Like the A’s, blades of grass at the Coliseum are often second-class citizens. If you’re planted in the infield you get the most meticulous maintenance and aside from occasional spikes and cleats, and you are likely to last an entire year. On the other hand, if you’re an outfield blade of grass you’re pretty much screwed. You might get until August when preseason football begins, but this year you won’t even get that thanks to this:
Construction for U2's elaborate stage setup over the weekend. Credit: SBNation (Ron Brasil)
I’m sure that the big U2 show will be entertaining, though personally I’ve never been a fan of huge stadium shows (I would pay $1k to see them at the Fillmore or Fox Oakland). Depending on what happens the rest of the A’s current homestand (and the ramifications of it), it’ll be just a tiny bit more depressing to plant my fat ass in my value deck seat next week only to see new, slightly off-colored sod in the outfield. Sometimes the best thing about going to the Coliseum is the expansive grass in both fair and foul territories, the symmetry and postmodern concentric circles. It was One Perfect Green Blanket.
Well, the outfield grass may get some good karma if the NFL labor stoppage lasts throughout the summer. I’m pulling for you, grass. And I’m definitely pulling for groundskeeper Clay Wood and his staff, who may have the toughest job in pro sports dealing with this stuff.
newballpark.org 
I actually did see U2 at a small theater in NJ before they made it big. (They were playing 80,000-seat Giants Stadium a year later.) Now, Bono is taking heat for advocating that governments help out poor countries while he’s taking steps to dramatically lower his own tax burden – the very money that could be used to help out these countries. Anyway – back on subject here. This statement says it all: Like the A’s, blades of grass at the Coliseum are often second-class citizens. I
Good. Baseball’s about watching a game, not staring at a pretty field.
@Brian – Really? Why not just put in artificial turf and make everyone’s lives easier then?
The players won’t readily admit it, but I’m sure they to enjoy playing on a “pretty field,” inside a pretty yard, in front of thousands of pretty fans. Hopefully the U2 stage won’t make for bad bounces in the outfield.
They have concerts and football at AT&T Park in SF. This is “normal” usage.
@David: During the season?
Because the bowl games happen after the season.
AT&T Park has events during the season, I know for sure there is a soccer match coming up. The difference is, they don’t put any temporary seating on the playing surface during the season… That will change when the Cal Bears start playing there this season.
Jeffrey – Why did Cal select ATT park as opposed to the E.Coli seum?
@ST/Jeffrey – Larry Baer went to Cal AD Sandy Barbour to make the deal.
ST, no idea, honestly.
@ Jeffrey – okay. will try to research it a bit. BTW – nice article on Oak Tech High baseball players in the Merc today: http://www.mercurynews.com/sports/ci_18213054
CAL didn’t want to deal with all the “drama” at the Coli… disappointing, as I am a graduate ’94!
@ Jeffrey. Interesting stuff i googled, especially from the bears websites themselves:
“The Bears had to pick from McAfee Coliseum, AT&T Park, and Candlestick Park as their home for the 2011-2012 season.”
“As for where the Student Section and other sections will be located there is still discussion. Also, the luxury suites at AT&T will be available for fans when the Bears play. Playing in San Francisco means the Bears will access a fan base that they have never really connected with before.”
What this tells me is pretty clear: Given the choice, Cal a high profile East Bay university, would rather play in SF because of a better field, better fan experience, better fan exposure, and better $$ due to suites, etc. But then again, I’m sure we already knew that.
Meh. Stadium shows have been happening at ballparks for over 40 years. It’s gonna happen at Cisco Field in SJ if that ever happens. I’m not a big fan but i’m sure Uncle Lew wouldn’t turn down the extra revenue opportunity if it came up, especiallly if it meant more people staying at the Fairmont SJ.
@ ML – thanks for that heads up. Surprised the Coliseum JPA didn’t go to CAL with a counteroffer?
Btw about the Cal Stuff. I love how the SJ partisans are criticizing the JPA for not bringing in Cal football to the Coliseum. If Cal came to Oakland the SJ partisans would have been highly critical of the JPA for “ruining” the poor A’s field. Stay consistent guys. Cal wanted the novelty of playing at JPA and Cal alum Larry Bear pushed hard for it.
Its funny how now baseball/football sharing the same park is once again a “Novelty”
This one’s original! Come out with a wild hypothetical re: JPA/Cal and then trash SJ partisans for what they would have said in Ferry Land…I LOVE IT! By the way, all that was asked was why the JPA didn’t approach Cal for football…THAT’S IT! But whatever DJr.
Opps. Cal wanted the novelty of playing at At&T. not JPA. typed too fast.
@All – I don’t know what the deal terms were but I bet the Giants offered a more flexible package with a better revenue split since they fully control their venue. I bet the A’s would’ve protested to additional full football changeovers, leaving Cal with the less desirable soccer configuration for football.
BTW The Coliseum looks much better without those silly tarps. I can’t believe how much those are defended.
without the tarps attendance would be higher and Lew doesn’t want that.
Lest we forget the XFL. If the SF Demons had hosted a playoff game, that would have happened during the season. As it was, the last game was a week or two before the 2001 season started, and Giants players complained about the condition of the field at the time.
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But there are notable incidents of tomfoolery and baseball fields (marijuana growing in CF at Anaheim Stadium after a Who concert in the ’70’s, Comiskey Park’s field torn up during a series of concerts there in 1979, the Coliseum halting the Day on the Green series after infield damage during the ’92 Guns N Roses/Metallica concert) for years and years, and everyone dealt with it just fine. Now, however, we have entitled players convinced that they deserve defect-free everything, and the nouveau generation of fans who just want to complain about everything that’s not how Ken Burns and George Will romanticize it rather than just watching the darn game. It used to just be a couple of crotchety old purists that complained about things like the field, but now it’s everyone. Sad.
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If the field elitists really want to cringe, look at this:
and this:
OK one more:
Re: the A’s objecting to changeovers, I’m not sure why it couldn’t have been worked out so that Cal would play on the same weekends as the Raiders, meaning no additional conversions. But that seemed like more of the good-ol’-boys network at work (Baer) and the Giants wanting extra exposure for their stadium that would’ve been contrary to the A’s “team concept” (to borrow a phrase from Major League) than anything relating to rational business decisions.
Day on the Green! Nice. I was at Metallica in ’85 and the ’92 shows!!!
God, i miss the old bleachers and the great view we used to have … sigh …
“without the tarps attendance would be higher and Lew doesn’t want that.”
Nice fantasy you have there.
re: without the tarps attendance would be higher and Lew doesn’t want that.
Huh? I was at a game with the tarps on recently and most of the seats still were empty. Take away the tarps and the A’s attendance goes from something like 40, 45 percent capacity to probably 25 percent. The tarps might fit well into one of those “Lew Wolff hates Oakland and wants to suppress attendance” conspiracy theories if not for the vast acreage of empty seats found at every game where the A’s are not playing the Yankee$, Red $ox or Giants. In fact, Wolff might as well just tarp off the second deck, too.
As far as Traps go, I’d like it better if more of Mt. Davis was tarped and less of the 3rd deck. I don’t know how different attendance would be without them, other than to say it would be slightly higher for sure. That said, the coliseum, with the tarps, has the potential to house 2.8M fans a season. The A’s haven’t drawn that many fans since 1990, and they haven’t come close since 1991. There is no reason, even with the tarps that they can’t draw what they did during their most recent years of contention (those peaked at 2.2M) and have room to spare.
tarps, not traps. Freudian slip?
Yes, we need a capacity 62,500-seat stadium for a team that draws 12,000 a night. The football expansion, in addition to wrecking the baseball ambiance, completely disregarded the need for a finite number of seats for baseball to spur season ticket sales and early ticket buys. Oakland and Alameda County just expanded the ocean of available seating to the point where an entire Bay Area city could show up on game day and get in without buying tickets in advance. But Wolff wisely tarps off the upper deck and we’re supposed to believe it’s all part of a wild conspiracy theory.
@David–explain how a team that has on average 16,000+ vacant seats a night would have better attendance if they opened up another 16,000 seats for sale….as I recall there has been 1…maybe 2 sellouts this year….what kind of degrees does Cal offer anyway?
Lay off the insults, people.
FWIW, I remember being at a playoff game pre-Wolff days and the news media just loved pointing to the empty football seats atop Mount Davis, not bothering to mention that these offered obstructed views for baseball (Couldn’t see half the outfield) and really lousy views for football, too. Maybe Wolff should sell those, too. 25 cents admission.
of course the stadium is half empty, but if there were no tarps, we’d have 40,000+ for Boston and NY. That would lead to a higher total, right? We used to get 40,000+ for fireworks. If every bit helps, than lets take off the tarps.
@ML – I’m not soft. I can handle the jealousy. Not everyone can get into the #1 Public University in the United states of America! B.A. in Music and Minor in Political Science.
Red Sox–25k and 29k for 2 games in Oakland
Yankees- 22k, 25k and one friging sellout of 35k
Angel’s rival- 11k, 12k
Bottom line–attendance sucks regardless of who is playing and regardless of the tarps—Add another 16k seats and you get tix prices half of what you have today…so explain again why this makes sense?
You know why … like i said up top … Lew doesn’t want sellouts. That’s WHY he does a piss-poor job of marketing the ball club. Hat’n on the town doesn’t help either. I’m sure the grown up SJ supporters “get it”.
What constitutes a “poor job” of marketing? That big A’s billboard near my house in San Jose with Kurt Suzuki on it? The free calendar I got at an A’s game a couple months ago? Or maybe it’s the $2 seats Wolff sells? I think I get it now – whatever ails the A’s HAS to be the fault of that rich meanie owner Lew Wolff. Can’t possibly be the fault of East Bay residents who don’t show up at games, or Oakland and Alameda county officials who wrecked the stadium and dismissed the A’s needs for 15+ years. Nope – it’s always the fault of that rich meanie Lew Wolff.
@David–lol–you move from taking down the tarps will improve attendance and when that is proven wrong to now LW doesn’t market the club….giving away near free tickets is pretty hard to beat from a marketing perspective….grown up A’s fans realize that the coli sucks and the A’s have never received consistent support while in oakland. Facts are facts….
ok guys … i disagree, so let’s just move on.
@David–at least state some facts with real figures that back up your claims—that’s my beef with the pro-Oakland crowd–never any facts, whether it be about how to pay for a privately financed ballpark in Oakland, or your claims that attendance would go up if the tarps are removed…or that LW doesn’t want to win….all bs until you can paint a picture using real facts and not just emotional arguments
from today’s sacbee:
“Even worse, owner Lew Wolff weighed in on the Geren-Fuentes issue, using the words “fantastic” and “terrific” to describe Geren. Wolff gushed, “I personally love the way he deals with everybody. I love the guy. I love everything about him.”
That doesn’t do much to endear himself to frustrated A’s fans who blame Wolff for most of the A’s woes.
The culture of denial starts at the top. Wolff and co-owner John Fisher have little incentive to improve either their product or the ballpark experience, thanks to revenue sharing.
Their position is that everything will get better once they are allowed to move to San Jose. That overlooks the fact they may never get approval, they have driven away almost all of their fans, and the process looks suspiciously like a deliberate strategy: alienate their fans in order to prove they can’t survive in Oakland.
Beane, once the shining star of baseball activity, doesn’t seem particularly bothered by his team’s mediocrity.”
David, what instruments do you play?
And guys, opening up the 3rd deck wouldn’t hurt attendance… Let’s be real, at worst attendance would stay the same. At best it would improve by a few thousand over the course of the season. It wouldn’t make a huge difference. But, imagine the Yankees game that was sold out, if there were third deck seats for under 10 bucks it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect the game to draw more.
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Even the games that didn’t sell out but had 25k would potentially have higher attendance with cheaper seats int he upper deck.
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The Giants games (the first A’s games all season in which I have been invited to a business event at the Coliseum) will probably draw well and with 3rd deck seats they would draw more… It wouldn’t improve short term revenue or attendance figures all that much, but there is a possibility of more butts in seats.
Jeffrey, you can see my email right? email me and i’ll share personal info.
Geren just lost another game …
What a terrible sight. I know other teams host events during the year, but none are that big or that expansive on the grass. The outfield is going to look pitiful next week and will remain so the rest of the season. We so need a new stadium.
re: from today’s sacbee:
“Even worse, owner Lew Wolff weighed in on the Geren-Fuentes issue
…Yet another newspaper hates Lew Wolff. Yet another conspiracy theory. zzzzz
re: Wolff and co-owner John Fisher have little incentive to improve either their product or the ballpark experience,
…Wolff and Fischer can’t improve the product if free agents don’t want to come to Oakland. And why should they be expected to shell out Big $$ to improve a ballpark that their landlords deliberately ruined over the A’s objections?
@Jeffrey–sorry man–you put another 16k seats on the market at the o.com and you do three things…you reduce the number of season tix holders (I for one am questioning why I buy season tix anymore)—second with the weak demand you have to reduce the price of all your tix—last–now for the few hundred folks who want to sit in the 3rd deck you have to staff for it….under no scenario that I can think of can anyone argue that tarping the 3rd deck and trying to reduce the supply in a weak demand market doesn’t make sense—especially when the same people are bitching that the A’s don’t spend enough on players—
@pjk – Exactly….why put money into the project? You should then not be surprised and expect bad attendance for a bad product. It’s a standoff.
@ Columbo Yet when Haas invested money in the product before he had revenues to support it — he lost money hand over fist. And that was before premium seat money drove the business.
@GoA’s… I don’t question why I buy season tickets. I do it to support the team I grew up rooting for, and as long as I can afford it, I will. Regardless of the supply demand curve.
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The point, was that having the 3rd deck opened would increase overall attendance. That is plausible. The other stuff you say… Yep. That is probably true too.
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I am not arguing that the A’s should open the 3rd deck, well I am actually but not in the same way that others are, I am just saying that opening the 3rd deck could have a marginal impact on attendance and a likewise marginal impact on revenue. It could drive attendance up but make the revenue situation worse, but not enough in either case to be significant.
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Where i think the 3rd deck could be useful is if they opened up more of the infield sections and got rid of the stupid Plaza Level Bleachers in the outfield. Either way, 35-36k seats is plenty to support the demand.
agreed about the plaza level blechers where you can’t see all of the field. imo those 3rd deck seats were pretty good seats especially those right behind the plate.
Dan
June 6, 2011 at 7:27 PM (Quote)
What a terrible sight. I know other teams host events during the year, but none are that big or that expansive on the grass. The outfield is going to look pitiful next week and will remain so the rest of the season. We so need a new stadium.
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The same stage setup visits Angel Stadium on the 17th and 18th. Ditto for Florida later this month and St. Louis in July (they’re also playing at Rogers Center but they have Astroturf). Hopefully they screw those fields up too so baseball can get off its high horse and deal with it.
Well as of today it’s officially the O.Co Coliseum. We’re officially a joke.