver a new balpark in San Jose as one of his last hurrahs as comissioner. I for one can’t wait.
If you’re so gung ho about the A’s moving to San Jose, then maybe you should change your name to San Jose A’s then buddy. You don’t seem to care for them staying in Oakland obviously.
What’s the need for the flame anonymous? Just a team supporter who wants to see the team stay local, ie: bay area.
By the way, I like how M&R ended their piece: “Whatever the case, we’re told that San Jose officials have had two meetings (two meetings?) with the Major League Baseball committee reviewing the A’s possible move. At this point, that’s probably the only group that counts.” Amen to that!
So why would the Giants commission a poll to measure voter approval in SCC? How would they use these results to influence MLB owners around territorial rights? Makes no sense to me…so what am I missing with this chess move??
Doesn’t surprise me that a large majority of SJ citizens don’t want the A’s to move there…After all, when they moved there they weren’t moving to a baseball town. Hockey is a smaller market and only makes up for half of what a baseball stadium would bring. Some people have a problem with an immediate increase in traffic, an huge increase of out-of-towners, all happening over 80 times a year…even if its privately financed. Bottom line is, there are citizens who simply didn’t sign up for that living in SJ.
People downtown don’t seem to mind, as shown by the lack of opposition voiced at neighborhood outreach meetings.
A large majority of SJ citizens don’t want the A’s to move to SJ? Uhh, LeAndre, try reading the poll again, this time very carefully. It’s ONLY if public funds/tax money were to be used in the actual construction of a ballpark. And as we all know, Lew Wolff/A’s will PRIVATELY FINANCE the ballpark, meaning NO PUBLIC FUNDS! Yes, the Giants weren’t honest in their polling questions. As for the rest of your anti-SJ commentary, it’s not even worth rebutting, so that is all.
Who the hell on this blog even gives a shit about any polls??? Obviously people only seem to care when it slightly appears to favor one party over the other. It can go the same way with the Oakland facebook group versus the San Jose group, or even the Bay Area group for that matter. It might not exactly be a poll or mean anything to some, but it does indicate in the “social networking” world who’s got more votes….and by far Oakland does. But of course the San Jose partisans will just say that facebook is a lame way to judge any numbers. So now we’re talking about an independent Oregon pollster and another commissioned by the Giants?? Whatever….
Tony, I’ve never said on this blog that I am “anti SJ”…I just simply prefer a ballpark in Oakland, SJ is second…and like I just said…
“even if its privately financed. Bottom line is, there are citizens who simply didn’t sign up for that living in SJ.”
Nothing about that is untrue, and even though the poll was obviously biased, I think you shouldn’t over estimate the support of the average SJ citizen over this issue
Although the polls are interesting, I do not think we can read much into them. Wolff is still hell-bent on SJ, and Reed seems to want a baseball team to be part of his legacy as mayor.
Worth noting is that the “Giants Poll” was actually conducted by Hart and not the Giants themselves. Hart is one of the most respected pollsters in the biz and contracting with him indicates that the Giants are willing to put some substantial resources into opposition. It will be interesting to see what they have in store for the future.
As I’ve said a few times on AN, from the Giants perspective, keeping the status quo (no new A’s stadium) for as long as possible is the objective. Actual fans lost vs. fans gained by the SF club is likely to come out even, or even slightly in favor of the Giants over time if the team does move to SJ as opposed to a new stadium in Oakland. However, the Giants have a substantial advantage in the current market as they capture the entirety of the casual-fan base in the entire Bay Area so keeping the A’s out of more “fan friendly” digs for as long as possible is of primary importance.
Psss,
Got news for you Chris: it’s not up to the Giants, it’s up to Major League Baseball. In short, when Selig and MLB’s ownership tells Neukom and the Giants to “jump!”, they’ll have no choice but to respond “how high?” That’s just the way it is with MLB…sorry.
So you gotta wonder if SJ comes up for a vote an SF is caught trying to influence a negative outcome what will the boys club say–Gints would be working to secure them years more of revenue sharing payments—which wouldn’t sit well with many of the owners
A very high level of acceptance of the A’s in San Jose is pretty important. Both clubs and their fanbases will be greatly affected by this move. MLB will not want to have the teams playing musical chairs, working to convert current A’s ticket buyers into Giants ticket buyers, and vice versa, unless it is clear that there is widespread enthusiasm _somewhere_ in this process.
TPS,
What the hell are you talking about? The Bay is already a two-team market in a region of nearly 8 million people. The two teams will be separated by 40 miles. No one is talking about “converting” fans or teams “playing musical chairs.” The A’s would merely be relocating within the existing market, not coming into the Bay Area from (say) Kansas City. While some here don’t want to acknowledge it, many A’s fans from southern Alameda County and the Tri-Valley area will go to San Jose to watch their A’s play. And despite widespread untruth, there are many A’s fans already in existence in the South Bay. By the way, THISPLANETROX!
“And despite widespread untruth, there are many A’s fans already in existence in the South Bay.”
Yeah maybe about 1000 or so fans would be my guess? Who the hell really knows?? How can you honestly judge how many A’s fans there actually are in the South Bay when it’s widely known to be dominated by Giants fans? From the people who showed up to the council meetings…or from the people such as yourself who visit this blog regularly? I mean seriously, even this blog probably only has about 100-150 regular readers which I’m sure to most of you (San Jose partisans) feels like there’s so many of you versus the rest of the entire Bay Area including the 1 million residents in San Jose. I’m sure there are a good amount of people who support a move for the A’s to relocate to San Jose, but that’s just because they want an MLB team period and does not necessarily mean they are already A’s fans.
oakA’s—how you can make statements about the number of A’s fans in SJ is amzaing to me—until 1992 SCC was shared territory—so magically you have decided that because of territorial rights that now everyone in San Jose is a Gints fan—not likely—
I would guess that you could find as many A’s fans in the city of SJ with population of 1M, without the team being located here, as you can find in the city of oakland, where the team is currently located right now!!
Again…how do you or anyone else for that matter know this?? I said it’s widely known that Giants fans outnumber A’s fans in the South Bay. Even you should know this. How many A’s fans do you personally know in the South Bay? Maybe 20 or so? I mean know one really knows so who the hell cares? What matters is where the A’s end up and how much fan support there will be afterwards. Right now, my money is that there are way more A’s fans in the East Bay than in the South Bay. I may not have much to back that up other than who I know, who I’ve talked to at the games and where they’re all from. That and the number of fans on the Oakland facebook group versus the San Jose group. Again, I know it’s only facebook, but those are actual numbers that I can actually present. How many numbers can you actually produce to present your case??
The Giants likely have much better support in the South Bay for a variety of reasons. When the A’s arrived, they had to “convert” Bay Area fans from the Giants, and that process works a lot better on the fans near the ballpark (eg. the East Bay). So I think you find, as you move farther away from Oakland, you tend to have a bit of a tendency for old school, traditional ties to the Giants. And the Giants have probably also done a better job at keeping their outlying radio/TV type fans than the A’s have, by their stronger, more consistent media presence. Plus with Caltrain service up the peninsula, there’s better access to SF than Oakland. Then there’s the new ballpark they built, and the corporate partnerships it helped them establish in Silicon Valley…
For many in the south bay, the Coliseum has long been the shorter trip.
Oa, stick to subjects you understand. Numbers isn’t one of them. This site gets 10,000 hits per day and 2,000 unique visitors. You can’t gauge activity based on the commenters since many people don’t want to comment.
That may be true ML, but getting hits can’t really judge anything. You can have the same group of people commenting on your blog hundreds of times a day and I’m not sure it would show much. Maybe now with your new site you’ll really be able to tell how many regular readers you have since everyone needs to use an actual email address. But again it’s fairly new so we shall see. I was trying to gauge the number of individual readers based on your most recent polls which only had about 100 or so. I could be wrong on that so my apologies in advance if that also doesn’t count for anything.
2,000 unique visitors. Reading comprehension.
You don’t need to post e-mail to read, only to comment. My numbers come from actual statistics and logs. You are going off wild-ass guesses. Again, stick to stuff you understand.
TPS–when the gints arrived in the Bay Area SCC was an agriculture community of not many people–when the A’s arrived in ’68 not much had changed down in SCC—
relative to radio/tv broadcasts—agree on this point but recognize that the gints have done ZERO marketing in SCC—until the past year or so—-ZERO—A’s over the past several years have been much more agressive in promoting their product in the southbay—my kids little league scoreboard is sponsored by the A’s with their logo—you will not find a field anywhere in SCC where the gints have done the same
Where I do agree is that a new stadium has attracted south bay fans—and that happens to be in SF—put one of those in SJ and you will have the same effect–minus the hour plus train ride to SF
Don’t the Giants have some of those Junior Giants leagues in SJ? I think they build or improve fields, and donate all the uniforms and equipment for the whole league.
I don’t think you have a very good grasp of what’s in store here. I can’t imagine any reasonable person thinks the A’s have sufficient support from only their _current_ fans in the South Bay to make a go of it down there. There just aren’t enough people within 20 miles of this ballpark for them, unless they tap into the current Giants fanbase there. If that happens (and I assure you, it has to happen to justify this move), the Giants will have to begin attracting former A’s fans from the East Bay in order to maintain their revenues. I think that is all pretty much inarguable, and it’s all I’m saying.
Look, unless you have cold-hard facts, taken a Bay Area survey of where fans of a certain team reside, then you shouldn’t be stating crap like all South Bay baseball fans are Giants fans or no A’s fans in the East Bay will travel to San Jose. And for the record sucky planet, 75% of Silicon Valley corporations don’t do any business with the Giants; so much for your Giants corporate sponsorships statement. Facts people! Not assumptions!
Jeez, ease up on the joe, or maybe switch to decaf. Holy cripes what a pointless emotional outburst 😉
This is completely off subject but man do I wish they would make a decision already The A’s The MLB The Gaints and every one in between. At least then the keep the A’s in Oakland and San Jose A’s people would at least be able to move on win or lose either way but life is not that easy.
The last four years has been exhausting.