Category Archives: Football

11.23.13
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Coliseum Authority approves Raiders/A’s lease extensions

Update 11/25 9:10 AM – Resolutions passed nearly unanimously, with one vote against.

 

 

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Original post from Saturday:

In your typical Friday disclosure before a hastily called meeting, the Coliseum Authority (JPA) released its agenda for a Monday board meeting in which it will vote on short-term lease extensions for both the Athletics and Raiders. It’s funny to see how the negotiations have progressed. The A’s offered up a 5-year deal last year which the JPA ignored because it thought it had leverage, only to be that perceived leverage taken away by MLB two weeks ago. The Raiders have talked up a long-term deal, but only if it came with a serious plan for a new stadium. The resolutions that the JPA board is looking to pass will undoubtedly amplify the uncertainty surrounding the two franchises. Highlights:

  • The A’s will get a two-year extension with no additional option years, thus extending the lease through December 31, 2015.
  • The A’s would pay a slightly higher rent payment than previously negotiated at $1.5 million per year.
  • In addition, the A’s would pay a mere $250,000 to maintain control over concessions.
  • The parking revenue dispute between the A’s and JPA would go to arbitration, which should be decided before the end of 2014. The A’s would agree to put the disputed amount (not disclosed) in escrow.

It’s good to see that the parking issue will be resolved soon. Apparently the A’s are raising parking prices for 2014, which makes the actions seem linked. The big takeaway is that the JPA caved on concessions. Under the new terms, the A’s have the right to choose a new concessionaire, whose contract may long extend past the A’s stay in the Coliseum. However, you have to think that any concessions contract has to factor in the significantly lower value of the Coliseum should the A’s and/or Raiders leave. Yes, this could mean Aramark is replaced by someone else.

  • The Raiders have a one-year deal for the 2014-15 season. The Raiders would pay $400,000 in addition to the revenue splits they currently share with the JPA. The end of the lease is described as 45 days after the end of the team’s season.
  • The Raiders could pay up to $525,000 per year to use their Harbor Bay headquarters in Alameda.
  • The lease terms acknowledge that the Raiders may play one regular season or preseason home game away from the Coliseum (London in 2014).

Also wrapped up in the Raiders’ extension language is something that I’d like to call the Santa Clara clause.

7.5 Additional Payments for Use of Permanent Training Facility and Training Site. If the Raiders announce a relocation or sign a lease to play football games outside of the City of Oakland or Alameda County for the 2015 season prior to March 1, 2015, then, commencing on March 1, 2015, Raiders shall have the option of continuing to use the Permanent Training Facility and Training Site for up to twenty-four (24) months, up to and including February 28, 2017 as determined in Raiders’ discretion and Raiders shall make an additional payment to Licensor each month for continued use of the Permanent Training Facility and Training Site in an amount equal to the fair market rental value of the Permanent Training Facility and Training Site on a monthly basis, as determined by a mutually agreeable licensed commercial real estate broker based on comparable rental space. Raiders and Licensor agree that the fair market rental value shall not exceed $525,000 per year. In the event the Raiders are engaged in good faith discussions concerning an extension of the Operating License or other arrangement for the Raiders to play future Football Events in the OACC Stadium as of March 1, 2015, any obligation to make payments shall not commence while such discussions are continuing and the twenty-four (24) month period and obligation to make additional payments shall begin when Raiders agrees to play football games at a location other than OACC Stadium for the 2015 seasonal provided, however, that if Raiders agrees to play football at such other location, Raiders shall pay such rental payments retroactively from March 1, 2015.

Got that? The Raiders won’t be charged to use the Alameda headquarters as long as they’re in talks about Coliseum City, even if they’re playing somewhere other than the Coliseum for 2015 and 2016. If the Raiders play elsewhere while using HQ and aren’t in talks over Coliseum City, they pay $525,000 annually. Obviously, the only place where they could play in this scenario (and while the Coliseum is demolished, presumably) is Santa Clara. UC Berkeley is forbidden by legal settlement from hosting NFL games, and Palo Alto would sue Stanford to high heaven for even considering it.

Both extensions should be easily passed, unless one or more of the commissioners complain that the terms are too favorable to the teams. The teams are effectively trading rent payments, and the JPA’s incoming revenues will not make much of a dent in ongoing debt service. At least the JPA will get the parking revenue they’ve clamoring for, which at the very least should help pay for additional Coliseum City studies or minimal prep work. As for scoreboards – you weren’t banking on that, were you?

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P.S. – The resolutions would have to be passed by Oakland’s City Council and Alameda’s Board of Supervisors shortly after JPA approval.

10.17.13
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The limits of the NFL’s G-4 stadium loan program

Last week at the NFL owners meetings, the assembled owners approved a raft of small G-4 loans for current NFL stadia. The recipients include the Panthers ($37.5 million), Redskins ($27 million), and Browns ($62.5 million). Combine that with the $58 million the Packers received last year, and you’ve got nearly the amount of one full slots ($200 million) awarded to a team building a new stadium. The fund, a continuation of the G-3 program started with the previous CBA, has already assigned full slots for the 49ers, Falcons, and Vikings. All told that’s around $800 million. When the 49ers were starting construction, I figured that there was about $1 billion available, making for 4 new stadium slots and the rest for renovation work.

Since the CBA was signed, the NFL’s revenues have risen at a 5% annual clip. 2011 produced $9 billion, 2012 yielded $9.5 billion. It stands to reason that the league will eclipse $10 billion either this year or next year. That’s a point of pride for commissioner Roger Goodell, who envisions the league reaching a whopping $25 billion in revenue by 2027. It’s that growth that may allow the NFL to loosen some pursestrings and provide more G-4 money.

Rules are well set, with all projects falling into specific tranches of potential funding. After the $200 or $250 million limit, the NFL provides access to banking syndicates that provide much of the gap funding. So far the 49ers and Vikings have utilized this access. It’s definitely no giveaway. Team owners have to pony up at least $50 million to get started, and the NFL provides matching funds depending on the amount a team owner is willing to provide. Of course, there’s also a public share that comes into play, since the NFL will only provide access to G-4 loans if it sees what it considers a viable public-private partnership.

The G-4 program has a set limit of 1.5% of annual revenue to fund various projects. In the first year of the current CBA, that amounted to $135 million. The loans are for as little as 15 years, so the annual payments can be quite high. For a $200 million loan at 7-9%, that’s up to $25 million per year. That translates to 4 full slots and the remainder for renovation work. However, if annual revenue rises above $10 billion that limit rises to $150 million, or 5 full slots and the renovation remainder. That could be huge for the remaining teams that haven’t yet finalized stadium deals, such as the Chargers, Rams, and Raiders. If the NFL chooses to base G-4 availability on initial revenue projections, the limit may be set at 4 slots, the same way the G-3 program slammed the door shut after 4 $150 million slots were awarded (DAL, IND, NY x 2). If the owners are comfortable with expanding the program, another slot just might open up. Three teams competing for two slots is a lot more comforting than all three competing for one award.

Still, time is of the essence. Given the league’s previous history it seems unlikely that they’ll make huge loans in the back half of the CBA. The incentive is there for the owners and municipalities to act quickly. For now, the NFL has chosen to control the funding process through G-4, public funding, and the banking syndicates, instead of allowing a third party like AEG to buy its way into taking some revenue or a piece of a team. If you’re Goodell it makes sense. What he doesn’t want is for outsiders to chip away at what it considers “pure” revenue streams, nor does he want to set a precedent that team stakes are easily available in exchange for a stadium. With the three remaining teams, we may be coming to a point where he has no choice. The best way for the Raiders to stay in Oakland may be to exchange a minority share for a new Raiders Coliseum.

Tim Kawakami had another chat with Mark Davis this week. Davis continues to play good cop with Oakland officials, while unnamed sources (league? team?) assume the bad cop role via Matier & Ross. Davis may not be negotiating through the media in public, but someone is. Davis say that Tuesday’s City Council vote is a “positive step” but there are many moving parts in getting the deal to work, whatever form it takes. If, as Kawakami surmises, Davis considers this the last chance to stay in Oakland, the bowl-cutted one is certainly giving the appearance of due diligence. Davis’s previous comments about the team’s share of a new Coliseum indicate that he’d be interested in one of the G-4 slots, since it would involve club seat and suite revenue. Davis will get to see everything develop right in front of him, which will inform his decision. Instead of deciding right after the current season ends, he could take a page out of his late father’s playbook. Al didn’t finalize the deal to move the Raiders back from LA to Oakland until July 1995.

I remember that summer being a whirlwind of activity for the Raiders and A’s as I spent much of that year in the locker rooms. I wonder if we’re due for another whirlwind.

10.16.13
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Negotiating Extension and Investor Group Approved for Coliseum City

Two weeks after a potential investor group headed by Colony Capital and Rashid Al Malik’s HayaH Holdings was revealed, that same group was formally approved as part of the master developer team. With that approval comes a 12-month extension on the ENA (exclusive negotiating agreement) to figure out all most of the details, plus a 6-month administrative extension if needed.

That’s the news. Now let’s try to understand what has to happen next.

The City of Oakland has about $250,000 remaining in money it assigned towards Coliseum City studies. Bay Investment Group (BayIG), the Colony/HayaH partnership, will put in $500,000 towards a market study to determine the viability of Coliseum City. This is important since BayIG is expected to push that study to its own individual investors, who as a group will decide if/how to move forward. The forthcoming study is not to be confused with AECOM’s feasibility study, which was made available during the summer.

Over the next 12 months, the public and private sides have to make good on a set of deliverables. Some within the City, especially CM Larry Reid, wanted a shorter 6-month + 6 month extension instead of the 12 + 6 deal that was approved. Reid’s concerns, aired last week in a committee meetings, were that 12 + 6 was too long a period and didn’t show the necessary urgency to the NFL and the Raiders. Raiders owner Mark Davis has indicated that he wants a lease/stadium deal in place shortly after the NFL season ends.

Nevertheless, Coliseum City will move forward on its own timeline because BayIG asked for 12 + 6 in order to get everything in order. A short list of deliverables looks like this:

  • November – Estimate on cost of remaining pre-development work
  • February – Assessment of new infrastructure costs
  • April – Letter(s) of intent from team(s) who choose to sign on with plan
  • May – BayIG market analysis
  • Summer/Fall – EIR and Specific Plan

These items, along with additional smaller ones, should lead up to preliminary project approval in whatever form it takes, plus a DDA (disposition and development agreement), the contract fine print on how Coliseum City is built, including costs, financing, and timelines. Zennie Abraham caught up with Oakland Asst. City Administrator Fred Blackwell at the meeting to summarize what’s next.

Simply put, BayIG just bought the City of Oakland and Alameda County some time. However, it’s easy to see how the list of deliverables doesn’t exactly line up with the timeframe that Davis is trying to dictate. Moving forward, the issue is whether the dev team can show significant enough progress to get Davis to sign on and sign a separate lease at the Coliseum that would keep the Raiders in Oakland throughout the transition. Then again, that part’s a little confusing too. When Raiders uber-fan Dr. Death asked JRDV’s Ed McFarlan when the earliest groundbreaking could be he received this rather optimistic response.

That seems unlikely given the scope of the project and all the little details that need to figured out. Is that groundbreaking for a new stadium alongside the existing Coliseum? Certainly it couldn’t be demolishing the current Coliseum and building on the same site, since the demo itself would take months and would displace both the Raiders and A’s. While BayIG indicated that it will reach out to the A’s and Warriors to gauge their interest in Coliseum City, it’s extremely unlikely that either team will commit. Despite recent setbacks, both teams are focused on their San Jose and San Francisco plans, respectively. Plus they’d have to commit without all deliverables in place, especially that market analysis. If you think that Lew Wolff would sign a short-term lease without knowing the development’s impact on the A’s, you’re crazy.

For the next 12 months, BayIG has control over most of the process. They could press the deal if they see encouraging signs, or they could kill it if the market analysis looks bad. They’re in great shape considering that they’ve only committed $500,000 towards the project – chump change for billionaires. Just as important, they don’t have to adhere to a specific vision of Coliseum City, though they’re positioning themselves to have at least the football stadium in place. Consider last night’s report on the agenda item:

The Coliseum City Master Plan is providing the basis upon which the City is currently under a separate contract with a specialized planning consultant firm to complete a Specific Plan and CEQA/EIR analysis. The Specific Plan will also identify alternatives to the Master Plan and will consider different development scenarios that will envision zero up to three sports facilifies at the site. Pursuant to CEQA, the separate planning contract will prepare an EIR to address the potential physical environmental effects of the Coliseum City project.

There’s nothing new there, but BayIG is positioned to take advantage of it. There could be a single football stadium, a football stadium and a ballpark, even an arena. At this early stage, it looks like it’ll just be the Raiders stadium, though even that is far from a given. BayIG could find that the best thing to do is to minimize its investment in the stadium, or seek out revenue streams from the stadium or team that could help pay back their investment. The infrastructure cost, which will be borne by City/County, could also prove prohibitively high on top of the remaining debt to be carried at the Coliseum. BayIG could even go with zero venues at the Coliseum. Such a plan would probably not get approval from City since it would represent a white flag. Yet it remains a distinct possibility – if not now, within a few years.

The upside, regardless of your optimism or skepticism of Coliseum City, is that things are coming to a head. Coliseum was introduced more than 21 months ago, and has shown only the most tentative progress until a few weeks ago. Now’s the time to put up, to see what results Coliseum City can yield. No more stalling, and for that we can all be glad.

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Note: The only local mainstream media coverage of yesterday’s news came from CSNBA’s Scott Bair. Seems like everyone else was preoccupied with transit strikes and some other multibillion dollar development in the South Bay which is a lot more than vapor.

10.09.13
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Raiders to play London home game in 2014, NFL not impressed with Coliseum CIty

The Raiders and the NFL announced yesterday that the team will one of three franchises to host “home” games next season in London’s Wembley Stadium. Jacksonville, which has done this before, and Atlanta will also be “home” teams. It’s an expansion of the NFL’s exposure in Europe. Previous seasons often had only one London fixture, this season has two. Both of this season’s games are sellouts, which likely convinced NFL brass to expand the program.

CSNBA’s Scott Bair notes that the Radiers’ current lease, which ends this season, has a requirement that the Raiders play all home games at the Coliseum. A lease extension would have to be amended to reflect the new arrangement. Of course, the Raiders and the Coliseum Authority first have to agree to basic terms of a new lease, and there are no indicators that the two sides are close to completion of that yet. Owner Mark Davis has made it clear that he wants to tie a lease to a long-term deal that produces a new stadium for his franchise.

Enter today’s Matier & Ross item, which described the NFL as not impressed in Oakland and the JPA’s efforts regarding Coliseum City.

‘The NFL came in a couple of months back to see how the city and county were coming along with their plans and basically rolled their eyes,’ said a source close to the Davis camp, who asked not to be named because of ongoing negotiations in Oakland over a possible replacement for the Coliseum.

Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Davis has chided the JPA about an apparent lack of urgency on their part. Last week’s news that big-pocketed investors including Colony Capital helps their cause. The structure of the deal that pushes out the JPA’s study another 12-18 months doesn’t. That’s probably why the NFL isn’t impressed. They can see right through the public officials’ moves, which are mostly stalling tactics until something drops into their lap. The NFL has not shown patience with that in the past. They want results. Plus they’re fine with Davis talking to anyone who will listen, whether that’s in LA, Concord, wherever.

Moreover, Matier & Ross bring up the idea that if Colony is asked to help subsidize the stadium, they’ll want something out of it. Maybe that means a piece of a team or even a controlling share. That’s not likely to happen on Davis’s watch, as he’s been buying out smaller ownership stakes to further strengthen his hold over the franchise. Perhaps that’s for the purposes of flipping a small minority stake in exchange for a stadium, but no more than that. As we’ve seen with the NFL’s discussions with AEG over Farmers Field, no owner nor the league has any interest in swapping a major ownership stake for stadium rights. I wrote previously that Colony will want to pay as little as possible for a stadium since it’s money pit. This is the opposite of such an arrangement. Whatever the case, Colony didn’t grow to its current size and status by giving things away. The JPA can keep studying the issue until the cows come home. The NFL will remain unimpressed.

10.07.13
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Time lapse Coliseum conversion

If you attended the game on Saturday, you probably noticed that the only thing faster than the A’s running onto the field after Stephen Vogt’s walkoff single was the Coliseum’s conversion crew, getting ready to do the big switch. As I hoped, someone captured the entire thing on time-lapse video. Claiming credit is SF media company Evolve Media.

The conversion was announced as complete around 3 PM Sunday, 5+ hours before the rescheduled Chargers-Raiders game. That means it took 18 hours to complete the change, a very impressive figure for sure. For now it looks like the crew has been granted a well-deserved break, as they didn’t tear down the seats immediately after the Raiders won. However, a decision will have to made soon on if/when to switch back to baseball, perhaps as soon as after Game 3 ends. The issue for the Coliseum Authority is that there isn’t a Raiders game at home until October 27, a good three weeks from now. If the A’s don’t advance and the Authority decides not to pull the trigger on the conversion, they could save themselves $500,000. If they wait until the last minute and the field ends up extra crappy because of it, the teams playing Game 5 and MLB will not be pleased. Here’s to hoping the A’s can force the issue.

10.06.13
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Raiders explore Concord Naval Weapons Station for stadium site

Matier and Ross report that Raiders owner Mark Davis took a tour of the decommissioned Concord Naval Weapons Station last week, in search of a potential stadium site for the Silver and Black. Sure, Davis has stated publicly that his preference is to stay in Oakland, but he has been looking around the Bay Area and Los Angeles to see what kinds of deals he can dig up.

Last year Davis made the local political rounds in Dublin, as he had an eye on the Army’s Camp Parks facility. Like CNWS, it’s very large and is in the middle of a transition. At both Camp Parks and CNWS, there’s valuable land available remarkably close to freeway access and even public transit. In theory, it just needs to be cleaned up, planned accordingly, and redeveloped.

The military branches – in this case the Navy – are in control of the remediation (cleanup) process. They also control the price of land sales, and given the trend of military cutbacks, they’re not going to give away free land. Municipalities also have a say, because in the end they’ll need to properly integrate these massive tracts of land into their own long range plans (link worth reading if you want to understand the process).

One of the City of Concord's CNWS planning maps

One of the City of Concord’s CNWS planning maps

In the map above, the gray area is devoted to different types of development. Closest to the North Concord/Martinez BART station is expected to be high-density, transit-oriented development: office and residential towers and the like. Further east and south may be office parks and lower density residential. Greenbelts wrap around the various districts. A golf course and open space preserve largely cover the area east of Mt. Diablo Creek. These 5,000 acres, dubbed the Inland Area, are the most ready to develop because they were decommissioned over a decade ago. The other part of CNWS, the 7,000-acre Tidal Area, is still in use. The Tidal Area is the portion north of Highway 4 along Suisun Bay.

Davis’s interest in CNWS seems to run counter to his stated desire for urgency at the Coliseum. It’s unlikely that anything substantial can be built at CNWS before the end of the decade, and no one’s going to make an exception just for a football stadium. That must be why Davis hired Don Perata as a consultant. Perata, the former State Senate President and Oakland mayoral candidate, who now works out of Orinda. Perata could grease the skids as a lobbyist in Sacramento, which could result in a CEQA-sidestep bill similar to the ones executed for the Sacramento and San Francisco arenas.

The best spot for a Raiders stadium is probably the salmon-colored area next to Highway 4

The best spot for a Raiders stadium is probably the salmon-colored area between Highway 4 and the planned Delta Rd

Besides the literal mess that needs to be cleaned up at CNWS, a stadium needs to be compatible with Concord and Contra Costa County’s growth initiatives. Preferably the stadium should be within walking distance of the BART station. That use – a big stadium with acres of parking around it – doesn’t fit with any TOD plans. The City of Concord will want some federal grant money to assist in building infrastructure for the TOD section, so they won’t allow a stadium to jeopardize that. The salmon-colored area in the map above is roughly 1/2 mile from the BART station, about as far as you’d want to walk from the station to attend a game. 100 acres of parking would have to be found somewhere in the vicinity. For environmental impact reasons, the stadium couldn’t be located adjacent to the planned preserve area. Freeway access is another matter. I can’t imagine how awful the traffic on CA-4 would be for a Monday Night game. CA-4 and I-680 are the main highways in, with CA-242 providing a shortcut from the south. Sunday afternoons shouldn’t be so bad, but if a lot of fans are coming in from eastern Contra Costa County and Stockton, it’s not going to be pretty.

Obviously, a lot of issues would need to be figured out before Davis even had a prayer of making CNWS a good relocation site. Like Coliseum City, it has a number of costs associated with it that have major funding question marks. Yet it’s also clear that Davis is not content to sit and wait for a deal to fall into his lap. If he wants to get something done somewhere, that’s the kind of proactive work ethic he’ll have to show. In that sense, the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.

10.03.13
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ESPN’s Tim Keown pens sobering feature on future of pro sports in Oakland

It’s terrible timing to have a column about Oakland titled “Death of Sports Town” as the A’s jump into the postseason, yet here it is. Written by ESPN the Magazine writer and former Chronicle scribe Tim Keown, the piece tries to codify the meaning and value professional sports teams provide to their home communities.

Keown deftly explains the socioeconomic dichotomy that stratifies Oakland, the lack of outsider faith in The Town, the city government’s ongoing ineptitude, and the greed of owners who already have one foot out the door.

At the end of the column is a plea from Keown for the owners and overseers of these sports to, for once, forgo the extra $$$ and try to keep the community intact.

In the relentlessly monarchical world of professional sports, someone has to be able to forsake a digit or two in the bank account to create a legacy more meaningful than a trust fund that’ll cover a lifetime of BMWs and Botox treatments for the grandchildren of his grandchildren. Someone has to consider the void left behind.

Yet Keown can’t clearly answer the question he poses about gauging the impact of pro sports. I don’t know that anyone can. Yes, they are part of the fabric of any community fortunate to have them there. He drops the Raider-turned-San Leandro-cop Kenny Shedd anecdote. He interviewed Oakland native and NBA rising star Damian Lillard, who grew up near the Coliseum. These are all good, but anecdotes are the worst kind of gauge. There should be something between these feel-good stories and cold political calculation, as was exhibited in the Oakland Chamber’s poll yesterday.

In the poll, 50% felt that it was very or extremely important to keep the franchises in town. 55% of the 500 respondents said that they hadn’t attended an A’s game in the last 12 months. Another 20% only went 1-2 times. Obviously, part of the reason has to be the Coliseum’s dilapidated state. Some may be turned off by ownership. It shouldn’t be the team, since they’ve been meme-ing the sports world for the last 15 months. Someday someone – perhaps multiple people – will write an academic study on Oakland and its relationship with sports. Hopefully it’s not an eulogy.

 

10.01.13
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Coliseum City’s Mystery Investors Revealed

Earlier in the year, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan talked up foreign investment in Coliseum City, which had the potential to fill in funding gaps for one or more venues planned for the project. The Trib’s Matthew Artz reports tonight, on the eve of a Tuesday City Council closed session, that those investors are a partnership between real estate powerhouse Colony Capital and Dubai financier Rashid Al Malik. The closed session would presumably lead to a public discussion item on October 8, which should include some basic terms for the price of the land, a development timeline, and other critical information.

Colony/Al Malik are no strangers to bidding on expensive properties. In the spring they jumped to the lead in bidding for arena/stadium giant AEG. Eventually they balked as AEG honcho Phil Anschutz refused to budge from his asking price, purportedly up to $10 billion. That led to the departure of Farmers Field champion Tim Leiweke, leaving the football stadium project in limbo.

Coliseum City, which could cost $2 billion just for a replacement arena and separate baseball and football stadia, is expected to have billions more in development costs associated with offices, retail, and additional infrastructure. It has the potential to be the biggest single redevelopment project in California history.

The main problem is that redevelopment is yesterday’s plan. Tax increment is off limits thanks to Governor Brown’s dismantling of redevelopment agencies all over the state. While TIF couldn’t finance a lion’s share of the project, it could’ve helped take care of the infrastructure work, which no developer wants to take on if he can help it. The closed session talks are centered around land sales, so Oakland (and Alameda County) could conceivably sell Coliseum land or other nearby properties to help raise the public share. It’s not much of a departure from Lew Wolff’s Pacific Commons plan, which involved a fairly simple purchase option of privately owned, not publicly owned, land. While the Bay Area’s real estate market is experiencing a rebound, chances are that Oakland would name a price favorable for Colony/Al Malik in order to get them to play ball.

If you’re Colony/Al Malik, you want to be able to get in with as little equity or borrowing as possible. At the same time, we’re hearing that the project could work with only one or two venues as opposed to three. That works in Colony/Al Malik’s favor, since there would presumably be less money going towards stadia that would otherwise go to their shareholders. Not having to build a new ballpark or arena would also free up 10-15 acres of “prime” development land near the Raiders stadium. Of course, that has to be balanced with the recognition that more venues equals more events and event days, which would make the project more attractive to prospective tenants. There’s the possibility that no teams remain, which would result in no new venues. There’s also a remaining disconnect regarding the different players’ respective visions. Raiders owner Mark Davis continues to focus on a smallish outdoor stadium with less than 60,000 seats. Planning consultant JRDV (and previously Mayor Quan) want something larger – and perhaps retractably domed – that could attract big events such as the Super Bowl.

There’s one other angle to play here. In 2010, Colony bought the construction firm Tutor-Saliba, the contractor responsible for rebuilding the Coliseum Arena, Mt. Davis (no, they weren’t the architects), and several transit projects including the planned California High Speed Rail and the BART-to-SFO extension. Colony could see some additional opportunities associated with having Tutor-Saliba control the construction process for much of the project. Not sure how that might conflict with an open bidding process often required when using public funds.

Besides the failed AEG bid, Colony and Al Malik have had their share of hits and misses. Colony invested heavily in Station Casinos just as the recession was starting, and Station eventually declared bankruptcy. Al Malik was head of Dubai Aerospace and launched an aggressive strategy to buy (and lease out) a bunch of jumbo jets in 2006. He quit the company in 2008 as DAE floundered. Colony once co-owned the French football club Paris St.-Germain, then flipped it to investors from Qatar two years ago.

There’s a great sense of irony in that much of the criticism of A’s managing partner Lew Wolff is that he’s a “greedy developer” who only wants to make money. Yet who is Oakland bringing in to give Coliseum City a whiff of viability? One of the richest developer/hedge fund groups in the world, Colony Capital. The master developer for Coliseum City appears to be Forest City, the company Brown favored for Uptown condos and apartments instead of a ballpark. When you need big money and expertise, there are only so many places to find it. What are the chances that this group isn’t “greedy”? Slim and none.

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Update 12:25 PM – Got a copy of today’s agenda (thanks Matt Artz). The resolution calls for a 12-month extension of the ENA (Exclusive Negotiating Agreement) to figure out the terms of the deal. This comes on the heels of the the original ENA expiring October 21. In addition to the 12 months there would be another 6-month administrative extension option. No additional money would be needed to complete all of the project deliverables, a concern going back from the early summer.

What I have to wonder is what Mark Davis thinks of all of this. While it’s good to have the potential for additional investment to help defray the stadium cost, here’s another case of the JPA/Oakland/Alameda County pushing a deadline out. This time it could go into early 2015 before things are finalized. This doesn’t seem like the kind of urgency that Davis is looking for:

Whether there’s a sense of urgency or not? I know there is on our side. We have to find out how urgent on their side. The picture that’s been drawn is there. We know what needs to get done. It’s just whether it’s going to be able to be done.

It’s Davis, after all, who’s pushing for a long-term lease extension tied to a new stadium development deal. How does this news affect that? Another 2-3 year lease to stay in the game?

09.30.13
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First set of MLB Postseason game times out

I predicted this on Saturday:

Well, at least I nailed the sequence. The first two game times will be as follows:

  • Game 1: Detroit at Oakland, 6:30 PM Friday on TBS
  • Game 2: Detroit at Oakland, 6:00 PM Saturday on TBS

Future game times to be released later.

The late Game 2 start also has an effect on the Chargers-Raiders game. Originally scheduled for 1 PM, the game will be moved to 8:30 PM in order to accommodate the football changeover. That will make for a most unusual NFL quadruple-header, with the normal 10 AM and 1 PM slots, the Sunday Night slot featuring the Texans at the 49ers, and then across the bay for Chargers-Raiders on NFL Network. With playoff baseball on everyday this week leading into an epic football Sunday, this has to be one of the best sports weeks in recent memory. See you at the yard.

09.22.13
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Raiders unlikely to do Chargers 10/6 home game swap, could reschedule to Sunday Night or Monday

Word came yesterday that the Raiders and Chargers were probably not going to accommodate the A’s and MLB by facilitating a swap of divisional home games. The current schedule has the Chargers visiting Oakland on Sunday, October 6. That’s an off day during the planned ALDS, but the schedule is still tight because of the time required to do the baseball-to-football-to-baseball conversion.

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American League 2013 Postseason Schedule

Complicating matters is the still TBD seeding of the postseason. If the A’s clinch either the #1 or #2, they’ll open with two games at home (unlike last year) on October 4 & 5. If they get the #3 seed or win the wild card playoff, they’d get Games 3 & 4 at home on October 7 & 8. Until that’s determined, the Raiders and the Coliseum are in a tough spot because they don’t know when they’d have to build in the football seats or tear them back down for baseball.

Apparently the Raiders can opt to play the game the night of October 6, which would allow for some extra time to do the baseball-to-football switch (bet on a daytime A’s slot to help), or a move to October 7, which would work only if the A’s got the #1 or #2 seed. If the A’s clinched a lower seed they could do what was done last week, where a Sunday afternoon Raiders game was immediately followed by the conversion in time for a Monday night A’s game.

The Raiders have been earnest about wanting to sellout the entire season in the new, smaller capacity Coliseum, so they must feel that a swap could jeopardize sales. It would be even worse for the Chargers, who’d have to figure out how many remaining tickets would have to be sold to ensure that there isn’t a blackout for the moved up game. The Chargers are somewhat dependent on Raider fans invading the stadium to get the sellout.

There’s a little flexibility for the NFL, and even though they don’t have to grant any since MLB and the Orioles didn’t do the Ravens any favors for Week 1, it’s nice to see that the Raiders can make some changes to make the switch relatively painless. The condition of the field will be another story, as is always the case in September and October.