Quick housekeeping note: I will not be attending Wednesday’s Good Neighbor session as I will be out of town on business. If any readers are attending and want to drop some observations, contact me. I plan to attend the 5/1 Oakland community meeting.
Woe is Dave Newhouse, great defender of all things Oakland:
Sometimes, I feel alone in defending Oakland, though I know that’s not true. But I’ve been doing it considerably longer than others in my line of work because I’ve been around considerably longer.
I know my preachings have gone way beyond repetitious, but I believe so strongly in Oakland — the most misrepresented city in America — that I’m about to deliver yet another sermon, although wishing I had Elmer Gantry’s oratory.
Well, at least he admits he’s repetitious. Have to give him credit for that. Newhouse criticizes other media for “cheering” a Warriors’ move back to San Francisco (yes, I’m as guilty as anyone). It’s a move that at this point lacks substance or detail, especially since we don’t know who will own the team in the future.
Newhouse also asks a pretty important fundamental question: How many large-scale arenas one area can support? It’s a very good question worth considering before anyone starts the development process. Most markets have one large arena (17,000-20,000) to service the population and the various acts that might tour or take up tenancy. Usually, that’s plenty enough. Large markets with multiple winter sport teams could have two arenas, but three? It would seem that the built-in competition for events would create diminishing returns for any arena operator in that environment. Let’s take a look at which cities have multiple modern arenas:
Bay Area: Oracle Arena (NBA), HP Pavilion (NHL)
We have a perfect situation right now, with the Pavilion consistently among the busiest arenas in the world and the Arena geographically situated to capture as many NBA and W’s fans as possible. There’s little reason to change this, other than SF trying to boost civic pride. The market here is too thin to have two hockey teams, leaving a second NBA team as the only real option. There’s little chance of that happening for Oakland and SF since they are too close and would cannibalize each others’ fans. San Jose is a possibility, but not the way it’s set up now with a prospective NBA team playing second fiddle for dates and revenue. Beyond the franchise move politics, there is a question as to whether or not our market size (7 million population) can support three arenas.
NYC: Madison Square Garden, Prudential Center (Newark), Nassau Coliseum (L.I.), Izod Center (NJ Meadowlands), Barclays Center (Brooklyn, future)
Obviously there’s some serious overkill here. However, Izod Center will lack a major team tenant next season, and Nassau has been outdated for at least a decade. It would appear that in the near future enough consolidation will occur that the area will have three arenas – a revamped MSG, The Rock, and Barclays, which could host the Nets and perhaps the Islanders. This is the one market where three arenas is just right, whereas two may be not enough given the spread of the regional fanbases.
LA: Staples Center (downtown LA), Honda Center (Anaheim), LA Sports Arena (South LA), Anaheim Convention Center, Long Beach Arena
The latter two are old, small venues attached to convention centers, so they’re not going to attract major sports. The old Sports Arena probably gets more use as a stand-in for other arenas in movies than it does attracting actual events. Staples Center has established itself as the home to three winter teams and the Grammys, while Honda Center has covered a lot of concert dates that Staples isn’t able to do. Combined with the Hollywood Bowl and the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, the market is well-covered, just as the Bay Area is, but with twice the population.
As for the other Top Ten markets? They usually have a mix of a one modern arena and one older arena, though there are some cases where there’s only one arena or two new ones have been built (usually with poor results).
- Chicago – United Center (new), Allstate Arena (old)
- Dallas – American Airlines Center (new), Fort Worth Convention Center (old)
- Philadelphia – Wachovia Center
- Washington, DC – Verizon Center
- Houston – Toyota Center (new), Reliant Arena (old)
- Miami – American Airlines Arena (new), BankAtlantic Center (new)
- Atlanta – Philips Arena (new), Arena at Gwinnett Center (new, small)
Before anyone starts to go crazy working on plans for a San Francisco arena, it’s worth looking at the other markets and running the numbers. If there’s a potential for oversaturation, this is the place for it.
One more thing about Newhouse’s column: he states that Lew Wolff failed to build a soccer stadium in San Jose. Um, what? He just got approved and consummated the land deal. The Quakes should be starting construction within a year. Dave, stick to your purview – Oakland and SF. Apparently you don’t know squat about the South Bay.
newballpark.org 
It does seem doubtful the Bay Area can support three major arenas. If a new arena is built in SF, it will most likely kill Oracle. If Oakland is wise, it will consider trying to get a new downtown arena of its own for the Warriors to preempt this possibility – perhaps at Victory Court.
But Oracle is only like 10 years old except for the shell. While I see the appeal of a downtown SF arena, it just strikes me as a huge waste of money and resources when we have two fully up-to-date arenas already. We’re covered there. The area needs a new baseball stadium for the A’s and a new football stadium for the Niners and Raiders. Anything beyond that at this point is unnecessary.
re: San Jose,
Newhouse seems to be in complete denial about San Jose overtaking the rest of the Bay Area in signifance and relevance.. He even calls it “Prune City,” which was accurate about 100 years ago. I think he’d rather see the A’s move to Portland than San Jose.
Stating that Wolff “failed” to build a soccer stadium in San Jose is flat-out wrong. The process is moving along very nicely.
FWIW, SJ or Fremont offering better support of the A’s isn’t even much of a challenge. I went to yesterday’s A’s game for our first place team and had the entire row to myself. The place was mostly devoid of fans. Maybe Newhouse thinks an empty stadium is good for the A’s.
OMFG…not this again…..
random question..why would fremont be a better fit for the a’s then oakland?
I think he means that the City Governments have been publicly more supportive of the A’s coming to town than the Oakland City Council has.
What goes on behind closed doors, we have no clue about and Oakland hasn’t been very open about the plan to keep the A’s there other than to say “We have cool pdf’s with a cut pasted version of PNC on some spots in our town.”
You forgot to mention the Forum in LA. It’s more relevant than the Long Beach Arena or the Anaheim convention center (I didn’t even realise that they had an arena there).
Completely agree with Dude, no need for another arena. Oracle is a great venue, and extremely new with all the amenities needed. Luxury boxes, great sitelines, comfortable chairs and the like.
Get the A’s the best stadium and the best location. As a San Jose resident, I would love the team in the South Bay. But I love the area of the Coliseum, love the Bart, and love parking at the Coliseum Bart.
Does any know where Oakland stands on the payments for the 95-96 Coliseum renovation? Is it paid off? It would be a shame is the Oakland Coliseum stadium dragged the Oracle to the Oracle to the grave with them. I’d like to see the Oracle stick around and new office & supplimental facities built next door. The Warriors need a facelift and rebranding. Their front office is located in downtown Oakland, so this might be an opportunity to relocate closer to the Oracle.
re: How many large-scale arenas one area can support?
New York Metro Area:
Madison Square Garden – latest incarnation opened in 1968
Nassau Coliseum – opened in 1972; substantial renovations sought but mired in red tape
Izod Center (formerly Continental Arena and Byrne Arena before that – opened in 1981 or 2
Prudential Center – opened in 2008 in Newark.
Barclays Center – still to be built in Brooklyn
Too many arenas for one area? Sure looks like it. There’s already dueling arenas in NJ, (Prudential and Izod), with the mayor of Newark lobbying to get Izod closed whiile the NJ Sports Authority (which runs Izod) signed a lease extension with the Nets that punishes the team with huge payments if they decide to move to Newark instead of Brooklyn. You heard that right – leave the state and profit; move to our rival in Newark and pay the penalty.
“Ezra said: You forgot to mention the Forum in LA. It’s more relevant than the Long Beach Arena or the Anaheim convention center (I didn’t even realise that they had an arena there).”
Exactly–I saw Coldplay there just last year. Rush and Roger Waters have shows scheduled for 2010. It’s not a busy place, but with so many dates at Staples spoken for, it gets used as much or more than the Sports Arena.
Plus there’s that new mid-sized arena in Ontario.
Chicago has two more mid-sized arenas, the UIC Pavilion and the suburban Sears Center.
Philly has the Liacouras Center in addition to the Wachovia Center.
Reliant Arena in Houston isn’t really an arena in the conventional sense.
pjk said: “here’s already dueling arenas in NJ, (Prudential and Izod), with the mayor of Newark lobbying to get Izod closed while the NJ Sports Authority (which runs Izod) signed a lease extension with the Nets that punishes the team with huge payments if they decide to move to Newark instead of Brooklyn. You heard that right – leave the state and profit; move to our rival in Newark and pay the penalty.”
This makes no sense, as the Nets are already committed to Newark for 2011-13, with the lease penalties resolved: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/03/nj_nets_relocate_to_newark.html
re: This makes no sense, as the Nets are already committed to Newark for 2011-13, with the lease penalties resolved: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/03/nj_nets_relocate_to_newark.html
This is great news. I’ve been tracking that story for a while but not since the beginning of the year, when it looked like the whole “Nets-to-Newark, temporarily” idea was dead. The lease penalties installed in the Izod lease extensoin just sounded like vindictiveness from NJ officials who were kicking and screaming about Newark buidling its own arena that would leave the outmoded, obsolete Meadowlands arena in the dust.
Am still hoping common sense emerges and the Brooklyn idea dies, so the Nets stay in NJ. Apparently, Brooklynites are throwing all sorts of lawsuits at the Brooklyn project.
I’ve left off arenas that were purchased by religious institutions, such as The Forum and the old Compaq Center/Summit in Houston. They’re not really set up to handle a rigorous schedule of non-church events.
If Long Beach Arena (13k for basketball) and Anaheim Convention Center (9k) count as “large scale arenas”, then so does the Cow Palace (12k).
As for concerts, with Shoreline, whatever the Concord Pavilion is called now, HP, Oracle, and the Cow Palace (let alone Arco Arena, the arena in Stockton, and the amphitheatre in Marysville within driving distance), we’re already overstuffed for concerts, especially since there aren’t nearly as many acts that can fill arenas as there were in the 80’s/90’s. We’d probably be just fine with HP, Oracle, and one of the amphitheatres.
The Forum hosts a lot more concerts than the Sports Arena does.
Navhouse can’t be bothered to check his facts on the Earthquakes stadium because his main goal was to take a predictable shot at soccer and San Jose, somehow boosting Oakland by contrast. It’s kinda sad that an old man at a newspaper still writes like an angry teenager on the internet.
You forget the two arenas in the Phoenix area: the one in Glendale (NHL) and the one downtown (NBA). That market is already saturated as far as sports teams are concerned.
I had started to cover Phoenix, Detroit, Minn/St Paul, etc…, but the post started to get much too long. Editorial restraint is often a good thing.
Hey, just wanted to add to your stats for Washington, DC:
Nationals Ballpark. they’ve hosted concerts & the pope there, and will be doing more I assume.
Like the post. I wonder if there is any way to channel those Warriors fans into A’s seats, or if their success is at least part of the MLB Panel’s analysis. I know the W’s don’t have competition, but that’s a lot of Oakland/East Bay fans willing to go out to watch their team.
I went to a Washington Wizards game last week using firm tickets, and the place was perhaps 1/3 full, while the successful NHL Capitols sell out every game. My theory is that the D.C. area will support a winner and use it’s extra dollars on those that show a return on investment. I don’t think this applies to Oakland, but I wonder if the income levels are available within the East Bay market, and it’s just a matter of channeling them towards baseball.
@ru155… Don’t the Warriors draw from everywhere in the Bay? I would think the simple reason they draw so well is that they have no competition, at least not in the same sport. One could argue that the Sharks are competition I guess, I know several of my neighbors are Sharks season ticket holders and I live in the East Bay (Pleasanton).
But the different sport and distance between the two teams make the comparison an orange to the A’s and Giants apple, I would think.
Why shouldn’t there be a new arena in San Francisco? The west side of the bay needs a new arena considering how old and out of date the Cow Palace is. Ii would think that this new arena (If bulit) would do for SF what the Staples Center did for Los Angeles. Believe me there was opposition to having the Staples Center built even though the other two venues at the time , The Forum in Inglewood and the Sports Arena had long since out lived its’ usefullness as proper venues for the public. Where would LA be without the Staples Center? A new arena in SF would do wonders for the city and the bay area as a whole.
Marine Layer says:
“I’ve left off arenas that were purchased by religious institutions, such as The Forum and the old Compaq Center/Summit in Houston. They’re not really set up to handle a rigorous schedule of non-church events.”
Note while the Summit is unrecognizable as an arena these days, the Forum looks and acts about the same as ever. They don’t have Church services in there anymore, and as Brian said, it’s much busier than the Sports Arena these days. http://articles.latimes.com/2009/may/17/sports/sp-crowe-forum17