Category Archives: Baseball

11.28.11
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A’s plan spring training move to Mesa

In April the A’s and the City of Phoenix were set to extend a lease at Municipal Stadium and Papago Park, assuming that the parties could figure out a way to pay for around $10 million in improvements. Unfortunately the deal fell through, which led to discussions with neighboring Mesa, where the Cubs are building a new, $99 million facility on the west side of town to replace HoHoKam Stadium (ballpark) and Fitch Park (training facility). The A’s would move into HoHoKam/Fitch after the Cubs leave in 2014.

It’s terribly unfortunate that the A’s and Phoenix couldn’t come to some kind of agreement. Muni is the most transit-accessible Cactus League facility and it has a ton of parking around it. The Phoenix Zoo is within walking distance, and the views of Papago Park beyond the outfield are excellent. HoHoKam’s best attribute is its size, with a capacity of 12,623 (nearly 4,000 more than Muni). It also has a berm in the outfield, a feature never built into Muni.

By 2016, Valley Metro will extend its light rail line to downtown Mesa, putting it roughly 1.5 miles from HoHoKam. It’s unclear what improvements would be needed or requested by the A’s to move to HoHoKam/Fitch. With the A’s leaving Muni for good, only one Cactus League team will remain within Phoenix city limits, the Milwaukee Brewers (at Maryvale). The Brewers may leave Maryvale at some point because the neighborhood is a bit sketchy. That would leave Phoenix with zero Cactus League sites, which is strange considering how big the city is.

11.22.11
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Big market, low budget

In February I wrote about a potential revenue sharing rollback in the new MLB collective bargaining agreement. While today’s joint announcement didn’t produce a percentage rollback (or contraction for that matter), there is a sort of rollback coming for revenue sharing. And the way it’s constructed, it’s targeted at one team in particular – the Oakland Athletics. Here’s the relevant text (courtesy of The Biz of Baseball):

IV.. REVENUE SHARING

a. The net transfer value of the Revenue Sharing Plan will be the same as the current plan. Net transfer amounts will continue to grow with revenue and changes in disparity.

b. The fifteen Clubs in the largest markets will be disqualified from receiving revenue sharing by 2016. The revenue sharing funds that would have been distributed to the disqualified Clubs will be refunded to the payor Clubs, except that payor Clubs that have exceeded the CBT threshold two or more consecutive times will forfeit some or all of their refund.

c. The Commissioner’s Discretionary Fund will increase from $10 to $15 million per year.

Again, no percentage rollback (A). It’s item B that has enormous implications for big market teams. The revised revenue sharing system effectively shuts the big market teams out of the program by the end of the CBA, gradually losing 25% of any revenue sharing receipt annually until 2016 when it’s eliminated entirely. The Bay Area is the #4 media market and is #6 in population, so neither Bay Area team would be eligible for revenue sharing in the future. Sounds like a deadline and a decision for the A’s, right?

Not so fast. SI is reporting that a provision in the new CBA allows the A’s continue on revenue sharing past 2016 if there is no resolution. So what does this all mean?

The A’s are in a unique and unenviable position among the 30 MLB franchises. They are both a big market team and a low budget team. In the long run, they can’t be both. No other big market team operates on revenue sharing, year after year. When Lew Wolff and I talked two years ago, I mentioned that the A’s were the only two team market where one franchise pays into revenue sharing while the other receives it. He replied that he hadn’t heard the Giants-A’s dynamic phrased in such a manner. I joked that he could take that up to the league office if he wanted at no charge.

MLB appears to be taking the steps to ensure that the A’s are positioned to become a full-fledged big market team. Getting a stadium deal in place is only the first step. Vastly improved media and sponsorship deals are just as important. That doesn’t mean the A’s will reach the Red Sox or even the Giants in terms of revenue, but if they can achieve the medium revenue levels of the Nationals or White Sox, they’d be considered self-sufficient. Both Wolff and Billy Beane are aware of this.

One explanation for the provision may be that the A’s might not be able to open a new ballpark in San Jose until after 2016, though there has been no indication that this is the case. If Wolff isn’t given the go-ahead to move to San Jose, there’s no telling what will happen down the road. It should set up the A’s for a sale at some point. The problem with this is that we know that an Oakland-based buyer with knowledge of the area’s low revenue generation would have to buy the team at a discount, whereas other buyers looking to move the team elsewhere would be willing to pay full price. Hopefully it never gets to that point. MLB is not going to approve Oakland’s continued stay on welfare. They’ll move the team out of the area instead.

11.21.11
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Summing it up (with Slusser update)

Mark Purdy takes all of the stuff we’ve learned over the past couple of weeks and neatly summarizes it, with a few more tidbits thrown in for good measure.

  • The January owners meetings will by January 11-12.
  • Lew Wolff says that he has not been any discussions about selling the team.
  • San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed craps all over Oakland’s plans (such as they are).

I get the feeling that a lot of San Jose boosters are very excited this holiday season. Their gift will have to wait until after the New Year.

Updated 11/22 1:30 AM – Susan Slusser also adds to the story, describing Wolff’s trip to Scottsdale to meet with Selig two weeks ago. This time, Billy Beane was reportedly on board. Here’s the sure-to-be-controversial bit:

Oakland lost money last season for the first time this century, with an expected shortfall of several million dollars, according to Beane. The team is consistently a recipient of $20 million or more in revenue sharing, and Oakland’s attendance actually went up in 2011, but the payroll also went up $15 million, from $52 million to $67 million.

In past years, when the A’s were clearly out of contention close to the non-waiver trade deadline, the team’s modus operandi was often to sell off players. Part of the reasoning was to get young players (probably with little-to-no service time), part of it was to dump salary. 2011 was different in that despite the team was mired near the cellar for much of the second half, yet Beane and David Forst did not sell off Josh Willingham, Coco Crisp, or any of the starting staff. The only notable trades were of Brad Ziegler and Mark Ellis, and in Ellis’s situation the A’s actually sent the Rockies a little cash to make the deal work. While it would make sense to hold onto Willingham if they weren’t receiving anything they wanted in trade, if they held on they’d potentially get a first round or sandwich pick as compensation when some other team signed Willingham.

By not trading any of the veteran free-agent-to-be outfielders (Willingham, Crisp, Matsui), the A’s kept $3-6 million on the payroll. That’s probably the difference between breaking even and losing money in 2011, if Beane is to be believed. Keep in mind how this works from an accounting standpoint: unlike moneymaking teams who get virtually all of their revenues either in advance or throughout the course of the season, the A’s revenue sharing check only comes in December, well after the season is over. They and the other have-not teams don’t consider the revenue sharing receipt as part of their P&L because it’s not there when it can make a big impact. (No, the check is not going to impress Scott Boras if Beane calls about Prince Fielder.) On the other hand, it has a short-term turbo-boost effect on teams that recently opened or are about to open new ballparks, since those teams can get both the receipt for the past season and higher projected revenues for the first season in the new park.

Did Beane and Wolff hold onto to the outfielders in order to prove a point to Selig and MLB? That the M.O. of the past decade(s) was untenable in the long run, while bucking the trend doesn’t work in the short term? Surely they must have realized that Type B compensation was going away – it was talked about throughout the season – so why keep David DeJesus? It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if this was planned, given the current spending freeze until a resolution to the stadium problem is found. It reminds me of that silly fake-to-third-throw/fake-to-first play. It’s plainly obvious what’s happening and it elicits a chorus of boos. Once in a while it actually works.

11.21.11
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Tony LaRussa is a reasonable man

The Chronicle’s John Shea caught up with retired skipper Tony LaRussa a few weeks after the afterglow of winning yet another World Series. TLR said this about the A’s future:

Q: Your A’s teams often packed the Coliseum. What’s your take on A’s ownership’s desire to move to San Jose?

A: “The A’s should stay in the Bay Area with a legitimate shot to compete economically, and there are some real doubts it can happen in Oakland. The Giants got the (territorial) rights (to San Jose in the early ’90s) because (former A’s owner) Walter Haas just said ‘here.’ There was no reason other than to be real nice and fair and give them to the Giants. I don’t know what the grounds would be for the Giants to say it’s ours and not the A’s.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself. TLR clearly knows of what he speaks. He and his family have maintained their East Bay home all this time and run ARF out of Walnut Creek, so he’s still very much plugged into the Bay Area.

Later in the interview, TLR talks about having a role with one of the Bay Area teams, though he thinks there may not be room for him in either organization. There’s always room for TLR as an advisor, if I have anything to say about it.

11.19.11
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Rosenthal has scoop on San Jose (Updated with analysis)

Read Fox Sports baseball writer Ken Rosenthal’s new article on A’s-to-San Jose move developments, then check back here for analysis and discussion.

The big stuff from Rosenthal:

  • MLB wants a larger seating capacity than 32,000. FWIW, last year I explained how the A’s could get up to either 36,000 or 38,000 by simply adding four rows to one or both seating levels.
  • Selig supposedly warned Wolff that $180 million precluded a move to the South Bay. First, take a look at the chart of recent franchise sales I posted last May. Then consider two takeaways from this: 1) Wolff may have to pay compensation to enter Santa Clara County even if he disagrees with it, 2) An Oakland or East Bay-based A’s automatically has a depressed value, as was speculated when Steve Schott lacked interest in Uptown. How does MLB reconcile those two problems, which are clearly related?
  • The usual back-and-forth between Wolff and critics, and the Giants’ continued intransigence.
  • MLB could explore the Montreal option and buy the club and resell when they get a stadium deal and a buyer for the team. Of course, that only hastened the Expos’ departure from Montreal. Also, MLB has to know by now that $500 million for an Oakland ballpark with the economic and political climate in California is going to be more than a little difficult. It goes back to bullet point #2 above: if MLB and prospective owners know that Oakland and the East Bay are limited in terms of revenue generation, what is the financial incentive to build there? How does that help the franchise or MLB for that matter?
  • There’s a claim that the Giants would have to hit 3.2 million in attendance in order to “break even” with a projected $130 million payroll in 2012. That’s a curious point, and one I’d ascribe to a talking point from someone in the Giants, until I looked at the numbers. This past season, the Giants hit a $114 million payroll figure on $230 million in revenue (49.5%). Historically, the Giants have been at around 52-53% of revenue over the course of the last CBA, though in 2008 they hit 56%. That’s probably their upper limit, and $130 million in payroll would speak to that unless they got some new revenue stream out of nowhere. Or unless someone took some dead weight contracts off their hands.

All of the things I’ve been hearing leading up to the owners meetings is that some sort of resolution is due as soon as January. Rosenthal’s article certainly supports this, and actually gives a tiny amount of credence to the idea that Selig is being thorough. (Imagine that?) The path to resolution, as described by Rosenthal, is not the easiest to negotiate.

That’s a lot to take in for a lazy Saturday afternoon. I’ll be off to a birthday party soon, so my contributions to the comments thread may be limited the rest of the day. I’ll still check in every so often, so behave yourselves.

Added 4:20 PM – The Merc’s Scott Herhold picks apart the San Jose ballpark land deal, calls critics “short-sighted”.

11.19.11
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Considering the new league and scheduling format

Now we can truly start looking in earnest at the future of Major League Baseball in this fashion come 2013:

2013 Divisional Arrangement after Houston's move to the AL

Some national baseball writers have taken a cursory look at scheduling, and have deduced that teams would simply play 18 games per in-division opponent and 6 against the non-division league opponent. However, when you do that and add 6 interleague series (18 games total), you only get to 150 games. Adding a game or series here and there makes things a little weird, though it’s not a fatal flaw. As usual, I’ve given some thought to the new scheduling format permutations. Consider these:

Each tweak of the quantity of games against a different type of opponent has cascading effects.

Explanations:

  • A: It’s actually a good idea to have numerous teams against whom a team would play 7 games, since it naturally forces lots of 4-game series. If teams have nothing but 3-game series throughout the season, the season would automatically be lengthened since it would introduce an off day every week. The occasional 4-game series ensures that Mondays and Thursdays would continue to showcase games. The game total is only 160, which means that two opponents would probably have 8 games scheduled.
  • B: This is what I like to call the “square” option because it’s slightly more balanced than the previous regime and it has even numbers pretty much across the board. It looks good in theory, but I’m not sure how easily it can be pulled off in practice. When you break it down into series, it introduces the possibility there may be too many 4-game series. If that occurs, it would create a lot of “round-the-corner” 4-game series which start on a Friday and end on a Monday. That actually happens in the 2012 schedule on a couple of occasions, but this option could almost enshrine RtC, the same way AAA baseball does. Whether or not that’s actually a big deal is up for debate, it certainly is different. There’s also the possibility that instead of scheduling lots of 4-game series, there could be a lot of 2-game series instead, which the union has fought for years.
  • C: Another step towards having a balanced schedule, this option is intriguing because it reduces the number of interleague games and appears to have a lot of 3-game series. For in-division games, teams would play 8 home/7 road or vice-versa. When broken down into series it comes to 3-3-2 home/3-4 road. As in the current format, some teams would have two series against non-division opponents at home and one on the road (or vice-versa). The most intriguing facet of this is the slight rollback of the number of interleague games, which could be done in exchange for the seemingly more pervasive all-season scheduling of interleague series.
  • D: A slight tweak on C, it sacrifices one game per in-division opponent to add back interleague games. You’ll notice that the total number of games is 164. To get to 162, the “natural rivalry” series would be cut down from 2 x 3 games to 2 x 2 games.
  • E: More shifting towards a balanced schedule, and as a consequence it almost eliminates interleague. It practically limits interleague games to those natural rivalry series and in doing so, more or less defeats the purpose of having interleague play. Technically this option isn’t feasible because there would be too few interleague games to fill the schedule (90 per season out of 2430 total, season is 180 days long).
  • F: And the shift to a balanced schedule is complete. Like C, it has an odd number of games against each in-division opponent, which may not be feasible because there are an odd number of teams playing an odd number of games. So it may be academic.

(Note: I’m writing this fairly early on Saturday morning so it’s possible that not all synapses are firing. Let me know if my math is wrong anywhere.)

In addition, having 15 teams in each league mandates at least one interleague series at all times (save for off days). Depending on the actual number of interleague series played, it’s possible that there could be 3 or 5 series played at once.

The other big shift, which could be enacted for the 2012 season, is the addition of a second wild card team per league. Highly controversial, it creates play-in games for each league’s two wild card teams, the winner facing the highest seeded division winner. In doing this, it appears that MLB is finally getting of the ridiculous requirement that two teams from the same division can’t face each other in the first round. The bad thing is that it’s possible that two teams who are 10 games apart in the wild card race could face off in the play-in game, whose outcome could be entirely dependent on which starting pitchers are toeing the rubber that day. The good thing is that it should motivate more teams to aim for the division crown instead of settling for a wild card spot, since the wild card itself is a major risk point. The play-in winner would be at an additional disadvantage since they would be unable to set up the rotation for a playoff series unlike a division winner (assuming a division winner didn’t squeak into the postseason on their own). I haven’t seen the actual definition of which teams qualify for the play-in games, but I expect it to be the two teams in each league with the best records who haven’t won their respective divisions.

Adding more wild card teams would reduce the possibility of the several-hour, flip-through-the-channels, exquisite timing events of September 28. Then again, perhaps that was a once-in-a-lifetime scenario. Hopefully that kind of drama will be replaced by the drama of numerous teams in tight divisional races fighting to win their divisions and stay out of a wild card spot. I’m cool with that.

11.17.11
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News for 11/17/11 (Post Owners Meetings Edition)

Time for a recap of the owners meetings.

  • The Astros will be in the American League West starting in 2013. Next up: Figuring out the details of the scheduling format. Despite the grousing from many about the change, a few columnists have written in favor of the move, including ESPN’s Jayson Stark and Danny Knobler of CBS Sports. Newly approved owner Jim Crane was required to accept the move to the AL as a condition of his approval. Crane was unanimously approved.
  • Stark also considers how another change, the addition of two more wild-card teams, could affect the annual playoff chase and divisional races.
  • MLB and the MLBPA have agreed to a five-year CBA. Ken Rosenthal reports that an announcement will occur on Monday.
  • Larry Baer was approved as the “control person” representing the San Francisco Giants at future owners meetings. There may have been more recent instances of this, but one high-profile one I clearly remember is Paul Beeston when he became CEO of the Toronto Blue Jays. Howard Lincoln also performs a similar duty on behalf of Nintendo for the Seattle Mariners.
  • The Los Angeles Dodgers saga continues, with pre-screening for prospective bidders scheduled to begin soon. That’s a good thing, because as Forbes’ Mike Ozanian reports, the Dodgers are saddled with a whopping $555 million in debt. Another lawsuit has been filed by Frank McCourt against Fox for allegedly trying to “interfere with the sale of the Dodgers and their assets in bankruptcy.”
  • Nothing on the A’s front, though there are murmurs of something happening in January. Maybe. The wait continues.

In other news…

  • The outlook for the NBA is not good. Dwyane Wade and most of the players rank-and-file believe the 2011-12 season can be saved (as they should since they’re losing paychecks from here on out). Meanwhile, former players union executive director Charles Grantham joined Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson in voicing their opinion that the players should have taken the last “50%” deal.
  • NHL players are looking at what’s happening in the NBA very carefully, since hockey’s CBA will end next September.
  • Starting Friday, the Florida Marlins will no longer exist. They will be known forevermore as the Miami Marlins.
  • I haven’t posted much on the Minnesota Vikings’ stadium push, simply because it doesn’t seem to have any real momentum or money behind it. The team remains focused on the Arden Hills munitions site in suburban Ramsey County, whereas the City of Minneapolis has sites within city limits.
  • CSN Bay Area’s Nick Rosano has an update on the San Jose Earthquakes’ stadium plans. A permit hearing should be held soon. I’ll attend it if I can.
  • Santa Clara approved the $10 million expenditure for pre-construction work at the 49ers stadium site. $6 million will actually be loaned by the team.
  • MLB is commissioning a study on the economic impact of Miller Park now that the ballpark is well-established and past its honeymoon period. The study will be done by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Institute for Survey and Policy Research. The same group did a study shortly after the opening of Miller Park which fell under heavy criticism. The study is due in the spring and could provide ammunition for either pro or anti-ballpark groups in San Jose (yes, I know that the anti-ballpark folks will trot out a Cato Institute study). Since the study is being commissioned by MLB, I expect it to be somewhat baseball-friendly, though not as much as the previous one.
  • The Financial Times has a Moneyball article featuring both Billy Beane and Michael Lewis. It’s a good read and serves as a nice epilogue to the book and movie. There’s also a discussion of the article at AN.
  • A new article by Carol Rosen of the Almaden Resident (a Silicon Valley Community Newspaper) examines the pro and anti San Jose ballpark factions and their stances.

That’s all for now.

11.15.11
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Running log of Owners Meetings news

We’ll be checking the Twitter and the interwebs for any and all news coming out of the owners meetings, which start today. If you see anything new, post it to the comments and we’ll add it to the post in short order.

  • As expected, Jim Crane will be approved as the new owner of the Houston Astros. What’s not certain is the discount on the $680 million purchase price he’ll get for agreeing to move the franchise to the American League. SI’s Jon Heyman reports the discount at $50 million, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale has it at $80 million.
  • MLB Trade Rumors has an item from Joel Sherman of the New York Post indicating that Type B free agent compensation will be eliminated starting this offseason. Changes to Type A free agent compensation may start next offseason.
  • CBA discussions appear to be ongoing, according to Fox Sports. The MLBPA has even postponed internal meetings to focus entirely on the CBA.
  • According to the Chronicle’s Susan Slusser, the A’s are not pursuing oft-injured OF Grady Sizemore, citing their continued stance of not looking at free agents while the stadium issue is up in the air.
  • Added 11/16 9:15 AM – Buster Olney (ESPN Insider req’d) again writes about the A’s being held hostage by the stadium situation, and an impending fire sale. [Sorry, I’m not an Insider so I didn’t read the full article either.]
  • Added 11/16 10:35 AM – SI’s Jon Heyman reports that Crane’s discount will be $65 million, MLB owners paying $35 million and Drayton McLane paying $30 million. He also noted that there is some opposition from AL West clubs, but Crane will be approved regardless. Does this set a standard for compensation to the Giants?
  • Added 11/16 6:35 PM – The Dodgers and Frank McCourt are suing TV rights holder Fox for allegedly trying to “interfere with the sale of the Dodgers and their assets in bankruptcy.” McCourt claims that not allowing bidding on a future TV contract could adversely affect the sale price of the franchise. Fox states that it holds an exclusive negotiating period starting next year for the next contract, and that McCourt’s attempt to sell the rights now is a breach of that agreement. MLB is staying neutral in the matter. This issue is not expected to delay the eventual sale of the Dodgers.
  • Added 11/16 6:50 PM – ESPN reports that Jim Crane was, in fact, required to move the Astros to the American League as a condition of the franchise sale. Vote scheduled for Thursday morning.
  • Added 11/16 10:50 PM – The Chronicle’s Henry Schulman reports that Larry Baer was interviewed by baseball’s executive committee today, which sets up his approval as managing partner – er, “control person” – of the Giants.
  • Added 11/17 9:40 AM – Two additional wild card teams have been added to the playoffs. Wild card teams in each league will probably play each other in a one-game playoff, with each winner playing the division winner with the best record.
  • Added 11/17 11:00 AM – Jim Crane was unanimously approved as the new owner of the Houston Astros.
  • Added 11/17 2:00 PM – Baer was approved as control person, meaning he represents the Giants at the owners meetings without having a controlling ownership stake. Baer is also CEO of the Giants.

Non-owners meeting link: SJSU Political Science professor and TV political analyst Larry Gerston has a short piece at NBC Bay Area about the debate over San Jose giving a land discount to the A’s, and the greater question of subsidies for private parties.

Another NOML: The Trib’s Angela Woodall reports that Oakland’s parcel tax Measure I, meant to replenish funding for city services, failed 62-38 via mail-in vote yesterday.

More as it comes.

11.11.11
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Don’t expect major news next week

Last week I suggested that the Dodgers’ situation would take the A’s off the agenda for next week’s owners’ meetings. The closer we get to the sessions, the more I suspect that this is correct. The one thing that might have allowed the A’s to be brought up next week would’ve been an early CBA announcement, but none has happened as of yet. So it’s A) CBA, B) Dodgers, C) Astros, plus whatever committee stuff is on the agenda. Unless a miracle happens, the A’s will not be up for discussion at all.

That’s bad news for many fans hoping that a resolution to the A’s situation would allow the front office to start building next season’s team in earnest. If Billy Beane and Lew Wolff hold fast to their “no spending while in limbo” stance, the December GM meetings will come and go with little movement. Of course, there’s no stopping Beane from making moves well after the GM meetings (the Swisher trade was in January 2008), and regardless of stadium/site news the team were not expected to be a player for any big free agents. Instead, they’ll make the usual arbitration deadline offers for guys like Coco Crisp and Josh Willingham, and scoop up whatever picks they can when those two are signed by other teams.

This week I’ve seen frequent references to a Bill Madden article at the NY Daily News from last weekend. Here’s Madden’s scoop:

Are the Oakland A’s finally about to know the way to San Jose?

According to baseball insiders, the reason A’s co-owner Lew Wolff, the L.A.-based real-estate developer and close personal Selig ally, is not going to be a bidder in the Frank McCourt Dodger auction (as had been frequently speculated) is because the commissioner has given him tacit assurance that his effort to move the A’s to a new stadium in San Jose is eventually going to be approved.

Once Selig completes his major accomplishment of ridding the game and liberating the Dodgers of McCourt – which hopefully will be before Opening Day – he can turn his attention to the A’s, who have been waiting more than two years for his relocation study committee to deliver its report on San Jose and the San Francisco Giants’ territorial rights there.

Again, Wolff wasn’t going to be caught up in the Dodgers’ bidding process because A) he’s fully committed to the San Jose project and the A’s, and B) the fact that the Dodgers will be sold through an auction means that the team will go to the highest bidder instead of a deal orchestrated by Bud Selig. Note that Madden doesn’t say when Wolff will be granted San Jose, only that it’ll happen after the Dodgers sale is wrapped up. The next logical time for a decision to be made would be the next owners’ meetings, which are usually in mid-January. With several major issues presumably off the table, the A’s plight could finally get the attention it deserves. It’s also possible that the Giants’ managing partner discussion will come up at that point, making the possibility of both coming into play simultaneously that much more acute. The Dodgers probably won’t come up again because with the number of parties expected to bid on the Dodgers, I doubt the prescreening process will be finished by then. It would make more sense for the owners to approve the ownership change in May, as they did with the Rangers last year.

Maybe I’ll be wrong on this. Everything I’m reading and hearing points to events moving in that oh-so-deliberate fashion for the green-and-gold heroes. The quick acceleration of the Dodgers situation – which I’m sad to admit is more important from a business standpoint for MLB – makes it absolutely imperative that Selig addresses them first.

11.09.11
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News for 11/09/11

Tomorrow morning I’ll be in SF to check out oral arguments for the State vs. Redevelopment case. If I can liveblog it, I will.

The regular media (SFGate, Merc, MLB.com, KGO) covered yesterday’s proceedings fairly well, though I’m surprised there wasn’t a bigger mention of the discussion about the referendum requirement. No matter, the San Jose City Council formalized the requirement by amending the motion just before passing it. Still, I don’t think this is the last of the referendum discussion.

There’s other news on the ballpark/stadium front:

  • The Royals may or may not have agreement in place to sell the naming rights to venerable Kauffman Stadium.
  • Rangers Ballpark in Arlington is undergoing $12 million in renovations, including a major revamp of the area behind centerfield. Changes will include relocation of the suboptimally located visitor’s bullpen, the addition of an indoor club and several concession stands.
  • The University of Washington’s Husky Stadium just started a massive $250 million renovation project. The track will be removed, the field dropped four feet, and more seats will be added close to the field, similar to the changes at the LA Memorial Coliseum. In addition, new locker room and training facilities will be added, as well as premium seating options. Like the $321 million Cal Memorial Stadium renovations, these will be largely dependent on donations for funding. The Huskies will play next season at CenturyLink Field (formerly Qwest Field).
  • The Populous architect overseeing the 2022 Qatar World Cup project believes that the venues will not need air conditioning. The goal is to make the venues carbon neutral, something that made the winning Qatar bid attractive. A company called Arup Associates has a demo of the technology in place at a 500-seat stadium, though you could naturally be skeptical about the ability of the tech to scale to a venue with 100 times the spectators.
  • The Sacramento Bee’s Marcos Breton wonders what the ongoing NBA lockout means for the local arena effort.
  • A report on NPR’s Morning Edition goes over the economic impact of the lockout.
  • A’s naming rights sponsor Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) beat the Street today, which may signal an upswing for the networking giant. The stock was down during the regular session but up in after hours trading.

That’s all for now.