Marc Morris of Better Sense San Jose argues against using scarce San Jose redevelopment funds for a ballpark. He makes very good points about cuts to neighborhood business districts and other smaller projects. At the same time, the claim that stadiums don’t provide much economic benefit is a stroke too broad, considering that locally we have two examples that have provided such benefits: AT&T Park and HP Pavilion. Morris was against the arena 20 years ago, and I sense that he’s tilting at windmills as an encore.
The Federal Transit Administration approved full funding of the first part of the BART-to-Silicon Valley extension. This approval is only for the initial phase, which would terminate three miles northeast of Diridon at Berryessa. The second phase is the Downtown San Jose tunnel and further route up to Santa Clara/SJC. Next, the funding must be approved as part of the next federal budget.
There’s a ton of coverage of the Wilpon-Madoff situation, which seems fluid and with a higher price tag for Fred Wilpon, Saul Katz, and in the end, the Mets. ESPN’s Outside the Lines has a thumbnail sketch.
The Los Angeles Lakers are partnering with Time Warner Cable to have all local game broadcasts on a pair of new regional sports networks: one in English and one in Spanish. Unlike most sports networks which utilize SAP for Spanish audio while using the same video feed, the twin Spanish network will have its own audio/video and production. Update 9:43 AM – Multiple sources have the new deal pegged at 20 years, $3 Billion. Even if two-thirds of that were given over to network operations and revenue sharing, that would leave $50 million per year for the team – nearly enough to take care of team payroll by itself for the next 2-3 CBAs. Also, the deal may have an effect on the Dodgers in that Frank McCourt has been talking about starting up a similar twin-language RSN. He may choose to jump to the Lakers-TWC network if the price is right, or use that as leverage to get a better deal from Fox. Fox recently gave McCourt an additional $111 million over the next three years to cover expenses associated with running the ballclub, so there’s a question as to who really has the leverage here.
A pair of articles by Neil deMause (for Baseball Prospectus) and Pete Toms (for The Biz of Baseball) on the upcoming MLB CBA negotiations should give you an idea of where the two sides stand at this point. One word missing from either article: contraction.
Deadspin has a tale of two guys who had the run of Camden Yards after an Orioles game was postponed. Is it true? Does it matter?
CBS College Sports Network will be renamed CBS Sports Network. Hmmm…
newballpark.org 
Better Sense San Jose thinks more empty office buildings would be a better idea for San Jose. Vacancy rate is upwards of 20 percent, including the big, never-occupied building next to the convention center but “Better” Sense San Jose wants more of the same. Maybe someone should ask them if they think their property values have gone because we have an NHL hockey team in town.
re: against the arena 20 years ago. Need I say more? Is Better Sense San Jose against Santa Claus, too? The arena has been such a runaway smash hit but some people refuse to ever acknowledge being dead-on wrong about anything.
Most A’s fans should see nothing particularly novel about running around an empty stadium. We get 162+ opportunities a season. But seriously, props to those Camden Yards fellas for capitalizing on the moment.
Fail… 81+ opportunities.
site maintenance note….the links for Biz of Baseball and Prospectus are reversed.
@wha? – Fixed. Thanks.
Thankfully Morris’ opinion is in the minority and doesn’t mean squat. Could you imagine how stale SJ would be if he had his way?
Downtown Datsun or HP Pavilion? Economic altering ballpark at Diridon or empty office towers or condo units? Yeah, whatever you say Marc!
Just a minor status update from Rich Lieberman 415 Media today:
“Chris Townsend will continue both pre-and post-game duties for the A’s on KTRB while the future of the radio station remains murky, but all signs indicate the A’s will eventually take control of the 860 AM frequency.”
Hey, ML, I’d dispute your over-broad characterization of DeMause’s and Toms’ pieces as “on the upcoming MLB CBA negotiations.” They’re both more specifically about revenue-sharing, and only tangentially address the upcoming negotiations.
I don’t see anything particularly telling that neither brought up the C word. I still contend that we won’t see any resolution of the A’s stadium siting issue until after the new CBA is OKed.
MB,
I’ll counter that we won’t see any resolution of the A’s stadium siting issue until 1) San Jose wraps up it’s plan/site entirely and 2) the A’s get their broadcast revenue house in order (ie acquiring 860). At least acquiring the station should put to rest any talk of the A’s leaving the Bay Area.
I look forward to reading Tony’s rebuttal to the the Morris piece in the Merc sometime in the next few days. 🙂
Good one Bartleby! Thought about ranting yet again to the Merc, but I honestly just don’t feel like it this time around (For the record, not all of my “Letters to the Editor” get printed; more have probably been rejected than posted). Since Morris’ piece is just an opinion, with no sway whatsover with the city or voters (see last years polls), I’ll just let him be with his thoughts.
@MB – Fair enough. However, I still haven’t heard from you or anyone else that pounds the contraction drum what negotiating item would be so hotly contested that the word contraction would appear in the talks. Just sayin’.
I’m with Maury Brown when he said this yesterday:
Off topic, but it looks like Lew and Quakes are moving forward on the soccer stadium:
Yeah the Quakes stadium is moving forward. The development application was filed on Jan 20th and from reports I’ve heard demolition should begin in the next few weeks with an eye toward having the site clear in approximately 10 months to then begin construction itself. At least someone’s stadium saga is finally coming to an end.
@ML: Fair ’nuff right back atcha. Frankly, I’m not familiar enough with what is/will be/should be/could be on the table to speculate. I do think that it makes sense for Selugworth to retain the C word as an option, as a potential weapon — I also don’t think that it’s necessarily anything that would breathe outside oxygen (I suppose that if MLB cracks the glass on that as a negotiating tactic, MLBPA could go public with it; but MLBPA [and org labor in general] are in the shitter w/r/t public opinion, and I think they’d be smart enough to realize that they don’t have much leverage by going public with any grievances).
I readily concede that it’s a factually baseless conspiracy theory — but one grounded in some rational assumptions.
About CBS…Sean McManus is confirming that they’ll change the name of CBS College Sports Network on April 4: http://www.mediabistro.com/sportsnewser/watch-out-espn-cbs-rebranding-cbs-college-sports-network-as-cbs-sports-network_b5965
With NBC and Versus hooking up and now this news, it looks the cable sports business is not contracting (pun not intended) anytime soon. What sports properties other than NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL or NASCAR could be had for a good price?
Off my head, perhaps CBS is going to seriously bid for the Olympics, along with Time Warner, the same hook-up they did to keep the NCAA March Madness rights. They could repeat the NFL on CBS games in the future. One wild card is the future rights to the FIFA World Cup after 2014. NBC, with Telemundo and now Versus, could mount up a decent challenge for the biggest soccer tournament in the world but a CBS/Time Warner bid could also be interesting. TNT did air some WC matches in 1990, IIRC. Right now CBS College is in 40 million homes but could go much higher than that with the renaming.
http://www.mercurynews.com/earthquakes/ci_17405210
Looks like I was right. Demolition is set to begin on March 3rd on the Airport West site which starts the process for the Earthquakes new stadium.