Bad public news usually comes out after on Friday afternoon after the markets are closed. Bucking that tradition, this weekend Bay Area media got wind of an upcoming City of Oakland lease extension proposal to the A’s, which will be presented this Tuesday. The City is asking for the following:
- $97 million from a 3-5 year lease term from the A’s ($19.4 million/year minimum)
- A’s pay for field conversion costs for the Roots and Soul when they play in the Coliseum
Oakland is also asking for the rights to the Athletics franchise name and team colors, as well as a one-year exclusive agreement for Oakland to secure a potential owner for an expansion franchise or the purchase of the A’s.
Let’s take those last items first. With no sign that John Fisher plans to reverse course on the Las Vegas move or sell, any pitch for an A’s sale can only be characterized as the kind of Hail Mary not even Al Davis would have loved. The expansion promise is pointless, as no one actually believes Oakland will be able to put together real deal terms in only a year, including a billionaire willing to subsidize an Oakland team indefinitely while all of the details for the elusive dream ballpark plan come together. Besides that, who would be crazy enough to ink an exclusive negotiating agreement with Oakland, whose track record on such agreements is downright dreadful. ENAs can be a tool as long as they lead to real, measurable progress. Those ENAs are basically paper tigers, little more than talking points that act as a way to kick the can down the road. The City apparently has backed off these requests as an acknowledgment that they don’t have a strong hand in asking for any kind of team with Oakland in as bad of financial shape as it is, and that MLB pumped the brakes on expansion recently as bigger economic issues are resolved.
Asking for $97 million (or $19.4 million/year, non-negotiable) amounts to a 12x annual increase over the current lease. Not only that, the A’s already pay for field maintenance at the Coliseum, so having to foot the bill for the conversions will ultimately be more costly than regular field maintenance, which itself is costly. Conversions currently are a responsibility that the Coliseum Authority previously took on without question for Raiders games and concerts, and were so costly the JPA scheduled them to occur as infrequently as possible, twice during the football season and after a Monster Jam or SuperCross event after the football season ends.
By now you’re probably aware that the only reason for the A’s to keep pursuing the Coliseum in any capacity is that their TV deal with NBC Sports California only pays around $70 million per year if the team stays in the Bay Area. When they go the Vegas it’s gone. If they play in Utah the deal breaks. Sacramento is a gray area currently under discussion, because the A’s wouldn’t be entitled to a full payment, maybe half or $35 million.
For their part, Sacramento is ready and willing to be a temporary A’s home for 3+ years while the Strip ballpark is under construction. Mayor Darrell Steinberg threw in his support, and River Cats/Kings/Sutter Health Park owner Vivek Ranadive is eager to lend a helping hand to his friend, John Fisher. Many in NorCal view this as a betrayal of Oakland and a hypocritical move to grease the skids for the A’s out of Oakland permanently. Ranadive, who is from the Bay Area and once held a minority share of the Warriors, now has control over Sacramento’s sports and event space outside of soccer and summer concerts in Wheatland. The combined public-private pitch is not just to the A’s, but also to impress MLB for a future expansion bid. And that, regardless of how this particular short-term agreement works out, is the real play. Because once Vegas has a team, expansion opportunities out west will be limited.
Salt Lake City remains in play thanks to its flexibility (two ballparks) and distance from the NorCal mess. From a ease-of-transition standpoint it’s by far the winner since no existing teams have to be displaced, and the A’s or whomever is helping them won’t have to face angry fans at every turn. The major caveat is that the A’s will have to forgo their NBCSCA TV rights check in exchange for a much smaller streaming and local TV revenue pool from a cobbled-together network of local affiliates. The A’s would presumably upgrade the new South Jordan ballpark to MLB clubhouse and training standards, which they could hand off to the AAA team in a few years. I’ve read that SLC’s biggest problem is a logistical one in that Sundays are effectively off limits since games aren’t played on the Sabbath. Frankly, the Salt Lake Bees have been playing on Sundays for years so I have no idea where that misinformation comes from.
Neither the Sacramento or Salt Lake City hosting gigs will put either city over the top in an expansion franchise bidding war. It would give them a leg up over other candidates in terms of showcasing each respective market’s viability to leagues and to the corporate and ticket-buying clientele they’re trying to impress. Given the scarcity of opportunities like this, it would be foolish not to bid for the A’s if the capital outlay to bring them in isn’t too high. Beyond that, you have to start thinking about the future of MLB: post-RSN, post-Rob Manfred, post-boom. If MLB is going to expand to 32 teams as they should, they will probably do so with an idea towards completing the consolidation they’ve been doing over the past few decades. Think about it. The American and National Leagues used to have their own league presidents, interleague play, umpiring crews, ways of counting attendance, and yes, the designated hitter in the AL. Over time all of those issues which gave the leagues district identities were streamlined away in favor of a more homogeneous baseball product. That leaves a handful of arcane issues to deal with, such as the curfew rules and realignment, which makes sense in a 32-team league which can be arranged in 4 divisions of 8 teams or 8 divisions of 4.
Realignment is where things truly get interesting, at least to me. Most fans don’t want to hear about something as mundane as multibillion-dollar franchises saving a few bucks by realigning to cut travel costs, but it’s a huge motivator. Consider how Fresno once had a AAA franchise, then lost it not because of its fairly new ballpark. Fresno lost AAA because it was too expensive to fly teams in and out of the Fresno-Yosemite airport, relegating the city to a California League (A) franchise where travel is mostly limited to buses within the state. The same fate is headed for MLB teams, which want nothing more than to limit the number of cross-country flights and total seasonal air miles, expenses which are all incurred by the parent MLB clubs regardless of movement elsewhere in their respective organizations. This also explains the culling of minor league teams and wholesale reorganization of the minors during the pandemic. In the long run it may further marginalize baseball in the eyes of the public. For the owners these are merely costs to cut.
With that in mind, take a look at this table of a future realigned MLB with 32 teams. The American and National Leagues are reconstructed along geographical lines like their counterparts in the NBA and NHL. Going from 30 to 32 teams requires the addition of two franchises. Conventional wisdom had Nashville and Las Vegas as the leading expansion bidders, but with Las Vegas getting the A’s, one spot remains out west to go along with Nashville. Or does it? Nate Silver took a stab at this over the weekend, coming up with some odd regional switches thanks to the strict geographical groupings he put together while maintaining the current AL/NL regime.
This distribution from a month ago makes more sense, though the cross-country travel for the redone American League would be brutal.
I took these a step further by ditching the current AL/NL distribution of teams and realigned as an Eastern-based National League and a Western-based American League. While exploring this, I ran into the problem of figuring out how to put 16 teams in the AL (West). It works best if the West includes the Chicago teams, Milwaukee, and St. Louis to keep the Cubs-Cards and Cubs-Brewers rivalries intact. That leaves 14 teams in the much more compact NL (East) plus two expansion teams in Nashville and either Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham, or Montreal. Those teams couldn’t occur before 2030, or at least not before the A’s and Rays stadium situations are determined. One of Rob Manfred’s remaining charges before he retires is to set the table for this long-awaited expansion round. MLB will have to think long and hard before diving into 32 teams, because there is no easy expansion or contraction once they reach that point. As the NFL found out, 32 is logistically the perfect number of teams to maintain rivalries, invigorate interest in wild card playoff runs via expanded playoff pools, and mitigate travel costs (except for Seattle, they’re always going to be screwed).
It’s possible that that the 32nd team could be a massive contest between the aforementioned Eastern cities and Western cities like Sacramento, Salt Lake City, Portland, and even Oakland. For now I’m going to posit that with the A’s bound for Vegas, MLB is done expanding in the West. If that sounds extreme, consider how expansion as progressed since 1967, when the A’s played their last season in Kansas City and MLB only had 20 teams. Then look at how it progressed to 1968 with the A’s move, 1969 and 1976 with arrival of six expansion teams (Seattle twice), and the current 30-team distribution. Viewed through that lens, there aren’t many holes left to address in the map once you get to 32 teams as I suggest in 2030. I told you folks last year that MLB viewed the A’s move a lateral one. So for any city to merit the 32nd team, they’re going to have to earn it. No shortcuts or giveaways. If you want in the Lodge, come strong or don’t come at all. Bring well-funded ownership bids and a publicly-funded stadium deal. That’s all.
newballpark.org 
I’d love to see Sacramento or Portland get an expansion team but I don’t see it. California and Oregon just aren’t pro sports owner friendly enough and Utah is so I see it going to SLC
Don’t see Charlotte or Montreal. If I’m MLB, I’m balancing things out geographically and getting a team out west. Not to mention, Charlotte will be a 3 sport city and I just don’t see it hosting all 3 sports as it’s too small. Makes more sense to go to one of the NBA only markets out west
SLC and Nashville it is
”..Western cities like Sacramento, Salt Lake City, Portland, and even $an Jose.” Fixed it for you RM ;). It’s stupid enough for MLB to make the Uber-wealthy Bay Area a one-team market, so they’ll get a shot to get it right again in the future. In Lew Wolff I trust…
Tony, Lew Wolff is pushing 90. He gave it a shot and came up short.
Oops, spelled Keith wrong RM! (LOL). Whenever MLB decides to solicit bids for expansion, I’m sure some $J/$Silicon Valley biz folks/pols will throw their hats in the ring for a South Bay franchise. There’s too much $ for MLB to keep ignoring; far more than any of those other aforementioned markets. And NO, a 2nd Bay Area MLB franchise would NOT hurt the $#@! giants one bit; true in 2013, 2024 and in 2030! Even if I am living in Vegas by then RM, the Dream still lives on for my hometown to be a Big League city! Amen..
I think San Jose blew it by suing MLB. I think MLB would’ve changed the Bay Area territory back to shared when the Giant’s stadium was fully paid off, but San Jose couldn’t wait any longer and shot themselves in the foot.
MLB is also shooting themselves in the foot by moving to Las Vegas. The metro area in Vegas is about the same size as Cincinnati, Milwaukee, or Kansas City, but step outside the metro area and it’s nothing but cactus and lizards for hundreds of mile. Cincinnati has Dayton and Louisville nearby. Milwaukee has Green Bay and Madison. Kansas City has Topeka and Omaha.
Las Vegas has…what? St. George, Utah. lol. The great basin is the armpit of the nation. This is not a lateral move for the A’s it’s a step down. They’ll have the smallest stadium in by far the smallest region by population. The tourist trade won’t save them. Anyone who thinks the A’s are suddenly going to be able to keep their stars is dreaming.
Over the past decade within the sports industry gambling has gone from being a pariah to being the hot new thing. This might be a good move for MLB as a whole because of that, but after a brief honeymoon the A’s will likely become a drain on the sport.
I think you’re right about MLB gradually doing away with the separate leagues, and I agree the next realignment will be the last step. Nashville and Charlotte are strong candidates. If those end up being chosen I think you did a pretty good job with the divisions.
I would move Charlotte to the south, Nashville to the Central, and Pittsburg to the Atlantic. This keeps all state rivalries within one division, and makes the geography slightly better IMO.
Looks like this deal went nowhere anyway. I strongly agree that it was a rather silly hail mary. Thao and team don’t come off as particularly savvy negotiators, but at the same time, I start to get the impression that they finally want to wash their hands of the whole mess.
Where we may agree is that such an expansion plan needs to happen by 2030, if it’s going to happen with public stadium subsidies as a concrete demand. The conversation around pro sports subsidies is shifting, and will almost certainly be entirely different during the 2030s. The opposition is going to come from all sides. By that point, I can’t see how the federal government won’t be pushing state and local governments to put more money behind climate change-driven infrastructure spending and insurance schemes. A lot of those former State Farm policy holders here in California vote, and will continue to do so even if they leave the state! They’re going to value backstops on their homeowners’ insurance far above a shiny new mallpark someplace.
That’s pressure coming from the side that still believes government works. But the saga you’ve documented here also reinforces textbook libertarian dogma. Subsidies, or the dangling promise thereof, kept John Fisher owning a sports franchise well past the point where he was in over his head. Trying to gin up a more favorable subsidy scheme delayed the action of the free market, keeping him from moving on to pursuits better suited to his actual cashflow. Perhaps setting right his family’s other encumbered businesses?
There’s no disputing that John Fisher’s Athletics is an incompetently run business. The evidence is before everyone’s eyes. But if the league continues to insist on subsidy, and doesn’t cultivate a new generation of owners who can figure out how to get by without it, then I submit that Major League Baseball as a whole is an incompetently run business.
”..I submit that Major League Baseball as a whole is an incompetently run business.” Can I get an AMEN for Ian Stewart?!! Although I’d argue this has been the case for awhile now with MLB.
See not facilitating an A’s relocation 40 miles south to $an Jose, which would have been a major revenue generator for the team/league as a whole and kept them in their uber-wealthy home market with their existing fan base…all because the greedy/selfish giants cried like bi*ch*s..AND THEN rewarding said bi*ch*s with the entire Bay Area market by moving the A’s to an inferior market in the desert, where financial success will be akin to rolling dice and hoping for the best.
&$#@! the giants and &$#@! MLB!!!
Major props RM to Kevin Youkilis for saying MLB made a big mistake by not moving the A’s to $an Jose and for calling out the giants as the main roadblock (last weekends Red Sox broadcast). However, loved how he said at the end $an Jose “could work.” Not could’ve, COULD. Hmmmm?
Like Mark Purdy, soon gonna visit Youk’s Loma Brewing in Los Gatos to toast a cold one for him! $J LIVES!
Was in San Diego last month in little Italy and met a construction sales guy at the bar during lunch.
He told me that the funding and contractors (including his company) is lined up for the A’s ballpark in Las Vegas.
It’s ready to go……the key is clearing out the Tropicana site. This is happening and they won’t be in Sacramento long…..
Vegas made it easy to get this done unlike Oakland where the A’s sat on the site when they could have built 2 ballparks at the coliseum while sharing with the Giants and 49ers for 3 years….
@ML- your math and arrogance is wrong. Mark Davis proved you wrong and now? So will John Fisher…….Davis had the right idea to stay with everyone winning in the East Bay……the A’s I’ll never root for again as they are unreasonable and not team players…..viva Las Vegas
Going to pay scratch to sit club behind home plate before I toss my A’s hat in the trash after the game……
Sid,
Davis’s plan at the Coliseum was unworkable the way he envisioned it. He was able to get over on Sheldon Adelson, kudos to him for that. He got over a billion dollars of support from BofA and the NFL. Don’t give him too much credit. MLB is not built like that. As for Fisher, I’m no Oakland dead-ender. There is an opportunity in Vegas so he’s going for it. The only help the Giants are giving the A’s is to keep the door open on the way out. Keep on dreaming though. Maybe AASEG will do you proud.