I went to the Golden Gate Bridge yesterday morning to pay my respects on the bridge’s 75th birthday. On the way back, I drove over to Piers 30-32 to check out the site of Joe Lacob and Peter Guber’s dreams, a rundown waterfront pier currently used as a parking lot. You may know the site currently as the home of Red’s Java House, the little shack that serves up quick, reasonably priced burgers. Fortunately for Red’s and their customers, the Warriors want to keep the venerable restaurant in place even as the new arena is built.
We talk a lot about how great the view is from AT&T Park. Frankly, it doesn’t hold a candle to this view from Pier 30.
Pier 28 in foreground, Bay Bridge in background. View looking north.
That’s just from sea level. Now imagine that you’re on an elevated deck overlooking Pier 28, with an unfettered view of the Bay Bridge. Better yet, imagine that you could see this from inside the arena bowl. How is that possible? I’ll explain later tonight.
newballpark.org 
too bad this arena is a total fantasy/pipedream. NEVER going to happen. A’s and warriors will be playing next to each other at the howard terminal by 2017
@Alex – How is what you’re describing at Howard Terminal not a total fantasy/pipedream?
Great insight Alex- your knowledge of the facts is astonishing!
I’d like to think that I’m not usually this vindictive, but hey — as long as the Dubs aren’t working with the Giants, I’m fine with this.
there will be an NBA team next to the A’s whether they build coliseum city, howard terminal or cisco field.
You should write a blog Alex. Great insight!
To Alex’s point, I wouldn’t be surprised if there eventually IS an nba team in San Jose, sharing with the sharks, adjacent to the A’s. But it wouldnt possibly happen until long after the warriors get something new built.
You could squint and see the grizzlies being relocated in 20 years, or a few other teams.
exactly. but with a fully functioning NBA arena in an NBA hotbed, theres no reason why oakland doesnt get a new team if the warriors leave. either way, i dont think theyre leaving but i rather they did so that oakland could get a team that actually represented oakland happily. if oakland cant get a new team then i suspect the grizzlies could go to SJ in a few decades. but, oracle is way better than HP pavilion for basketball. i could totally see the kings going to oakland if sacto doesnt work out and i think don knauss and all his businesses need to put the same effort into an NBA team that theyre beginning to put into the athletics
Warriors ownership is looking to spend $500 million on a new arena in SF. If that happens, the NBA is going to be under a lot of pressure to keep that investment safe. That means no second franchise in either Oakland or San Jose.
The view to the northwest would be more impressive than the view to the northeast.
If the A’s manage get a stadium site at JLS or VC, they’ll have an opportunity to match the Giants’ picturesque views without the bone-chilling winds and presumably cheaper tickets. Of course, they know how difficult Oakland/Alameda have made this. As cool as an SJ site would be, part of me wants Lew Wolff to just stick with the East Bay, which may not be a terrible idea if the BART extensions come through.
@Joe- how would a ballpark in Oakland be paid for and why would tickets be cheaper? ATT cost the giants $350M. LW estimates the ost of an A’s ballpark at 500M- and infrastructure investments plus land at any downtown Oakland site are north of 150M- that’s minimum of 650M tatvneeds to paid somehow… And it’s not by selling cheap tix
A ballpark in Oakland does not work financially without a significant contribution from the city and/or county, and that appears to be off the table for the time being.
The extremely off-topic comments have been deleted. Stick to the subject people.
@ML
You say that the NBA will be under pressure to protect that investment, but then you are surprised and frustrated when BS and MLB try to do the same thing for the Giants?
@martin – the difference between MLB and the NBA is that the Athletics are already in the Bay Area.
The view of the USS Decatur at Pier 30-32 is pretty cool too. (And the USS Nimitz anchored south of the bridge)
@Pudgie – Exactly. martin?
martin says:
May 28, 2012 at 9:59 PM martin(Quote)
@ML
You say that the NBA will be under pressure to protect that investment, but then you are surprised and frustrated when BS and MLB try to do the same thing for the Giants?
Ding ding ding!
Makes me wonder how long it will be before the historians scream about the progressive removal of the pier facades. How many are left?
Oops, my bad. I just looked it up and it appears that the Pier 30 and 32 facades are already gone.
@ML
The Giants made a business investment that was a significant risk at the time. That risk was mitigated by the fact that they bought certain T rights when they got the team in 92. In the same way the Warriors risk is mitigated by the fact that there is only one team in the bay area. A league should reward franchises for investing in their teams. I could make the argument that it would be in the “best” interests of the NBA to have one team in SF and one in SJ. But if the Warriors invest 500 mil in SF you and I know that won’t happen. Why? Because to encourage investment there needs to be a reward.
@martin – Straw man, anyone? To counter your argument, I can say that the NBA has a compensation model for teams whose “territories” are infringed upon. No antitrust exemption there to give any one team an obscene amount of power or leverage.
I can also say that the A’s are proposing an even larger, riskier plan than the Giants did. Shouldn’t they have the right to build where they see fit within the Bay Area, especially if it moves the team further away from their rival?
@ML.
You were the one to say that the NBA wouldn’t move another team to the bay area!
I simply agreed with you.
The current Giants ownership didn’t ask for anything from the A’s when they took their risk. The A’s are. The Giants should have the right to refuse.
@ ML – Respectfully, I don’t think the though of a team in SJ is at all off the table, even if the W’s go and build at Pier 30/32. Again, in TK’s interview with Stern (http://blogs.mercurynews.com/kawakami/2012/05/22/david-stern-on-the-warriors-vision-and-larry-ellison-san-jose-and-joe-lacobs-new-nba-role/), he never said outright that SJ was off limits:
@martin – And Pudgie showed how the two situations are apples and oranges, to which you haven’t adequately responded.
The Giants didn’t ask for anything from the A’s? Did they not ask for and were granted T-rights to Santa Clara County in the first place?
@Anon – You are far too optimistic about Stern’s trademark hemming and hawing. The fact that he has now twice stopped Larry Ellison from buying and relocating franchises to San Jose should be plenty of proof.
@ Martin: “The current Giants ownership didn’t ask for anything from the A’s when they took their risk.” Ahem….
Try to figure out who said that…..
@ML I did respond regarding how leagues NBA-MLB reward/protect business risk, you just didn’t like the answer. Read my post, I said the “current” ownership of the Giants didn’t ask anything of the A’s. The current ownership paid for those rights when they bought the team. Please tell me your not one of those who think that the territory was not considered in the price.
Martin, the territory wasn’t considered in the price.
@Martin- I get that, a lot of Giants fans use that argument. Ignoring for a second that the Giants claim of territorial rights over SCC is debatable, what would you suggest that the A’s do? Here we have a local team with no future in Oakland- even Knauss knows Coliseum City is a joke. And there is no place else in Oakland to go that wouldn’t cost an enormous amount of extra money, and the city of Oakland can”t help. The A’s have a history of shared rights in SCC. What would you suggest?
@martin – How much did “current” ownership pay for the Giants?
@ ML – Admittedly, I am probably reading too much into his denials, however I don’t think LE was necessarily “stopped” from moving teams to SJ. Instead, I would tend to think that the teams he was after (W’s and NO) had other circumstances working against him (Cohan backdoor dealing with Lacob/Gruber in the W’s case and the NBA’s interest in staying in NO). Memphis will be particularly interesting if LE can force his hand as it seems Stern and the NBA does have a vested interest in a franchise ownership opportunity:
Bob Lurie was as desperate as The A’s today when Walter Haas signed off on the move to SC/SJ.
There was nowhere else to go except SC/SJ for the G’s.
I got to believe that Lew has been told by BS that there will be a solution after the season is over. There is no reason for Lew to oppose a lawsuit otherwise.
I think that Lacob/Gruber were probably promised that the KINGS would not be allowed to come to San Jose. That’s part of why I mentioned the Grizzlies in my hypothetical above. The Kings’ situation will be settled in the next 5 years; the Grizzlies are way further off.
The Grizzlies are locked in for the foreseeable future, but could conceivably prove to be untenable long-term in that market. The same might eventually be true of Charlotte.
My guess is that, behind closed doors, Lacob/Gruber were promised no infringement for, say, a decade-plus. That’s plenty of time to build a new arena in SF, pay down stadium debt, etc. The parallel you could make to the A’s situation here, is that, similar to the Giants, the Warriors want to preserve “top dog”/”best show in town” status for as long as possible.
It’s in Selig’s best interest to delay an A’s decision, and it’s in Stern’s best interest to keep San Jose in play…but also to get the Warriors in a new state-of-the-art arena first, paying down as much debt as possible in the first few highly lucrative years, before he persuades his board of owners to sign off on making the Bay Area a two-team market.
I think the Bay Area is definitely in play for two NBA teams…15-20 years away. By then HP Pavilion will be due for a re-model/resurface anyway, the NBA’s newly owner-friendly CBA will have the league in better financial position, and the Warriors will have reaped the dividends of 10 seasons in their new state-of-the-art arena.
Ellison probably won’t want to buy a team at that point (age 80+), but there will be quite a few local Apple/Facebook/Google people in position to buy a South Bay NBA franchise in 15-20 years.
This is the best ballpark view ever: http://www.minorleagueballparks.com/camden01.jpg
@martin
The A’s never received anything when the late, great Walter Haas granted the Giants permission to move to San Jose, which, by the way, they never did, negating Walter Haas’ condition on granting the rights to SCCO.
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Plus, when current Giants ownership purchased them, they did not buy T-rights. T-rights are not a “thing” that can be bought and sold. It is something that is granted by MLB. They bought the San Fransisco Giants. They did not buy the City of San Jose or Santa Clara County.
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You might argue that the SCCO T-rights were baked into the purchase price. And that would be wrong. That has been covered here by ML, and compared to other mlb team purchases at the time that did not include any T-rights baked in, the purchase price was in line with the value of other similar clubs.
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The A’s are not “asking” for anything from the Giants. They are only asking that MLB reverse the T-rights, since the condition of granting those T-rights were never met, and that reversal would only put the bay area back in line with all other two team markets, and move the A’s further away from the Giants.
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So, none of your arguments hold any water whatsoever. Take off the orange and black tinted glasses, please.
@ NSJ – well said and i agree with you entirely!
@jeff – saying that T-Rights don’t have value is absurd. Just like T-rights, ownership itself can be taken away in the best interest of baseball. To say that T-rights are “granted” and thus have no value is ridiculous. To say that the Giants ownership bought the team without thinking about T-Rights is absurd. To say that the banks that financed AT&T park did not care about T-Rights and Market Share is beyond absurd.
I get the A’s situation, I almost saw my team move to Florida, and wouldn’t wish that on any fan. I would hope that the A’s and Giants could come to a financial agreement. But its not the Giants fault that Oakland has gone to hell.
To say that the banks who financed AT&T even matter at this juncture is absurd. By the time a theoretical San Jose stadium could open there’d be a year left on the original mortgage…
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Territorial Rights are not owned by any team. They are owned by MLB who in turn allocates them as they see fit (based on a vote of all owners). In this case, it is even more absurd, because the A’s can freely market to that part of the giants territory. Just like the Giants already market all over the A’s territory. What value can something that doesn’t even impact a team’s revenue stream directly really hold?
Ironic Martin in that the A’s tried to help the gints avoid the move dilemma by giving them, at no charge, SCCo. Ironic how greedy the gints ownership is not to return the favor… And as Jeffrey said it has nothing to do with the banks or the “value” of TR- it has everything to do with the gints working to make the bay area a single team market- incredibly greedy and selfish- and most gint fans I know aren’t happy with the game their owners are playing-
The TR is the right to play in the territory — to build a home stadium there. 3/4 of the owners have to approve any “relocation” a team wants to make; 3/4 have to approve any change to TRs necessary to permit a move in the first place. Obviously that stadium-site slice of TRs is important and valuable.
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While double-checking the const. just now, I noticed this provision in art. VIII, sec. 4:
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“The rights, privileges and other property rights of a Major League Club hereunder and under any other Baseball-related agreement may be terminated . . . (ii) involuntarily, with the approval of three-fourths of all Major League Clubs, if the Club in question shall do or suffer any of the following:
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. . .
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“(k) Fail to maintain a ballpark suitable for the playing of home Major League Baseball games”
xoot: I read that as the playing field, and probably as time went on, it included the player facilities. Obviously they are not the gold standard in MLB, but they’re hardly unsuitable.
LS, at the very least the A’s facilities in Oakland are better than the Giants’ facilities in SJ. Talk about failing to maintain a ballpark suitable for the playing of home Major League Baseball games and they’ve had 20 some odd years of territorial exclusivity to get that done.
Giants facilities in SJ?
The Warriors are going to be rolling in dough for years to come once the Kings move to Anaheim.
Right now the Warriors TV rights are Bay Area only with the Kings owning everything outside the Bay Area north to Eureka and North Nevada.
When the Kings move the Warriors will re-do their TV deal to include all of Northern California. Bay Area is 5th largest media market and Sacramento is 20th, when you combine them you will see a mega TV rights deal a notch below what the Lakers just signed with Time Warner.
As a Warriors fan it kills me to see the team make more $$ without having to get any better on the court. That TV revenue will push the Warriors value extremely high and give them massive leverage for bank loans to build the new arena in San Francisco.
It is sad that the leagues do anti-competitive behavior such as the A’s and Giants situation and the Warriors owning the wealthiest market in the NBA all to themselves.
Dan, that’s called sarcasm.
“To say that the banks that financed AT&T park did not care about T-Rights and Market Share is beyond absurd. ”
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MLB has an Anti-trust exemption. The Banks do not. Banks absolutely cannot make financing deals based on territorial rights, because they would be in direct violation of Anti-Trust. They can, however, base financing deals on projected revenue. And the Giants could then, and can now, project very good revenue from all over the Bay Area, including SCCO, regardless of T-rights, and regardless of where the A’s play. That is a fact.
I am not trying to be a jerk with this question but what is the value of this view? More than 95% of NBA games are played at night, indoors and out of the sight lines of windows. It does kind of seem like a waste of a view and it would destroy the value of all of the condos that sit across the Embarcadero.
daniel, there was no where else for the Giants to go until they figured out how to make it work in San Francisco. The A’s want to go to San Jose for obvious reasons and that is the only place Wolff has ever really wanted to go.
@Ted- the gints could have built a privately financed ballpark in SJ once Walter Haas gave them the rights for free- isn’t SJ the “heart” of their fan base according to baer…who in their right mind locates a ballpark more than an hour away from the “heart” of their fan base? Unless Larry is fullof shitmwhich is a logical explanation-
GoA’s, Walter Haas never had rights to San Jose to give away. The only team to ever have rights to SCC are the Giants.
Ted–you are completely mistaken—and of course you avoided your previous assertion that the gints had no where to go but SF—which is also incorrect—below is an excerpt after the recent owners meeting stating the facts-
“Late Oakland owner Walter Haas gave the Giants the OK to assume rights to San Jose in a favor of sorts to former San Francisco owner Bob Lurie when his team was considering moving to Florida. The deal basically happened with a handshake — and “without compensation,” — and then was approved by baseball’s owners.
The A’s said that “MLB-recorded minutes clearly indicate that the Giants were granted Santa Clara, subject to relocating to the city of Santa Clara.” Said the Giants: “The Giants’ territorial rights were not granted ‘subject to’ moving to Santa Clara County.”
Not even the gints are debating that the A’s gave them SJ free of compensation—furthermore BS was recently quoted that unforuntately or fortunately–depending on your point of view—the TR were never revoked after the gints failed to build in SJ—
So we’re in a situation where San Jose could provide MLB with a chance to solve the A’s problem and grow revenues all around. But the Giants don’t care – as far as their concerned, its all about them. The best interests of baseball? Giants are only concerned about the best interests of the Giants.
@Ted and Martin-Here is an example of what the Giants are doing and I would like to hear your thoughts…..Keep in mind I am a lifelong Giants fan from San Jose.
Example: I am in the gas station business and I want to open a Shell station right across the street from a Chevron station.
The Chevron owner is telling me that he has T-rights to the land that I want to build my Shell station on because he made a private investment in his station and that it would cripple the value of his business.
Then he argues that those T-rights across the street were baked into the cost of buying his Chevron station in the first place.
Should the Shell station owner be allowed to setup shop right across the street from the Chevron Station?
Now in the case of the Giants the A’s are already across the street and want to move further away and not across the street from the Chevron station like the Shell station is attempting to do.
Thoughts?
Oh goody. Ted’s back to say virtually anything — to make up any lie — as long as it supports his vile, anti-competitive desire to see the A’s suffer so his team can benefit. And to make matters worse, he just casually moves on to the next completely made-up assertion when called on it and proven to be the liar he is. Just stop. We get it. You want to see the A’s die so the Giants can benefit. Stop making up nonsensical bullshit to try to make yourself feel better about being such a douchebag.
@ Sid- Wow, when you put it that way, it really does sound ridiculous, that last paragraph says it all.
Sid, it’s probably not quite accurate. It’s more like having two Shell stations one right across the highway from the other where one Shell station franchisee owner has the T-rights for across town where no one’s really utilizing it while blocking the other franchisee from uprooting his business and moving further away. Both analogies are flawed and the truth is probably somewhere in the middle, but paint anti-competitive scenarios.
I really hope that if this isn’t resolved favorably soon, the 9th Circuit Federal Court in San Francisco gets an introduction to the idiocy of Major League Baseball’s anti-trust exemption. Would be worth the price of admission to hear MLB’s defense of it. I’d really like to see the MLB monopoly broken up into two separate competing leagues and the commissioner’s office eliminated. Then let the national and american leagues compete to be in San Jose rather than locking it out.
Sid,
T-rights exist in baseball. Like them or not, they exist.
Should the Giants have those rights? We can debate that all day long. But what took the A’s so long to complain? If the rights were “conditional” shouldn’t the A’s have said something as soon as Pac Bell broke ground 14 years ago?
What are they worth? The Giants and A’s would agree that SCC rights are worth a lot.
Would the Giants rather have the A’s in a new stadium in Oakland or SJ? I would guess that LB would say Oakland even if it is closer. Take this example. You own a Starbucks in Valley Fair Mall do you care if someone opens a shop “closer” outside the mall in the parking lot or do you care more about one inside the mall that may be further away?
Would the Giants like the A’s in Mexico City? Probably.
In the end, don’t blame the Giants for Oakland going to hell, and 3/4 of the owners can change the T-Rights if it really does make sense to the owners. If this was all a simple as everyone here thinks, It would have happened already. The Giants can’t stop a vote!
And finally, I know that someone will say “But HAAS was nice!” The market has changed dramatically in 22 years. Haas was a business man, he thought the SF’s proximity to Oakland was worth more than SJ at the time. There is no doubt about Oakland vs. SJ today.
re: don’t blame the Giants for Oakland going to hell,
…but we can blame the Giants for knowing Oakland’s situation and forcing the A’s to stay there – if the A’s want to remain in the Bay Area, anyway. . And forever consigning San Jose, a major city of 1 million people, to minor league status? This is all the Giants doing. Best interests of baseball? The Giants couldn’t care less.
This notion that the beneficent Walter Haas “gave” the Giants the SCCo TRs with conditions attached is a complete myth. Neither team had the TRs to that county then. 3/4 of the owners “gave” the county to the Giants; Haas just didn’t object.
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The alleged discussion about “conditions” is what’s known as parol evidence. You’ll find it difficult to modify the current unambiguous written contract among the owners, the mlb constitution, with vague information related to the owners’ decision to amend an earlier version of the agreement back in 89 or 90. The agreement has been amended and approved by the owners several times since then. Today it states the scope of teams’ TRs clearly, and there’s no condition attached to the concluding clause in SF’s grant: “provided, however, that with respect to all Major League Clubs, Santa Clara County in California shall also be included.”
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The owners who bought the Giants in 92 had every reason to include that grant of TRs in the business plan they showed the lenders. (That doesn’t mean they have some sort of moral right to hang onto SCCo now, if the A’s are willing to pay good money for it. But that’s a different issue.)
@xootsuit – That’s some mighty fine lawyering there. The only thing unambiguous is that Bob Lurie did ask Wally Haas for permission. Whether Lurie was compelled to ask or whatever the implied nature of the “gentlemen’s agreement” was, permission was asked and granted. End of story. Everything else is subject to debate and negotiation, just as T-rights are now.
GoA’s,
I was responding to Daniel’s comment, he said: “There was nowhere else to go except SC/SJ for the G’s.” My point was that wasn’t actually the case as the Giants new ownership proved.
I am not mistaken about the A’s never having territorial rights to SCC to give away either. Neither team had rights to SCC to give away. Your wrote: “Walter Haas gave them the rights for free” and that just wasn’t the case.
PJK,
The Giants ownership’s responsibility is to look out for what is best for the Giants abd I think they have good reason to think that the A’s moving to San Jose could cost them revenue for many years to come.
Sid,
I understand where you are coming from but I see the situation more as both teams being Chevron Stations that are independently owned. One owner is promised by Chevron that no other Chevron will open in certain neighboring areas. Fair or unfair, that is the arrangement that both owners agreed to when they bought their franchises.
Dude,
What have I lied about? The A’s never had rights to San Jose, that is a fact and the Giants DID build in San Francisco. Please correct me if I am wrong.
All,
After typing all this I see that dmoas already explained the gas station analogy and xoot explained the fact that Haas never gave the Giants SCCTR. I don’t want to go round and round saying the same thing repeatedly. If Dude or someone else wants to explain to me what facts I got wrong I will try to clarify but other than that I don’t want to flood this board with nitpicking comments.
@Ted – You can dismiss Haas’s gesture all you like. The Lodge knows what he did. Selig’s keenly aware of it. It’s very meaningful and is worth something, just as the Giants’ hold over SCCo is worth something now. Plus you keep neglecting to mention that Wolff is willing to compensate based on actual damages accrued by the Giants due to the A’s move. Not sure why the Giants’ defenders keep forgetting this.
ML — It’s true 3/4 of the owners can change the terms whenever they want to, but more important right now is this fact: The owners who ratified the mlb constitution most recently (I think 2005 — it expires New Years Eve 2012, and so is up for renewal now) were not the same owners who talked to Lurie and Haas in 89. You live by the written contract you agree to sign. So, with all respect, I think the minimal relevance of what Lurie and Haas said to each other in 89 expired long ago. And I think the relevance was never very signficant because those two had no power to “agree,” impliedly or otherwise, indpendent of mlb. (It occurs to me that it might be worthwhile to check on the effective date of the current mlb const. — Did Wolff and his partners approve the language that’s there now AFTER they bought the A’s?)
@xootsuit – The significance can’t have faded that much if Selig brought it up only a month ago. He was there then. He’s still there now.
Wolff et al purchased the A’s on April 1, 2005; the current version of the mlb constitution has an effective date in June 2005. Or so says wikipedia. Interesting, in light of the unambiguous language granting SCCo exclusively to the Giants.
ML, I am not sure what that gesture really means. Was it anything more than the equivalent of a father granting his grown daughter’s hand in marriage to a guy who was kind enough to ask? I did not mean to neglect the notion that Wolff is willing to pay some sort of compensation but I have no idea what he is willing to pay and I seriously doubt that it will come close to covering short and long-term revenue loss. It has to be an astronomical figure that could be quite difficult to calculate.
@Ted – It doesn’t need to be astronomical. There are simple, quantitiative ways to measure compensation. I’ve always thought that the Giants’ resisting is that the compensation is worth much more in this legal realm (paper tiger) than in practice. Who’s right? I say we find out instead of hiding behind lawyers.
Too much supposition going on. Selig has tried to control the publicity related to mlb’s internal TR turmoil. We can’t judge the proceedings by the PR. What’s important is what 3/4 of the current owners want now, not what Selig remembers from more than a dozen years ago. A persuasive argument for changing the TR alignment in the Bay Area should include the Haas-Lurie story for context, absolutely. But the current group of owners, today, will need more compelling reasons than that to support taking something valuable away from a fellow franchisee.
ML, how do you project what the Giants franchise value and revenues would be over the next 10, 15 or 20 years with the A’s in San Jose and do you then compare them to what they would be with the A’s staying put in the Coliseum and voila, there is your figure? It just seems impossible to come up with actual damages. Would they guarantee that the Giants would continue to grow in value and revenue at the same rate they have since 2000? That would be a tough guarantee to make.
@ML- Roger Noll estimated the value of TR at $30M- any idea how he came up with this figure? Also- any thoughts on the comments by the Villinova law professor who said that the MLB/gints are defenseless if he A’s decided to just move to SJ?
@xootsuit – It’s all important, Giants fan. To say otherwise is extremely disingenuous. And what, pray tell, have you divined from the owners? Apparently you have some secret line into The Lodge. I don’t suggest “taking the rights away” from Giants. There is a fair price and it should be paid.
@Ted – The Giants are maxed out in terms of capacity at AT&T Park, so there’s little additional revenue potential there. It would not be difficult to determine which sponsors and season ticket holders left the Giants for the A’s – either go by specifics or ZIP codes. Ancillary revenues can be determined similarly. Calculate those over the next five years (the remainder of the AT&T Park mortgage) or 30 years (the length of the mortgage of Cisco Field). If they want to go with projections that’s fine, but it will be difficult to come to an agreement on potential losses. MLB can set a baseline based on previous revenue growth for the Giants or MLB’s growth. Impossible? Hardly.
Franchise value is generally a function of revenue, so there’s little need to calculate the two using separate methods.
@GoA’s – I don’t know exactly where the number came from. It’s worth asking.
ML, in 2004 the Giants drew the same crowds that they are drawing now, 2004 Forbes listed their revenue at $153 million (for 2003), for 2011 they listed the Giants revenue at $230 million. In another 7 years it doesn’t seem too outrageous to believe that the Giants revenue will be $240 million or more.
The value of the franchise in 2004 was listed by Forbes at $368 million, this year the listed the value at $630 million. I agree that the two generally increase at similar rates although I think franchise values across the league are increasing faster than revenue over the past few years and I am interested to see what the Dodger sale will do to valuations. I can’t see the A’s agreeing to guaranteeing that kind of growth.
GoA’s, MLB could force A’s owners to sell.
@Ted- on what grounds could MLB force the A’s to sell?
@Ted – If we’ve learned anything from the last two years, it’s that franchise sales are in a major bubble moment. The disparity between what Forbes lists and what the actual market value has never had a larger disparity than right now. The Giants are listed at $630 million, but if they went out and named a $1 Billion asking price they’d get multiple buyers without flinching in a cinch. Maybe there’s a correction around the corner. For now I don’t see it.
GoA’s, violating territorial rights and relocation rules. I would imagine that is the justification a commissioner would use anyway.
ML, I agree.