Update 9/6 10:30 AM – Several items added.
Not much to celebrate on the field, so we’ll focus off it.
- Sure, the A’s didn’t draw well Tuesday and Wednesday. Neither did the White Sox, Nationals and Braves. Yet league attendance is up 3% over last year. Nothing changes overnight.
- Brodie Brazil wrote a goofy column about stuff that should carry over from the Coliseum to a new A’s ballpark. [CSN Bay Area]
- Good to see that the regular media (Merc, NBC BA, KQED) picked up on the recent S4SJ lawsuit activity. I’ve heard that S4SJ is expected to respond with its own motion by Monday 9/10, followed by another response by the City by 9/14. If nothing else it keeps the case in the news.
- Forbes NFL team valuations are in right on schedule. #1 is the Cowboys at a whopping $2.1 billion, followed by the Patriots and Redskins. The 49ers are at #9 with a $1.175 billion, thanks to the team’s playoff run and the start of stadium construction. The Raiders came in at #30 with a $785 million valuation, and were one of two teams to have an operating loss (according to Forbes). [Mike Ozanian]
- We’re 9 days from the NHL’s lockout deadline, and there’s no telling what will happen. The two sides are reportedly very far apart. [SB Nation DC/Ted Starkey]
- With ESPN’s TV deal signed, MLB may be looking for $800 million per year for the combined Fox/Turner schedules. Combined with ESPN, MLB would net $1.5 billion per year, translating to $50 million per team. Add other central revenue to that (merchandise, MLB AM, XM, etc.) teams should be able to get $70 million in national revenue every season starting in 2014. That figure doesn’t include revenue sharing (local redistribution). [Sports Business Journal/John Ourand]
- So I guessed wrong on 95.7 The Game getting the Warriors and switching to NBC Sports Radio. The station stayed with Houston-based Yahoo! Sports Radio, and the W’s chose to renew their deal with KNBR, apparently feeling that the signal coverage was worth the third-tier status on the stations. That’s a bad loss for Entercom, though it highlights the biggest problems with The Game: its ratings aren’t going to get much better until they get more local pro teams and boost the station’s signal. The new deal runs through the 2015-16 season.
- The good news for The Game is that the station posted a 1.1 rating for August, the highest since the programming change. The A’s haven’t moved the needle at The Game for well over a year. Perhaps this is a sign that now they are effecting change. [BA Sports Guy/Scott Willis]
- Legislators are attempting to bring back redevelopment through various bills that have just reached Governor Brown’s desk. I won’t give the bills much attention unless Brown signs them into law. In the meantime, some groups are applying for federal tax credits to help foot the bills for projects. [ABC 7/Kendall Taggart; 10 News San Diego]
- Save Oakland Sports has a profile in the Tribune. When talking about the upcoming fundraiser, co-founder Jim Zelinski said, “A cynic might laugh … but it all adds up.” Sure it does. Fundraisers like this, which has no set fundraising goal, can help – about 1 PSL’s worth at a time. [Oakland Tribune/Matthew Artz]
- The federal government will lose up $4 billion in tax revenue ($146 million annually) thanks to tax-exempt bonds used on many stadia, including the Coliseum and the new 49ers stadium. [Bloomberg Businessweek/Aaron Kuriloff and Darrell Preston]
More as it comes.
newballpark.org 
I was surprised at how many people wanted all the foul ground in the new stadium.
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I wonder if the loss of negotiating with the Warriors will spur a change from The Game; switch from 95.7 to another Entercom owned frequency, addition of another frequency to the 95.7, or by adding more power to the existing frequency.
Things to keep not already mentioned…
Sports highlights
Permanently installed drums
The Haas jersey
Saag’s sausages
A bunch of people who shout, “Oh no” when each umpire is announced
The Bill King booth
An engraved wall stating, “Keep the A’s in Oakland.”
Warriors arena related article: Warriors Arena Update: Seeking Supporters and Prepping Numbers
http://blogs.mercurynews.com/warriors/2012/09/05/warriors-arena-update-seeking-supporters-and-prepping-numbers/
why can’t nbc whos really struggling for ratings go get baseball. i think they were the national feed before fox took over back in the late 90s? i just can’t stand buck that much that i’d rather has somebody like costas taking over the main play by play man.
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i’ve read reports or rumors that the game may switch from 95.7 to 102.9 because of it’s stronger signal but then read yesterday i think at lieberman’s blog that 102.9’s signal isn’t that much better than 95.7’s so i don’t know how much of an improvement it would be if the sports format moved over. also if 95.7 isn’t gonna land the w’s and the new nbc sports radio network, can they finally put somebody in during the night time slot on a permanent basis? really do miss townsend and stinks that he basically on half the time now.
@Bill,
Believe that engraved wall would be out of place at Cisco Field SJ. But the rest would be cool at the new yard…
Regarding the NHL lockout. Remember if they do end up locked out you can still get your hockey fix in the Bay Area this year with the debut of the San Francisco Bulls of the ECHL at the somewhat revamped Cow Palace. Their season starts October 12.
KNBR has been using KGO as the overflow station for 49ers games. Perhaps they promised the W’s they would get the same treatment for some of their conflict games? No complaints about that signal strength on that (as opposed to 1050, which is so-so after dark for many of us.)
RE: Coliseum foul territory– During the unchecked PED era, I liked anything that worked in-favor of the pitcher. However now, I’m not as big a fan anymore. I took the week off work, so I caught my first weekday day game since I was a kid. I forked out more money than I’ve ever done on tickets and got Row 1 in the MVP boxes. I know I could’ve just bought $2 seats and relocated to the MVP boxes, but whatever– actually paying for them gave me a different perspective on these seats. If I’m buying season tickets for myself or business or whatever, I’d be annoyed. No seat padding. Broken cup holders. Vast space between you and the action. It’s not like I want to be smelling Tye Waller farts, but it’d be nice to every now and then. I won’t be buying seats down there again, and I’m exactly the A’s target audience. I love the A’s so much, I’ll watch Clifford Pennington strikeout on a t-ball tee, but the premium baseball seating at the Coliseum sucks. I won’t miss the foul territory when it’s gone.
Briggs, couldn’t have said it better myself.
…There’s a bit in the Save Oakland Sports article about Wolff attempting to prove his efforts to build in Oakland, but the SOS rep dismissed it. People believe what they want to believe, I guess.
I think there should be ice plants in the stadium, wherever it is. Also, a cage of seagulls should be released just as the game ends.
The Braves and Nationals are an odd comparison to the A’s in attendance, as both those teams rank in baseball’s middle class (16th and 14th respectively), whereas the A’s are at number 29. More importantly, the average fan of those NL East teams spends a lot more per game than the average A’s fan.
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Interesting factoid: of baseball’s 8 weakest teams in ticket sales, 7 are in the American League. The other one is AL-bound Houston. 15 of the 22 strongest franchises by attendance play in the NL. I have no idea what this means, but it’s striking.
Simon, you got me thinking as to why that could be. I did a quick analysis of the 30 MLB stadiums currently in use. The average age of the ballparks in the NL is 17.44 years. The average age of the ballparks in use by the AL is 27.36 years. Wonder if that could have anything to do with it. Particularly when you consider among those AL ballparks are the only multipurpose donuts left (the Coliseum and Rogers Centre), the last regular dome (Tropicana Field) and the last two ballparks using field turf (Tropicana and Rogers Centre).
We really have to wonder how much longer MLB and the NFL are going to continue sharing the facility, an arrangement that works for neither team: Messed-up field for the A’s (and opponents) after Raiders games; football players going down hard on the baseball infield. Warren Sapp recently talked about how much the NFL players don’t like it. I think it’s looking more likely that that the Raiders will head to either Santa Clara or LA pretty soon. The pro-Oakland folks won’t want to hear this but it is what it is. (I still think the 49ers and Raiders could have shared a facility in Oakland, which would only require construction of half a football stadium, and with great parking and BART right there. Of course, this leaves out the question of what to do with the A’s.)
@pjk – I disagree, I think the Raiders will stay, but it will be because they put pressure on Oakland to build, and the city finally gives up on the A’s. You’re not half wrong though, the Raiders will share with the 49ers for a couple years while it’s being built.
Lone: If Oakland doesn’t have any $$ for the A’s, how’s it going to have anything for the Raiders, whose facility would be in the $1 billion price range? Especially when the city is still paying off the football improvements added in 1995? Think Oakland voters would sign off on a $1 billion football stadium? I kind of doubt it.
@pjk – I agree, not much could come from the city, but they do have free land. They would essentially refuse to renew the A’s lease, tear down the Coliseum and the Raiders would build the new football stadium. If they can’t wrangle money from the NFL, then they stick around in the Coliseum until the NFL is comfortable that enough time has passed. Or, if the City manages to find a way to build the Coliseum City idea, they might suggest the Raiders move to SC for two years. It’s as possible as any other guess.
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I think the Raiders would have been better off joining the 49ers in building the new stadium in SC from the beginning, but they didn’t. Right now, I think the most financially responsible choice is to just nut up and move in with the 49ers. As a tenant, however, I don’t see the Raiders sticking in that situation forever. I expect it would last for about a decade, then they’d move when the NFL was ready to give them stadium money.
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On a related note… I wonder if the Raiders would be willing to pay the 10% gate charge to the City of Berkeley to play at the renovated Memorial Stadium for a couple years instead of playing in SC? No, that would be an Al Davis move, choosing less gate receipts vs being a tenant to the 49ers.
Just because JerryWorld and MetLife stadium cost $1 billion+ doesn’t mean a new Raiders facility needs to. Once the A’s are out of the coliseum, they could tear down the old part and rebuild a modern facility around Mt. Davis. If Cal can gut and rebuild Memorial stadium for $320 million, certainly this could be done to the Coliseum for ~$500 million or so. No other land or infrastructure costs.
It would make sense to keep the half of the stadium built in 1995. But how much public money is available for construction? $0.00. How much of a contribution do you think the Raiders can offer? This is the team with the lowest revenues in the league, if Forbes is to be believed.
I have been reading since the inception of this site. I absolutely love what ML and Jeffrey have done. I enjoy the interviews and look forward to when the A’s have a brand new home. I do not see that happening in Oakland, though. I think it to be quite intrusive of SOS to barge onto this site. I think barge is too strong a word but couldn’t think of another word. Anyway, I would not mind reading about SOS if it were newsworthy. Same goes for the calendar.I
Sorry, next topic
i would think the raiders would want to have a brand new stadium. somethings about even the mt davis half of the coliseum isn’t that great although i guess they could be fixed if the raiders were to tear down the original coliseum and made drastic changes to the half they’re keeping.
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those seats at the top of the structure are way too steep and high above. i don’t know if the coliseum can do what us cellular with the chisox help did which they too have a steep third deck but completely rebuilt the 3rd deck where the seats aren’t as high up. also the luxury boxes, they’d probably have to be refurshed, somebody brought up this idea months ago which is to combine one or two of those mt davis luxury boxes into one huge one since those things don’t sell all that well in the first place. also inside mt davis i’ve read comparisons having the charm of an airport terminal. course they could “raider” it up down the road.
not only would they have to rebuild at least 1/2 and maybe even more even if they tore down everything other than mt davis they imo still would need to improve mt davis as a whole. the seats on top are so steep. i don’t know if they could do what the chisox did to comisky when us cell gave them a ton of money for the naming rights but they changed their third deck which also was very steep when they first built that stadium and made it more in line with other 3rd decks for baseball parks. could they do the same with the mt davis seats all the way up? add to that maybe cutting the # of luxury boxes and as sombody months ago mentioned maybe combine 2 or 3 of them since they really aren’t sold out thru out the years since they were built into the structure. inside mt davis i’ve read critics say it has all the charm of an airport terminal but i think the raiders could “raider” it up farily easily.
letsgoas
September 8, 2012 at 5:55 PM (Quote)
“i don’t know if they could do what the chisox did to comisky when us cell gave them a ton of money for the naming rights but they changed their third deck which also was very steep when they first built that stadium and made it more in line with other 3rd decks for baseball parks.”
The White Sox simply removed the top 8 rows of the upper deck and installed a partial roof. They did not change the pitch of the upper deck; it’s as steep as it ever was. Their multi-year renovation was about creating more expensive seats to sell and removing cheap/lousy seats that were rarely sold; in that respect, they succeeded. (I suppose they could have just tarped them off.)
The “lots of foul territory” suggestions are ridiculous. Getting rid of the foul territory so fans can have a decent view is one of the main reasons to build a new park.