Category Archives: Athletics

10.11.17
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Peralta Board Meeting and Discussion

Tonight’s Peralta Community College District Board of Trustees meeting went as I would expect for a typical Bay Area stadium forum. It was frontloaded with a dozens of pro-stadium speakers including building trades and union supporters. That was followed by residents of Chinatown and Eastlake, most of whom were opponents of the park. That was followed by faculty and students of Laney College, largely against the park as well. Most of the grievances that were aired in previous reports are repeated tonight, with no new information revealed.

View south of Peralta HQ lot

The Board made it clearer that no decisions were going to be made tonight. Sharon Cornu, who is acting as a consultant for Peralta as the district explores the project, gave a presentation on the history of the site. An overview of the unique environmental aspects and the socioeconomic status of the neighborhood wrapped up the presentation, leading into the aforementioned speakers. Those speakers, by the way, didn’t include any representatives from the A’s. That’s not unusual since there is no formal project submitted to the district to support.

A lot of FUD was spread tonight, including plenty of talk about about the unholy alliance of “labor and financial capital.” Many students and local residents fully believe that this is the first step to the A’s taking over all of Laney, shuttering it in the process. Perhaps that’s the usual slippery slope argument, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense when you think about it. Peralta is not exactly rolling in dough, and the district is looking towards the future, when it has to deal with increased upkeep and maintenance costs. Laney has trouble paying its instructors, so the district has to start looking at other ways to deal with these problems. Yet there’s still a charter at Laney where the mission remains education, so however well or poorly that is going, it’s still going to be the most important thing for the district, not cashing out for a quick payday.

The A’s have to thread the needle on this project. They are aiming at developing the Laney College parking lot across the channel from the Peralta HQ site. To what extent? Cornu’s specialty is affordable housing. The A’s want to build their own village around the ballpark, and that lot may or may not be the extent of that. The A’s may end up kicking some parking revenue to Laney. They could build something 4-6 stories tall there, or 8-12 stories including a hotel. They have to build as much as they can to pay for the ballpark and satisfy whatever is called for in a future community benefits agreement. Yet the growing wish list of items needed to complete the agreement may well render the whole project unprofitable. The A’s are making a lot of claims about what they can do for Oakland. Those claims may end up forcing the A’s bite off more they can chew. I like how the sister-team Earthquakes started which a much less ambitious project and added features as they went.

View west across Lake Merritt Channel

Chinatown developer Carl Chan also spoke. I’m curious about his delineation of “good” traffic from “bad” traffic. “Good” traffic brings visitors to restaurants and shops housed in his properties. “Bad” traffic doesn’t do that. I have to think there will be a good amount of both if a ballpark opens nearby.

Many of the residents of Chinatown and Eastlake have been there for multiple generations. The two neighborhoods have been hit less by Oakland’s encroaching gentrification than others, and the g-word is their chief concern, making up a large part of their opposition. I tend to think, though, that gentrification can only be somewhat mitigated, not avoided completely. A 2017 report on the state of housing stock showed that only 6% of housing under construction is considered affordable. That’s despite goals of 20-28% in past years. Affordable housing has taken a hit since redevelopment ended and local pools of property taxes for such housing dried up. That affordable housing is going to be built in these places, and then all the way east down International Boulevard and San Leandro Street (some is already near the Coliseum and Fruitvale stations). What creativity could be worked into the deal to pay for the affordable housing “subsidy?”

The recent news that a plume of pollution has been sitting and spreading underneath the Peralta land could provide an impetus to act. The cost to cleanup the land is unknown and requires study. If the cost runs into the millions Peralta won’t be able to do nothing, including turning off monitoring of groundwater underneath. If high cleanup costs forces the district into a deal, the A’s as developer indicated that they’d cover it. If this scenario sounds familiar, it was one of the main worries about the Howard Terminal site. The pollution is bad enough that, according to BANG’s David DeBolt, there are actually two plumes. The second is coincidentally enough underneath Laney College’s baseball field. Would the A’s be willing to pay for that as well?

It can be scary to listen to the comments, go through the laundry list, and figure out the project costs. I’ll try to get into that more next year as the project solidifies. Until then, understand that mitigation means compromise. It’s gonna take some work, and some negotiation.

09.20.17
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Jack London Square lures A’s… Front Office

The following had been rumored for months. Now it’s real.

Oakland A’s announce new office at Jack London Square

The Oakland Athletics today announced that they have signed a lease with CIM Group for approximately 40,000 square feet of office space at Jack London Square, the premier waterfront office and retail destination located in downtown Oakland. The new front office headquarters will allow the Athletics to consolidate their operations by relocating from their current offices located at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum and Oracle Arena. The club will make the move in January 2018.

Jack London Square offers the A’s proximity to both the Coliseum and the potential new ballpark at the Peralta site. Additionally, Jack London Square provides the amenities of a mixed-use environment on San Francisco Bay, with dining, shopping, and entertainment options, similar to the A’s vision for their new ballpark as a gathering place for bringing the community together.

“We are excited to put roots down in Jack London Square,” said Dave Kaval, Oakland A’s President. “We continue to say we are ‘Rooted in Oakland’ and this move helps further strengthen our commitment to this community.”

“The Athletics add to the growing lineup of prominent tenants including eclectic dining options and destination activities that employees, residents, and visitors from the greater Bay Area can enjoy,” said Shaul Kuba, Co-Founder and Principal of CIM Group.

“Our new offices will allow us to have our entire staff together in one location to create a dynamic and collaborative work environment,” said Chris Giles, Oakland A’s COO. “Our staff will now have the opportunity to easily gather for formal meetings or informal exchanges as it takes advantage of the beautiful outdoor waterfront areas. We will also still keep our office space at the Coliseum for day-of-game responsibilities.”

CIM’s 2016 acquisition of Jack London Square included 234,000 square feet of office space across three buildings. Designed to maximize the site’s waterfront views, Jack London Square’s seven mid-rise buildings are spread across the property around a central plaza that is programmed year-round with special events to enhance public engagement. It offers approximately 243,000 square feet of modern office space and approximately 191,000 square feet of retail, with a variety of dining and entertainment options that appeal to employees, residents and visitors. The property also includes a 1,095-stall parking facility. Jack London Square’s striking one-third mile of publicly accessible waterfront provides a significant recreation opportunity including biking trails, picnic areas, and water sports.

The Howard Terminal supporters didn’t get their site picked for a ballpark, but they can be happy knowing the A’s will have a good view of it for years to come.

Should the Peralta ballpark site come to fruition, I expect that the front office would move to their own carveout of the facility became ready. The A’s have plenty of time figure out how that will work. In the meantime, expect a lot of field trips on foot exploring the neighborhood and paths between the office and the ballpark site.

The baseball operations side will stay in the Coliseum. Getting all those marketing, sales, and finance people out of the Oracle Arena wing should help create a little more elbow room.

09.14.17
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Ballpark Sites Aplenty: A Map

Some fans have been trying to chronicle the sordid history of A’s ballpark proposals. That’s why this blog exists! I wrote a post summarizing the journey just before Thanksgiving 2010 during a bout of post-recession malaise. Note the amount of outdated information despite the fact that the post less than seven years old. The amount of upheaval the Bay Area underwent since the recession was and remains simply remarkable.

Here’s the map of all explored ballpark sites. Refer back to the original post for explanations. Note: The A’s choice Peralta site is not on this map. It would be located below the blue “D” in Oakland.

09.13.17
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Here’s your drone’s eye view from Peralta

About a month ago ABC7 producer extraordinaire Casey Pratt asked for a few estimates of heights for a potential ballpark at the Peralta site. I told him he should aim for three different heights: 40-50 feet above grade for the rim of the second deck, 70-80′ for the upper deck, and 100′ for the top of the stadium. He had his drone videographer check out the site. Some clips of the drone footage ended up in sports anchor Larry Beil’s comment about the Coliseum and the Raiders. No matter. We got a vista, and it’s the right vista.

Peralta site view north towards downtown and Lake Merritt. (Click to view larger)

Not only is this the right view, it’s angled almost exactly north and situated approximately where I envisioned home plate in my mockup. The banner at top left blocks some of the skyline, but you already know what that looks like. You can see Lake Merritt in the center and Laney’s ballfield in the foreground. That brings to mind this observation – has there ever been a non-spring training MLB park that has another baseball field in the background? I can’t think of one. Now imagine all the buildings in the foreground replaced by some grandstands and as Barbara Manning once coined Seals Stadium, one perfect green blanket.

To confirm my projections, A’s COO Chris Giles answered some questions as part of an all-day Q&A on Twitter, including this one about the park’s orientation:

Folks, if this thing is built you’ll be using that Panorama mode on your camera a ton.

As part of the A’s rollout of Peralta, they released a video, narrated by team President David Kaval, with numerous clips of the city and soundbites from locals, including pols such as Mayor Libby Schaaf and Cprominent developer and unofficial “Mayor of Oakland Chinatown” Carl Chan.

Chan wants to build housing to revitalize Chinatown. The neighborhood is quite fragile, though, and has vocal activists working constantly against the threat of gentrification, which has visibly touch several Oakland neighborhoods in the last several years.  Finding a balance there is going to be difficult, and it seems strange that the A’s ballpark could be in the middle of any plans. Considering the rather large scope of the A’s initial plans, the A’s may be biting off more than they can chew, even though the ultimate goal is merely a ballpark on 13 acres. That deserves a much lengthier post, so for now let’s look at the broad timeline Kaval released today.

Assuming that everything goes well, a 2023 opening is reasonable. If the A’s can’t get local stakeholders on the same page, the one year will elapse and the team will likely fall back to the Coliseum. The two years of permitting and environmental review is right, as long as the team gets legislation enacted to limit legal challenges to the EIR, the same kind the Warriors and 49ers received. That would put clearing the site in late 2020 and groundbreaking in the spring of 2021. If Peralta doesn’t get support, the A’s could shift to the Coliseum and move forward without requiring an EIR since the complex is already entitled for a stadium. In full Lew Wolff tradition, the team is not talking about a backup plan. For now it’s Peralta or bust.

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P.S. – Thanks Casey for getting the drone footage!

08.09.17
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Peralta Chancellor cozies up to A’s ballpark proposal

When I went to the fireworks game two Saturdays ago, I noticed that one of the concessions stands in the upper deck was operated by one of those charity groups that probably provided free labor in exchange for a cut of the proceeds. Seems like everyone does it these days. So a light went off when I saw Tuesday ‘s Chronicle article about how the Jowel Laguerre, Chancellor of the Peralta Community College District (Laney, Merritt, etc.) has become a great supporter of the project to displace his own office with a future A’s ballpark.

Peralta ballpark site

Scribe Kimberly Veklerov honed in on the opportunity in front of Laguerre:

Some of Laguerre’s ideas: culinary students could intern with stadium concessions, multimedia students with the scoreboard graphics team, police academy students with ballpark security, and design students with the merchandise team.

Assuming the A’s play ball with Peralta as part of an extensive community benefits agreement, it could be a win-win scenario for both parties. Local college has a way to directly funnel students into high-profile employer next door, and team finds a nice source for cheap, vetted labor. Of course, there are limits to how extensively this could go, since you need to have experience in many positions – even food service – but there aren’t too many downsides except for existing Coliseum employees whose positions could be converted into internships.

Except for part of the Haas ownership era, the A’s nearly 50 years in Oakland have been run on a shoestring budget on and off the field. Former 49ers employee Chris Giles will become the A’s new COO, another step towards the eventual ballpark site choice and construction. More sales and marketing hires are to follow as Dave Kaval’s team attempts to sell the hell out of the A’s and the stadium.

That aside, there is some momentum with the Peralta site. There’s a champion in Laguerre, and the land deal aspect is simpler than Howard Terminal. Sure, the DDA will still be a thousand pages long, and there will be lots of students and Chinatown & Lake Merritt citizens who will vociferously protest whatever the deal it is. For more on that, check out Shawn Roberts’ Medium post on the focus group session he attended. (I originally planned to comment on the post, but I chose not to focus on a single set of observations.) Rest assured, the eventual choice will not come quietly.

The other sites have been in stasis since the baseball season started. Maybe there are super-secret talks that have resolved Howard Terminal’s myriad infrastructure issues or the Coliseum’s debt albatross. Maybe they still have a ways to go. I’m not so sure that an August announcement from the A’s is in order. Some of the media are sticking with that. Personally, I’ll be pleasantly surprised if they A’s unveil their choice in a few weeks. For me a few months feels more realistic.

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P.S. – Check out Mark Purdy and Andy Dolich checking out the three sites from last week.

06.25.17
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Peralta – The Skinny Jeans of Oakland Ballpark Sites

Earlier this week I did some calculations on the buildable footprint for a ballpark at the Peralta CCHQ. I gave the footprint an extra buffer on the channel, which dropped the footprint to only nine acres. Since then the always useful Planimeter to calculate a more realistic 10 acres, including the city-owned lot in the southeast corner next to 880 and the old WPRR rail easement. Without those two parcels, the acreage drops to 8 acres, smaller than Target Field. Even 10 acres is small for a park these days.

Size isn’t the only challenge at Peralta. Thanks to its location relative to Lake Merritt, the channel, and downtown, there’s only one way to orient it for optimum view or backdrop that includes the DTO skyline and the lake: north. It would theoretically be better to orient it northwest, but as we already know, that’s generally frowned upon. Three open-air venues currently face north: Progressive Field in Cleveland, Coors Field in Denver, and Petco Park in San Diego. Peralta shouldn’t be difficult to implement with a northern orientation, as long as they properly address a north-facing park’s biggest weakness: glare or light reflecting off the batter’s eye.

Click for larger image

This ballpark overlay is a generic version originally done for a multitude of sites 10 years ago, transplanted to Peralta. It could seat 32-35,000, with more space for standing room. It provides a solid 100-foot wide buffer around the grandstand in foul territory, which conducive to spacious concourses and additional square footage for offices or retail. It also allow for three large entry plazas. The main gate would be in left-center, accepting the majority of fans coming from downtown. Another plaza would be in right field at the corner of 5th Avenue and East 8th Street. The last one would be behind home plate and would be used mostly by VIP’s.

Ballpark seating chart

Not illustrated are potential restaurants along the channel which could be used 365 days a year, or bars built into the ballpark that could open either only during the home games or all year-round. There’s quite a bit of space to put in a children’s play area in right field, or picnic areas in left near the channel. Best thing about this orientation is that all of the outfield amenities could be kept at grade or field level.

The site is at a nearly uniform 10′ elevation. It’s adjacent to Lake Merritt Channel, which recently benefited from beautification and flood control projects made possible with Oakland’s 2014 Measure DD funds. To understand the potential impact of a ballpark, it’s worth looking at the other three waterfront ballparks and how the addressed the shoreline.

Pittsburgh’s PNC Park and Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park are located on active rivers, the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers, respectively. SF’s AT&T Park is not truly on San Francisco Bay, but rather on an inlet, Mission Creek. Although there is a small ferry terminal at the park and the Lefty O’Doul drawbridge over Mission Creek, the waterway itself is not particularly busy at all, allowing for the use of kayaks, paddle boards, and other small personal watercraft on the water along the ballpark’s promenade. A Peralta ballpark would maintain at least a 100′ buffer to the channel, making “splash hits” unlikely thanks to an estimated 500′ distance down the left field line to the water. PNC & GABP created partial levees facing the water.

There doesn’t appear to be space for food trucks or other temporary or portable installations in the ballpark. I could see the A’s petitioning to close East 8th Street on game days in an effort to create a Yawkey/Eutaw-type environment outside the park. If that happens, there’s some very usable space for parking food trucks on E 8th.

The A’s have been hinting at a two-deck design for some time, which if implemented should conserve height. That creates a potentially uncomfortable situation where the main concourse along the third base line could be aligned with 880. To prevent this the façade would not be open air, with windows working in conjunction with concrete to mitigate highway noise.

Those are my initial thoughts on optimizing the Peralta site for a ballpark. They’re subject to change as we get more information on the site. If Peralta is selected as the future ballpark site, I look forward to seeing how creative the A’s and HOK are on evolving the vision at Peralta.

06.21.17
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Bay Area Council releases Oakland Ballpark Economic Impact Report

This is not our first rodeo, folks.

What am I supposed to do with this? Yes, take with a grain of salt. Or a whole shaker full of salt. Reference Lyle Lanley, perhaps? That’s an homage. Maybe the original is more appropriate?

I do have some thoughts, such as Why were they so quick to tout ongoing spending by the team inside the stadium? Is it because it’s expected that the team will pay for it, instead of some sort of subsidy stream? Private enterprise is supposed to do that! Let’s not lower our standards because we’re used to sports franchises ripping municipalities off, or because a certain Oakland team continues to be subsidized even though they are leaving.

Or how about the construction spending? Could the Bay Area’s still white-hot real estate market throw that same money and resources into alternative projects such as housing or offices? Yes they could. The biggest hangup at this point is the approval process. Back in 2010 when Oakland was still struggling coming out of the recession, this argument might hold weight. Now it’s just noise.

That 2010 study even spent a couple slides talking about how assessed property values would explode thanks to a ballpark. Today that talking point is anathema. Property values is practically a four-letter word.

These documents are sales pitches, always prematurely staged and distributed. They don’t hold up under scrutiny, but they also don’t get much scrutiny. So it does the job. I’ll let you discuss the various inconsistencies, or question the methodology. To me these are pamphlets, no more, no less.

05.23.17
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Atlanta and Tampa Bay Trip: The Regrettable Past and Future

Photo: Thechased at English Wikipedia

The flights are booked. I’ll be in Atlanta and St. Petersburg the weekend of June 8-11, attending the following games:

  • Friday 6/9 – NY Mets at Atlanta, 7:35 PM
  • Saturday 6/10 – Doubleheader, A’s at Tampa Bay, 2:10 PM (Game 2 30 minutes after Game 1 ends)
  • Sunday 6/11 – NY Mets at Atlanta, 1:35 PM

Though it’s a fairly hectic travel schedule, I’ll still have to time to explore the areas around both ballparks. Cobb County’s SunTrust Park is being hailed in some corners as the future of ballpark building. I’m not much of a fan so far based on pictures and renderings, but I am interested in seeing in-person how everything is integrated, from sightlines to food and beer to transportation. A SunTrust Park tour will also happen, probably on 6/9. Tropicana Field, which I haven’t visited since before the blog started, remains unloved despite some recent renovations. A future park in the region could be at the current location near downtown St. Pete, or perhaps around Tampa.

I’ve spoken with some of you who may be in the Tampa area and could meet up during the double-dip. Hit me up on Twitter if you haven’t. If you’re in Atlanta and would like to chat during one of the Barves games, I’m game.

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P.S. – I originally planned to go to Nashville to check out the Sounds. They’re out of town for the weekend and won’t be back until the following Tuesday, 6/13. Nuts.

05.15.17
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Actually it’s a Flash Sale for A’s baseball

Well that was fast.

The A’s announced their $19.99 Ballpark Pass deal last Thursday. Today they announced that the plans will stop selling this Wednesday at 5 PM.

That’s right. Not even a week’s worth of sales. The good news is that the response has been incredible. The team already tallied 2,000 passes sold so far. The abrupt end of the sale aroused a lot of speculation, so it was worth asking what was going on.

This doesn’t shut the door on future sales. For now this group should provide a large enough sample size to understand how the passes will be used, what the demographics breakdown looks like, and what in-stadium purchases are made by pass holders. For now you’ll have 36 hours to decide, if you were on the fence.

Like many A’s promotions this year, the Ballpark Pass was rolled out later in the season, away from other promotions to give it some breathing room. After the normal winter season ticket push, the team offered digital options like the 510 Pack, which focused on field level tickets. Then the A’s opened the upper deck, which brought great excitement and fanfare but apparently not a lot of ticket sales. Because it’s such a new development, I didn’t expect gangbusters sales, at least as long as the team was mediocre.

The Ballpark Pass is different in that its aim is to provide a frictionless way to attend games. Pay once per month, decide if you want to go the day of a game, pick seats if you want using the At the Ballpark app. It’s easy and doesn’t require much planning, so combined with the bargain basement price point it should be a hit. At 2k sales so far, it most certainly is. But it’s also worth studying why the emotionally positive upper deck opening hasn’t yielded a big boost in attendance, yet the Pass is set to do just that.

The price point helps, yes. Disregard that for a moment. Is the problem more that the traditional walkup ticket sales model is dying, if not already dead? So much has happened to the entertainment sales model since the iPhone launched in 2007. The proliferation of apps has created new economies around tickets, with purveyors recognizing that ease and convenience are bigger factors than tonight’s pitching matchup or the A’s slugger pair. Last weekend I went to see a friend’s musical in a local regional theater. That mom-and-pop operation uses Walletini, an app aimed at modernizing small live theater ticketing operations. Movie theaters have been using Fandango for years. Sports events have Ticketmaster, Tickets.com, and a myriad of secondary market apps. The Pass cuts through all of that by making the Coliseum a sort of club where you can just show up – and not be forced to pay anything else once you’re there.

It’s a nearly egalitarian way of selling baseball to fans, except perhaps for longtime loyal season ticket holders who now have been severely undercut. I expect that if the A’s continue with the Pass, they’ll need to offer greater perks to retain those high-revenue customers in ST plans. Otherwise there will be questions about the value they’re getting. As far as marketing experiments go, the Pass operates at multiple levels. It’s trying to bring in new fans or disenchanted old fans. It’s trying a different pricing model. It’s trying to balance those new subscribers against the needs of MVP and club seat holders.

All of it put together should provide a good picture of what A’s baseball is really worth to A’s fans.

 

05.12.17
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It’s Netflix but for A’s baseball

The A’s announced that they, along with a few other MLB franchises, are rolling out an inexpensive monthly ballpark pass, which allows for admission into all home games from June through September. The price of the pass is $19.99 per month, and like most subscriptions, will auto-renew every month.

Ticketing will be done through the mobile At The Ballpark app. Once you buy a month, you’ll have admission to all games that month. The admission is for guaranteed standing room, plus you’ll receive seat location(s) by text if they’re available. Realistically that should be for nearly every game since the A’s are averaging just north of 16k per game in a 41k capacity stadium. Like most subscriptions, you’ll be able to cancel it during the season (see terms for more details). The value is undeniable. June has 15 games by itself, which works out to $1.33 per game. And that’s for the Yankees, Astros, Blue Jays, Reds, Dodgers, and Nationals, plus a Braves game. The downsides are that the pass is not transferable, and if you need to get a group to sit together you’ll need to buy several together.

Truth be told, the A’s have run similar Spring Training passes the past two years and two summers ago at the Coliseum ($79 for select months), so they have some experience with this type of ticketing. 2017’s edition offered 17 games at Hohokam for $40. By comparison the current deal is a serious loss leader, a way to get new casual fans in the door to sample the new experience at the Coliseum. A family of four could camp out the Coli for $320 (plus taxes), less than the cost of a single full-season bleacher ticket. That’s simply astonishing.

Variance in prices among other ballparks leads me to believe that an industry standard price has not been set yet. That’s fine for now. Fans get to benefit from the extended beta (pricing per ticket per month):

  • STL $30
  • HOU $59 (weekdays only)
  • CIN $30
  • MIN $99 (April/May)
  • DET $49
  • MIL $39
  • LAA $49
  • OAK $19

I expect that the actual number of available passes will be limited as they were for the spring, though the huge available inventory should make such restrictions unnecessary. The upper deck’s open. Let the kids in.

If the popularity of ticket subscriptions takes off, I wonder if they could affect how new ballparks (like the A’s future park) are designed. Would they build in more standing areas instead of back rows of seats? More bars and drink rails? Outfield berms instead of bleachers? A change to the outside food policy? And what does this mean for season ticket holders of the cheap seats, who were just undercut big time?

Other teams launched pass programs to fill in empty seats. The A’s are trying to fill whole sections and levels. If there’s a place where a pass could make a visible difference, it’s Oakland. Practically no cover and no two-drink minimum. Bring in the college and high school students, the hipsters, the families, the cheap dates. The A’s love you, and maybe you’ll love them back.