–

“And so it is just like you said it should be

We’ll both forget the breeze

Most of the time”

– Damien Rice, “The Blower’s Daughter”

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Based on no evidence whatsoever, I believe it is equally plausible that John Fisher and Vivek Ranadive are friends, or that Rob Manfred played matchmaker for the two to get the A’s an interim ballpark deal in West Sacramento. Both possibilities play into some serious conspiracy theory territory. Did this play into Fisher’s desire to pull the A’s away from his true love, the Giants, or was Rob Manfred the evil mastermind? Or maybe it’s all of the above.

I put that out front today because it is flat out ridiculous to waste more than a passing thought on that line of thinking. It’s April 2024, and there are less than six months remaining in the Oakland Athletics as we know them. Ranadive and Fisher arranged a deal for the A’s to play at Sutter Health Park for the 2025-2027 seasons, with an option on 2028 if there are delays in Las Vegas. The A’s, as I suspected they would last year, rolled out tributes to the rapidly ending Oakland era in A’s history. The East Bay fanbase has descended into alternating states of pettiness and withdrawal. I know many fans who have multiple generations of history with the A’s. While my critiques of both the city and the fans sometimes have been harsh, they weren’t without empathy. I never wanted to have the A’s pulled from Oakland like a limb. What I wanted was a real conversation about what it would take to keep the A’s on sustainable, manageable terms. Sadly that never happened. Instead Oakland bounced from one pie-in-the-sky developer-led initiative to another aided by some feckless mayor with lukewarm regional support.

Once you get past the lazy conspiracy theories and supposed long cons, the truth is that these are a bunch of really rich guys who saw opportunities and quickly made deals to further their goals. Fisher needed a landing spot for the A’s that was less radioactive than Oakland, and found the path to Sacramento easy after Oakland’s preposterous Coliseum lease extension offer. Ranadive sees huge potential in what he calls “City 3.0”, in which Sacramento acts as a hub in Northern California for many different types of entertainment. Think about that for a moment. For three years the A’s and Ranadive’s River Cats will play 162 games at Sutter Health Park, while Golden 1 Center across the river has the Kings and touring shows coming to town. In short order, Ranadive transformed himself into Sacramento’s own version Phil Anschutz or Bill Graham, an impresario overseeing a large domain. The doubling of activity in “The Bridge District” near Sutter Health Park should help reinvigorate a housing market somewhat paralyzed by high interest rates, since those are expected to drop in the coming months. Commenting after the hastily-arranged press conference for the announcement, Ranadive said he had discussions with Rob Manfred about Sacramento’s potential as a MLB expansion city. Did Manfred suggest to Ranadive that he could get first dibs if he did Fisher a solid? Maybe. It’s all very convenient, though Ranadive also said he was not promised anything beyond the A’s interim term.

Ranadive and Fisher promised that Sutter Health Park would be brought up to MLB standards in terms of clubhouse size and training amenities (workout room, batting cages, etc.). Some renovations started last offseason and were ready for Opening Day 2023, independent of the A’s interest. I suspect that won’t be fully sufficient for MLB’s requirements, but if more needs to be built there’s some space to do it in the outfield, where there is a small berm in the LF corner and an expansive berm that curls around from the RF line to right-center. Those are also areas to put in risers for seats, which could be built on top of the berm or with the berm removed if they want to use the space underneath. There’s a range of options depending on how much the A’s and Ranadive want to spend. And for all the pearl-clutching by the media about how Sutter Health Park isn’t a true MLB park, it was built around the time of the newer Cactus League parks and has similar layouts, capacities, and amenities. If the idea is to get something done in a pinch, it is ideal for that challenge.

The major problem with the ballpark is that the clubhouses are in the outfield, instead of attached to the dugouts like most MLB ballparks or buried under the main concourse like the Oakland Coliseum. They could rip out the lower deck behind home plate and build much of that if they wanted, but I figure that will be prohibitively expensive for Fisher if not for Ranadive, who is not charging the A’s rent for the privilege of being a housemate for three years. In exchange Ranadive will have even more improved facilities for the River Cats.

As for more fan-oriented improvements, I wondered about the status of the scoreboards at the Coliseum, which the A’s paid for in 2015.

• Oakland Coliseum, 36’ x 145’ LF, 36’ x 145’ RF
• Hohokam Stadium, 27.5’ x 55’ LF
• Sutter Health Park, 8’ x 120’ LF, 120’ x 60’ CF

The LF scoreboard could be made taller with updated technology, while the CF board could be revamped. The LF board is on the facade of the River Cats’ clubhouse, so the square footage is already there whether or not the Fisher adds another clubhouse. These could be good practice for what the A’s want to do in Vegas, where pretty much every surface other than the batter’s eye will be up for grabs.

I briefly mentioned the Giants earlier. Was this all orchestrated by the Giants? I think the best way to look at this is to say that the Giants are holding the door for the A’s on the way out. Obviously the Giants stand to gain the most from its only market competition leaving. It’s a little more complicated than that, as the A’s will now be enshrined as a revenue sharing recipient for the foreseeable future, so the Giants are at least indirectly paying the A’s to go away. The A’s interest in Sacramento was also triggered by their desire to maintain at least a portion of the TV rights contract with NBC Sports California. We won’t know what the full impact is for a few years, as the Giants fully cement Bay Area hegemony. I opined that the Giants curiously didn’t offer to buy the River Cats when they became available in 2022, leading to Ranadive buying the AAA club and the ballpark. He also inherited the player development contract binding the River Cats to the Giants. If the Giants bought the River Cats instead of the Ranadive, they could have forced the A’s to go even further afield to Salt Lake City or stay in Oakland. That’s a case where the Giants’ own frugality may have cost them slightly. The Giants were “encouraged” by Manfred to make this work for the A’s, which would work for MLB as a whole. The fact is that Ranadive and the Sacramento market have this shot to make a good impression on MLB. They weren’t going to get another one outside of open bidding for an expansion franchise. By doing this they leapfrogged other contenders in the West. Hate all you want, but that’s how business is done and everyone involved is aware of the implications.

So here we are. Sadness and anger in the East Bay, confusion and hope in Sacramento, waiting and unease in Las Vegas. Can’t get more A’s than that.

P.S. – I went down my own rabbit hole over the sale of the River Cats and found an interesting tale inside that’s waiting to be told down the road. 

P.P.S. – I’m going to the doubleheader on May 8. I’ll probably go to the final game at the Coliseum on September 26. Sometime between those two games I’ll head out to Sacramento, maybe to catch a weekend of games. If you’re wondering how Sutter Health Park could be expanded to MLB size, don’t bother. It’s not worth it.

Not a full year after I started this blog, my day job at the time asked me to manage a huge project in Australia. The project would require planning first in Brisbane, where we did a pilot, then Sydney, where if we got telecom certification, we would support a nationwide rollout. I spent two months in Brisbane, a lovely and growing city which in 2006 had already gotten the moniker “BrisVegas” for its casinos on the riverfront. After we successfully completed the pilot, I went back home to California, where I stepped off a plane and went to a friend’s wedding. Barely two weeks later, I went to Sydney, where I spent several months until I received a fateful call that informed me that my mother was getting treatment for esophageal cancer. I wrapped my affairs in Sydney and left for home a few days later. 

During the first part of that winter in Sydney, I would listen to A’s night games during the Sydney mornings thanks the 18-hour time difference. Those who remember the 2006 season know that the team was mostly keeping its head above water those first three months and didn’t get hot until August thanks to Barry Zito, Dan Haren, Frank Thomas, and wildcard Milton Bradley. That left the nights to explore Sydney’s nightlife. Beer, barramundi, and the occasional shawarma are how I spent many of those nights.

I spent a great deal of time in the Sydney Harbour area. After my first flight into SYD, my Australian host took a bunch of us to The Lord Nelson, a brewery and hotel in The Rocks neighborhood at the foot of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. After dinner and some adult beverages we went to Circular Quay, Sydney’s ferry terminal. Then we headed up to the Sydney Opera House, which sits on Bennelong Point, essentially a pier. I thought I might be able to get a good view of it from the Sydney Harbour Bridge as we left the area. Unfortunately, the northbound traffic is on the west side of the bridge, which meant any views of the roughly 4-acre complex were blocked as we whizzed past it. Even on the southbound (east) side is somewhat subdued because the Opera House’s dual auditoriums are not actually that large or imposing. Each theater holds around 2,000 patrons, the largest measures 360 feet-by-170 feet and 200 feet high. For me the best view of the Opera House came from a ferry trip south from Neutral Bay in North Sydney to Circular Quay, which brought the boat close enough to practically kiss the auditoriums.

When the A’s updated ballpark renderings were (accidentally) released earlier this week, I immediately saw the Sydney Opera House resemblance. I reserved comment on it because I knew that much of this week would be a litany of hot takes, mostly uninformed and lacking context. So here are a few observations.

1. The Sydney Opera House comparisons are apt but are likely to recede over time if/when this opens. The Opera House is striking because it sits alone on the waterfront. The ballpark will be yet another loud edifice on The Strip, competing for attention with everything else. Materials will be different too. The Opera House is made of several precast concrete shells, whereas the ballpark’s roof will be a fabric or tensile structure (ETFE). Most importantly, while the Opera House complex is on four acres and the auditoriums take up a fraction of that, the ballpark will cover 9 acres all by itself. That’s important because the whole point of BIG’s roof treatment is to make a domed ballpark look less like a dome. Judging from the initial feedback, BIG and the A’s are succeeding on this front. The last thing anyone wanted to see is for something like a monolith like the  Astrodome (9.5 acres) or the Kingdome (9 acres) or Tropicana Field (also 9 acres). The most interesting about the Sydney Opera House is that it was designed by Jørn Utzon, a Danish architect who won a worldwide competition. If you think that had an impact on countryman Bjarke Ingels, you would be correct. So while Ingels has sort of brushed off the comparisons to an extent, he knows that his vision is working because we’re not talking about a dumpy dome, or an expensive gimmick like a  retractable roof. We’re talking about something futuristic, an inviting stadium that only Ingels himself could summon. Or perhaps, his hero Utzon.

That said, there’s no chance a ballpark will have the same visual impact as one of the great works of modern architecture, especially if it’s surrounded by the kind of gaudy, kitschy buildings littering the Strip. Ingels will have to settle for putting something striking on one of the busiest intersections in the world.

2. My previous observation that the circular Howard Terminal footprint was ported over to the Tropicana casino site appears to be correct. I’d even go so far as to say that as Howard Terminal stalled, the Vegas work on both the political and design fronts accelerated. The one big remaining issue was to figure out if someone could bring in a retractable roof on budget and within the 9-acre footprint. Not getting any takers, BIG won the “competition” by default. It’s possible that the competition was “rigged” for BIG, the same way the Coliseum development bidding was “rigged” for AASEG. 

3. A cable-net window that BIG claims will be the largest in the world will provide the entry from left-centerfield. Well, mostly. There will be doors, which will allow the A’s to create a massive standing room general admission plaza like the Cowboys have at AT&T Stadium. Is that something that will work for baseball? Considering how much the actual seats are guaranteed to be sold at a premium, we’re going to find out that the cheap seats are not seats at all, and how many fans are willing to pay for the SRO scene at a MLB game.

4. The scoreboard in right field looks like a screen cap of a scoreboard mockup that someone asked for at the last minute. The previous Vegas ballpark concept was similarly plagued by a tacked on scoreboard. The technology to hang a scoreboard on a piece of fabric doesn’t exist yet, so this isn’t feasible. Instead it’ll be a normally mounted scoreboard above the RF wall. Will it be 18,000 square feet as Dave Kaval claims? Considering that the scoreboard would be more than twice the size of Fenway’s Green Monster, it doesn’t seem likely. Hanging it at an angle is something that’s already familiar in arenas, though it may not work within the context of a ballpark. The use of fabric as a projection surface for additional video elements is also feasible. That kind of tech has come a long way using lasers. Obviously, there are advertising opportunities for that tech. I recently went through all my pictures of domed stadia and found that the ceilings of most examples are so cluttered that any kind of projection is impossible. That makes me curious about what BIG and its contractors intend to implement that would declutter the ceiling and hide much of the infrastructure. If you look closely at the image inside the ballpark, you’ll see what looks like trusses in the pennant-like panels. If a truss structure is going to be used, what materials will it be made of? Will it be on the roof (outer) side of the panel, or an inside separate roof and ceiling panels? Plus, how much transparency and translucency will they use? Ingels cited the expense of a retractable roof as a factor that will be mitigated, but if the fixed roof is very complex in terms of design and materials, how much of an impact will a complex fixed roof make?

5. In an interview with Evan Drellich of The Athletic, Ingels noted that elements of the roof deck concept from Howard Terminal made it to the Vegas ballpark. The Review-Journal’s Mick Akers got additional images that show the deck as an extended rim from which the roof is anchored. Arches extend from the anchor points of the roof panels. Since the roof panels overlap, they create additional spaces – probably premium club – on the outside of that the concourse. In proper desert fashion, these spaces should include a bunch of misting equipment to keep it comfortable. There is an open question of what the aerial view above the ballpark will be, especially behind home plate. Since there won’t be a lot of glass, there’s a danger of the angle looking quite drab. Extending the deck and introducing some greenery back there can help soften it up to a limited degree. Here in Phoenix, the home plate side of Chase Field is almost entirely inaccessible to the public except for a pedestrian bridge that extends across some railroad tracks and links to a parking garage to the south. 

6. The most frequent hot take was about how the stadium will bake like an oven because of the west-facing cable-net window and portal. Ingels and Dave Kaval countered that the ballpark doesn’t get any direct sunlight due to the fixed roof and the northern orientation. I checked this on Google Earth, simulating the setting sun during this year’s summer solstice on June 20. As expected, the sunset peaks into view beyond the New York New York casino before dropping out of sight. When I posted the screenshots of that simulation, I was challenged to see what would happen at 5 PM for a nationally televised game or a postseason game. Those images failed to bring the sun in at all due to it being too high in the sky for it to affect the batter or the field.

Many of the comments I’ve seen come from the perspective of frequent visitors of the Coliseum. The Coli’s uniquely low stadium rim and vomitory placement allows sun to stream in during some early evening games. Having been to all of the other MLB parks, I can attest to this not being a problem elsewhere because in other parks the grandstand and concourse behind home plate create a huge, high wall to block out the sun. As this ballpark is domed, there won’t be many angles for direct sunlight to come through. BIG plans a series of clerestories to bring in indirect natural light, which may be affected by the rest of the ceiling/roof structure as this hasn’t paid dividends in most other domed ballparks.

Globe Life Field with clerestories 

As more details come in, I’ll comment more. I’ll refrain from participating in the hot take fest except some occasional “well actuallys” because, well, someone has to fact check the irrationality. 

Bill Simmons of The Ringer (formerly of ESPN) popularized a term when the Seattle SuperSonics were purchased by Clay Bennett and moved to Oklahoma City. The term was “Zombie Sonics” and stuck with me all these years. The franchise, renamed Oklahoma City Thunder, hasn’t yet won a championship in OKC. They went to the finals a decade ago and had a good run of competitiveness in the early 2010’s, petering out as their three stars (Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, James Harden) were eventually traded. (Yes, there’s some symmetry with the A’s of that era.) Lately the Thunder is following up a fallow rebuilding period with a new run of competitive teams, though it’s remarkable that in the entire 15-year period the franchise has been in OKC, they had only four losing seasons.

I point this out because the A’s are entering their own Zombie Sonics era. Whether they stay in the Coliseum for one or more seasons or play their interim years in Sacramento, Salt Lake City, or Summerlin, the A’s are entering their own “wander the desert” phase while they wait for their future home in Las Vegas to open. Seattle fans cursed Bennett for his subterfuge and to a certain extent Howard Schultz for allowing the Sonics to be sold to a “thief.” Nevertheless, Bennett hasn’t exactly suffered despite the undoubtedly numerous voodoo dolls and burned effigies made to curse him. Keep that in mind as you wish for John Fisher’s demise. He may have to sell due to incompetently running the franchise during this entirely awkward transition period. Regardless, he’ll still make a mint selling the A’s even with the flip tax imposed upon him if he has to sell early, and MLB wants Vegas to work. They’re committed to make it work with or without Fisher.

This week, Oakland got a good amount of attention when it was revealed that the A’s are looking for a short-term post-2024 lease extension at the Coliseum. A’s ownership visited both Sacramento and Salt Lake City a couple weeks ago. It appears that the owners and Rob Manfred are running out of patience with John Fisher to commit to playing somewhere during these interim years. If the A’s play in Oakland, they’ll get to keep their $70 million annual haul from NBC Sports California, which would be TBD much less in Sacramento and zero further east. Oracle Park remains a possibility, though the Giants apparently aren’t interested in hosting the A’s for more than a handful of games at any stretch. Oakland officials led by Mayor Sheng Thao and her Chief of Staff Leigh Hanson are putting up a strong front, demanding an expansion franchise for The Town and a share of the A’s cable TV money. Oakland and sympathetic media are painting this as having the A’s over a barrel, but the truth is that this is pretty standard negotiation tactics. Both sides know what the other wants: the A’s, MLB, and MLBPA wants stability, while the City of Oakland wants promises that MLB can’t really provide in 2024.

Manfred recently announced his plan to retire at the end of his current term in 2029, which will bring his tenure to 15 years. Manfred, whose general vibe is that of a corporate lawyer, was never going to be the great savior of baseball that many fans wished for, bringing it back on par with football while getting rid of blackouts. He was hired to keep the ship of baseball moving in the same direction, which was marked in the late 20th Century by new ballparks and huge regional sports network annual payouts. The current generation of ballparks is due for refurbishment or replacement. RSNs are in a culling phase as more consumers cut the cord, creating a huge inequity between large and small market teams. The A’s are caught in-between, a large market team with small market revenues and TV ratings that will move to small market and cement its place as a revenue sharing recipient in a few years. Yet MLB and the owners are perfectly fine with this, voting 30-0 to relocate the franchise. Why? They’re gambling on the idea that tourist dollars will make up for the small fanbase. Is that fair? Of course not. It’s also unfair that Oakland has never built a ballpark for the A’s either publicly or privately, while lavishing attention on the Raiders and basically killing the prospects for major pro sports. I started my blog with the idea that the A’s would get some kind of ballpark in the Bay Area before I gave up. Sadly, the powers that be gave up before I did, and we all have to live with the fallout.

That leaves Oakland in the pool of expansion candidates, though Manfred indicated that awarding expansion franchises was not going to occur during his term. Instead, he would help create the framework by which his successor would award the teams. Frankly, that’s the kind of prudent, boring planning I would expect from Manfred. His job in 2024 is to get the post-RSN landscape settled, negotiate the next national television deals (current ones expire in 2028), and squeeze whatever public funds he can from existing MLB cities. The Vegas deal opened the door for much of the discussion you’re hearing in Kansas City, Chicago (White Sox), and Baltimore, with more to come. Unfortunately, Manfred was never going to be Kennesaw Mountain Landis. He’s really the CEO of a $11 Billion company, and his charges are the 30 teams.

Then what does that mean for expansion? Preferably, MLB should expand to 32 teams and split into 8 divisions of 4 teams each like the NFL. That’s unlikely to happen before, say, 2030, for a simple reason. Many advocates of expansion like to cite the influx of franchise fees, which should be $2 Billion per team or more by the time it happens. The downside is future national revenue has to be shared 32 ways instead of 30, which is the current regime. Young leagues like MLS can go on huge expansion pushes to encourage franchise valuation growth while serving emerging soccer markets. That’s not going to happen in MLB, which is past its peak from a popularity standpoint compared to the NFL and NBA. There are no obvious new revenue sources to tap in baseball, thanks to the demise of RSNs and heightened competition within the sports industry. MLB’s scheduling model requires an even number of teams at all times, which complicates expansion efforts far more than for other sports. The 1969 expansion was spurred by Kansas City meriting a franchise thanks to Missouri Senator Stuart Symington threatening baseball’s antitrust exemption. That caused MLB to birth the Seattle Pilots before a proper MLB venue was ready, which then led to the Bud Selig buying the Pilots and moving them to Milwaukee, which had previously lost the Braves to Atlanta. Seattle had to wait until 1976 and the KingDome to get the Mariners. MLB plans its expansion efforts to avoid the late 60’s upheaval. 1969’s expansion was rushed by the A’s 1968 move and the associated fallout, which birthed the Pilots, Royals, Padres, and Expos as expansion teams in keeping with the expansion-in-pairs requirement. These days, MLB demands MLB-ready venues for expansion, which wasn’t the case with Sicks Stadium in Seattle. For Oakland to win a future MLB or NFL franchise, it has to launch a competitive bid that includes both a stadium with a large public financing component and a well-heeled ownership group. Or as Tim Kawakami put it yesterday:

That’s the market, and unfortunately for Oakland, the much higher price to be in the big leagues. Like it or not, Oakland is being relegated. It has a colorful history that peaked as a sports city decades ago. Now it’s making efforts to bring in minor league teams like the Ballers and Roots. Both teams pitch themselves as community-minded and not requiring big public subsidies. Which is all well and good if they can deliver, but remember that minor and independent league teams are known for instability and volatility. It’s the nature of the beast. Look at how many places the Roots have called home: Laney, CSU East Bay, and in the future, the Malibu lot next to the Coliseum if everyone else can get on the same page. The Ballers have a few months to refurbish the field at Raimondi Park in West Oakland into a suitable venue for their upstart Pioneer League team. Again, that sounds good on the surface, but what will it take to make it work? Oakland will probably have to drive out the homeless population, the same one driven out of the Wood Street encampment not long ago. There will be friction. They will need things like 24×7 security to prevent theft and vandalism, and rezoned parking around the park to get rid of people living in their cars there. In other words, gentrification. All for teams that don’t merit much local or regional coverage. If the whole point of building the Coliseum was to put Oakland on the map, the minors is what happens when the mapmakers reduce the font size of Oakland to something less prominent.

Personally, I’m in the Bay Area this weekend visiting friends and family. I plan to come back on May 8, the day of the doubleheader between the A’s and Rangers at the Coliseum. I figured it might be a poetic last visit to the Coliseum, as my first visit was also a midweek doubleheader in 1988, a summer sweep of Cleveland in which Dennis Eckersley saved both games and the A’s looked nigh invincible. If May 8 is the last doubleheader for the last season in Oakland Athletics history, I will be there. I hope it’s not the last doubleheader or the last season. Yet I have to get ready for the next phase like all other A’s fans. Change is inevitable, and denial leaves you hoping a minor league team will fill the void in your heart, or praying for a miracle.

-=-=-

P.S. – Based on Joe Lacob’s recommendation, I might head to Chuck’s Donuts in Redwood City today. I am in the neighborhood. Towards the end of this interview with Tim Kawakami, Lacob gives what is now his standard non-answer about the A’s.

P.P.S. – A list of recent teams that were forced to play in interim venues while new ones were built or existing ones were refurbished:

• Arizona Coyotes (2022-current)
• Toronto Blue Jays (2020-2021)
• Los Angeles Chargers (2017-2019)
• Los Angeles Rams (2016-2019)
• New Orleans Hornets (2005-2006)
• New Orleans Saints (2005)
• Washington Nationals (2005-2007)
• Memphis Grizzlies (2001-2004)
• Tennessee Titans (1995-1998)

In August I went to a boxing event at Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, AZ, the former home of the NHL Coyotes. The main event featured Mexican lightweights Emanuel Navarrete (who also fought tonight in Vegas) and Oscar Valdez. The fight lived up to billing, going the distance and being hailed as one of the fights of the year. I certainly walked out of the arena feeling that I got my money’s worth.

Before I walked out into the hot August desert night, I saw a somewhat unusual, but ultimately typical undercard fight. The fight pitted a distinctive looking, up-and-coming heavyweight, Richard Torrez of Tulare, CA, against a 40 year-old journeyman opponent named Willie Jake from Indianapolis. The older Jake was clearly overmatched from the opening bell and the ref called the fight a mere 1:22 into the first round. It was over so fast that if I looked down at my phone I would’ve missed half of it.

Instead of the usual baseball analogy hackery dispensed by many in the media, I’ll lay it out like this. Torrez is Vegas, hungry, young, and vital. Jake is Oakland, tired, weary, and just hoping he doesn’t get killed before he gets the paycheck. And Rob Manfred is the referee in this case, watching one fighter completely dominate the other, and then when the older guy is unable to defend himself, Manfred steps in to call the fight. It happens a lot in boxing as a young fighter tests himself in terms of opponents and stamina in longer and more high profile fights. Torrez won again a few weeks ago and is now 7-0 in his promising career.

The Oakland-elsewhere relocations over the past five years seem to be unique unto themselves. Yet the underlying motivations and factors are all the same. The Raiders under Al and then Mark Davis looked at SoCal, other cities in the East Bay, and even San Antonio before trying something big in Oakland with Coliseum City. The Warriors telegraphed their desire to move back to SF from the start, yet Oakland did little as the team flopped on their Piers 30/32 plan and settled on the Mission Bay site. Like the Raiders, the A’s looked everywhere else before failing at Peralta site and then going even bigger at Howard Terminal. In all cases, Oakland was always in the position to be abandoned because it couldn’t compete economically. Seat licenses were already a sore subject and not under much consideration in the market for any replacement venue in Oakland other than the Raiders’ stadium.

In all three cases, the teams recognized major limitations in Oakland the city that they were willing to endure as part of the broader, richer Bay Area market. Sometimes those constraints became too much. Consider some of the actual issues the teams and the JPA had to deal with:

1. Raiders planned stadium capacity at Coliseum City was only 50-53,000, which would’ve been too small for a future Super Bowl

2. Coliseum City buildout was $4 Billion while Howard Terminal was $8 Billion, because both teams needed to funnel a lot of real estate-derived revenue towards subsidizing the stadiums

3. Mark Davis only wanted Coliseum City with the A’s there if both venues were built simultaneously, a logistical impossibility

4. In response, Lew Wolff pushed for a 10-year lease extension, which “drove away” the Raiders

5. Other types of tax revenues (use, ticket, tax increment) were extremely limited if they were confined to Oakland

6. Alameda County’s general reluctance to entertain Oakland’s plans over the past decade led them to sell their half of the Coliseum complex

7. All three teams were involved in some form of litigation with Oakland

8. The Warriors’ reluctance to pay off the debt service at the arena after they left for SF crippled the JPA’s finances for years as it was costly to book for events

9. While all three teams were tenants at the Coliseum complex, none could make plans for developing any part of it because of the need to preserve parking and the need to get cooperation from the other two teams

10. Even with 10,000 parking spaces, the teams would run into occasional dual-use event scenarios which caused them to hit the parking limits and created gridlock

These weren’t all dealbreakers. I’m not even including Oakland City Hall’s well-earned reputation of dysfunction. Taken together, these problems helped create and reinforce the image of Oakland being difficult to work with. How willing would you be to lease from a landlord who is likely to sue you? No wonder all of them eventually wanted to leave the Coliseum. Fifty years ago, the Coliseum was a perfect model of professional and community-based cooperation. Over time, all teams became more and more stingy about retaining their revenue, which led to everyone looking for better opportunities elsewhere.

You might think that after the Raiders and Warriors left in 2019, the A’s would have free rein to do what they wanted with the complex. Au contraire. That would be too simple. I’ve never heard a proper explanation for this, but my guess is that Fisher believed that revenue would be limited (another one!) at a new Coliseum ballpark compared to Howard Terminal. The A’s certainly did presentations early on that indicated that would be the case. They still bought Alameda County’s 50% stake in the Coliseum, which they stated was a backup plan but now appears to be only as a leverage play. Regardless, the bill will come due on that $45 million in six months now that MLB approved the Vegas move. If you want a reason for the A’s to get this deal done now, the possibility of offsetting this looming cost with a revenue sharing check sounds as likely as any reason.

Taking off my A’s cap, the difficult thing for me is the knowledge that the A’s are essentially being used an example for all MLB cities, current and future. Manfred will point to the $380 million quite hastily given to the A’s and tell other cities to do the same or else risk losing your franchise. Milwaukee’s recently announced renovation deal may have been done independent of the A’s machinations, but the message was sent loud and clear. Never mind the inconceivable logistics of moving or threatening to move multiple franchises. The threat was real, acted upon, and a city is soon to be irrelevant in the pro sports world as a result. It is a shocking realization, though one that comes with the territory. If you don’t want to get your heartbroken, don’t give your heart.

City Hall isn’t off the hook. The fecklessness of several Oakland mayors helped create unrealistic expectations among A’s (and Raiders) fans, where anything was possible. Oakland could somehow compete with SF, LA, even NY. To put it bluntly, Oakland can’t punch in the true big city weight class. They have no business trying to make these types of deals, simply because they don’t have the dependable help a city would normally get from a county or state to get it done. Oakland doesn’t have any competitive economic advantages over other cities. That lack of self-awareness and inability to scale down or up as needed made Oakland unable to quickly react to Vegas’s dealmaking agility. Yes, it is entirely unfair that Vegas has a powerful county’s machinery and a state to provide support. But even as “Parallel Paths” became a competition, Oakland didn’t recognize it until it was too late. Even I fell into the complacency as I felt that every avenue would be exhausted in Oakland before completing a deal with Vegas. When I saw Nevada call a special session to revive a seemingly dead bill for the A’s, I remembered how NV and Clark County danced around Oakland/Alameda County the last time. There were questions about stadium financing then as well that went away as Bank of America stepped in the same way Goldman Sachs is getting ready to do the same for the A’s.

Oakland has many more urgent issues than the A’s. I have no advice to give the city other than: Stop pumping yourself up so much, have some humility, and come from a place you will be recognized for your results, not just your effort. Don’t look for the next savior to bail you out. The Prince of Dubai didn’t materialize for Coliseum City. Joe Lacob is not walking through the door to save the A’s for Oakland. AASEG is not getting an expansion WNBA franchise when WNBA expands at a glacial pace. Maybe if Oakland put together a fair deal for itself and the Roots/Soul, it can reestablish itself in the sports world. Most importantly, stop playing with the loyalties of a tortured fan base. They deserve more than your pandering. They deserve real talk. They can handle that. If they can’t, well, at least the weather’s nice.

As for those fans, I can’t explain how sorry I am I had to write this tonight. I wanted to write a book on a new ballpark somewhere in the Bay Area, maybe in Oakland if the stars aligned. That’s as far away from reality as the A’s winning next year’s World Series. I wanted to be wrong. I wanted things to turn around for you. I lost a lot of you along the way. I was very blunt in my assessments. I can’t change that, and I can’t change who I am. Tonight I was talking a guy who works on IPOs as part of a consultancy. I asked him about the roller coaster economy. He said that business is good after a really rough patch the during the pandemic. I asked if he had to adjust his BS detector in the wake of interest rate hikes, FTX and WeWork. He said, “Oh yeah, definitely. You really have to do your research.”

“The rich people are still going to find ways. They know how to keep it flowing.”

I’ll never know how true that actually is. It sounds right.

John Fisher did a rare trifecta of Q&A sessions with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, NBC Bay Area, and ESPN last week, which ultimately served a couple important purposes. The famously publicity-shy Fisher recently submitted the A’s relocation application, months earlier than I expected (January). By doing so, Fisher took care of an item on MLB’s punch list, which, whether or not you believe the relo process has any legitimacy or transparency, is how baseball rolls. The second and most awkward observation is that Fisher’s explanations are effectively the big kiss-off to Oakland. Fisher reaffirmed that much to Oakland fans’ chagrin, he’s not selling.

I’m not going to get into the recriminations from Fisher or from Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, as it’s all garden-variety he-said she-said pablum you hear during a divorce. Fact-checking is utterly useless because no one wants to have a real dialogue or be convinced of anything beyond what they’re feeling. We’re on the verge of a transition, which has numerous possibilities for the A’s and Oakland. At the moment Thao is close to offering a short-term extension for the interim period (2025-27) in which the A’s would give up their team name to Oakland and the pay a higher amount of rent compared to their current $1.25 million annual payment. That rent figure doesn’t include operating costs, which the A’s have always paid and usually run upwards of $15 million per year. The Raiders, throughout their frequent tussles with Oakland/Alameda County, never paid for operating costs, only a minimal rent payment until they started preparing to leave in 2016, playing out a series of escalating one-year lease options until their fateful 2019 season ended.

Now Oakland and MLB are arguing over what is ostensibly a short-term lease at the Coliseum while the A’s finish their plans in Vegas. Note that I didn’t say “Oakland and the A’s” as the A’s have effectively handed off the transition to MLB and Rob Manfred. When the A’s got the deal over the finish line in the Nevada legislature, they shifted their focus to the development of the ballpark, which they claim is 75% complete. That sounds like an excuse for not having the roof situation figured out yet and is backed up by Fisher’s mealy-mouthed comments about it. We’ll see soon enough. In the meantime, Rob Manfred has control of the fate of the A’s after 2024, and he’s just itching to remind any and all Oakland politicians of that.

Thao made the rounds of local media to drum up Oakland’s case. While the Las Vegas A’s are not quite a fait accompli yet, the tone of Thao’s comments indicate that she at least wants some sort of consolation prize for Oakland, either in the form of the promise of an expansion team or Oakland’s rights to the “Athletics” moniker and branding for said franchise, or both. I applaud that effort, but let’s be realistic about these goals. There are few things that will motivate MLB to include Oakland in future expansion efforts. While Oakland is a key city in one of the largest markets in the United States, it’s had a checkered history with its sports franchises, to put it mildly. Almost every team that called Oakland home left under a cloud of controversy. To wit:

1. Raiders moved twice in 1981 and 2019, endured multiple Oakland lawsuits, and when they moved back to Oakland in 1995, started a rift between the A’s and Oakland
2. Warriors also moved in 2019, lost lawsuit over non-payment of remaining arena lease, not before bolting for SF
3. A’s picked up option on Alameda County’s half-interest of Coliseum in 2015, faced legal action from Oakland as a result
4. Bay Area Panthers (IFL) were originally the Oakland Panthers yet never played a game in Oakland
5. Oakland/California Golden Seals (NHL) were perhaps the most cursed franchise in Bay Area pro sports history and folded not long after they moved to Cleveland
6. Oakland Oaks and Invaders were victims of poorly run leagues that took advantage of Oakland’s eagerness to prove itself (ABA and USFL respectively)

Despite that legacy of bad denouements, Oakland has a track record of success. The problem is that most of that success came 30-50 years ago, and the period since has been marked by poor judgment on the City’s and County’s part (Mount Davis) and terrible strategy (Coliseum City) that largely ignored prevailing trends in stadium building. Oakland remains a fairly large city in an even larger, still lucrative market. It has its draw mostly because of demographics. However, it lacks a comprehensive strategy to attract and retain teams, and perhaps more importantly, a mayor and leadership to make deals. 

While Thao’s sniping at John Fisher is earning her points in the Bay Area, it does nothing to convince anyone at MLB to sway the owners in Oakland’s direction. Without an actual agreement, binding or not, Oakland has little argument against MLB except for soft issue cries to improve diversity or preserve Oakland’s baseball history. There’s a lot of recriminations and little actual dialogue. I was thinking about that when I saw a tweet from the National Baseball Hall of Fame (below):

When I went to 20-30 A’s games a season from roughly 1997-2014, a video tribute to Eddie Plank narrated by Roy Steele was played at least once annually at the Coliseum, either before a game or between innings. Plank, known as “Gettysburg Eddie” after his birthplace, was born there only two decades after the City of Oakland was incorporated, and pitched in the dead ball era. He was a key figure in the powerhouse rotations at the beginning of the 20th Century, though he was arguably overshadowed by fellow hurlers Chief Bender and Rube Waddell. There was no monument to Plank in the Coliseum, in keeping with the longstanding policy that only Baseball Hall of Fame inductees from the Oakland era would be  honored with retired numbers. Plank entered the Athletics Hall of Fame earlier this summer, another sign of management settling accounts.

I have no idea if Plank ever visited California, let alone Oakland, as he died more than 40 years before the A’s moved to the Bay Area. Yet his impressive legacy both predates Oakland by two stops and is intricately tied to A’s history, every bit as much as any legendary figure from the A’s Oakland tenure. Arguing that the team name “Athletics” should be left in Oakland not only threatens to wipe away historical figures like Plank, it fails to acknowledge the fact that the A’s are nomadic by nature. Oakland deserves a shot to have a MLB franchise with a trustworthy owner at the helm. It doesn’t deserve much more than that, and often fans don’t get the owner they want. That’s America.

Now to get that shot, Oakland has to show that it can be a true big market franchise as was written into recent CBAs. That means big revenues: big sponsorships, huge media deals (whatever that means in the future), and high ticket prices, plus ancillary revenue if it’s there to be exploited. Oakland and Mayor Thao won’t be able to dictate terms against MLB as their case has little to stand on. Some bring up the A’s leaving Kansas City for Oakland while conveniently forgetting that voters approved the Truman Sports Complex, which allowed for public financing of separate stadia for the A’s and Chiefs. Charlie Finley saw greener pastures by the Bay, so he took the team to a recently completed multipurpose stadium in Oakland. In response, Missouri Senator Stuart Symington threatened MLB’s antitrust exemption, which ultimately netted Kansas City the Royals as a rush expansion team to go along with the Seattle Pilots – who lasted only one season in Seattle before leaving for Milwaukee. Seattle had to wait several more years for a bite at expansion, as the KingDome didn’t start construction for a few years and didn’t open until 1976.

At the current late juncture, Oakland has to consider itself more of an expansion candidate than a proven pro sports quantity. While there is some history to leverage when the opportunity arises with an expansion franchise, that opportunity won’t come unless Oakland plays ball with MLB, the NFL, or other leagues. For years Oakland partisans likened themselves to Brooklyn in terms of diversity and as a counterpoint to SF’s Manhattan-like qualities. After the Dodgers left Brooklyn in 1958, it took 54 years and multiple ownership groups – two foreign – for the Brooklyn Nets to move back from the other side of the Hudson. The Mets will have to do for Brooklyn and Queens baseball, for better or worse. Assuming East Bay or Greater Bay Area interests get their ducks in a row for an expansion franchise, they’ll still have to make the case that Oakland is worth a worthwhile investment for the next three decades. Given the economic ceiling for both ticket sales and public funding sources, that’s a tough sell. Therefore, any pitch to any league has to include serious guarantees of economic stability. That means not leaning on revenue sharing for extended periods. What’s more, other emerging markets threaten to make Oakland irrelevant. Vegas already managed to do that almost singlehandedly.

If you want to consider the current rift between Oakland and the A’s as more than mere posturing, I can tell you that we’ve been down this road before. Consider what Mark Davis did with the Raiders while twisting the knife into Oakland, and don’t believe his revisionist history about being driven out by the A’s. He was planning a 50k-seat stadium Coliseum replacement that would have to be built at the same time as a new A’s ballpark in order to preserve his precious parking. Where’s the parking in Vegas? Anywhere they can find it (PDF). The same thing awaits the A’s.

• August 2014: Davis won’t seek lease extension for Raiders
• April 2015: Oakland approves Coliseum EIR & Specific Plan, Raiders lease, arena refinancing
• February 2016: Raiders ink 1-year lease with options, hire former 49ers CFO Larry MacNeil
• June 2016: The A’s are not an obstacle to the Raiders
• March 2017: Raiders exodus is about will not blame

In light of recent history, consider how recent mayors reacted. Libby Schaaf was not heavily involved in Coliseum City during its planning, and when she became mayor she had to deal with the fallout there while putting her weight behind a plan to keep the A’s, which was Howard Terminal. Schaaf’s successor Thao was not heavily involved in the Howard Terminal discussion because it was run by Schaaf’s staff, and now that it hit a brick wall Thao is painting herself as a defender of Oakland vs. the A’s when it was clear she was elected precisely because she wouldn’t waste much time on them. Pity the next mayor who has to figure out how to make AASEG and the soccer teams happy while trying not to appear like the mayor’s office isn’t selling Oakland out. Oakland may as well rename itself CYAland. 

Oakland can and should raise the rent on the A’s if they can. By the same token, MLB has the right to demand that Oakland spend that money on updating the facility which has already had one embarrassing episode earlier in the season. At the end of all this drama Oakland has to decide if it’s going to spend time on resources on major pro sports. If Oakland decides it can’t or doesn’t want to be a good host to the A’s, MLB knows how to focus its efforts on expansion: anywhere but Oakland.

As I read the Merc’s article about the recent Schnitzer Steel fire, I came upon a quote from Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao responding to the Dave Kaval’s comments about the City not partnering up with the A’s to take on Schnitzer (as of July rebranded Radius Recycling):

“Through a spokesperson, Mayor Thao responded to the claim, saying that Schnitzer was ‘not a deal point in the negotiations. Period.’ And that their backing wouldn’t have helped move things along:

‘The City’s participation would not have improved the A’s chances in the litigation, and certainly had nothing to do with the fire at the facility. To suggest otherwise is misleading and irresponsible.’ ”

Hadn’t I asked about this in the past, I wondered. Turns out, I did over five years ago (emphasis mine).

To support their cause, Schnitzer enlisted from former State Senate President and East Bay politico Dom Perata. While Perata has seen his image disgraced and his power diminished, I don’t doubt for second that he still has some weight to throw around and that Schnitzer will use it to make any negotiations difficult. The question is, does Oakland and the A’s want to venture down this road? Schnitzer’s problems have been well known, but it provides a useful service for area. What is to be done about it? What if a fire broke out during a night game next door? How do you protect the fans, or evacuate them safely? These are among the many questions the A’s will be considering over the next six months.

Based on Thao’s response, the answer about Oakland’s willingness to venture down this road is a disappointing NO. Legally, the City’s hands are somewhat tied. Schnitzer’s land is owned by the company, not the Port or City, which means that they’re only accountable to state and regional regulatory agencies like the DTSC and BAAQMD. The City and Port can’t afford to start eminent domain proceedings against Schnitzer, and if they tried it would be a long, drawn-out mess marked by a lawsuit that wouldn’t benefit from recent CEQA streamlining provisions.

That means there are only two ways to get rid of Schnitzer Steel. The most American way is the old capitalism route: buy them out. Recent A’s history has shown that they have zero appetite for overpaying for land, making this option not much of an option at all. The other way – also very American – is to leverage the power of the government to make the current Schnitzer location bad for business as an ongoing concern thanks to fines and regulations. The A’s went this route and were able to get the DTSC to level a $4 million fine against Schnitzer two years ago. The A’s then sued the DTSC for more in order to effectively drive Schnitzer off their land, an effort that failed last fall and several months ago on appeal. The DTSC stepped up in May and allowed the A’s to relaunch their lawsuit. The tweet below references an amicus brief filed by the National Resources Defense Council, which is a welcome sentiment but isn’t going to move the needle much. Whatever may lead to the ultimate goal of Schnitzer giving up the land is several steps away.

Now let’s look at a compromise option. Despite all the legal maneuvering and civic posturing, the vital question remains: How can a huge mixed-use development that draws new residents, workers and visitors co-exist with a oft-polluting business that has no desire to move and owns their land fair and square? This wasn’t directly addressed in the five years since the A’s introduced the Howard Terminal concept. Instead we got acknowledgements of the problem and few solutions. It’s worth noting that AB&I foundry, which left the Coliseum area of Oakland in 2022 (no thanks to the A’s), used boilerplate reasons normally associated with leaving out-of-state or going offshore.

Back in Jack London Square, the A’s called it a day when they saw smoke. BAAQMD issued an advisory, but not a Spare the Air alert. Nearby businesses including the A’s chose to evacuate and close shop or continue their work days. If you were sitting in left field at a Howard Terminal ballpark and you saw smoke, would you wait for your phone to give an alert before you reacted?

“Oakland Athletics President Dave Kaval said he and other employees at the baseball team’s office, which overlooks the recycling center, evacuated the building after smoke began billowing up into the sky Wednesday evening. The office was closed Thursday, Kaval said in an interview with The San Francisco Chronicle.”

I feel bad for all the people who bought into this fantastical vision and downplayed major concerns like this. It’s as if everyone in Oakland – heavy industry, poor and put-upon residents, real estate developers, feckless government officials, and fans – could simply sacrifice and come together to keep a baseball team in town. Whatever you think of Dave Kaval and John Fisher now, they gave it a shot. Yet who in their right mind would buy a $1-2 million condo knowing there’s a good chance they would have to evacuate at random intervals due to pollution? This isn’t Richmond near the Chevron refinery, it’s supposed to be downtown! Too bad no one involved – public and private – was willing to pay the true cost to make it happen. Or make the biggest sacrifice. Let’s remember that the land on which the Giants ballpark sits was made available because a large amount of industry vacated San Francisco after Loma Prieta. They left for Oakland, a city more than willing to take the shipping industry and jobs.

The Merc’s Shayna Rubin got additional info from Kaval, including what to me reads like the Executive Summary of the A’s relocation bid to the other MLB owners. I know a lot of fans were claiming BS on this, but look at it through the owners’ not-Oakland-centric lens and think about it. Then consider how much Oakland and Alameda has done for the Raiders and Warriors and how much it has done for the A’s over the past 10, 20, 50 years. A few weeks ago some A’s fans got suckered into thinking that had an ally in the Nevada legislature. They have even less of an ally in The Lodge. Folks need to get off their hopium addictions, because it’s not healthy. Manfred and the owners are giving Oakland and A’s fans one last chance to keep the team in town. Thao’s presentation to Manfred before the All Star Game isn’t new information to the owners. The A’s give quarterly reports on their progress. To win over baseball, you’ll have to give up more. More than you’re comfortable with and more than you ever considered. That’s what happens when you take something for granted, the price goes up.

Well this is interesting…

If you’ve been reading long enough, you know that the purpose of this site is not primarily to advocate for any one ballpark location or site, it’s to see how the situation progresses, analyze it, and try to look one or two steps ahead. Sometimes I get things wrong. Sometimes they’re right. When I wrote about Fremont, it was with the notion that Fremont was a compromise location that could bridge a gap in the A’s fanbase without infringing territorial rights. When I wrote about San Jose, the idea was that it was the best possible revenue situation if they could resolve those T-rights (they did not). And when I pulled for the Coliseum over Howard Terminal, my argument was that it was the fastest, easiest path to getting a new ballpark even if the revenue potential there was lower. If the comment above actually came from the MLB commissioner, In this case, it may be curtains for Oakland. I wish that wasn’t the case.

How does this map out over the next six months? I expect the A’s to officially apply for relocation sometime next January in keeping with their lease and contractual obligations. They’re putting together a presentation that will go to the rest of the owners probably after the World Series. In the meantime, Oakland has a chance to get Manfred’s attention and put its best foot forward. At the same time, Manfred and Fisher know that with Vegas in their back pocket, they can squeeze Oakland. It really comes down to how badly Oakland wants to keep the A’s. Maybe if an Oakland fan hung out at the Coliseum every day like Greta Thunberg it might get attention. Though in the end, it comes down to making a deal. Is Oakland willing to make more compromises to get it done? That’s the real test for Oakland’s pro sports viability now and into the future. Because if they lose the A’s, it’s hard to imagine any expansion franchise or relocation candidate coming to the Eastshore. Oakland will have to get in line with every other hungry fanbase with limited resources.

–

P.S. – The current mayor and three former mayors of San Jose sent a letter to MLB asking for an expansion franchise if the A’s leave for Vegas. All I can say to that is: That’s cute.

P.P.S. – Dennis Shanahan from KTXL in Sacramento continued his dialogue with Commissioner Manfred, which I found interesting mostly because it shows that Manfred is not ignoring the reports he gets on the ground from Oakland.

Things are looking grim at the moment in Oakland. So far, Nevada and Clark County haven’t fumbled the bag, even as John FIsher’s lieutenants looked shaky at times in selling the Vegas ballpark concept. After much deliberation and horse trading, a $1.5 Billion ballpark concept was approved for the southeast corner of the Tropicana property, covering 9 of the 35 acres there. Total public outlay will be $380 million, including $120 million of bonds.

Recently, East Bay politicians and fans settled on a talking point: If Fisher only needed 9 acres and wanted to build only a ballpark, he could’ve done that much more cheaply and quickly at Howard Terminal. If you don’t think about it, it sort of makes sense. But there are obvious problems with the argument.

Oakland loves to claim that they’re putting up $380-440 million towards Howard Terminal. The problem with the argument is that the money, even if they get all of it, can only go towards off-site infrastructure. As we all know, if the area around Howard Terminal is to be commercialized it’s badly in need of redevelopment: sidewalks and signage, rail safety, etc. That’s a completely different commitment than what Nevada/Clark County are providing for the A’s, which is $380 million for the ballpark. Oakland’s not offering that. They’re waiting and hoping for state grants to come in to cover the off-site infrastructure only. I’m not sure how so many got confused about this. Vegas is offering at most $25 million towards off-site infrastructure, because the South Strip area needs it far less than the Oakland waterfront. If you think about it even a little, Oakland’s claims evaporate.

Back in Oakland, there is no pledge of a single dime to build the ballpark. Politically, that’s a smart and consistent stance by recent Oakland mayors after the Mount Davis debacle and the messiness of the Warriors’ departure. Rob Manfred and Major League Baseball have a different interpretation: they think Oakland doesn’t value having the A’s enough to keep the team in town. The whole idea of the $12 Billion mega project was to have all the other development defray the cost of the building the ballpark. If that goes away, what comes in to replace it? Look, I sympathize with everyone in the East Bay who doesn’t want to chance yet another nine-figure stadium subsidy. But the chief pathway to negotiate that, ancillary development, may have dried up in the last year thanks to inflation and new market realities. If that is the case, then what is Oakland offering? Free or no-cost land? Not exactly, even an 8-acre ballpark site won’t escape some amount of taxation, whether we’re talking about property taxes, a land lease, or other taxes. In Vegas, the land lease is basically free and all taxes and payments go to the ballpark district, which will be operated by the same Stadium Authority that operates Allegiant Stadium. It’s a classic version of a PILOT, or payments-in-lieu-of-taxes. PILOTs redirect all collected taxes towards payment of the bonds that were used to build the project. You can read about it at Wikipedia or at Field of Schemes, where Neil de Mause wrote extensively about the subject.

I’m against public funding of stadia in general. However, communities have to realize that in order to compete for a scarce resource like a major professional sports team, they won’t be able to get around making a sizable investment. Sometimes that’s taxes, sometimes it’s land. Either way it’s money. Politicians and media can spin it all they like, couching it in terms of neighborhood investment. The off-site stuff is not the same thing as the ballpark, not even close. If Oakland’s going to show their passion more than some protests and cutting remarks, they need to be ready to show their hand. And if they aren’t willing to do so, what are we really talking about here? Scoring political points while delaying the inevitable? Remember how Oakland latched onto that lawsuit against the Raiders and the NFL, the one that went for naught after 4 years? They’re using the same playbook with the “Moneyball Act” and the threat against the antitrust exemption. If fans and media are rightfully angry with A’s ownership for yanking them around, it’s also well past time to levy the same charges against the City of Oakland. Constantly throwing Hail Mary passes isn’t a strategy unless Al Davis or Don Coryell are calling your plays. Now it’s Sheng Thao, Libby Schaaf, Jean Quan, and now, Barbara Lee. Do you trust them to make the right moves to keep the A’s in town?

If fans want to push for some sort of tax to pay for a new ballpark at HT or anywhere else in Oakland, they’re running out of time to do so. Polls last year showed that it wasn’t the most pressing item for Oakland residents. It’s up to Oakland to be honest with itself about what it’s willing to do to keep the A’s. It’s easy for me to be fine with whatever direction they take since I don’t live there. This is the “adult conversation” I’ve written about in the past. It’s a talk that, frustratingly, Oakland still refuses to have. Oakland saw Vegas steal the Raiders out from under them in 2016. It’s seeing the A’s relocate at breakneck speed in 2023. If taxes are a non-starter, and if the East Bay market has difficulty supporting the higher prices associated with new venues, Oakland needs to show what it is capable of. Otherwise, this is all just talk. At least Oakland can feel comfort in knowing that there are no more major franchises for Vegas to steal.

What if I told you that a chief reason the A’s got this Vegas ballpark deal done had little to do with baseball or MLB?

Let’s step back almost a month. Major League Soccer (not baseball) announced its 30th franchise, awarded to San Diego. A coalition of a Saudi billionaire, a local Native American tribe, and the new Snapdragon Stadium (SDSU-owned) made it possible, along with a whopping $500 million franchise fee. And with that, MLS is set for now. Bids for MLS expansion teams came from Sacramento, Las Vegas, and Phoenix, with Sacramento awarded at one time and then rescinded when it get a permanent soccer-specific stadium built at the Railyards. The same fates befell Las Vegas, whose Lights FC are stuck at Cashman Field, and Phoenix Rising FC, a team that keeps bouncing around Maricopa County in search of a permanent home. They’re currently playing in a temporary stadium at the old dog track by PHX airport.

Okay, so Vegas can’t get a MLS team for now. They’ve got plenty of other things to do there, right? Vegas is feeling its oats with the recent NHL and WNBA champions, so why not attract more? The A’s launched their Nevada lobbying efforts in earnest in May 2021, one day after they celebrated 510 Day in the Bay Area.

Where was I? Oh right, attracting more teams. Two separate efforts were started recently to attract a NBA expansion team. All Net Arena has been gestating for a decade on the north Strip. Today, Tod Leiweke presented Oak View Group’s arena/resort proposal for some undeveloped land three miles south of the Strip’s famous “Welcome” sign. Vegas is on the short list for a new team, along with Seattle. I’m still unclear at how Vegas can support five arenas of similar size (T-Mobile, MSG Sphere, MGM Grand Garden Arena, Thomas and Mack Center, the proposed NBA venue) and maintain full schedules for all of them. The name of the game is having event nights while limiting conflict by maintaining flexibility. This means not having multiple teams sharing a single arena if it can be avoided.

Neither proposal is at as prime a location as the A’s ballpark site on the Tropicana lot. When the A’s were navigating Clark County and talking with various casino interests, it became clear that the A’s weren’t interested in building the same kind of mixed development they were planning at Howard Terminal. In Vegas, the desire was to build as close to the heart of the Strip as possible. In inking the deal at the Trop, Fisher/Kaval have somehow done something I would’ve considered impossible two years ago:

1. Prime high-traffic location (Tropicana SE corner)
2. Leased for $1 per year
3. Anchoring a resort development to be built by Bally’s and likely baseball-themed
4. $380 million in public funding through #SB1
5. $175 million from the land owner, GLPI for ballpark improvements (retractable dome)

The Tropicana, which is due for major redevelopment, has been an undervalued gem for at least a decade. The nine-acre ballpark site, in which people keep wondering how a retractable dome can fit, is more the proper size for another arena or even a soccer stadium. In securing the site, Fisher and Kaval have made sure that no other sport can claim this location for themselves, which at least one Nevada politician noticed a couple days ago.

No, the A’s won’t be able to build a $12 Billion development on Oakland’s waterfront. But they managed to pull off something of a real estate coup which I imagine was highly encouraged by Rob Manfred, who is thinking beyond a single team’s economics. Once the A’s build the $1.5 Billion ballpark, it should be relatively cheap to operate with the small footprint and low operating costs. The flexibility therein will allow them to fill a small venue gap between large arenas and big football stadia, though it’s unclear how many such events occur regularly. LVCVA’s Steve Hill talked about the ballpark being used for large convention gatherings that can’t be done in a single space at the convention center to the north. The fact that the ballpark will be a relatively short distance away via a drive on the surface, Tesla tunnel, or the monorail, doesn’t hurt.

The ballpark renderings showed off a single domed ballpark with little else surrounding it. The casinos and conventioneers saw something else: another opportunity. With the kind of mortgage the ballpark will command, Fisher and Kaval will be happy to rent it out. They intentionally undersold the number of events the ballpark will hold, a clever way to pitch a product in need of $380 million in public money. As for that amount, I’m sure the main reason for that specific ask is that it’s roughly halfway between the $0 public funds for T-Mobile Arena and the $750 million request for Allegiant Stadium. They did it because they have a baseball team and a willing partner. In the process, they put the NBA and MLS on the Strip’s fringes, which is how I imagine Manfred prefers it.

So yeah, this Vegas endeavor is definitely a winner for the A’s ownership, MLB owners, and Rob Manfred. Just about everyone else including Oakland and A’s fans lose. But you already knew that.