Update 8:10 PM – Oakland CM Rebecca Kaplan will announce on Thursday that she’s entering the mayoral race. Recent polls had her as a frontrunner even though she hadn’t declared.
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In an interview on Bloomberg Market Makers earlier this morning, Wolff talks up the 10-year lease extension that has gained momentum this week. When asked by show co-host Eric Schatzker when the extension might be done Wolff replied,
“Next couple of weeks, I hope… there are some approvals necessary, but the people we’re dealing with now are very intelligent and working with us.”
That seems to be a further nod to Oakland City Councilperson and JPA board member Rebecca Kaplan, who is now involved in negotiating the lease. Kaplan, who still hasn’t decided if she’ll run for the Oakland mayoral gig (thanks ranked choice voting for allowing this to play out), could very easily use the A’s extension as part of her platform, pivoting directly into the race immediately afterwards.
It’ll happen when it happens. Unless it doesn’t.
If you want to get a good idea of how the rest of the country views Oakland and the A’s, look no further than Schatzker’s numerous comments about the small market nature of the A’s. Moneyball may have indelibly painted the A’s as a small market team that plays in a crappy stadium, but there’s also a major disconnect. Market Makers is broadcast from New York, so it’s no surprise that the Schatzker and co-host Stephanie Ruhle know little about the Bay Area (Schatzker’s “southern Bay Area” remark is especially telling). Bloomberg has its own West Coast offices and a TV show broadcast out of SF. Oakland is mere miles from SF and a little further from the South Bay, separated only by a body of water, not a border, and yet Oakland is unable to shake the small market label. It’s not even clear that a new stadium in Oakland will get rid of small market.
Wolff, who had perhaps his best television interview in recent memory, played along with the narrative and called the A’s David to the various Goliaths, though as usual he didn’t complain about said Goliaths. The rising tide is lifting the A’s boat, as the franchise should see $200 million in revenue this year thanks to the new national TV deals. Yet competitively they remain way behind most of the rest of baseball, where 16 teams started the year with payrolls above $100 million. The A’s are stuck with the other small market – or rather, low revenue – teams. A new ballpark running at capacity should properly elevate the A’s relative to their peers. The CBA points out that the A’s are in the #7 market, and given their position they should be taken off revenue sharing once a new ballpark starts operation. But as long as the A’s remain in limbo with regards to a new venue, so will their financial position. They live in a large market, yet they can’t function like one because they don’t make enough money to live that way. Sounds apropos considering how tough it is for individuals to live in much of the Bay Area these days.
newballpark.org 
get ‘er done and move onto telling the Raiders to pound salt.
So what does the 10-year lease actually mean? or solve? The interview and the lease (if signed) leads to more questions than answers.
– Is there an escape clause in the lease?
– Does this lease mean the A’s possible move to San Jose is really dead?
– What happens to the Oakland Raiders if the lease is signed?
– What if the A’s win the lawsuit and the go ahead to move to SJ? (Can’t imagine the city of Oakland would give them a deal if they knew SJ would win the lawsuit).
– Does this mean the the city of Oakland now favors the A’s over the Riders?
– Will this lease just buy the A’s time to look out of California for a possible stadium. (Wolf says he wants to stay in the Bay…but didn’t specifically deny he would consider leaving or selling the team).
Typical NYC news anchor interview with matters regarding sports issues on the west coast.
$700-$800M- damn- bs doing nothing has increased costs 50%- to Jeffrey’s point- LW needs all those development rights at proposed CC rift to make this pencil out- want to see the terms to see if he is still willing to leave in Raiders reach deal- hope not- leverage this to drive the Raiders out and let’s get going-
what happened to JQ? JQ opposes the long lease if the A’s can’t promise to stay or build a new stadium in Oakland.
@Daniel Quan doesn’t matter in the negotiations for any of the deals or stadium talks, all it is for her is political standing and talking points. JPA and city council get a proposal and they vote. Regardless if she is mayor next year or not everything is going forward with or with out her.
So LW gets to see the team play the Yankees, go to the draft, visit Selig, and do the media rounds. Not a bad itinerary for a road trip.
Seems like if the A’s are only able to utilize the two counties as their territory, their market ranking should be based on those two counties. Seems like an appropriate step to take if MLB’s unwilling to make the bay area shared like all other similar situations.
A quote from the guy so hated in Oakland: “We want to stay in the Bay Area. We are a Bay Area team. We are not moving to Timbuktu.” – Lew Wolff.
re: Seems like if the A’s are only able to utilize the two counties as their territory, their market ranking should be based on those two counties
…Absolutely, if MLB wants to consign the A’s to a small portion of the Bay Area and allot both of the Bay Area’s largest, most-prosperous cities to the Giants, then MLB needs to step up and offer permanent revenue-sharing to the A’s.
This whole thing is crazy. LW did the right thing by not showing his poker hand during the interview, but I will bet that that 10 year lease has to have an “out” clause in it.
If SJ wins this suit, we will all be back on this site again trying to explain what’s going on with our A’s. If they don’t win, then get ready for another decade of sitting in a stadium that we all know needs to go.
re: “We want to stay in the Bay Area. We are a Bay Area team. We are not moving to Timbuktu.”
…cue up the flowing of tears in the Giants’ owners box.
re: Quan doesn’t matter in the negotiations for any of the deals
…the latest Quan news. http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2014/06/02/oakland-mayor-jean-quan-spotted-texting-and-driving/
Interesting – now the dominoes are going to start falling – how does this impact the Raiders?
Without any direct knowledge, I’d say the $700-$800M number is based on Howard Terminal and/or the ballpark plus infra at the Coliseum.
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This thing could get done in the Coliseum parking lot, the place that Al Davis and Chris Cohan blocked Steve Schott from pursuing in the early part of the last decade… Just, wow.
@ dmoas/pjk
re: Seems like if the A’s are only able to utilize the two counties as their territory, their market ranking should be based on those two counties
…Absolutely, if MLB wants to consign the A’s to a small portion of the Bay Area and allot both of the Bay Area’s largest, most-prosperous cities to the Giants, then MLB needs to step up and offer permanent revenue-sharing to the A’s.
I could not agree with each of you more, this is ridicules. I’m Pro-Oakland as most who comment or read here know, but I’m more pro-A’s then Oakland or San Jose, and it’s absolutely unacceptable for MLB to force the A’s to build in Alameda/CC, then turn around and put big market demands on them, such as not being able to participate in the revenue sharing program, they can’t have it both ways.
If Wolff can’t get San Jose, I hope he fights like hell to maintain the A’s right to be a program recipient, because the A’s may play in market #7 according to MLB, but being confined (build only), to the East Bay it’s more like market #25, surrounded by market #7.
@Jeffrey- I’d venture to say its CC plus Infrastructure but also no doubt that construction costs have increased significantly in past 5 years. Other item is whether or not Oakland is willing to say goodbye to Colony Capital- they were there for Raiders- LW doesn’t need or want them. Last- sure any deal would also require demo of Oracle after W’s leave- use the land for something else- Dr. death must be beside himself at the mere thought that Oakland could choose the A’s over the Raiders-
re: must be beside himself at the mere thought that Oakland could choose the A’s over the Raiders-
…A’s: 81-90 dates a year. Raiders: 10-13 dates a year. Shouldn’t be hard to explain
Can someone explain how the small market/big market label market works? The A’s play in the same metropolitan area as the Giants but the Giants are considered a big market team. If it’s because of the population of the actual city they play in, then why are the Angels who play in Anaheim (pop. 336k) and Rangers who play in Arlington (pop. 375k) considered big market teams? Will playing in Oakland and changing the name to San Francisco A’s or California A’s make them a big market.
“it’s absolutely unacceptable for MLB to force the A’s to build in Alameda/CC, then turn around and put big market demands on them, such as not being able to participate in the revenue sharing program, they can’t have it both ways.”
@Lakeshore/Neil, You’ve hit the crux of the problem that is being unrealistically and unfairly perpetuated by MLB. MLB has to allow the A’s to be equally shared partners with the Giants to the entire Bay Area market, as are the other two team shared markets within MLB. Otherwise, MLB would have to treat the A’s two county territory as their entire market, therefor making the A’s market to be the smallest within MLB, and thus perpetually maintaining the A’s on revenue sharing.
Does seem the bell has tolled for the Raiders long term hopes in Oakland if this extension goes through. There’s no way Davis will continue the status quo with the A’s sitting on the one place in Oakland he wants to build a stadium.
Just taking the counties of Alameda and CC, the A’s have the 24th biggest metro area, between Pittsburgh and Sacramento. KC, Cincinnati, and Milwaukee are all lower.
@Brian, Regardless of whether the A’s two county territory is ranked at 24th or last in population, the A’s would still be eligible for revenue sharing.
However, if you add in Solano, Napa, and San Joaquin Counties that are included in the Bay Area Combined Statistical Area (and you could make an argument that Sonoma County’s half a million people should be split, as it is not a part of the Giants’ designated territory and probably generally a quicker drive to O.co), that brings us up to 3.795 million, which puts us at 15th between Phoenix and Minny/St. Paul, ahead of 11 MLB markets. To put this in perspective, the Giants’ designated territory (SF, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Monterey, and Marin) are only 4.266 million, which would drop it to 14th, just ahead of ours.
Brian, what you just described is not what others are talking about. Solano, Napa, SJ counties are not assigned MLB territories and they won’t be. They ARE part of a shared TV market, which is different and not germane to the “market” as the constitution defines it. Only CC and Alameda for the A’s and then everything west of that for the G’s. Counties aren’t split between teams in any other market, they are shared or exclusive and they won’t be in this case.
At the same time, when comparing the split up Bay Area to other markets, it is only fair to count the entire metro or combined statistical area. For example, the Boston combined statistical area counts Providence, Worcester, and Concord, NH, all of which are about an hour from Boston. It’s not an accurate representation to count only the immediate counties for the A’s but the combined statistical or metro areas for every other team and compare them as if they are viewed using the same criteria.
Also, Monterey County is part of the Giants’ territory as stated by MLB but is too distant to be in the Bay Area combined statistical area. I included it in the Giants’ total anyway.
Overall, I guess I should’ve added in Sonoma County and split it between the Giants and A’s, so the total is that the Giants’ area is 4.512 million for 12th place in MLB and the A’s is 4.041 for 15th.
Brian – I live in Stanislaus County. I assure you that far and away (as in it’s not even close) the San Joaquin Valley is “Giant’s territory” even though it’s not officially written anywhere. I would guess Giants own the fanbase here by a factor of AT LEAST 25 to 1.
Right, and the Yankees dominate everything in north Jersey, Long Island, New York State, western Connecticut, and even have the most Facebook likes in the ZIP code that Citi Field is in (as the Giants do in Oakland). Doesn’t mean the Mets are a small market team.
And the Bay Area (including the valley) doesn’t have the population density OR raw population numbers that New York has either. You can’t seriously believe that is a valid comparison??? Assume the same ratio of 25 to 1 Yankees to Mets fans… Mets fans STILL outnumber A’s fans by quite a huge margin simply because New York’s population is so dramatically higher than even #2 Los Angeles let alone #7 Bay Area!
And I would even guess there are more Yankee and Red Sox fans here than there are A’s fans too.
Brian, we are all familiar with CMSA and MSA’s (I have written about them a bunch in the past here and at athleticsnation.com). You are missing the point however. Market Territories define where a team can build a stadium. That’s it.
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MLB is trying to have it both ways… Saying the A’s are in a large market, but hamstringing them to a small portion of that market by their own rules. That hamstringing has huge impacts on the team’s revenue. A stadium in SJ would have stronger revenue streams than a new one in Oakland.
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Oakland fans will dispute that, but it’s ridiculous from my perspective (and I remind everyone, I am a okay with a new stadium in the Coliseum parking lot). There’s a reason the Giants don’t want the A’s in SJ. It’s because if those companies have a choice, they’ll choose the game in their backyard more than the game 50 miles way. If they have to choose between the coliseum parking lot, or AT&T Park, they’ll more often choose AT&T Park. That’s the crux… It has nothing to do with MSA or CMSA.
Update 8:10 PM – Oakland CM Rebecca Kaplan will announce on Thursday that she’s entering the mayoral race. Recent polls had her as a frontrunner even though she hadn’t declared.
What a crazy, confusing mess – thanks to Selig and the giants. This A’s fan wants a new A’s ballpark in Oakland or San Jose – however am pulling for the San Jose site out of spite because of those assholes (giants owners and Selig)
@DP: There are plenty of A’s fans locally – the A’s outdrew seven other MLB teams (all with much newer, baseball-only stadiums) in 2013. The A’s play at the worst dump of a ballpark (easily) in MLB. They will likely do even better in 2014. The giants being the so-called bay area favorites is a fad. Where was all that so-called giants support when Lurie gave up on SF and sold the team to the Tampa Bay owners group? MLB should have made the right call at that time and approved the Giants move to Tampa Bay. SF demonstrated that it could not support an MLB team. Now MLB continues to protect the giants – who enjoy their artificial success because MLB (Selig)continues to prop them up. It’s no coincidence that Selig’s initials are B.S.
re: The giants being the so-called bay area favorites is a fad
…it’s been a fad for about 20 years now. Giants have outdrawn the A’ since Bonds came to town…Remember in 2006, when the A’s stomped on the Giants in the win-loss standings while the Giants stomped on the A’s at the box office?
All you have to do is walk into my local Target store to KNOW who rules the hearts of baseball fans here. The Giants and 49ers have an entire row of stuff, the Raiders have about half as much and the paltry selection of A’s stuff is stuffed in the next isle next to the 2nd-tier motor oil and a lot of it is marked-down “clearance” merchandise. Mention you are going to a game and everyone automatically assumes you are going to AT&T and sneer when you say no it’s an A’s game.
And it’s no fad. It’s been that way as long as I can remember and I’ve lived here and been an A’s fan all my life (45 years.)
Yes, there are A’s fans here in their own “territory” but we are vastly outnumbered.
@DP: why were the giants such a lowly franchise at one time then? Another reason the A’s likely gave the giants their approval for the giants proposed move to San Jose at one point was that the giants were so lowly non-factor of a team – the A’s weren’t even likely considering the giants as a threat at that time.
Also DP: I’m sorry – however Stanislaus county is not an adequate sample size to judge A’s/giants fanbases. The giants may dominate over there – but it’s no big deal – Stanislaus county is definitely small market.
I think this says a whole lot more about the unlikeliness of Coliseum City than it does about the the A’s moving to SJ.
The lease extension will definitely have an out and/or an early termination penalty set at a level that will be an afterthought compared to the cost of building in San Jose.
I am trying hard not to hope. Kaplan as Mayor would be fantastic. I think she is a pragmatist, and that’s been sorely lacking in Oakland.
@ Duffer
The Giants drew about the same as the A’s when the A’s had a much nicer stadium, a stadium in a much better and easier-to-get-to location, better ownership, and way way way more on-the-field-success.
All that indicates that the Giants “natural” base level attendance is far higher than the A’s.
@ Jeffrey
Re: I am trying hard not to hope. Kaplan as Mayor would be fantastic. I think she is a pragmatist, and that’s been sorely lacking in Oakland
I fill the same way, she would be fantastic. I had the pleasure of doing business with her some years back, I certainly have been one who has been critical of Wolff at times, but it would be nice if he got the chance to work with an Oakland mayor that would bring credibility to the position.
The hope for Kaplan is she will quit playing the shell game that JQ has been perpetuating- drawing circles on a map and saying that it’s a viable site. Quan is also responsible for the adversarial relationship with LW. My sense is Kaplan understands how to lead and realizes you don’t bite the hand of someone who is going to feed you. Finally, I hope that Kaplan can be a realist- recognize that keeping 1 team is their primary objective and identifying the public financial components to make that happen. Ballpark costs are now 700-800M meaning a football stadium is a lot more expensive now than $900M… And the longer they drag this out the more expensive they become. Will be interesting to see if JQ supports the new lease once it’s released realizing it will now benefit her competitor-
Looks like JPA has scheduled a special closed door session on Friday to review the proposed lease- hopefully details will be available sooner than later. Surprised someone hasn’t asked Mark Davis to comment to see if he has been part of discussion
Please Jeopardydd: The A’s outdrew the giants 17 out of the 32 years when the Giants played at Candlestick (according to my math – that means the A’s outdrew the giants) If the A’s have a new baseball only stadium, even in Oakland – they would likely continue to outdraw the Giants. The giants so-called dominance is fueled by excessive media hype – and the fact that the Giants two main rivals – the A’s and Dodgers – have dominated the Giants completely until phone booth park opened (the giants organization, and many of their fans, have inferiority complexes because of that and now try to pretend that the Giants have always been the bay area favorite.
Duffer – Bay Area folks don’t understand the valley… never have, never will. They are two completely different worlds.
I guess I am still stuck on how you proposed that the A’s “territory” included the valley and that’s how you got up to that mysterious even-split of a 4-million fan-base for each team. That argument just doesn’t fly with reality. Not when you consider the MLB constitution says A’s territory is only two counties and not when you actually live here and see reality every day.
“The hearts of the fans” and attendance at the ballpark are not always the same thing. And it’s not just Stanislaus County. That same sentiment is to be found all up and down the valley. Even when I lived in Sacramento for a couple years in college, it was far-and-away tilted towards the Giants. I even watched the Bay Bridge series from my dorm room. WAAAY more people rooting for the Giants!
The reason the A’s outdrew the Giants at the park was nobody wanted to sit in freezing Candlestick after the 7th inning. AT&T only gave a good excuse for the multitudes to come to the park instead of watching them on TV. Then when Bonds roided-up the casual “lookie-loos” jumped on the bandwagon to witness the freak-show.
the only measurement that ever suggested the A’s were more popular than the Giants was attendance and that was aided by a much nicer stadium in a much easier place to get to. Every other measurement (revenue, tv ratings, radio ratings, etc.)was neutral or favored the Giants. It’s silly to pretend that the Giants aren’t the most popular team and haven’t been for a looooong time.
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That doesn’t mean that their aren’t plenty of A’s fans. After all, it’s always a minority of folks who display excellent taste.
@Alex
– Is there an escape clause in the lease? Of course there is. Or the lease payments are low enough that they would be noise level and the A’s could just eat them if a new stadium opportunity arose elsewhere.
– Does this lease mean the A’s possible move to San Jose is really dead? Certainly not. The A’s need to guarantee themselves someplace to play in coming years. That’s a far cry from signing on for an unbreakable commitment to play there.
– What happens to the Oakland Raiders if the lease is signed? They’re hosed. While the A’s certainly won’t sign a lease that truly locks them into the Coli for ten years, the Raiders will have to assume that the A’s will occupy that space for ten years. Thus, they couldn’t build anything at the Coliseum site unless there was some way to do it without disturbing the existing structure. If Oakland gives the A’s a ten year extension, they’re taking a gamble that could possibly allow them to keep the A’s but could also result in losing both teams.
– What if the A’s win the lawsuit and the go ahead to move to SJ? If this happens before the A’s are locked into a new stadium elsewhere, they’ll move there. (Can’t imagine the city of Oakland would give them a deal if they knew SJ would win the lawsuit). No one can know for certain whether SJ will win the lawsuit. But they can certainly assume if they don’t offer a lease extension, the A’s will be forced to move elsewhere.
– Does this mean the the city of Oakland now favors the A’s over the Riders? It certainly looks that way. Which would make sense if they knew the A’s would actually build a ballpark in Oakland, but seems like a gamble looking at it from the outside.
– Will this lease just buy the A’s time to look out of California for a possible stadium. Yes, or wait to see how the San Jose litigation turns out. Or the views of a new MLB Commissioner on the subject.
(Wolf says he wants to stay in the Bay…but didn’t specifically deny he would consider leaving or selling the team). He has said in the past he has no intention of selling the team. Regardless, I wouldn’t place much weight on such statements one way or the other. If an attractive stadium opportunity arises, they’ll take it.
@GoAs Where are you getting that $800-900 million figure? I don’t believe for a second that’s how much a new ballpark, considered by itself, would cost on the Coliseum site.
@SMG “The lease extension will definitely have an out and/or an early termination penalty set at a level that will be an afterthought compared to the cost of building in San Jose.”
You’ve absolutely hit the nail on the head.
@ Duffer
The Giants outdrew the A’s 15 of the 32 years (17 for the A’s) DESPITE having:
1) worse ownership
2) a worse stadium
3) a location very hard to get to, especially by mass transit
4) far, far less success on the field.
Even with all of those huge challenges, the Giants were very close to drawing as well as the A’s (a few more fans in a single season would have done it, for instance if they made the playoffs another time).
That shows pretty conclusively that the base level of support is vastly different between the two franchises/cities, imo.
@bartleby- figure LW used in bloomberg interview was 700-800M for a new ballpark. Raiders proposd cost was $900M for a 50k open air stadium- I can’t see that ultimately being any less than the 1.3B the ‘9ers are paying? Relative to LW’s statement I would suspect you want as high of a figure out there as possible for Oakland because ultimately decelopment rights are how he would pay for it in Oakland so a higher cost to build means Oakland needs to shell out more development rights to make it happen.
Another thing to remember is that the NL counted turnstile clicks while the AL counted tickets sold until 1992. So the A’s got to count no-shows while the Giants didn’t, which boosted the attendance.
The estimates that I found online are that MLB averages 17% no-shows (that may have been smaller in years past when fewer season tickets were sold). For the 32 year period where the Giants played at Candlestick (where the A’s outdrew the Giants 17 times), three years would pretty clearly change from the Giants to the A’s if attendance counting policies were normalized (’68, ’70, and ’83) while ’73 would be too close to call. So instead of 17 out of 32, it would be 13 out of 31 where there was a definitive winner in attendance.
All who keep saying that the city is choosing one over the other, its not the Raiders vs A’s. As the development team stated at there meetings if anyone on here attended. All scenarios are accounted for in the EIR in regards to the teams staying and keeping the old stadium while the new ones are being built. Link 1 specifically states on page 22 about building around current Coliseum footprint, and link two page 11 when you scroll down are renderings of such scenarios. Also the question was raised with who first to the master developer in regards to building a stadium and he said ideally the A’s would be first. The question is will MD sale shares of the Raiders to help cover his cost, which Greg Papa alluded to when he spoke with MD about the NFL having rules for “legacy owner” where I believe he said he can drop his stake down to I believe it was 20% or somewhere around that and keep controlling interest of the team. And with the sale of the Clippers for 2 billion, one has to think that the Raiders value has gone up and MD can sale less shares or get more money with the sale of his shares to accomplish this.
Click to access oak046851.pdf
Click to access oak046852.pdf
Wow, JRDV really did rip off D’Sjon Dixon.
@K – There are other scenarios in those documents in which one or more teams leave. That is far more likely given the cost, complexity, and timeline involved with Coliseum City.
@ K
Thanks, for the information.
@ Brian,
Do you happen to have any links about that? Thanks in advance.
@ML lol yes you are right, I remember someone asked if that’s was what the stadiums would look like and they said that they were “place markers” and not official or final lol, way to cover themselves.
Also agreed with you as a lot of hands will want a slice of the pie, and that’s why the city/county needs to step up with infrastructure cost plus maybe a little more as that would lower the cost for teams/developers build as there cost will go down and have better/quicker chance to recoup money and make profit sooner than later.
Jeopardy: http://m.advosports.com/news/2010/jul/25/bc-bbn-dodgers-sportsplusla-_-sports/ for the NL/AL history, and http://www.latimes.com/la-sp-attendance-082305-story.html#page=1 for the no-show rate (says 18-20%-not sure where I got 17% but whatever).
A quote from the Purdy article: “Oakland still has not come up with a suitable new ballpark proposal, with Major League Baseball and the A’s rejecting plans at downtown’s Howard Terminal and the Coliseum City project still having a major “funding gap,” according to a city official.”
MLB has rejected Howard Terminal? Did I miss something, or is this just wrong?
@Jerry – Howard Terminal was proclaimed dead by Larry Reid when he called into Damon Bruce’s show in April.
Brian, that definitely puts a different spin on those years the A’s edged out the Giants. Might not be so clear cut. But attendance aside, I don’t think anyone can argue with a straight face that the A’s have ever been the far more popular team. Sure they’ve drawn better from time to time (usually when the A’s owner was spending more money than he could maintain and they were the best team in all of baseball), but even in those years the Giants had the better radio and TV ratings, the more lucrative TV deals, better radio station placements, and were still the first team of the region in people’s minds. A’s have been second fiddle since the day the moving trucks pulled in from KC. And they always will be no matter where they end up stadium wise in the region.
Not that its entirely a bad thing. They’ve spent the last 20 years cultivating an underdog mentality among their team and their fans. Which is good because they’ll always be the underdog.
@Jerry Purdy has connects to Lew but if you look at past articles he has stated nothing new, he has recycled and used the same old points and put them into new articles. These two main points have been made for a long time now by him, such as HT being rejected, yes Lew has said that numerous times over the years, he has wrote about that over and over. And check out the “according to a city official.” we all know that this was said months ago by the out going city admin, no new news. Still wait and see
If we read the Purdy article, he notes the 10-year lease extension and Wolff’s desire to still negotiate a deal on San Jose with the Giants, who refuse to budge. Translation: If MLB won’t let him go to San Jose and make money, he’ll park the team at the sewage-spewing football stadium in Oakland for many more years and let MLB pay him tens of millions of dollars to do so.
re: the Coliseum City project still having a major “funding gap,” according to a city official.”
…Same old same old. Oakland expects the teams to pay for their own stadiums and if the teams don’t want to because it is not financially viable for them, then we get the same old stalemate. As I’ve said, the “Let the rich owners pay for their own stadiums!” strategy only works when the teams were making money hand over fist. Not the case with the A’s or Raiders, particularly when we discount the MLB revenue-sharing the A’s get and the Big TV $$ the Raiders get. All those empty seats and empty luxury suites don’t generate any revenues.
@Brian @Dan I think comparing the attendance is only a small portion of the big picture, I know we have gone on for years on this board giving the facts of A’s out drawing Giants before the Giants new stadium, but the fact is the NL for whatever reason has always been superior and a favorite of fans of baseball over the AL. I talk to the step dad about this and he always talks about the Giants grabbed a major part of the fan base when Willie Mays and the Giants came from “New York” to SF and notes the history of the success/love of the NL. I did a quick Google search and the following article from 1963 shows it. P.g 29-29. So even with the “gates” tally or “tickets sold” tally the A’s have done pretty damn good in this market, and might never continuously beat the Giants with or with out a new park in Oak or SJ.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/edb/reader.html?magID=SI&issueDate=19630909&mode=reader_vault
@pjk yes we all know that, hence when Lew also mentioned how hard it is to build in Cali with out help or tax dollars, there is no proof to back up your claims that the city won’t help in some type of way, recently its quite the opposite as Nate Miley head of the JPA have said that they wont’ and cant rule out some type of tax funding resource to assist in getting it done. check out the tweets ML posted from Matthew Artz on this very own site. So to continue stating the city isn’t helping or willing to use taxes is false.
https://newballpark.org/2014/04/23/press-release-war-the-aftermath/comment-page-1/
K: It is recognized that Oakland has something like $2 billion in unfunded pension liabilities and that any proposal to spend tax money on stadiums is DOA. That’s why Coliseum City never proposed any use of taxpayer dollars. Where does Oakland come up with taxpayer $$ for stadiums under these circumstances?
@pjk when asked about that at the meeting it was said that the way there are building this project there are tax funds available with out a public vote. Yes I agree 100% with you on the pensions maybe its wrong but they are going forward regardless of unfunded pensions. What did the Braves do? is that right? no but what did John Schuerholz the Braves president say, “It didn’t leak out. If it had leaked out, this deal would not have gotten done,” “If it had gotten out, more people would have started taking the position of, ‘We don’t want that to happen. We want to see how viable this was going to be,'” Schuerholz said. “We were able to get that all done.” Same situation here possibly.
@k-trying to sneak under the radar with using the publics money is never a good idea. Sacto is getting away with it because they had an ill prepared opposition group (s) that got more than enough signatures to put it on the ballot but didn’t properly manage the signing of petitions. The city also looks pretty foolish as u have an owner who has doubled his franchise value in less than a year (adding $500M to his franchise value) while having a tax strapped city pony up $350M to build him a new arena-
@Dan: if the giants “have always been the bay area favorite” and had things going so well – why did they give up on SF and sold the team to the Tampa owners group? – the favorite team wouldn’t do that. This fan believes there are many fans being b.s.ed by KNBR – and other pro-giants media that claim that the giants have always been the favorite.
When the giants were preparing their moving vans to Tampa, it did not appear to be a big deal – at least in in the south bay. The evidence (the A’s outdrawing the Giants when the giants played at Candlestick, the Giants attempted move to Tampa, FL (MLB rejected it, not the giants) and the Giants failed attempt at moving to San Jose (SJ voters wisely rejected that attempt) all point to the opposite – that the giants were in fact were down for the count by the A’s and virtually finished in the bay area (and the A’s weren’t even attempting to do that – and wished that the Giants stayed locally, when the A’s approved the giants moving to San Jose) LOL
The giants almost moved because frisco voters wouldn’t pay for a stadium for them. They wouldn’t pay for one for the 49ers either. Frisco proper is not a big sports town
@How true, Pjk, the only reason that they are still in SF, and outdrawing the A’s is that Selig has been propping them up – and giving the A’s the shaft.
@ Duffer
You are still saying that the A’s outdrew the Giants when they were at Candlestick, but they didn’t. Read through the thread – there’s been good evidence posted that that was not the case.
The Giants have always dominated the A’s TV and radio wise for years. A big reason is the A’s were always jumping around on TV stations (KICU, Sportschannel, etc…) while the Giants road games were always on KTVU with home games on Sportschannel where you had to pay to watch.
Plus the Giants have always been on KNBR and the A’s have jumped around too many times to count on radio.
For these reasons you cannot look at attendance to see popularity of the two teams with respect with one another. TV/Radio tell the story and the A’s get dominated and will continue to do….nice ballpark and two WS titles only make the gap that much larger even with very good A’s teams that we are currently seeing.
The A’s even with a new ballpark in SJ or Oak would still be the 2nd team in Nor Cal and that is OK. You don’t see the White Sox, Angels, or Mets complaining being the 2nd team in their markets.
@Jeoppardydd: I don’t want to compare you to a giants fan (that would be an insult) however – only Giants fans could spin actual facts and stats. The fact is that the A’s outdrew the giants when the Giants played at the ‘Stick.
@ duffer,
It seems like you are ignoring facts you don’t like. You haven’t addressed certain points, such as the different ways the leagues calculated attendance, or the various big advantages the A’s had over the giants like a better park in a good area and a massive edge in success on the field.
er, should have said “better park in a good area for mass transit”
@Jeopardydd: qualifying, schmalifing – the A’s outdrew the giants – period. Also, how you explain the giants selling out to the Tampa owners, giving up on SF? if the Giants have had it so good – why did they give up on the bay area?
Concerning the giants as always the bay area favorite – definitely false. During the La Russa tenure. In San Jose and the south bay, there were likely more A’s fans than Giants fans. Even the SF police chief quipped about the safety of attending giants games and suggested that fans attend A’s games instead (the favorite team would never be the butt end of that type of humor – the giants were a joke at the time) Admittedly, the giants have received a temporary edge since they moved into phone company park, a new stadium for the A’s will remedy that, however.
@K: you are 100% wrong – the AL gets way better ratings than NL teams. The AL has won significantly more world series, and has owned the NL at interleague play since it started. Why do the national networks always televise AL over NL games when possible? or interleague games? AL teams, on the average, outdraw NL teams by 25% (even after including the Yankees/Bosox factor, other AL teams besides the Yankees/Redsox do 25% better than NL teams during the postseason) It’s the AAAA level ball of the NL which is an anchor for MLB – AL teams are pulling the weight for the weak NL sisters.
The giants are one of the worst offenders of the inferior NL. The giants receive very bad post season and world series ratings. You giants fans – from the president Baer down – have difficulty grasping true facts – and are always spreading lies. Here’s a link that explains that AL teams receive significantly higher post season viewer ratings than NL teams.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-21/major-league-baseball-postseason-tv-ratings-winners-and-losers
Duffer: All your points aside, because that doesn’t really concern me, the way you talk to people is absolutely f**cking atrocious. You straight up sound like a baseball version of Joseph McCarthy.
@SMG wrong again. Most A’s fans (such as myself) when they visit an A’s website – wish to hear news about the A’s (not the giants) There are some commentators here (such as yourself)who claim they are A’s fans – yet frequently make comments about the Giants (many of them false, and always pro-giants)If you enjoy making comments about the Giants – there are plenty of Giants websites available for you to do so. From my experience – pro giants comments made at A’s websites are typically not well received.