Category Archives: Baseball

02.15.11
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News for 2/15/11

Marc Morris of Better Sense San Jose argues against using scarce San Jose redevelopment funds for a ballpark. He makes very good points about cuts to neighborhood business districts and other smaller projects. At the same time, the claim that stadiums don’t provide much economic benefit is a stroke too broad, considering that locally we have two examples that have provided such benefits: AT&T Park and HP Pavilion. Morris was against the arena 20 years ago, and I sense that he’s tilting at windmills as an encore.

The Federal Transit Administration approved full funding of the first part of the BART-to-Silicon Valley extension. This approval is only for the initial phase, which would terminate three miles northeast of Diridon at Berryessa. The second phase is the Downtown San Jose tunnel and further route up to Santa Clara/SJC. Next, the funding must be approved as part of the next federal budget.

There’s a ton of coverage of the Wilpon-Madoff situation, which seems fluid and with a higher price tag for Fred Wilpon, Saul Katz, and in the end, the Mets. ESPN’s Outside the Lines has a thumbnail sketch.

The Los Angeles Lakers are partnering with Time Warner Cable to have all local game broadcasts on a pair of new regional sports networks: one in English and one in Spanish. Unlike most sports networks which utilize SAP for Spanish audio while using the same video feed, the twin Spanish network will have its own audio/video and production. Update 9:43 AM – Multiple sources have the new deal pegged at 20 years, $3 Billion. Even if two-thirds of that were given over to network operations and revenue sharing, that would leave $50 million per year for the team – nearly enough to take care of team payroll by itself for the next 2-3 CBAs. Also, the deal may have an effect on the Dodgers in that Frank McCourt has been talking about starting up a similar twin-language RSN. He may choose to jump to the Lakers-TWC network if the price is right, or use that as leverage to get a better deal from Fox. Fox recently gave McCourt an additional $111 million over the next three years to cover expenses associated with running the ballclub, so there’s a question as to who really has the leverage here.

A pair of articles by Neil deMause (for Baseball Prospectus) and Pete Toms (for The Biz of Baseball) on the upcoming MLB CBA negotiations should give you an idea of where the two sides stand at this point. One word missing from either article: contraction.

Deadspin has a tale of two guys who had the run of Camden Yards after an Orioles game was postponed. Is it true? Does it matter?

CBS College Sports Network will be renamed CBS Sports Network. Hmmm…

02.12.11
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Sometimes the best things in life really are free

We’re two weeks from the first spring training pitch, and the month is going according to form with little in the way of ballpark news. That’s not a big deal as I have a feature (not news) that will be posted in the next few days. The good news is that hope springs this time of year, even if it’s not eternal (A’s season ticket sales are up 50%!). Despite the paucity of action, there are occasionally really good little stories that pop up that make me glad to be a fan.

LA Times columnist Bill Plaschke just wrote one of those pieces. He describes his favorite lunch spot in LA not as a really fancy place or a well-reviewed hotspot. Instead, his favorite locale is a place where he brings his lunch in a brown bag:

My favorite lunch spot in Los Angeles takes no reservations because it has no tables. It has no menus because it charges no fees. It requires no parking validation because parking is free. It has no waiters because, well, it doesn’t even serve food.

All you need is a brown bag and a giant imagination and, on this, the quiet final winter weekend before the loud return of the NBA All-Star game and the start of the Lakers’ spring push and UCLA’s rush toward March Madness, I figure it’s a good time to celebrate our simplest of pleasures.

I do lunch in the upper deck of Dodger Stadium.

I love to sit alone in the blue seats and munch on my midday meal while staring out over the field and mountains and memories.

He goes on to explain how any local can have the same experience by driving to the stadium’s gift shop on an off day. As I am not a local, I had no idea anyone could do this, but going back through my few experiences at Dodger Stadium it makes perfect sense. Hopefully the next time I visit, this tacitly approved option will still be available.

In either downtown Oakland or San Jose, we’ll have a different situation. The ballpark won’t be built into a hill, so there won’t be a chance to drive to the top and check out the upper deck gift shop. Instead, I can only hope that there will be a public space that will be open year round, where fans, tourists, and locals can soak in the atmosphere and let their imaginations run wild. Chances are that such a public space will be in the outfield, not behind the seating bowl. That’s just fine. PETCO’s Park-in-the-Park is beautiful, expansive space that sits on valuable Gaslamp acreage yet feels oh-so laid back and quintessentially San Diego. Miller Park has the Friday’s Front Row restaurant just beyond the left field fence. AT&T Park has the knothole area, but there’s no place to sit. The pre-Mt. Davis Coliseum had views through slats in the chain link fence, but it also had the occasional security guard to shoo people away.

In the Cisco Field (Diridon) renderings, the place for this kind of public space is beyond the bullpens in center field. Let’s take a closer look at how it’s laid out.

To make it a usable public space while maintaining security, a few gates would have to placed at the entrances to the seating bowl and colonnade. No big deal there as this is common to many stadia, including the Coliseum. Even better would be a way to “open up” the batter’s eye. You may remember that in the Fremont concept, the batter’s eye was to be a sort of garage door that opened up before and after the game, allowing a great view of the field from the public area beyond center field. A garage door isn’t feasible in this case, but a motorized shade is. With the shade rolled up, the batter’s eye would be an empty frame, allowing for great views from those umbrella-covered picnic tables behind the batter’s eye. A shade would be much better than blinds.

I’ve advocated for a public space within whatever ballpark is built since this blog started in 2005. At Diridon there’s an opportunity to create an urban oasis that helps connect the Diridon/Cahill area to the rest of downtown. At Victory Court there’s an opportunity to beautify Lake Merritt Channel and make it a place that fans and residents can enjoy year-round. A neighborhood bar or restaurant was a dream for me. Honestly, I’d just as soon have a plaza where I can brown bag my lunch. All I want is a chance to experience what Plaschke does on a regular basis, except as an A’s fan in an A’s ballpark. It’s not too much to ask for, is it?

02.07.11
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Could San Jose A’s and Giants coexist?

The cover story in this week’s San Jose/Silicon Valley Business Journal discusses multiple scenarios in which the A’s (subscription required, written by Eli Segall), should they move to San Jose, would have to indemnify the San Jose Giants, the High-A affiliate of the San Francisco ballclub. The parent club bought controlling interest in the team last year, which could lead into a handsome payoff just for the minor league team in addition to whatever is agreed upon for the SF team. In the article, Roger Noll estimates that the A’s would have to pay the SJ Giants $4 million, which would be in addition to $20-30 million for the parent club Noll estimated a year ago.

The worry for the “little” Giants is that the A’s will siphon away sponsorship dollars, which in a large city such as San Jose is a goldmine for a mere Class-A club. The rest of the California League cities can’t hold a candle to San Jose in terms of corporate sponsorship potential. Despite the looming A’s threat, SJ Giants CEO Jim Weyermann isn’t worried much about losing attendance since the fan demographics are different, and there’s a chance that sponsors could be retained.

A sidebar mentions the fact that $14.5 million in renovations to San Jose Municipal Stadium are on hold pending the fate of the SJ Giants, which is of course tied to the A’s. Should the A’s move to SJ it’s likely that the SJ Giants would be forced to move. But that isn’t a given as Lew Wolff signaled that he’d be fine with the Giants staying there. Going this route would change the eventual terms of compensation, since Wolff and his partners wouldn’t have to go out-of-pocket for relocation costs. Instead they might have to foot part of the bill for compensation and for renovations to Muni – still not cheap but definitely cheaper.

Last month, Pacific Baseball Partners head Chris Lee made news when he admitted that the SF Giants’ refusal to do anything regarding T-rights has put his ballpark project in jeopardy. After I made my post I got this clarification from Lee:

“…note that the request to the (SF Giants) is not to move their affiliate to Sonoma County, but to relocate some other team, whatever its affiliation may be.”

It is possible that one of the other Cal League teams, perhaps Bakersfield, could relocate to Windsor, though given the circumstances, the frontrunner would still be the San Jose Giants. For that change to happen, the A’s move would have to be the first domino to fall.

If the San Jose Giants can stay in town, great. The parent Giants could choose to keep the team there in order to keep its foothold, though that would work against any idea that they bought into the little Giants to raise potential compensation. Keeping the SJ Giants in town would undoubtedly be the cheapest option for the A’s from a bottom line standpoint. From a strategic standpoint, it would make much more sense for the Giants to take advantage of an opening in the North Bay if the A’s go south. The SF Giants aren’t exactly greatly accessible from Sonoma County, with an hour drive from Santa Rosa to Larkspur just to catch the ferry. Still, it’s not as if common sense has prevailed in these matters so far. Why think it would happen now?

01.31.11
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Redevapocalypse What-If Scenarios

Now for the “fun” part.

Last night I described the fate of redevelopment in a California where the concept no longer works within the budget framework. Today it’s time to discuss all of the great/terrible fates that await our favorite local sports franchises should RDA funding sources dry up.

49ers Bond Rush
It all starts not with the Oakland Athletics, but rather the San Francisco 49ers. The linchpin to the Santa Clara stadium plan is $114 million in public funds, $42 million of it from the RDA (the 49ers would provide a partial advance). This money would have to be raised before any RDA dissolution or cutbacks take place, so the deadline would presumably be sometime in the next 4-5 months. This means that Santa Clara would have to go to the bond market three times for the stadium project:

  • $42 million from the RDA
  • $35 million from the newly assembled Mello-Roos district (hotel taxes)
  • $330 million from the Stadium Authority

If the RDA doesn’t get the bonds by the deadline, there’s no chance that the hotels will even tax themselves for their piece, let alone fund a RDA shortfall. The agreement between Santa Clara and the Niners would have to be reopened so that an alternate funding source could be inserted, and that source couldn’t be tied to the general fund in any way. The Stadium Authority couldn’t get started because there’d be no certainty of the project getting off the ground until the funding package worked itself out.

$40 million doesn’t seem like a big deal as it’s less then 5% of the project cost. It’s still a lot of money to raise and a big enough gap to throw a wrench into the works. There’s a chance that both parties could figure out a way to bridge the gap but it’s not going to happen immediately, and unless it’s the team pledging to cover it completely, any contractual details will require renewed scrutiny.

Should the team find the sledding too rough, there’s always a Plan B. They can run to Oakland, where the Coliseum Authority and the Raiders will be waiting with open arms.

The Coliseum Authority has bonding authority and capacity through its joint powers, the City of Oakland and Alameda County. There’s that nagging problem of ongoing debt burdening both parties through 2026, which can be looked at one of two ways: Should the JPA endeavor to get a new two-team NFL stadium built in the hopes that helps cover the debt or cut its losses and keep paying the debt even though the Raiders could be long gone before it’s retired? (Not that amassing more debt is favorable as the current bonds were downgraded to BBB last month.)

The problem Oakland and the JPA has going forward is the fact that the new Raiders stadium plan had integrated redevelopment along Hegenberger, including a new conference center, hotel and retail. With the well run dry, none of that stuff could get built unless some new taxation/indebtedness occurred, or unless the stadium project’s funding coved it. So what you’d be left with is in all likelihood an updated version of the stadium and arena complex, surrounded by parking. Sounds familiar, eh?

On the other hand, if Santa Clara is able to get the funding ball rolling, it’ll prompt the Raiders to move more quickly in order to leave Oakland. Al Davis isn’t going to live forever, and Roger Goodell is a take-no-prisoners negotiator who has been clamoring for the two teams to share a stadium. Whatever the location, expect an agreement between the host city and the two teams sooner rather than later. Otherwise it might be too late for both.

Which Way Warriors
We’ve discussed the Warriors and the Lacob-Guber group’s interest in San Francisco. The Port of SF owns land to the south of AT&T Park that could be well suited for an arena. This is important as the money’s already spent, no new funds required. In order for a new arena to be built, it would have to be privately financed and it would make the most fiscal sense if two teams shared the arena, not just one. This model has worked well in Chicago and Dallas, where both cities’ representative hoops and hockey teams created partnerships to build their venues. The Giants being the developer has only limited impact since they couldn’t materially impact which touring acts or other events came to town. Two teams means two major winter sports teams, not just the W’s and a minor league franchise.

Can it be done? The Giants/Warriors would have to attract the Sharks or a second NHL team, neither of which seems likely. SVSE would probably entertain the offer as a way to extract lease concessions from San Jose, but it wouldn’t move beyond that. It’s much like trying to get the W’s to move south permanently – it’s technically doable but highly unlikely. Lacob-Guber could also use the SF arena as a stalking horse for improvements to the Arena.

Again, any new arena in SF is only possible if it is privately financed. The good news? There will be so little big project construction in the future (save for public facilities) that the labor could be relatively cheap.

It was nice knowing you Cowtown
Unlike some of the whispering about MLB contracting two teams, there actually has been talk about contracting the Kings. And it will only get louder as the current season draws to a close later this summer. The woes of the Kings and the Maloofs have been chronicled here and elsewhere for some time now, and there doesn’t seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel for them. Mayor Kevin Johnson is playing this like he has to walk the ball up the floor and dump it into the post every possession instead of being able to do anything dynamic like this. Being a mayor is a tough job. I want to see the Kings stay in Sac, but it’s hard to see long term with every proposal linked to some kind of redevelopment. The NBA probably won’t buy them as it did the Hornets, which leaves the Kings in some sort of limbo for years to come.

San JosA’s
The landbanking strategy San Jose has used for years has never been more wise than right now, as it works to cobble together the remaining land at Diridon. As I understand it, the money is basically untouchable at this point and SJRA can do whatever it wants as long it takes care of its housing set-asides (25%). If SJ and the A’s are given the green light, the vote this summer or fall won’t be about ballparks vs. schools since the money will already be spent. The debate will be about baseball vs. other housing or commercial developers in a time of a glut of both housing and office space. And yes, the decision could drag on for another several months or even a year.

Oakland mayor Jean Quan has been publicly silent on what the death of RDAs could mean for the Victory Court project, and that’s not a good sign. When the mayors went up to the Capitol last week, the most quotable guy there was Chuck Reed, not Quan. There should be a greater sense of urgency there if Oakland’s various supporters want the donut hole strategy to come to fruition, but it’s not happening publicly, perhaps by design. Should the EIR be delivered at the beginning of April, there will be ample opportunity to go over every detail of the document, and it’s that thoroughness baked into the CEQA process that could eventually kill MLB in Oakland. The way I see it, Bud Selig is looking for a politically expedient opportunity to declare support for San Jose, and that could come in the form of a 400-page EIR that brings up more questions than answers. Why? Because Lew Wolff has to have been in his ear constantly about this redevelopment business, and opportunities are running out fast. Maybe the day of reckoning wont occur immediately, it might occur well along in the process as it did in Fremont. Either way the clock is ticking as it is for AT&T in that commercial for the Verizon iPhone.

Of course, if Let’s Go Oakland had declared Victory Court as its site in December 2009 instead of 2010, Oakland might not be in such a bad position. Oakland’s only saving grace now is something out of its control: the continued difficulty with T-rights negotiations. That’s like basing your retirement plan on an upcoming shared inheritance – will you get a good enough piece, or will it mostly go to the more favored child/mistress/charity? It’s not a real investment strategy.

01.18.11
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CBA Talk: MLB’s detente becomes entente

August 30, 2002. The A’s were coming off an off-day, a well-deserved rest after extending The Streak to 15 games. Even with the delirium we all felt about the on-field stuff, a dark cloud loomed on the horizon. The league and union were at the latter’s deadline to ratify a new CBA, otherwise a strike was certain. The most controversial bone of contention was the possibility that MLB could contract two teams. The four candidates most cited were the Expos, Marlins, Twins and A’s. None had stadium deals in the near future. All four of the teams’ owners involved were considered cheap at best, criminally awful at worst. Coincidentally, the Twins were in town for a weekend series with the A’s, both teams in playoff contention. I was terribly distracted by the labor situation, and that combined with it being Friday made for one of the more unproductive workdays on record. I spent a good deal of time hanging out at friends’ cubicles, listening to the radio and checking ESPN.com and a new service called Google News every couple of minutes for updates. We learned in the afternoon that after some nonstop negotiation, a new agreement was reached. Later we would find out that contraction would be off the table until at least 2007.

Fast forward eight years, and the landscape is quite different. The Expos are no more, as Bud Selig prepared an elaborate dog-and-pony show to attract cities to bid for the ‘Spos, only to drive up the price for DC interests while swindling the District out of $611 million for a new ballpark. The Twins eventually got their ballpark, somehow by raising sales taxes without requiring a referendum. The Marlins also tricked Miami-Dade County and the City of Miami into funding two-thirds of their new digs. Here we are, in 2011, and the biggest reason the A’s don’t have a new stadium is that there’s no way we’d go for a publicly funded one. C’est la vie.

Anyway, it would be only slightly hyperbolic to characterize the relationship between MLB and MLBPA as marital bliss. Other than squabbling over fines and suspensions and changes to the drug policy, it’s been smooth sailing. Meanwhile, the other leagues have dug trenches and donned armor for their labor battles, and there’s no telling how or when some of them will end. So what’s the secret behind the MLB’s success?

Four years ago, I offhandedly suggested that the players would be helped if they agreed to a salary cap and floor implementation in the salary/payroll structure. By doing this they could guarantee a higher percentage of revenue than what they have gotten historically. Over time, it could also lead to greater parity if executed correctly. They would be more in line with their counterparts in the other leagues. Sounded good at the time, right?

Silly me. The players don’t want that kind of nonsense. The top 32 free agents this offseason signed a combined $1 Billion in new contracts! They’re perfectly happy where they are for the most part. The biggest upcoming bargaining item has nothing to do with established players and everything to do with amateurs and draftees. Other money-related items, such as increasing the minimum salary or changing service time requirements, are only modifications of the current system, not wholesale changes. Last week, the owners meetings had the CBA as its #1 agenda item. All the talk coming out of it was about new replay rules and the possible inclusion of an extra wild card playoff team. It’s almost eerie how little financial matters are playing into this. So what’s Bud’s secret?

The big key to this unnatural harmony is the lack of a set percentage of revenue given to the players. The other three leagues have defined guarantees and/or limits for players, ranging from 50-60%. Setting that number is like opening Pandora’s Box. It automatically creates a new tug-of-war between management and labor, an arbitrary way by which they can measure themselves. In the modern or expansion era, there have always been pendulum swings between the two sides, and victories could be measured by rights gained or lost. Now everything is ultra-quantitative, which is great for people like me who like to count the numbers, but not so great in terms of properly assessing the health of a sport. Is there a way to determine whether players getting 52% or 56% of a league’s revenues make the quality of play proportionally better or worse? Not really. With no set percentage, there’s no tension, even though guys like me will occasionally question the players’ wisdom in getting less when they could get more in theory.

There’s also one curious thing I’ve noticed about the Big Four’s CBA documents – their length. The NFL’s CBA is 361 pages long. The NHL’s is 472 pages including exhibits while the NBA’s is 425 pages excluding exhibits. MLB? Only 241 pages. There’s also the Major League Constitution, but it is also fairly brief at only 23 pages. I have no interest in combing through 1200 pages of legalese to pinpoint all of the differences, but I’m guessing that MLB’s lack of language regarding salary caps and floors helps a lot. It’s telling that the longest section in the entire CBA, at 22 pages, is titled Article XXIII – Competitive Balance Tax. This relatively recent addition to the document deals with the luxury tax, a feature of the CBA that usually only applies to 2-4 teams each season, one of them guaranteed to be the Yankees. Less rules, less to negotiate. Perhaps this is due to the change-averse way MLB has operated.

Then what are they negotiating? Mostly it’s competition-related stuff, which is great because all fans can have an opinion without feeling dirty. Take replay, for instance. Currently, the system is much like the NHL’s video replay system in that it’s controlled by the league office and it can only be used for scoring plays. MLB restricts this further by only using instant replay for home run calls, not other plays on the field such as missed tags or a runner missing the plate/base. MLB also gives the umpiring crew the final say instead of a remote replay judge. The NBA does the same thing for buzzer-beating shots or three-pointers where a guy may be on the line. Football lacks a consensus. College football has replay possible for every play by the booth, except for penalties. The NFL has the dual-challenge system, which is replaced by booth review in the last two minutes of every half. Still, the referee has the final say. It’s all a hodgepodge of different implementations, which makes little sense. College football has somehow managed to incorporate a more thorough system than all other sports without noticeably slowing down the game. Surely there’s a way to make this work in baseball.

Drug policy is not likely to change right away, as MLB only started its fantasy unicorn HGH blood test in the minors last summer. MLB has had the latitude to make changes in the middle of the agreement when it proved politically expedient, so if the heat is turned up for some reason they may react in kind. Since baseball is trending more pitcher friendly these days, my guess is that Bud will get back to us at some point. Whenever.

The idea of adding wild cards is interesting, though it is too complex to add to the 2011 season. A popular option seems to be a play-in game for two wild card teams, with the loser going home. I personally don’t mind expansion as long as it doesn’t add more than 3 days to the postseason schedule while keeping the regular season intact.

So-called “hard slotting” of the draft will be up for debate. It’s a good opportunity for MLBPA to gain a concession in exchange for agreeing to this rookie cap. Fundamentally, the big difference between MLB/NFL and NBA/NHL is who determines the numbers. In the end, who’d you rather have figure this out – the players and league by enshrining it in a document, or a Scott Boras-type who has the power to dictate the figures in the weeks leading up to the draft?

If MLBPA accepts hard slotting, I figure they’ll be able to keep Super 2 status, even though teams are bound to abuse the system by repeatedly holding back players to keep them from earning service time. On this point, it’s not worth fighting too much since it’s really a pyrrhic victory with the way it’s used. I haven’t heard anything about the players trying to shorten the six-year period covered by the reserve clause to five years. Not much to argue about right now.

Negotiations for the next CBA could begin as early as this spring, now that MLB is getting its ducks in a row. This time around is not expected to be much different than last time, with bitterness and acrimony missing from the talks. That’s great, because I’d rather have Bud and his minions figure out the A’s stadium situation once and for all. Help a brother out, Bud.

P.S.: AN readers who may be interested in putting this into a fanpost have my express permission to do so – the entire post – with attribution.

01.16.11
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The Audacity of Orange

I’ve tried to avoid it. You know you have. But it’s there and it has to be addressed.

The Giants have spent much of the offseason showing off their newly earned World Series trophy. Two weeks ago it was at the Silicon Valley International Car Show. It’s been all over the Bay for fans to come up and take pictures with it. As A’s fans we just have to grin and bear it. The Giants have earned the right, and parading around with the trophy is a smart, smart move.

Now they might have taken it too far by hooking up with Showtime for a reality series, scheduled to air this summer. They’ll be mimicking HBO’s Hard Knocks and 24/7 series, in which cameras follow a single team or event throughout training camp. Production has already started on the series, which will chronicle the team’s attempt to repeat from hot stove and spring training to the dog days of August and the pennant chase.

24/7 has worked for years as a promotional tool in part because of the nature of boxing. With two combatants, it’s easy to pick sides among the different camps, and the zero sum result of a boxing match wraps things up neatly. The action within (training, sparring) always films great. HBO has gotten so good at promoting and filming fight action that the producers of The Fighter chose to have HBO Sports film the fight scenes. In the last year, HBO also extended 24/7 to non-boxing events such NHL’s Winter Classic and NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson’ preparation for the Daytona 500.

Covering a team throughout a season, as MLB/Showtime are doing with the Giants, is much different. Not only do you have to worry about the level of distraction that comes with cameras following players and coaches around day and night, there’s also the worry about the level of drama. The Giants should be competitive in the NL West and may even be leading by the time the first episode airs, given that the Rockies present the only real competition for them at this point. The serial nature of the baseball season should provide plenty of footage, but is it going to be any good? Will they be reduced to off-field looks at how unique Brian Wilson and Tim Lincecum are?

If there’s something that the Giants should be worried about, it’s the filming of a meltdown. As much as the Giants’ marketing machine is building up the team, they are absolutely ripe for a fall. As “compelling” as the worst MTV reality show is when a trainwreck occurs, the Giants could be setting themselves up for weekly lampooning throughout the summer. Chemistry is fragile and a constant distraction won’t help maintain it. A meltdown not something I’d wish upon fans of any team. When a team gets filmed in this manner things haven’t turned out all that well. Hard Knocks has been around for 6 seasons. None of the teams profiled won the Super Bowl following the show’s airing (The Jets may find this out today next week).

Good luck with your reality experiment, Giants. You’re gonna need it.

01.12.11
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Giants hegemony extends to North Bay

Last August, Jeffrey (heh heh) wrote about the ongoing vertical alignment among major league franchises, with the parent clubs buying and in some cases relocating their affiliates to closer locations. The Giants bought a controlling stake in the San Jose Giants in an effort to tighten their hold over the South Bay. That has caused complications for Windsor entrepreneur Chris Lee, who wants to build a new ballpark to house the Giants’ Class-A affiliate in the Sonoma County town.

“The Giants hold all the cards, and the Giants have declined to play,” he said Monday. Lee explained that the organization has territorial rights over which team affiliated with Major League Baseball can come to Sonoma County.

“If you want to add an affiliated team, you can’t do it without the permission of the Giants,” he said. “The Giants have declined to participate in that conversation.”

But on Tuesday, a Giants executive said the organization had not yet formally replied to the letter Lee sent after the World Series.

“I’m not aware of any formal rejection from the Giants,” Bobby Evans, vice-president of baseball operations said.

Evans said he didn’t want to give the impression the Giants were “leaning one way or another” on the issue of minor league baseball in Sonoma County, but he promised Lee there will be a written reply to his letter.

In the Giants’ ongoing efforts to marginalize everyone not related to their organization, this is yet another great success! Perhaps Lee would have more standing if he were a different Chris Lee:

… or this Chris Lee.

Wait, they’re the same guy? Well, you know what to do, Chris Lee in Windsor. Get on the horn and fly the man in from the U.K.

Or, here’s a crazy idea. How about the Giants play ball, get their situation with the A’s settled, and get everything else moving. Before all redevelopment funds run dry, and it becomes exponentially more difficult to get anything built. Just a thought.

01.11.11
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Olney has a silly idea

In Buster Olney’s blog (Insider accout required), he floats an idea that, unfortunately, Craig Calcaterra thinks has legs.

It’s been awhile since Bud Selig formed the committee to study the Oakland ownership situation, with no resolution in sight for his longtime friend and former fraternity buddy Lew Wolff, the Athletics current owner. What Wolff and the Athletics want is a ballpark in San Jose, and Selig might feel as though he can’t give that to him.

But if McCourt eventually has to sell the Dodgers, providing Wolff — who lives in L.A. — an opportunity to buy the Dodgers would be a heck of a compromise move for Selig, who is, above all else, a deal-maker. In a similar way, he ushered John Henry and Tom Werner — previously connected with the Marlins and Padres, respectively — into control of the Boston Red Sox.

And Wolff, of course, could bring along GM Billy Beane, who could leave the Athletics in the hands of the next owner and heir apparent David Forst.

It’s all speculation. But it all could make a lot of sense, depending on which way the dominos fall with the Dodgers.

First of all, Wolff doesn’t have the scratch to buy the Dodgers. Most owners don’t, and with the valuations of teams as high as they are, they’d be foolish to buy teams on their own. Wolff certainly could partner with people in LA, but really, does anyone think the Dodgers will have a problem attracting extremely wealthy buyers when the time comes?

Besides, Wolff’s share of the A’s has diluted over time. The vast majority of ownership of the A’s are highly entrenched Bay Area people, whether it’s John Fisher in SF, Wolff’s friends and family in the South Bay, or Guy Saperstein in Piedmont. When a team sale happens, the turnover of an owner or ownership group is usually complete. We don’t hear much about a major partner cashing out of an ownership group all that frequently, and when we do it’s often because the partnership was somehow broken.

While Wolff lives in LA, he has children and grandchildren here. There have been plenty of video shots of him sitting in the Coliseum with a young child decked out in full A’s regalia over the years. For him it’s not just about real estate, or getting the stadium done, even though that is his charge. There’s a real emotional attachment there, and it’s gotten to the point that the team is family. If anything, the man is too invested in multiple ways to just let this go. Have you noticed how much more defiant he has gotten the last few months? Despite the challenges and mistakes, he’s a man who generally sees things through, and that’s what he intends to do.

01.10.11
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Brown to Redevelopment: Your days are numbered

Governor Brown just finished his press conference, where he explained his budget plans. Brown is pushing for $12.5 Billion in spending cuts, and he is asking the legislature (and the voters) to extend temporary income, sales, and car taxes that are set to expire this year. As for the redevelopment golden goose, Brown said that existing (already bonded) projects are safe. New projects, on the other hand, are in trouble. Brown wants to “phase out” redevelopment agencies and start taking back $1.7 Billion in tax increment annually. What it comes down to is this: If you don’t have your project started and well underway in the next 12-18 months, you are screwed. There continues to be some debate as to how the governor could eliminate RDA’s, with the agencies enshrined in Article 16 in the Constitution and recently passed Prop 22 acting as protection. The governor seems to be saying, “If we get rid of RDA’s, there are no more protections.” Yow. Okay, who would this impact? Let’s put together a list:

  • San Jose Diridon Ballpark – While the City is speeding up land acquisition, what about Autumn Parkway and other mitigations? Will the funds be in place for the rest of the project, or will it get kicked down the road?
  • Oakland Victory Court Ballpark – Oakland already had to deal with a tight schedule based on a 2015 Opening Day. Now, Oakland will have to get its bonds raised and land in place right around the time an EIR is certified, or even before certification. Expect for Oakland to push MLB harder to decide in its favor, even without anything significant in place.
  • 49ers Stadium in Santa Clara – The quasi-public stadium authority would have to get its loans and/or bonds in place in the next 18 months as well.
  • New Raiders Stadium at the Coliseum – A new stadium is practically a nonstarter given the funding questions. Expect the Raiders to look south sooner rather than later.
  • Downtown Los Angeles NFL Stadium – The now $1.5 Billion stadium (+$500 million in the last two weeks) would require $350 million in bonds, which won’t be available if RDA’s go away.
  • City of Industry NFL Stadium – Ed Roski’s plan involves his own land, but much of the stadium cost would be funded by tax increment on the land improvements, thanks to much of the city being one large redevelopment zone. Uncertainty regarding RDAs makes the prospects for building infrastructure for the stadium and ancillary development, murky at best.
  • Sacramento Kings Arena – As Kevin Johnson’s arena task force continues to talk things out, time is running out, especially for an arena at the long dormant Railyards.
  • San Francisco Arena – Land south of AT&T Park could serve as the site for a new arena. Controlled by the Port and with development rights given to the Giants, it’s likely that any dev plan there will require at least the same kind of public outlay that made the ballpark deal work. Proponents would have to find another source for that funding.
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Slide captured from the governor’s briefing

The message is abundantly clear: If you want to get something built, get a move on. (BTW, take a look at the counter on the right today. Eerie.)

01.10.11
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News for the week of 1/10/11

I had a pass for CES but couldn’t go at the last moment. While I’m lamenting that, here are some truly newsworthy items.

  • The Maloofs are not only having trouble keeping the Kings afloat, they’re having trouble keeping the Palms afloat, at least according to Bloomberg. Two private equity firms are looking to buy controlling stake in the celebrilicious casino, with the possibility that the Maloofs would continue to operate the Palms, albeit with a reduced stake. No wonder there’s no talk of the Maloofs putting up money for a Sacramento arena. The family sold a $100 million beer distribution business in New Mexico last year to bring in some cash. It’s interesting that although the Kings have been discussed as either a prime sale candidate or worse a contraction target, there are few indicators that the Maloofs are interested in cashing out the franchise. They must really love their basketball team.
  • If fans are truly interested in stripping away baseball’s antitrust exemption, they might want to take a page from a new Washington lobbying group called Playoff PAC. The group, started in 2009, has stated its goal to eliminate the controversial BCS system and replace it with a true college football playoff tournament. Playoff PAC’s weapon of choice is to try to push anyone who will listen into investigating possible tax violations by the organizations which control three of the four member bowls of the BCS. While Playoff PAC does not have a ton of cash, but its limited efforts may actually be bearing fruit.
  • The downtown LA football stadium plan is finding takers. Farmers Insurance may become the naming rights sponsor, to the tune of 30 years, $20 million a year.
  • A draft race course route for the 2013 America’s Cup is up, and it’s quite cool.
  • Governor Brown will release his budget plans later this morning, and I will be paying close attention (as should you).

Will we hear something about KTRB this week? I sure hope so.