Author Archives: Marine Layer

11.08.12
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News for 11/8/12

Congrats to Billy Beane, who won the MLB Executive of the Year award at this week’s GM meetings. Out of 57 total votes, Beane garner 31. Second was the Nationals’ Mike Rizzo with 13. I figure Beane would gladly trade the award for the Earthquakes advancing to the next round of the MLS Cup, but that’s neither here nor there.

  • Alameda County’s Measure B1 continues to miss passage by the thinnest of margins. Through Wednesday, the measure had 65.63% approval,  just 12,000 votes short of passage. Roughly 140,000 absentee votes remain to be counted, which could allow the Yes votes to get over the hump. For that to happen, Yes votes would have to outnumber No votes by a 70-30 clip. The final vote tally should be ready before Thanksgiving. At stake is $40 million in transit funding that could help fund Coliseum City. [Oakland Tribune/Denis Cuff, Kristin J. Bender, Angela Woodall] Update 9:30 PM – Measure B1 has lost ground as an additional 24,000 ballots were counted today, with 65.38% voting Yes. The measure needs roughly 71% Yes among the remaining ~115,000 votes to get the supermajority.
  • As expected, Rebecca Kaplan kept her Oakland City Council At Large seat, defeating Ignacio De La Fuente 61-39 via Oakland’s instant runoff (ranked choice) voting process. That should keep one of Coliseum City’s biggest supporters out front and center, along with Larry Reid, who was also re-elected. [SF Gate/Matthai Kuruvila]
  • If Fremont were to re-emerge as an A’s stadium option, it’s important to know that the new mayor is expected to be Bill Harrison, who leads Steve Cho and Anu Natarajan at the moment. Harrison has a plurality of the vote at 35.28%, nearly 2,000 votes more than Cho. Apparently there is no runoff mechanism in Fremont. In addition, Vinnie Bacon, a known stadium opponent, won a City Council seat on Tuesday. [Fremont Argus/Chris De Benedetti]
  • El Paso voters approved a hike in the hotel tax to help fund a $50 million stadium, which will be the future home a relocated Padres AAA affiliate. [El Paso Times/Cindy Ramirez]
  • Reno’s City Council approved a restructuring of the financing for their AAA stadium. The new deal will use a combination of a general fund payment and revenues generated from the stadium. [Reno Gazette Journal/Brian Duggan]
  • San Diego elected a new mayor, Democrat Bob Filner. Filner has promised to be a tough negotiator with the Chargers in the latter’s pursuit of a new stadium. Already, some within the region are painting this as bad for the future of the team in San Diego. [NBC Sports/Mike Florio]
  • Bakersfield’s Cal League team, the Blaze, announced last week that they will build a replacement for antiquated Sam Lynn Ballpark in the south part of town on undeveloped land. The 3,500-seat stadium will have ancillary retail development on a total of 340 acres. Thankfully the ballpark will be oriented northeast, which will keep the sun out of batters’ eyes. When the new park opens, the oldest stadium in the Cal League will be San Jose Municipal Stadium. [Bakersfield Now/Staff]
  • Negotiations on TV rights for the college football playoff have begun, with ESPN initially offering nearly $500 million per year. [CBS Sports/Dennis Dodd]

More as it comes.

11.06.12
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Chronicle compares Giants’ Port deal with Warriors’ deal

Well, call it a deal framework for now. Plenty of detail needs to be hashed out to build a Warriors arena in South Beach, but at least the Chronicle’s John Coté has gone to the trouble of comparing the Warriors’ deal with what the City struck with the Giants 15 years ago.

SF Chronicle comparison of land deals for Warriors and Giants

For now, the city’s initial investment is higher, a reported $120 million for the W’s vs. $27 million (year 2000 dollars) for the Giants, not including project soft costs. In both cases, the tenant teams also received development rights to additional land. For the Giants it was the parking area on the other side of Mission Creek. The W’s would get Seawall 330 across the street, where some kind of high rise office tower, hotel, or residential building would presumably be constructed.

Not included in the comparison is the potential property tax impact. While infrastructure for AT&T Park was paid for via tax increment, that avenue is not directly available this time around for the Warriors. Instead, the City/Port could sell Seawall 330 to the W’s or offer a rebate of the City’s share of the W’s property tax payment (a subsidy). Let’s project that rebate a bit.

Say that the assessed value of the arena is $500 million. That’s low but could and will be argued by the Warriors as proper, just as it was by the Giants. That puts the annual property tax bill at $6 million per year if assessed at 1.2%. Roughly 30% of that goes to San Francisco, which is incorporated as both a City and County. The rest of the bill would go to schools, specifically SFUSD. That makes a potential rebate as much as $1.8 million, nearly the same amount as the W’s annual rent payment on Piers 30-32. The Warriors get a fantastic deal on two pieces of waterfront, an standard-bearer of an arena, and a massive franchise value increase due to the deal fundamentals. If you’re Joe Lacob and Peter Guber you jump on this deal toot sweet.

The City of Oakland should be following the progress of this deal project closely, as it provides a blueprint on how to make a Howard Terminal ballpark deal work out. At 40 acres, Howard Terminal provides space for both a ballpark and ancillary development. In San Jose there isn’t as much of an opportunity, since little city-owned land exists adjacent to the ballpark site.

11.05.12
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Little at stake vis-à-vis stadia tomorrow

In the morass of national and statewide election coverage, it can be easy to lose sight of several things that are at stake in the Bay Area tomorrow. This time, there really isn’t much to argue about, at least as far as the future of the A’s in the Bay Area is concerned. There are no stadium ballot measures anywhere in the state, let alone the Bay Area. The 49ers stadium is past the point of no return, and the Warriors are probably a year or two away from a proper ballot proposition for their SF waterfront arena.

In Oakland, Ignacio De La Fuente and Rebecca Kaplan are squaring off for the latter’s At-Large Council seat. A small amount of attention has been paid to their stance on the future of pro sports in Oakland, with De La Fuente saying he doesn’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past (Mt. Davis) while Kaplan is using the Coliseum City project as a tenet of her plan to boost Oakland’s economy. Election of either doesn’t make or break any kind of stadium deal, though momentum, such as it is, could grow or dissipate depending on the choice.

Kaplan touts that she was able to secure in $40 million in TOD (transit oriented development) funds for Coliseum City. The key there is the passage of Alameda County Measure B1, a raise of the sales tax from 0.5% to 1% to help fund up to $8 billion worth of transit-related projects over the next 30 years. B 1 is both a raise and an extension of Measure B, which is set to expire in 2022. If B1 is defeated, B would continue through the planned expiration date, though it’s likely that there would be another attempt to boost the sales tax again to fund transit projects. B1 requires a two-thirds supermajority to pass. No polling has been done to gauge interest, but B1 has broad support among governments, civil and business groups, and the media. Surprisingly, one notable anti-B 1 column was written by the Oakland Tribune’s editorial board. The Chronicle and East Bay Express both support the measure. If both B 1 and Prop 30 pass, Oakland’s effective sales tax would be 9.5%.

What would happen to the $40 million Kaplan earmarked for Coliseum City if B1 is defeated? It’s hard to say where replacement funds would come from. Transit projects all over the country compete for federal matching funds, making it necessary for Oakland and Alameda County to bring some skin to the game in order to get federal grants. There’s still bonding capacity within the Coliseum JPA and bond ratings are good, though that may be more due to the bonds being chained to city and county general funds than anything else. There’s also a question of the total cost of the project and scope of the money’s use. While TOD funds could help improve the Coliseum grounds and infrastructure, they couldn’t be used for any stadium facility. It would make more sense for city/county to reserve the ability to issue bonds for the actual stadium(s), as the NFL generally expects.

11.02.12
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A’s 2013 Spring Training Schedule Out

The A’s released their 2013 Cactus League schedule today. As mentioned earlier in the week, the World Baseball Classic adds a wrinkle or two to the schedule. The first game is on Saturday, February 23 against the Brewers. Two split squad days (March 5 & 16) are scheduled, the former day including an exhibition against an unnamed WBC team. Judging from the WBC schedule, the opponent will be Team USA, Mexico, Italy, or a qualifier.

Tentative schedule, subject to change. Does not include Bay Bridge Series games.

Right off that bat I can recommend a week to attend: February 27 to March 5. That starts off with a home game vs. the Mariners, followed by road game vs. the Cubs at the A’s possible future home, HoHoKam Stadium in Mesa. After that are home tilts against the Giants and Padres. March 3 is an away game vs. the Rockies at Salt River Fields, then a home game against the Angels, and finally the split squad affair including the WBC exhibition. Not all Cactus League teams have posted their schedules yet, but you can assume that there will be a good number of night games on the slate if you’re interested. If you’re interested in syncing your trip with WBC games, aim for the following week, March 7-12.

On a tangential note, a deal for the Arizona State University baseball team to play at the Cubs’ new spring training facility has fallen through. The break came as a result of a disagreement over concessions revenue and facility access for the school’s baseball program. The Cubs were offering to let ASU play at the rent-free. The deal is not expected to have any effect on the A’s move to HoHoKam/Fitch Park once the Cubs move away. ASU is expected to turn its attention to the A’s current Cactus League home, Phoenix Municipal Stadium, once the A’s vacate. A formal announcement about the A’s move to Mesa could come as spring training starts.

10.31.12
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News for 10/31/12

All Hallows’ Evening edition.

  • The state’s Department of Finance nixed a settlement that would’ve satisfied the 49ers and Santa Clara Unified School District over the split and repayment of $30 million of redevelopment funds. The district, city, and county will appeal on November 26 with a ruling expected by December 18. If the deal remains rejected, the 49ers will sue in March. The ongoing dispute over the $30 million will not stop stadium construction, which is already starting on the upper deck. [San Jose Mercury News/Mike Rosenberg]
  • Speculation: Following along from that last story, I don’t think a deal between San Jose and Santa Clara County over the Diridon land will pass muster, even if the County finds money to fill the gap. The State appears to be putting its foot down to restrict redevelopment, at least through the rest of Governor Jerry Brown’s term. That’s not to say that Wolff/Fisher won’t be able to get the land. They may have to go through the normal sale process to get it, that’s all. [Sacramento Bee/Loretta Kalb]
  • The 45-day window for the Dodgers and Fox to negotiate a new TV deal has opened. Per the terms of the current deal, Fox has first dibs for the duration of the window. Guggenheim Partners paid $2 billion with the idea that the next TV deal would be a bonanza, so it would be not be a shock if no agreement emerges from the talks. There is a catch: the Dodgers have to name their price during the window, effectively setting the market. How much is too much for Fox, which has lost the Lakers and Pac-12 sports in the past year and has two channels to fill? We’ll see. [LA Times/Joe Flint]
  • Speaking of channels, Time Warner Cable SportsNet launched without carriage on DirecTV, Dish, and any SoCal cable operator other that Time Warner and Charter. The Pac-12 Network continues to be unavailable on DirecTV, AT&T U-verse, and Verizon FiOS.
  • From the Department of Audacity: the City of El Paso’s Proposition 3 asks voters to approve a ballpark deal. However, only recently was it revealed what would happen if voters said “No”. If that happens, the $50 million ballpark will continue to move forward, but not financed by bonds backed by a hotel tax. Instead, it’s highly likely that the general fund would have to be tapped to fund the ballpark. Cray cray. [El Paso Times/Cindy Ramirez]
  • Today an architectural review of Barclays Center was published, which I read with glee. NY Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman talks of the arena’s rusting metal panels being akin to “ancient chains binding a giant Gulliver”, or its technological excellence, including an “underground turntable for trucks that may sound eye-rollingly dull but makes traffic engineers like the city’s transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, swoon”. The latter half of the review rightfully critiques the arena’s lack of integration into the neighborhood and Brooklyn in general. [NY Times/Michael Kimmelman]
  • The Texas Rangers continue with $12 million in improvements to Rangers Ballpark, highlighted by an extra row of high-roller seats and a club area behind home plate. That brings the total of improvements over the last three years to $35 million. [Dallas Morning News/Sarah Mervosh]
  • For tonight’s home opener, the Philadelphia 76ers are unveiling the world’s largest (and scariest) T-shirt cannon. [The 700 Level/Enrico Campitelli, Jr.]

Be safe out there on Halloween.

10.30.12
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Baseball comes early in 2013 thanks to WBC

The new tradition known as the World Baseball Classic returns next spring. As reported earlier in the summer, San Francisco was chosen as the site for the finals, to be held March 17-19. The schedule is out now, if you want to plan for the event.

  • Pool play: March 2-6 in Japan and Taiwan, March 7-10 in Puerto Rico and Phoenix, AZ.
  • Second round (Double elimination): Pool 1 (Japan) – March 8-12, Pool 2 (Miami, FL) – March 12-16
  • Semifinals: March 17-18
  • Finals: Tuesday, March 19

Tickets are not yet for sale for the championship rounds. I’ll post anew when tickets are made available. All games will be broadcast on MLB Network. Some qualifying pool games have already been played, with two additional pools to commence mid-November.

Rod Carew Stadium in Panama City, Panama will host Qualifying Pool 3 starting on November 15. Image: Wikimedia Commons

During the last two WBCs, much attention was paid to ensuring that pitchers don’t get overworked, since spring training is meant to ramp their workload gradually. There are even rules to give pitchers an appropriate amount of rest between appearances. Rosters for the major contending teams aren’t expected to be set until winter. While the Giants appear to have numerous players who could appear on numerous rosters, it’s unclear what A’s might play in the WBC due to their relative lower profile. Yoenis Cespedes, who played in 2006 and 2009, can no longer play for Cuba due to his defector status.

Pitching concerns aside, the great thing about the World Baseball Classic is that it forces spring training to start a week earlier than usual. 2012’s spring training schedule started on March 3. In 2013 gameplay should start on February 23, with pitchers and catchers likely to report around Valentine’s Day as they did in 2009. The A’s first game is on 2/23 against the Brewers, only 117 days away from today’s date.

The inclusion of WBC games into spring training allows for a greater variety and schedule of games to watch in March, whether you’re in Arizona or Florida. Chase Field will hold First Round pool play March 7-10, while Marlins Park will stage Second Round games March 12-16. 2009’s semifinals games brought in 43,000 fans each while the final had over 54,000 announced attendance. The final rounds at AT&T Park should sell out as teams emerge from the elimination round. If 2009 is any indicator prices may be steep. Fans back then were encouraged to buy strips, just as they would for postseason games. That and the uncertainty regarding which teams would play slowed sales a bit, as pool play in Miami and San Diego last year frequently attracted fewer than 20,000 fans per game. Tickets for the 2013 WBC are expected to go on sale on December 3.

10.29.12
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A couple more travel tools

First, a quick note of congratulations to the Giants for winning their second World Series in the three years. The new interleague format with home/home series should be even more tension-filled in 2013.

The two tables below show distances and travel times between ballparks. There’s also a Google Drive spreadsheet if you want to download the tables. Methodology is simple. Numerous queries were done via Google Maps and Sport Map World and assembled into tables. Travel times for driving are the distance divided by an average 55 mph speed. Air travel times are air distance divided by a 540 mph speed, plus 15 minutes to allow for takeoffs and landings. Air travel times are between venues, not airports, so factor additional transit time if you are planning a trip based on air travel.

Distances between MLB ballparks in miles by air (blue) and land (green). Click to enlarge.

Travel times between ballparks in hours (Blue: Air, Green: Road). Times are approximate. Click to enlarge.

A newswrap post should be coming tomorrow.

Update 10/30 12:00 AM – Added tentative Minor League Baseball schedule in Google Drive format, Excel, and PDF. Includes all games except for Rookie/Short Season schedules, which are not yet published. The schedule has not yet be reformatted into the grid used for the MLB schedule. That’s coming soon.

10.26.12
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Tenuous grip

Athletics Nation honcho Tyler Bleszinski (a.k.a. Blez) put up his annual Billy Beane interview yesterday, and as usual it’s a treat. Fortunately, this offseason’s conversation was more occupied by what the team did instead of looking to the future. It’s a good read.

Once you’re done with that, contrast that conversation with one held with Mark “not Rincon” Shapiro and conducted by Fox Sports Ohio’s Pat McManaman. The 2012 edition of the Indians spent the first half of the season at or a few games within first place, only to sink like they wore cement shoes after the All Star Break. Their last winning season was in 2007, when the team went to the ALCS and squandered a 3-1 series lead to the Red Sox. Back then the team was well-stocked with quality youth in the field (Grady Sizemore, Jhonny Peralta, Victor Martinez, Ryan Garko, Franklin Gutierrez) and studs on the mound (C.C. Sabathia, Cliff Lee, Fausto Carmona Roberto Hernandez, Jake Westbrook). If the team could get over the hump, the malaise of the early 2000’s would give way to a resurgence, perhaps reminiscent of the mid-90’s clubs that dominated the AL Central. Instead, the team traded both Sabathia and Lee as they neared free agency, later traded Gutierrez, Martinez and Peralta while Sizemore and Hernandez were beset with injuries. It’s not a unique script. The A’s fortunes during that period played out much the same way, with Eric Chavez and Justin Duchscherer constantly rotating between the DL and the active roster, and Bobby Crosby simply not panning out after a RoY season. Poor yields on trades kept both teams from successfully rebuilding. It’s a script all revenue-poor teams have to follow, often with a boom season being illusory instead of trendsetting. Poor teams can afford to make fewer mistakes. Rich teams can afford to have Barry Zito suck for more than half of his contract until he redeems himself as a 4th starter. In Cleveland or Oakland, Zito’s contract is a pair of cement shoes.

That the Indians haven’t won the Series since the Truman administration is well-known. Not even a successful movie franchise has lifted the curse or healed the Cleveland fan’s psyche. No, it’s not as long as the Cubs’ endless suffering, but at least Chicago’s had other teams win in the meantime. The annual disappointment properly frames a snippet of the discussion between McManaman and Shapiro, as they talk about lagging attendance and the business side of the Indians. Shapiro was promoted to Indians president after the 2010 season, so he has his hands in more than just personnel work, now the task of GM Mark Antonetti.

Q: Is there a perception problem in town?

A: The biggest perception issue is probably the simplest one, which is we’re still to some extent always viewed in the backdrop of those ‘90s teams, when in reality that was a completely different business model. Those (Indians) teams were literally the Red Sox, the Cubs, the Dodgers. We were top five in payroll, as high as three. And our revenues generated that.

So I think there’s that general public sentiment that, ‘Hey if you win enough people will come.’ But that’s not necessarily true. We had a unique set of circumstances.

There was a new ballpark. That’s a huge multiplier. We hadn’t won in 40 years. That’s a multiplier. There was no football team in town. That magnified our revenues. The one that gets overlooked a lot is the industry was coming off a strike, so all of our revenues were amplified because all the other teams’ revenues were significantly tamped down at that point. So ours were amplified. Our spending power was amplified on the free agent market. And the city was economically in a better place. There were four Fortune 500 companies that were here that are no longer here.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? While the A’s didn’t have a new ballpark, they and the Coliseum Commission teamed up to make improvements to the Coliseum that made it arguably the best ballpark in the majors in the late 80’s. They were able to do this because the Raiders fled the stadium for Los Angeles. Wally Haas had the immediately competitive BillyBall teams of the early 80’s, then a rebuilding period, followed by the powerhouse Bash Brothers teams, during which Haas was a profligate spender. Dick Jacobs didn’t time the Indians’ rise to occur with Art Modell moving the Browns to Baltimore, but he sure took advantage of it. The Indians cashed in big by not having a major sport competitor in their midst other than the somewhat interesting Cavaliers. Like the A’s Moneyball era, the Indians’ run lasted about seven years. Among the Once the Browns were reconstituted via expansion, the novelty at Jacobs Field started to wear off and the more Clevelanders could turn their attention to an expansion team that, by nature of expansion, was doomed to struggle for several years. Like Haas, Jacobs and his brother David sold the Indians as the era was ending, and as a football team returned. In the twelve years since, the Indians have been above .500 three times and went to the playoffs once, that 2007 season. As long as Mike Ilitch and Jerry Reinsdorf own rivals in the division, they’ll always have more revenue and spend more than the Indians, just as the Rangers and Angels will in the West.

Shapiro then delved into what it means to spend more.

Q: That was a decade and a half ago, really. Fifteen years. Do you think people, the general populace still judges in those terms?

A: I think it frames that very guttural reaction, like, “Hey, if you win it’s already been shown people will come.” That’s what you hear all the time.

Q: Do you believe that?

A: I think more people will come. But the challenge is 2.2 million instead of 1.6 million doesn’t change the way we operate. Even that extra 500,000, 600,000 people, even if that’s $10-to-15 more million in revenue a year . . . one win in free agency is $9 million. So you’re not going to change the context. Again, I don’t think people want to intellectualize baseball, and I don’t believe you should have to intellectualize baseball . . . and we’ve made a conscious decision in most of our interviews not to get into these topics and just stay positive and talk about what our aspirations are.

But that revenue swing between 1.5 million in attendance and 2.2 million in attendance . . . meaningful dollars but not dollars that will have us plan dramatically different.

Q: It wouldn’t change the amount of money spent?

A: It would change the amount of spent to 15 million dollars a year. What does that buy you in free agency? Very little. One and a half wins.

The A’s pulled in 1.6 million in attendance in 2012. At $25 per head, a rise to 2.2 million puts the A’s at an extra $15 million in revenue, the top range of Shapiro’s estimate – and that doesn’t account for costs so it will surely be lower than $15 million. While Shapiro doesn’t want to go too deep into the numbers, he knows what every front office knows: that the poor teams are hurt doubly by the current economic system. Aspiring to an $80 million payroll is great, yet it provides zero guarantees, enormous risk, and the cost per win in free agency (at least with WAR as the leading statistic) is so out of scale that it’s absolutely prudent to spend wisely in the short and long-term. It also puts the lie to the idea that if the A’s just win fans will come out, and that will save the team in Oakland. Something more fundamental has to change for the A’s to get to the point that they are no longer poor. As much as many in the pro-Oakland group want to believe that can happen in Oakland, I remain skeptical that it can. Just look at Bud Selig’s throwaway line when he was questioned by Bill Shaikin the other day.

Q: Do you believe a new ballpark in Oakland is feasible?

A: I don’t know. That is one of the things we are checking.

Oakland boosters have had three years to make the case that Oakland is feasible. I know the obstacles facing San Jose: the Giants’ territorial rights and a referendum. In Oakland, the challenge is much deeper and just as impossible to ignore. How much can revenues be expected to rise? $40 million? $60 million? What will make the franchise turn the corner in that city? How much is enough to compete regularly? After three years, Selig remains as unsure about Oakland as ever. After three years, you’d think he’d have the confidence to hammer out a deal the way David Stern did with Sacramento by bypassing ownership, or by having Bob DuPuy deal directly with a municipality as was done in Miami. The fact that Selig hasn’t should tell you something, and that something is not good. Selig claims that he’ll be guided by the “best interests in baseball”. From an emotional standpoint that should mean saving baseball in Oakland. Unfortunately, emotion and business generally aren’t compatible.

The A’s 2013 doesn’t look like the Indians’ 2008. They don’t have a bunch of pitchers that are about hit their sixth year. The roster is pretty well cost-controlled through 2015, allowing for flexibility in terms of offseason and midseason trades along with free agent signings. For the collective A’s fans’ sake, I hope that the team doesn’t regress as so many others have done. Otherwise Beane’s interview this time next year won’t read like this year’s, it’ll read like Shapiro’s.

10.25.12
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San Jose and SC County officials working out ballpark land deal

We expected a decision on the Diridon land transfer to be released by the State Controller sometime in the late summer. Or late September. Now it’s almost November, and a spokesman for the office has said to the Merc’s John Woolfolk that “there is no set timetable” for a decision.

That hasn’t stopped City and County officials for working on a contingency plan. If the transfers are upheld by the Controller, the ballpark land deal can move forward, with Stand for San Jose’s legal challenge the last real obstacle. If the transfers are declared illegal because of the new redevelopment law, the county-led successor agency would be required to sell the land for market value, at least double the negotiated $7 million land price. The big news in Woolfolk’s piece is that San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed and Santa Clara County Supervisors Dave Cortese and Mike Wasserman are working together to fill any gap that might arise.

“The county does have the capacity to assist in some manner,” Cortese said. “We do have an economic development director and are involved in economic development, so we are equipped to come in and assist if there’s a shortfall and a problem. It’s in our interest to see that this kind of economic development project goes forward.”

Wasserman added that “at the end of the day it could be a win-win if the property is sold at market rate” even if the county has to contribute toward that because “that accomplishes what the state wants and the land stays here” for a ballpark.

Reed, Cortese, and Wasserman will all say that besides the PR positives that would come with bring the A’s south, all sides, including the state, would benefit from $5+ million in property taxes every year, or possessory interest taxes that would approach that figure. When the parcels that make up the ballpark land were privately held, they were also held for long periods, making assessments and property tax bills rather low.

Behind the scenes, Cortese is a leading candidate to succeed Reed as mayor. Reed will be termed out, and the two frontrunners are Cortese, a former San Jose District 3 councilmember, and Sam Liccardo, who is the current D3 councilman. Cortese also has worked with Baseball San Jose in the past. Wasserman (no relation to the late Fremont mayor Bob Wasserman) hails from South County, representing Gilroy, Morgan Hill, South San Jose and Los Gatos.

Perhaps a tightened up land deal is the kind of signal Bud Selig needs to help him render a decision. In an article by the LA Times’ Bill Shaikin, Selig continued to the kinds of frustrating non-answers we can expect. We’ve learned not to expect, well, anything from Selig all these years, and there’s no reason to start expecting anything now. But just as an ace can get an umpire whose strike zone isn’t the size of a barn, or a grounder can bounce off the third base bag to trigger a rally, this is baseball. Anything can happen, and often does.

Update 5:00 PM – A flood of tweets have come in from local media and Shaikin as they bombarded Selig on the subject of the A’s. Selig is in town for the World Series, naturally.

As John Wooden once said, “Don’t mistake activity with achievement.”

10.24.12
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NHL Islanders to move to Brooklyn, keep name as-is

Guess I’ll have to eat a little crow on this one.

It’s 14,500 because they have to cut into the seating bowl the same way US Airways/America West Arena was set up for hockey. This is not going to be acceptable long-term for either the NHL or the Islanders, no matter how much asbestos they find in Nassau.

Turns out that Barclays Center is perfectly acceptable to both the NHL and Islanders owner Charles Wang, because he signed a 25-year, “ironclad” lease at the new arena starting with the 2015-16 season. Wang, who grew up in Queens and went to high school at Brooklyn Tech, has owned the Isles since 2000. He lives on Long Island’s Gold Coast.

The Islanders play at the four decades-old Nassau Coliseum and have lobbied for a replacement facility for years. Seven months ago, complaints by arena employees led to an investigation that found asbestos in the building. While airborne asbestos was not detected in public areas, a cleanup effort started during the summer to ensure that employees wouldn’t face additional exposure. OSHA then wrote up 16 citations against the arena related to the asbestos problem.

Wang and Nets co-owner/developer Bruce Ratner had talked for years about a joint arena effort, but that appeared to go dormant when Wang campaigned for his own arena and master planned development on the site of the Coliseum. That project, which would’ve required $400 million in public funding, lost by a landslide in 2011. During today’s press conference at Barclays Center, Wang indicated that talks with Ratner started up again about seven months ago, making it appear as if the asbestos problem triggered Wang’s decision to give up entirely on Nassau County.

Already stuck in a smallish arena (16,250 for hockey) with incredibly poor attendance (11-13,000 per game on average over the past few years), Wang probably figured that even with Barclays’ hockey-compromised seating bowl and low seat yield (14,500 for NHL games), it’s better than staying at Nassau. Ratner and Wang will continue to figure out ways to add another 500-1,000 seats, according to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman. If no new seats can be added, Barclays would have the lowest capacity of any active NHL venue, with 500 fewer seats than Winnipeg’s MTS Centre.

To illustrate how bad this is for hockey, take a look at the following seating chart from Barclays Center/Ticketmaster. Like Oracle Arena, the Barclays Center seating bowl is tight around the basketball court. Only one end has retractable seats, with the other three sides having poured concrete down to near the floor. Seats at the compromised end would be high above the ice, making the only good seats the first row. If you’re wondering, hockey at Oracle Arena would look much like this. If the Warriors build a basketball-first arena as has been the recent trend in the NBA, they’d have the same problem staging hockey games.

This chart indicates that most available seats will be used.

Now looking at this seating chart, released by the arena and the Islanders for an exhibition game that was supposed to be played there a few weeks ago. Looking at this in hindsight, it’s possible that the event was scheduled to help Wang and Islanders figure out how best to stage hockey games there. With the lockout wiping out all exhibition games and at least the first month of the 2012-13 NHL season, the parties may have felt that it was simply best to move forward with the announcement, knowing that the lockout could continue for some time to come.

Seats made available for sale for Islanders exhibition game.

Bettman played down the drop in capacity, noting Winnipeg’s success and the 1,000+ seat disparity between the new and old venues as being “little material difference”. Wang affirmed that the team would continue to be called the “New York Islanders” instead of the “Brooklyn Islanders”. Though, as Deadspin’s Barry Petchesky pointed out, the current Isles’ logo doesn’t have either Queens or Brooklyn on it.

Barclays Center sits on top of Atlantic Yards, a long-used yard for the Long Island Rail Road. It’s across the street from Atlantic Terminal, Brooklyn’s rail/subway hub. By virtue of that transit accessibility, Barclays will be more accessible to fans by transit than Nassau Coliseum, though many who are used to driving (most of the fanbase) may be inconvenienced.