I heard about sightings of Giants ads at the Coliseum last week. I thought it was crazy, then I heard about the context. I asked for Twitter followers to take some photos if they saw such ads, and they didn’t disappoint. Behold:
@newballpark Here you go… pic.twitter.com/52kka86Bei
— OaktownMojo (@OaktownMojo) June 28, 2015
@newballpark pic.twitter.com/mj4zWm0KwA
— OaktownMojo (@OaktownMojo) June 28, 2015
Thanks to @OaktownMojo capturing those.
If you’re wondering who created those ads, it shouldn’t be a surprise.
Congrats @warriors. pic.twitter.com/sN8ERIFkWB
— San Francisco Giants (@SFGiants) June 17, 2015
The Giants wouldn’t dare create an ad only celebrating their own title and put it into ad inventory for the Coliseum grounds, but put in the a salute to the Warriors and they have a clever way to get a dig in at the neighbor A’s as well. And there’s little the A’s can do about it.
Ads on the Coliseum property not within or attached to the venues are controlled by Outfront Media (check out that caption), the big billboard company that used to be called CBS Outdoor/Viacom. Everything from those tall kiosks to rotating signage above the parking lot entries to the electronic billboards facing the Nimitz are fed data by Outfront. The JPA contracted the signage to CBS Outdoor more than a decade ago, bringing in nearly $1 million a year.
Reactions to the ad ranged from incredulous to foaming-at-the-mouth hostile, as you can imagine. It’s one thing to have a billboard on the Bay Bridge touting rings over splash hits, which the A’s did a while back. Putting the Giants at the Coliseum, regardless of the intent, is a bridge too far. If the Giants want to make it about the Warriors, make it about the Warriors, and reserve your other ad for somewhere other than 7000 Coliseum Way. Like this:
Hot off the press! Have you gotten your Warriors Special Edition of the Chronicle? pic.twitter.com/1e1UxE0Wnc
— #VoteGreenCollar (@Athletics) June 21, 2015
All’s fair in love and baseball, however. I mean, there are territorial rights, but those only cover where a stadium’s built, not where ads go, or team stores, or where local radio or TV affiliates are located, or anything else related to location for that matter. It’s like the current Giants to capitalize on whatever they can to increase their hegemony, and attempt to get involved in seemingly every other sports operation in the Bay Area.
It’s unclear how these ads are vetted. They may require some clearance by the teams, probably not. Maybe the JPA sees all of them, maybe only some. Whatever the amount of review, this is a mistake by whoever cleared these, especially if they’re gonna have the ads within sight of a bunch of Giants-hating A’s fans tailgating during a homestand.
After all, this is Oakland, the city that was worried so much about SF stealing the Warriors’ victory parade, despairing over Steph Curry appearing at a Giants game to the point that Klay Thompson had to show up at an A’s game two days after. Most outsiders will never understand the Bay’s unique form of provincialism. As a person born in SF, brought up in the South Bay, with the A’s the only Bay Area team I follow, frankly I’m amused by it. Then again, there’s nothing the Giants can do about this:
Seems like a good Photoshop opportunity, no?
newballpark.org 
“Reactions to the ad ranged from incredulous to foaming-at-the-mouth hostile, as you can imagine. It’s one thing to have a billboard on the Bay Bridge touting rings over splash hits, which the A’s did a while back. Putting the Giants at the Coliseum, regardless of the intent, is a bridge too far.”
While I agree the Giants’ ad is in poor taste, its not like the A’s haven’t done something similar before. Those rings over splash hits ads? They were plastered all over a boat and sailed out into McCovey Cove during a Bay Bridge Series game once…
http://ganymede.meccahosting.com/~a0003fa5/As_Boat.html
glad I read the replies before commenting. I was going to bring up the exact same thing. This is simple and perhaps long over due comeuppance.
Nothing will happen, the Giants can do anything they want, they own the A’s. Its a sad state of MLB. Even if the A’s get a stadium in Oakland they will still not be able to contend due to the lack of revenue sharing. We dont need a new stadium, we need a fair league where everyone has a chance. That why the a’s should leave.
Its better to root for a 3-13 team that has a chance to contend than one that can get you there, but you know they are not going to win it all because they lack the resources. Oh, and then sell off all the good players cause were poor!
Were I an A’s fan, my reaction would be something along the line of, “Why the #$&@ didn’t WE do this first?”
The Giants’ Media-fu is strong – the A’s have to be more proactive in that department if they want to stand out. The alternative is the public punking you see tweeted above.
The Giants have long been sponsors of a summer baseball league in Oakland (and throughout the Eat Bay) for young kids called Little Giants.
I’ve resented that presence, but admit that it mostly seemed A) an embarrassment to the A’s (or should be) and B) a good marketing move by the Giants. Many kids here in Oakland grow up Giants fans.
Of course, Lew Wolff has zero presence here in Oakland — unlike the Haas family. And the Haas family was rewarded with attendance at games sometimes surpassing 50,000 people.
I think I’ll need to be picking up a large box of tomatoes before my next A’s game
yeah i don’t see a huge reason to be upset. as it was mentioned above the a’s and who knows if it had anything to do with the front office had that sailboat across the bay with that banner on it with 4 world titles, 0 splash hits.
also didn’t back in the late 90s-early 00s they had a billboard while crossing the bay bridge where they basically said while the midgets were building a park the a’s were building a team?
you can hate the midgets for many reasons as an a’s fan but i’m personally not all that upset with this new “incident”.
On this one, I have to defend the Giants’ rights to promote themselves anywhere within the shared Bay Area market, and that includes within the A’s East Bay territory. The division of the shared Bay Area market into two separate territories applies only to restrictions as to where each team is permitted to have its own ballpark located. It does not restrict the locations where each team can or cannot promote, advertise, or broadcast area coverage of its games, provided that its not done in any other MLB team’s market outside the shared Bay Area market. As for the question of whether the Giants acted in poor taste to promote its team on technically Coliseum property, well that’s another matter. The A’s are generally not good at promoting their team anywhere in the Bay Area market, especially within the so called Giants’ territory. If the A’s are really serious about eventually moving to San Jose, they should do a much better job at promoting the team within the Giants’ so called South Bay territory. The Giants will not like the A’s to do that, but cannot do anything about it. By doing very little in terms of promoting the A’s within the South Bay, the A’s are in effect playing into the Giants’ hands.
A’s started. Promoting in San Jose at one point including opening a ticket office in the Fairmont hotel downtown and sponsoring several little leagues in the South Bay. This was at the beginning of this debacle where I believe LW was confident BS would fix the TR issue and the A’s would build in downtown SJ. Agree wholeheartedly the A’s need to step up their game here but also recognize that marketing is primarily for the casual fan and it is hard to compete with 3 titles in the last 5 years. The one thing that blows me away is MLB continues to stand on the sidelines as one of their franchises continues to be marginalized by its neighbor. Manfred is basically committing them to small market status forever with his insistence of them staying in Oakland-
“Manfred is basically committing them to small market status forever with his insistence of them staying in Oakland”
Which is exactly why Manfred needs to come out and guarantee the A’s continually revenue. This is the only way I can see the A’s being viable in Oakland.
Plus this gives the other owners a choose, either let the A’s try and bring more revenue to MLB overall by tapping into the South Bay, or agree to subsidize the Giants by paying the A’s to play in Oakland.
Just realized: I suppose that the urge for the Giants to troll the Athletics is greater than the realization that the Warriors are co-owned by a co-owner of their hated Southern California rivals
Not surprising at all, since the Giants motive is to get the A’s out of the bay area. The Giants don’t want the A’s staying in Oakland either – Manfred’s push to keep them there isn’t pleasing the Giants. It wouldn’t be surprising for the Giants to soon start and fund a new false “Stand for Oakland” group to oppose the A’s building a new stadium at the CC site.
yep i brought that issue up a few months ago. even if the a’s were to get a plan for a baseball only park in oakland no doubt some sort of group funded by the midgets would fight it as they did when the a’s released their plan in sj.
This is absolutely the conspiracy theory side of things, but I still wouldn’t be surprised if the Giants were behind the downfall of the Pacific Commons ball park as well. It was the Pacific Commons developer and not NIMBY groups that stopped the project. The Pacific Commons developer also had a major part in Mission Bay development and made a lot of money off of the Giants as a result, so there is definitely a potential motive/leverage piece in play there.
The Giants are greedy DBags…period!
Tim Kawakami @timkawakami
Actually, I don’t think MLB has made any clear ruling on the Howard Terminal site.
Tim Kawakami @timkawakami
And about whispers Joe Lacob could want to buy the A’s–this is Lacob on the record about that in April 2014: http://bayareane.ws/1gP0VJv
Tim Kawakami @timkawakami
As I’ve mentioned before, Warriors minority investor John Burbank is the quiet name to watch in any GSW-partners/A’s purchase talk.
Kawakami is such a butthole (He likely believes that he personally pressured Cohan to sell the W’s – now he believes he can do the same with Wolff) Kawakami’s math skills are bad though. Lacob could barely afford to buy the dubs – how would he afford paying almost $2 bil. required to buy the A’s? (that’s if Wolff/Fisher will sell them) The team is likely worth $1 bil., a new A’s stadium will cost $600 mil. or more.
Lacob’s yearnings to buy the A’s have more to do with deflecting his criticism of his move to SF by the W’s- which of course TK has never questioned- than It does with really wanting the A’s- as ML pointed out what changes with Lacob buying the A’s-
but according to kawakami lacob wouldn’t be the one who buys the a’s it’d be one of the warriors minority owners.
lacob could very well be the front man for the a’s as he is with the warriors.
lacob certainly isn’t the money guy for the warriors, he’s more of the public face of the ownership group as is the case sort of what we have right now with wolff and fisher and before that with schott and hoffman.
Another thing I wonder is how much the gints are behind the challenges to the W’s arena in SF as they wanted the W’s on their own land closer to att. Not sure Lacob is close to gints ownership yet he must know they want the A’s out of the Bay Area. Is Lacob making these statements just to spite Baer over his meddling in The W’s SF arena?
Possibly, the Giants wouldn’t want a Lacob group to buy the A’s either (who would also keep the team in Oakland and build at the HT site if possible)
@GoA’s – While the current opposition is making itself somewhat hidden (which definitely leads to questions), the Giants were absolutely behind the objections to the original proposed site for the new Warriors arena. Their arguments were idiotic as well talking about traffic problems and over saturation with a W’s arena, however these problems would somehow magically disappear if the stadium was built on land the Giants owned so that they could somehow profit off of the Warriors.
Also, why would Lacob (who evidently dislikes Oakland more than Wolff does, the Dubs enjoys excellent attendance in Oakland, the team was terrible for many years, yet still consistently ranked among the top 10 with NBA attendance during that stretch, and Lacob wants to yank them out of there to SF?)
At least Wolff has an excuse for moving the A’s to San Jose – huge difficulty dealing with Oakland political officials (judging by Oakland’s recent actions, the A’s lease negotiations and now giving the Raiders the shaft) Wolff is 100% accurate.
Lacob dislikes Oakland as suitable for the Warriors – yet wants to buy the A’s and build at the HT site? – an inconsistency
Love to see Lacob and his partners buy the A’s and take advantage and build a great looking ballpark off the water at Howard Terminal and do something Wolff is scared to do.
Good write up as to whoever leaked the CC initial proposal is a big douche bag! (ahem Nate Miley trying to sabotage the project)?
http://asfanradio.com/
Whoever leaked the initial CC New City proposal is a snake in the grass and an utter douche just as Ganis is trying to derail the CC project.
If I and many of our members thought Wolff is well intentioned to remain in Oakland, I would not insist in blowing the cover of these politicians and other A’s groups who still trust or want to believe Lew Wolff wants to negotiate with Oakland in good faith…..He has lied from the onset and is lying now and will lie in the future….He has only one thing in mind and that is to relocate this team out of Oakland…a mission he undertook when Bud Selig imposed his ownership upon Oakland. Unless he is stopped now by allowing the City of Oakland to force him out of his (intelligent inaction) he will continue to hold the Oakland A’s hostage after of course kicking those he already stated as his competitors for sponsors and seats….his expertise is not competing in the baseball diamond but in the stock market by becoming the only ticket in town. If was about winning a title. He would spend money to keep good players here.
Wolff is the guy Oakland has to make a deal with. Full stop. There is no one else. If Oakland can’t make a deal with Wolff, they’re not going to make a deal at all. Like last summer, Manfred will bully Oakland if he sees the City not cooperating. The Oakland-only crowd can front about playing hardball and stifling Wolff all they want. Mayor Schaaf and the City Council know better than to do that.
You must be a Nate Miley fan! SMH
So who was the D Bag who leaked 19 pages of the initial CC proposal ML? Stop hiding!
Just a quick question. I just read about the observation that “there is still doubt about the ability” to build a stadium privately in Oakland. If that is the case, what is the point of letting the Raiders go if Wolff can’t build like he wants? The result is that all teams are gone. Is that really the goal? To leave Oakland with no teams?
If Wolff privately says he can’t ever make it work in Oakland while publicly saying he CAN make it work only IF the Raiders are gone, what is LW’s end game? Why not become a consultant to Davis on how the Raiders can make it work and then he can use the out clause to pitch for SJ?
Why not use the out clause to the A’s advantage and advise Davis? Manfred would surely guarantee SJ if the Raiders built on the site, no? Then LW gets what he always wanted in SJ. Unless his goal is to leave Oakland with no teams, I am not clear on this.
We have Manfred saying an Oakland ballpark being “really, really successful.” We have LW saying that he can build only if the Raiders are gone. We have others saying that a new Oakland ballpark, with the Raiders gone, would be perpetual revenue sharing. Now we have “doubts” that a private ballpark in Oakland can even happen…..with the Raiders gone. Something isn’t adding up. Can Wolff make it work or not with the Raiders gone? If he can’t he should just say so.
LW should just privately advise the Raiders on how to get the deal done and he will get his South Bay wish. “We tried but Oakland chose the Raiders.” Perhaps not that simple but it seems the best way to get SJ. Does he think Oakland deserves zero teams? If so, just say so. I don’t know Wolff’s end game but this is what I would do.
There was doubt about the Giants’ ability to get AT&T Park done. There hasn’t been a 100% privately financed ballpark ever since. Wolff has pitched 100% privately financed parks in Oakland, San Jose, and Fremont. Naturally there will be doubt among the owners about that project’s viability regardless of location. To me it’s the $200 million (maybe $300 million in time) riddle. Someone has to pay for that piece. It normally comes from cities and counties. Wolff thinks corporate dollars can take care of it. MLB is likely to pay for it through revenue sharing during lean years for the A’s.
There’s nothing to counsel Davis about bridging the funding gap. People have had 3 years to figure that out for Coliseum City. There’s no magic bullet solution.
BTW if you’re going to rip off Diamond Lil you should at least credit her. Do that again and you’re gone.
Oops…credit to Diamond Lil….whoever that is!
Sorry ML. Perhaps I haven’t figured out how to properly reply to posts via the “Repy” link but that link is definitely not showing at the bottom of your post, so I apologize.
Just another inquiry: does the $200 mil+ include the Mt. Davis debt and demolition of the arena?
Also, if it’s not an absolute guarantee that the A’s could build in Oakland successfully, then
a) Why does Manfred think an Oakland ballpark will be really successful? His words, not mine.
b) While understanding the Raider situation is very complex, why not try to help make the Raider situation successful and get your desired result? (A’s to SJ). Assuming LW thinks keeping the Raiders = SJ for him.
c) Why promote the one team in Oakland idea if you know even the A’s can’t make it work in Oakland, which I assume a far less expensive project.
What I am getting at is that it seems there is the possibility, however remote in reality, that all teams will be gone. The Raiders leave for LA, then LW says his analysis shows a baseball stadium cannot work at the site. As a fan who wants to retain both teams if possible, I would sure like to at least have one remain.
Do you see what I am saying? While I realize it’s a PR thing right now, we have Manfred heavily promoting an Oakland ballpark while others say a ballpark, even without the Raiders, cannot succeed without revenue sharing. I personally can’t believe this would be success for MLB and, therefore, believe Manfred is either being untruthful at best or shady at worst. Would MLB accept a brand new stadium that needs perpetual revenue sharing? Hard to believe.
Truth be told, I would rather the A’s stay put. I love the Raiders, but if I had to choose….. In light of all the conflicting info, why not support a Raiders stadium knowing that the inside info on building a new A’s stadium is shaky at best?
Likely I am just tired of this whole saga and want to put it to rest, just like everyone else. There is something to be said for that elusive stable feeling.
“Would MLB accept a brand new stadium that needs perpetual revenue sharing? Hard to believe.”
Smaller markets will always be the revenue sharing recipients. Even if everyone had new stadia, someone would still have to be last in revenues.
With Lacob continuing his assertion he wants to buy the A’s and keep them in Oakland it’s time for LW/JF to say they want to buy the Warriors and will keep them in Oakland at Oracle and honor the lease. Nice to see Oakland fan pledge call BS on Lacob- the guy needs to learn to keep his mouth and focus on getting his own project done. Btw- anyone else see the assertion by the W’s that the average attendance at an event at the proposed SF arena would be only 20% of what the average is at ATT. That says on average 9k people will attend an event- talk about bullshit-
The A’s hit me with emails like 4 times a week and their season ticket holder rep called me in January on my cell asking me about season tickets.
Of course I told her I live in San Jose and getting to the Coli for a weeknight game is too much for me to do it more than a few times a year.
The A’s are trying to sell tickets, they in fact hit me with far more emails than the Giants do for specials, merchandise, and general advertising. I appreciated the phone call too.
I told their rep if you guys ever make it to SJ, call me back and put me down for 20 games on the 3rd base line.
People say the A’s do not try to market, they in fact do more so than the Giants in some ways.
What hurts the A’s is of course ballpark but the fact the Giants are the defending champs and in the middle of a dynasty run……how do contend marketing wise with winning like this?
As for the Raiders, we all need this Raider Miracle to occur. It will guarantee SJ comes true as Manfred will finally be forced to do what Selig refused to…..The right thing.
Good points, except for the Giants so-called dyansty run: Since the Guggenheim/Johnson ownership took over the Dodgers – have the Giants finished closer than 6 games out of 1st place? With La Russa now running the D-Backs, that team has made plenty of player moves, has improved quite a bit (their goal is to finish at least .500 for 2015 – it appears they will likely easily achieve that) There will soon likely be two NL West teams that keep the Giants out of the post season picture on a long term basis.
Also the other two franchises in that division can’t always stink – one of them will improve (likely the Pods) The giants may soon go through a long post-season drought, they should enjoy those WS titles, they likely won’t be seeing any for quite a while. We’ll then see how their so-called strong fanbase still supports that team.
D-Backs are poorly constructed to compete for a while. They had one miracle season in 2011 and look what happened? They had a very young team as well.
Colorado will always stink as long as they don’t have a domed stadium, their pitching will never be worthy because of the thin air.
San Diego is too small market. Their payroll will never be large enough to win it all.
LA is the only threat long term because they can “spend big to win big” and have $$ to throw at problems.
Giants are built to win now and for the next 3 years.
The D-backs have shown huge improvement, by 2016, they likely will at least challenge the gnats for a WC berth, the Dodgers will take 1st (as always) The D-Backs swept the Giants at AT&T Park already this year – that could be an indication of things to come. With La Russa in charge – they could soon overtake the Giants. Then many giants fans will really dislike La Russa.
The A’s clobbered the Giants in the ’89 WS, and a few years later, the Giants franchise become so wobbly they began packing to leave for Tampa, FL – likely because the A’s were so successful at the time. The Haas ownership nearly drove the Giants out of state without even trying to – the Haas ownership even wanted the Giants to stay in the bay area at that time. La Russa could again create plenty of havoc with the Giants – as he did when managing the A’s.
There is a win-win for Bay Area sports in all of this if Oakland would just admit it can’t support all 3- teams. Warriors move to SF, Raiders stay in Oakland and A’s move to SJ. The Bay Area teams are retained but that would require Oakland leaders stepping up to the plate and just being reasonable and logical. Manfred also should be embarrased that he continues to throw LW under the bus in support of Baer with this whole debacle.
It’s also not out of the question that the Raiders end up at Levi’s regardless of where the A’s end up.
Unless Davis sells a controlling interest in the team or Oakland offers significant support, I don’t see how the Raiders can get a stadium done in Oakland. Finances are an issue, but I think the bigger problem for them at this point is that Davis doesn’t have the skill set or the will to get it done.
Agree- but really question what’s in it for the ‘9ers in this arrangement. Their stadium is doing very well financially- it’s all ‘9ers from a color scheme MD has said he doesn’t want to be a tenant. What will be interesting is if Carson didn’t work out then Oakland might have to say no to extending the raiders lease-
@Go A’s – Davis commented that Santa Clara is not a long term solution for the Raiders, the Raiders could possibly stay there for a few years.
Understand- but the question is what is the long term solution to retain all 3 teams in the Bay Area- I don’t see the raiders playing at Levi’s long term-
it was rumored that Larry Baer was one of the candidates wanted by the Lodge to replace Bud Selig but he wants his legacy to be one of multiple World Series and to lead the full build out / development of the mega-valued raw land surrounding AT&T that they own …when that is done in the next 10 years , I suspect he will then agree to be the Lodge’s next commish when Manfred ready to step down ….so it is quite likely that Manfred and Larry are ” buddy buddy wink wink ” already
The giants still suck though
Furthermore Baer wouldn’t have been voted MLB commish – that was a formality only, John Shea did that story also (a big time Giants homer) And there are two facts wrong with your suggestions. Wolff is likely correct when he says the majority of MLB owners are in favor of the A’s moving to San Jose. Wolff requested a vote several times, Selig was also lobbying for the A’s move at one time and making progress. So the majority of the MLB owners evidently favor the A’s over the Giants.
Furthermore, why would Manfred be pushing for the A’s to stay in Oakland so much. If he is so pro-Giants/Baer as you suggest?- Manfred would force the A’s to move to somewhere out of the bay area – that’s the Giants goal.
Wolff and Fisher and Co-owner Billy Beane are one of the most cynical, awful owners in sports. Other than the Knicks I don’t know of another championship franchise owned by people who care so little about such a celebrated history. All they care about is cashing revenue sharing checks and being a big Triple A farm for other teams to pluck assets from before these cheapskates have to pay to retain talent. Fisher is a billionaire and so Wolff right up there as well. Tell me why they deserve to be chosen to stay in Oakland Coliseum land ahead of the Raiders? The idiots are to cheap to want a waterfront ballpark in JLS and Howard Terminal. SMH. Instead they are more worried about chasing the Raiders away.
@cisco- take your rant to Lacob- since he believes HT is viable tell him to build his arena there. Hands down a downtown arena is the best investment for any city- look at what the Tank has done for downtown SJ. You Oakland folks need to start calling Lacob on the carpet for his bs-
My rant…wow…if that is a rant…then all I’m doing is joining the “rantfest” that this site is known for.
BTW…who is the snake in the grass D Bag who leaked 19 pages of the initial CC proposal??
Tell Fisher and Wolff that they are cheap A Holes who should sell the team.
The Knicks are a championship franchise?
Avoid everything else I stated Lew Wolff fan….
MD makes Lacob look like a saint- http://t.co/zyC94z40De
I believe this is part of the topic so I do have a serious question. Has anyone actually seen the Haas financials pertaining to the A’s between 1980-1994?
For years I have read that Haas ran up “huge debt” and lost tons of money without any kind of figures. I did a bit of research and came away with very little information on this. What I did find out is this:
-Haas bought the team for $12.7 million
-By his own choosing, Haas lost $30 million between 1980-1987 mainly due to refurbishing the Coliseum, rebuilding the farm system, and beefing up their promotional department.
-Between 1987-1992, the A’s were profitable but it doesn’t specify how much actual profit was made.
-In 1993 they lost nearly $5 million
-In 1994 they were facing “possible” losses of $10 million
-Team sold in 1995 for $84 million, which was listed as “well below appraised value” if owners kept team in Oakland.
Not much to go on but I tried to get a read on this anyway. A couple of things to note is that I: a) didn’t use any profit figures for 1987-1992 since nothing was specified and I felt breakeven would be best; b) For 1993-4 I rounded up to $5 million although it said “nearly” and I used exactly $10 million for 1994 although it said “possible.”; c) simply used the actual selling price only since I couldn’t use a comparison of what he “could have” sold it for since I have no clue what the appraisal was. d) I made no adjustments or assumptions for the $30 million loss over 7 years due to investment by ownership into the team’s operations because this cannot be quantified with so much missing info.
Using the above figures and parameters, with no adjustments or assumptions (including taxes), I show an annualized return of 4.97% over 15 years. Not to be confused as a Total Return. Not great for sure. I’m just curious where the huge debts are if anyone has any further information.
Thanks in advance.
The final purchase price for the A’s was around $69 million, thanks to nearly $30 million in accrued debt. Schott/Hofmann took on that debt. Normally reported sale prices include debt, which is why you normally saw $85 million as the price. Schott/Hofmann spent 6-9 months negotiating with Haas about that debt.
Where are you getting the A’s had a profit from 87-92? The AP reported in 94 the A’s ran a profit for only 3 of the seasons during Haas ownership. Who reported profits for 6 straight years?
I saw these figures on an actual A’s historical website. Again, though, it was vague. The only semi-firm numbers were:
-Purchase price Aug 1980 $12.7 mil
-Loss of $30 mil from 1980-87 due to stadium renovations, minor league upgrades, and marketing improvements.
-Profitable from 1987-1992 but doesn’t indicate figures.
-Loss of “nearly” $5 mil in 1993.
-“Potential” loss of $10 mil in 1994.
-Sale for $84 mil in 1995.
It says nothing about accrued debt nor does it mention that the new owners took on debt. It does mention that Haas sold it for a big discount at $84 mil. I have no idea was the appraised value was.
I am merely trying to find out the facts as it pertains to things I have read that Haas lost an assload of money during his ownership. Just checking to see if anyone at all knows the real figures.
Ok. Perhaps I’m missing something here, apparently Floyd Kephart wants someone to invest in the Raiders (up to 20% of teams value), to help finance a new football only stadium in Oakland, yet he doesn’t think it’s a good enough investment for New City? Wow, we have really seen it all.
Hay, Oakland/Alameda county why don’t you guy’s get together, and figure out a way to buy 20% of the Raiders, that way when you pass on the cost to the taxpayer you will actually own a part of the team. You could have an arrangement that when there are open shares you get right of first refusal, this way you could ultimately own the team. If it doesn’t work out and they move to LA before you gain controlling interest, you can sale your interest in the team and make a sizable amount since the Raiders would probably double in value if they move to LA.
@LSN – I see where you’re going with your suggestion, but is it legal for a city in the state of California to be owner in whole or in part of a private business franchise?
I don’t know, but they do it in Green Bay.
There can be public-private partnerships as long as the details are clear. That said, bylaws for both NFL and MLB don’t allow for publicly owned franchises, the one exception being Green Bay grandfathered in.
Take your rants somewhere else, Larry. Comments deleted and commenter blocked.