The Buffalo Bills announced that they have reached an agreement with Erie County and the State of New York to make $130 million of improvements to almost 40-year-old Ralph Wilson Stadium. The deal also includes a 10-year extension to the current lease for the Bills, which was originally scheduled to end next summer.
Oakland/Alameda County and the Raiders aren’t talking about renovating the Coliseum, they’re talking about a new Coliseum. If they were considering renovation, they probably wouldn’t be happy with the amount of public money that’s involved. Here’s how the whole deal breaks down.
$35 million from the Bills
$41 million from Erie County
$54 million from the State of New York
Improvements include a new scoreboard, changes to concession areas and gates and technology. $130 million doesn’t go as far as it used to.
A report in the Buffalo News digs deeper into the deal, and finds that the Bills can leave after year 7 of the lease by paying $28.3 million to buy out the remaining years. The report by Tim Graham also found an interesting loophole:
If a new owner bought the Bills and wanted to move them, then the county and state would have two remedies, as allowed by the lease agreement. The first is to file an injunction to prevent a move. If a judge declines to order the Bills to stay, then the Bills would have to pay $400 million in liquidated damages with the exception of a window after the seventh year of the deal.
An unlikely chain of events would create this scenario. The key is the health of Bills owner Ralph Wilson, who at 94 is the oldest owner in the NFL and has had trouble attending games over the past couple of years. If the Bills were sold, it seems like the new owner would wait until the “window” or after the lease expires to make the move.
It’s unclear if the Bills will apply for G-4 funding from the NFL. No mention was made of the NFL’s stadium loan program in today’s announcement. It seems possible that the Bills chose to go the cheaper route to avoid having to pay back the loan (no matter how small) when the team is sold, which is the current rule.
Bills CEO Russ Brandon was careful to characterize the improvements as short-term, with an eye towards a new permanent home sometime towards the end of the extension.
“The investment, while significant, is modest in contrast to building a new stadium or engaging in a major retrofit, far less than what the interest alone would be on a new stadium over the term. We look forward to the opportunity to execute this plan and to join Governor (Andrew) Cuomo and County Executive (Mark) Poloncarz as we work toward a shared vision for the future of the Buffalo Bills beyond the term of this deal.”
This eliminates the Bills as a Los Angeles relocation candidate, which is no surprise as they weren’t high on the list anyway. While Bills fans and local pols should be pleased by the deal, let’s not make more of it than what it really is: kicking the can down the road.
Update 9:00 PM – In case you missed it, the good folks at Next Media Animation in Taiwan posted their pithy take on the A’s signing of Japanese shortstop Hiroyushi Nakajima.
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News is fairly light, we’ll have to muddle through somehow.
After the summer defeat of multiple bills attempting to revive redevelopment in some form, another has surfaced in SB 33, introduced by State Senator Lois Wolk (D-Davis). The bill’s purpose is to create infrastructure financing districts, in which projects could get infrastructure such as roads, sewers, and other public facilities built. There is no stipulation about building stadia. Regardless, creation of an IFD could be an important piece of the puzzle as some stadium projects require utilities to be moved or other unsexy work.
The Dodgers are working with Fox Sports and Time Warner Cable on their ultra-rich upcoming TV deal. The sticking point is the structure of the deal, which has to work within the confines of a federal bankruptcy court’s decision to cap the Dodgers’ TV money subject to revenue sharing at $84 million. To work within the rules, the network may “force” the team to acquire an equity stake in the network, which would allow the network to pay an annual TV rights fee and a dividend. This is a similar arrangement to what the Giants and Yankees currently have with their respective networks. The Angels and Lakers are each paid a flat fee annually, which to date has been the normal arrangement. [LA Times/Bill Shaikin]
The cost of the mostly unseen renovations at Dodger Stadium will be $100 million. Key to this is expansion of clubhouse facilities, including the visiting clubhouse. [LA Times/Steve Dilbeck]
Robert Bobb may return to Oakland again, this time as the compliance director for the city’s negotiated settlement to prevent Oakland Police Department from falling into receivership. Bobb could potentially oversee all of OPD and report to federal judge Thelton Henderson on reforms being implemented throughout the department. Bobb was last hired by Oakland to fix its budget a few years ago. The position is meant to be temporary. [SF Chronicle/Matier & Ross]
Somehow the Oakland City Council had an hours-long discussion over whether to approve a dog park at Astro Park, and adjourned without making a decision. Think about it. A dog park created gridlock and indecision. [Oakland Tribune/Matthew Artz]
I don’t normally keep track of international soccer economics, but this was an eye-opener: Premier League champions Manchester City incurred a $158 million loss during the 2011-12 season. $113 million of that was transfer fees to buy players from other teams. That loss was actually half of the $307 million loss in 2012-13. Remarkably, the club is debt free because the owner, oil tycoon Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, has funded all expenditures out of pocket since he bought the team in 2008.
Unable to come to an agreement in the Nats-O’s struggle over MASN, MLB may be bringing in buyers for the TV rights for the two clubs. Remember that the whole point of creating MASN was to placate Peter Angelos when the Expos were moved to DC. Commissioner Selig probably has this mess in mind while considering what to do with the Giants and A’s. [Washington Post/James Wagner]
The Rays ballpark plan at Carillon is for all intents and purposes, dead. At least that’s what the developer who pitched the plan says. There currently is no plan in the works for a new ballpark within St. Petersburg, where the Rays are locked into a lease at Tropicana Field. [Tampa Bay Times/Stephen Nohlgren]
The Edmonton Oilers have a deadline of six weeks from now to reach a deal on a new arena to replace aging Rexall Centre. Like Virginia Beach, Edmonton’s arena plan has a nine-figure funding gap.
The Yankees are going with Ticketmaster instead of MLB subsidiary StubHub as its official ticket scalper reseller. They’re also instituting a price floor on resold tickets, because otherwise their normal first-sale gouging looks worse by comparison. [Deadspin/Tom Ley]
Oakland City Administrator Deanna Santana and Assistant City Administrator in charge of Coliseum City Fred Blackwell had to postpone their 11/13/12 meeting with Save Oakland Sports. Save Oakland Sports will also postpone it’s announcement. We will reschedule this meeting to sometime before the beginning of 2013.
No reason was given, but I have to think this has to do with the fate of Measure B1, which has fallen short of passage so far. Without the $40 million in TOD funds earmarked for Coliseum City, the City of Oakland and Alameda County will have to scramble to figure out how to pick up a funding source to jumpstart the project. As of now, Coliseum City has to be considered stalled.
Update 5:00 PM – Support for Measure B1 has slipped further, now down to 64.85% voting yes. To pass, B1 would need to get an improbable 75% of the remaining 80,000 absentee ballots. In this light, it’s probably a good idea to cancel the appearance at the SOS meeting, since there’d be nothing to promote. However, an explanation of some kind would be welcome.
Update 11/10 5:30 PM – Alameda County’s Registrar didn’t take a break on Saturday, so we have new numbers. An additional 20,000 ballots were counted, and Measure B1 has made a solid comeback to finish the day with 65.31% voting Yes. The measure still needs 75% of the remaining 60,000 votes to pass.
Update 11/11 5:00 PM – Today the Registrar went into overtime, processing 37,000 ballots. That means they’ve counted 118,000 ballots since Wednesday. Yes on Measure B1 inched up further to 65.79%, which is encouraging. However, it appears that there are only 20-25,000 ballots left to count. Measure B1 would have to get 84% Yes votes among the remaining ballots to be counted in order to pass.
Update 11/12 6:00 PM – 12,000 more ballots were counted on Veterans Day. Measure B1 inched up a little to 65.83% approval. The bad news is that (if my math’s correct) all remaining votes would have to be Yes votes for B1 to pass.
The state’s Department of Finance nixed a settlement that would’ve satisfied the 49ers and Santa Clara Unified School District over the split and repayment of $30 million of redevelopment funds. The district, city, and county will appeal on November 26 with a ruling expected by December 18. If the deal remains rejected, the 49ers will sue in March. The ongoing dispute over the $30 million will not stop stadium construction, which is already starting on the upper deck. [San Jose Mercury News/Mike Rosenberg]
Speculation: Following along from that last story, I don’t think a deal between San Jose and Santa Clara County over the Diridon land will pass muster, even if the County finds money to fill the gap. The State appears to be putting its foot down to restrict redevelopment, at least through the rest of Governor Jerry Brown’s term. That’s not to say that Wolff/Fisher won’t be able to get the land. They may have to go through the normal sale process to get it, that’s all. [Sacramento Bee/Loretta Kalb]
The 45-day window for the Dodgers and Fox to negotiate a new TV deal has opened. Per the terms of the current deal, Fox has first dibs for the duration of the window. Guggenheim Partners paid $2 billion with the idea that the next TV deal would be a bonanza, so it would be not be a shock if no agreement emerges from the talks. There is a catch: the Dodgers have to name their price during the window, effectively setting the market. How much is too much for Fox, which has lost the Lakers and Pac-12 sports in the past year and has two channels to fill? We’ll see. [LA Times/Joe Flint]
Speaking of channels, Time Warner Cable SportsNet launched without carriage on DirecTV, Dish, and any SoCal cable operator other that Time Warner and Charter. The Pac-12 Network continues to be unavailable on DirecTV, AT&T U-verse, and Verizon FiOS.
From the Department of Audacity: the City of El Paso’s Proposition 3 asks voters to approve a ballpark deal. However, only recently was it revealed what would happen if voters said “No”. If that happens, the $50 million ballpark will continue to move forward, but not financed by bonds backed by a hotel tax. Instead, it’s highly likely that the general fund would have to be tapped to fund the ballpark. Cray cray. [El Paso Times/Cindy Ramirez]
Today an architectural review of Barclays Center was published, which I read with glee. NY Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman talks of the arena’s rusting metal panels being akin to “ancient chains binding a giant Gulliver”, or its technological excellence, including an “underground turntable for trucks that may sound eye-rollingly dull but makes traffic engineers like the city’s transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, swoon”. The latter half of the review rightfully critiques the arena’s lack of integration into the neighborhood and Brooklyn in general. [NY Times/Michael Kimmelman]
The Texas Rangers continue with $12 million in improvements to Rangers Ballpark, highlighted by an extra row of high-roller seats and a club area behind home plate. That brings the total of improvements over the last three years to $35 million. [Dallas Morning News/Sarah Mervosh]
For tonight’s home opener, the Philadelphia 76ers are unveiling the world’s largest (and scariest) T-shirt cannon. [The 700 Level/Enrico Campitelli, Jr.]
The NFL’s rules for building a stadium are simple:
City/municipality must have skin (money) in the game
Minimum capacity of 63-65,000, with potential expansion to 70,000+
NFL will provide up to $200 million for per team/stadium if new construction
If successful, NFL will award a Super Bowl at a future date
At the NFL owners meetings today, the 49ers were notified that they are one step closer to that last bit. According to Sports Business Journal’s Daniel Kaplan, San Francisco/Santa Clara is a finalist for Super Bowl L (2016) along with Miami. The city that loses out on L becomes a finalist for LI (2017), competing with Houston.
View from nearby Capitol Corridor/ACE train station. Picture taken 10/9
The Super Bowl is an award from the league for getting a stadium deal. It’s no small reward, as numerous cities would kill for the opportunity to bring in hundreds of millions in economic impact to a region. The actual amount of economic impact is up for considerable debate, but no one can doubt the amount of media coverage, blocks of hotel rooms booked solid, and plain spending from visitors that occurs with each big game. Last February we discussed what hosting a Super Bowl in San Francisco would be like and what it would entail. It’s worth a read if you’re interested.
View from Santa Clara Golf & Tennis Club of north side of stadium
Miami is the competitor for L, and despite its 10-time history of hosting the game, is at a distinct disadvantage. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has warned the Dolphins and Miami that if the region wanted to continue hosting the game, improvements such as a roof would be required. For now, all the NFL is looking for are some improvements to sightlines, lighting and sound, and a canopy over some of the stands. If those improvements don’t happen (and they aren’t funded at the moment), it’s easy to see the 49ers and SF/SC winning by virtue of its newer facility and novel location.
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Kaplan also had a key Raider-related tweet coming out of the owners meetings.
Oakland raiders owner marc davis began floating to reporters at owners meeting dublin, calif., as potential site for new stadium
In addition, Davis talked about how outdated the Coliseum is (Shush! Can’t badmouth the Coliseum dude!), while saying that he has little interest in sharing the Santa Clara stadium with the 49ers even though the 49ers deserve great credit for getting the stadium project done. The Coliseum remains the default option simply because the land and location are already prime, but as Davis continues to talk up Dublin’s Camp Parks site, one has to wonder what Davis really wants. Is he looking to pit two East Bay cities against each other, the way his dad had done in the past? Davis has to be looking to minimize the team’s exposure. Yet it’s hard to see how the Raiders could put together as richly-backed a deal as the 49ers for a new stadium. It sure seems as though the Raiders will be sticking at the Coliseum until the best deal possible falls into Davis’s lap.
Imagine that you’re Raiders owner Mark Davis. It’s December and your team is already out of the playoff hunt, headed towards a losing season and a top 10 draft pick. The team has one more season on its lease at the Oakland Coliseum, and while negotiations and studies are ongoing with Oakland and Alameda County, it’s not like you’re not taking calls from interested parties in LA. The 49ers are progressing quickly on their own stadium, which could be a decent temporary landing spot.
In other words, you have options. Prudent financial planning on your parents’ part appears to have kept the controlling interest of the team within the family, though there isn’t the money to put up a huge share towards construction of a new stadium. You could work a two or three-year deal to keep the team in Oakland while things are worked out, or experiment in Santa Clara for a few years.
At the same time, government handouts for stadia have all but dried up, at least in California. The growing number of minority partners will want their piece of whatever deal is made. The Raiders are currently the third least valuable team in the NFL, mostly due to the lack of revenue generated at O.co Coliseum. The 49ers, who were in similar straits a few years ago, are now worth $1.2 billion thanks to their coming stadium and a deep playoff run that generated enough interest and upfront sales to help pay for the stadium. Those upfront sales, which include an alleged $500k/year for high end suite leases, are the replacement for the big government handout.
That’s all well and good when you’re the 49ers and can tap into wealthy San Francisco and Silicon Valley, and have first-mover advantage to boot. When you’re Mark Davis, only a fraction of that kind of money is available to you – at least in the Bay Area. The 49ers are sucking much of the air out of the market. In Los Angeles that money’s there in spades. And with Phil Anschutz exiting stage left, negotiations with a stadium operator may not be as difficult as they were with Anschutz on board.
Problem for you, Mark, is that if you want to be a first mover on LA, you might want to act when the NFL opens its six-week relocation application window on New Year’s Day, 2013 (or if no one applies in 2013, 1/1/2014). Acting first could provide distinct advantages, such as better lease terms and preferred scheduling if a second team (Chargers, Rams) were to come in. Of course, other teams will be thinking the same thing so that may want to move early too. There’s also the problem of playing one or two years at an interim facility like the LA Coliseum. If you apply for an LA move, it’s almost a certainty that Oakland officials will cease work on Coliseum City, at least the football-centered version of it.
Better to keep your cards close to the vest. Good job on that, for now.
It used to be that during the early part of the NFL regular season, Raiders home games had a special form of home field advantage. Thanks to baseball and football seasons overlapping for 6-8 weeks, both the Raiders and A’s had to play under less-than-ideal conditions. The A’s dealt with football cleats trampling the grass, whereas the Raiders had to overcome a football field which was largely dominated by the dirt baseball infield. A few years after moving back to Oakland, the Raiders drafted Florida State kicker Sebastian Janikowski, whose impressive left leg could power kickoffs and long field goals regardless of the quality of surface. Other teams’ kickers who usually kicked on well-manicured grass or ever perfect artificial turf often couldn’t adjust, ruining their accuracy and/or distance.
Last night, the dirt infield bit the Raiders more than once. Longsnapper Jon Condo was inadvertently kneed in the head in the 2nd quarter, forcing the Raiders to use backup linebacker Travis Goethel as the longsnapper (teams carry one due to specialization). Goethel, who hadn’t done any longsnapping since high school, proceeded to botch two snaps to All Pro punter Shane Lechler, causing Lechler to be unable to get off two punts, which then translated to good field position and eventual field goals by the Chargers.
The NFL has long known about the suboptimal field conditions, and has made it clear that it wants the Raiders in a football stadium in the future, not a multipurpose stadium. That may seem like a no-brainer, but you have to think that the league was taking notes, with an eye towards really pressing the case when it talks to Oakland and Alameda County officials in the future. At the very least it gives the Raiders some ammunition to advocate to cease the stadium-sharing agreement with the A’s once both teams’ leases end in 2013, and really, could you blame them if they did?
The A’s will also have something to say about this, since they have complained loudest about the field. That puts the Coliseum Authority in the unenviable position of trying to cater to both teams while they are at odds over this very basic, fundamental problem. Key to this is the cost of doing the frequent conversions from baseball to football and back. To get a better understanding of what this entails, watch the video below from several years ago, when Brodie Brazil was working for KICU-36.
The conversion from baseball to football and back costs $250,000 every time, and the cost is borne by the Coliseum Authority, not the teams. Chances are that the Authority, looking to reduce its operating costs while it services $20 million per year in debt for Mount Davis, will want either or both teams to chip in for the conversions. During a calendar year we can count on the conversion happening at least four times, twice in preseason and twice during the regular season. With the A’s making a pennant run, there’s the distinct possibility of a fifth conversion happening this year: October 21 for the Raiders game vs. the Jaguars. The late October date is even more sensitive than September or early October because it aligns with the deep postseason for MLB. According to MLB’s postseason schedule, 10/21 is the date of Game 7 of the American League Championship Series. And since seven game series are in a 2-3-2 format, it’s likely that a Game 6 in Oakland would also be knocked out. The conversion process takes 24-48 hours to complete just from one sport to the other, so if we get to the point of watching the A’s in the ALCS (knock on wood), MLB and the NFL will have a scheduling nightmare on its hands. That is unless the A’s enter the playoffs as a wildcard, in which case they wouldn’t have home field advantage past the wild card playoff game and would only play Games 3, 4, and 5 at home.
If you’re wondering why the conversions cost so much, consider this: crews come in and effectively build a 4,000-seat temporary stadium inside the Coliseum every time, then dismantle it. Add the extra effort to replace grass, remove/replace tarps, and paint/repaint lines on the field. Cranes and bobtails run all over the Coliseum’s B Lot, moving and arranging the individual seating section pieces. After watching some of the work in seeming slow-mo, I’m surprised it doesn’t cost more.
Too often, Oakland has been the butt of jokes or an object of pity in national eyes. In the sports world, however, Oakland has been a serious trailblazer. Al Davis emphasized the vertical passing game in the AFL over the the stodgy, conservative NFL to the point of disdaining the inevitable league merger, with Davis feeling that the AFL would eventually surpass the NFL due to a more entertaining, superior brand of football. While Aaron Sorkin and Michael Lewis were popping zits, Charlie Finley built a dynasty by stealing scouting information from other teams and by being the shrewdest guy in the room. The Bash Brothers-era A’s were the pioneers of performance-enhancing drugs, paving the way from 20 years of chicks digging the long ball. Moneyball has been well-documented, and its nascent successor is well on its way.
Not only did Oakland teams change the way sports was played on the field, for better or worse they changed the economics of pro sports forever. The darkest chapter started in 1982, when Davis attempted to move the Raiders to Los Angeles. We all know the story. Davis applied for the move and was rejected by a 22-0 vote of the other owners. Davis and the LA Memorial Coliseum subsequently filed separate antitrust lawsuits against the NFL, with Davis and the Coliseum eventually prevailing. The Raiders had almost immediate success in LA, winning Super Bowl XVIII in 1984.
Without an emboldened Davis, Bob Irsay may never have had the “courage” to move the Colts out of Baltimore. If Davis was the scarred warrior first through the proverbial wall, Irsay gladly followed his lead. Instead of a protracted battle, Irsay packed Mayflower trucks in the wee hours of March 28, 1984, and took the team to Indianapolis, where the shiny, new Hoosier Dome awaited. Just four years later, Bill Bidwill took the Cardinals out of St. Louis and relocated in the Valley of the Sun, where the only other pro franchise at the time was the Phoenix Suns. The Browns were next, as Art Modell was in over his head running decaying Cleveland Stadium and lost so much money that he needed a bailout city to keep the team. The Browns moved to Baltimore in 1995, shifting the heartbreak 371 miles west. That conveniently made Cleveland a stalking horse for every city whose stadium was outdated, until Cleveland was awarded an expansion Browns franchise for the 1999 season. Bud Adams moved the Oilers from Houston to Nashville by way of Memphis, changing the team name to the Titans along the way. Houston got the last expansion team in 2000 and would start play in 2002. Los Angeles lost both its teams in 1995 to two other cities who had previously lost their franchises, the Rams to St. Louis and the Raiders back to Oakland.
MLB’s antitrust exemption allowed these cities’ baseball teams to stay put while their NFL counterparts had the freedom to move willy-nilly. While all of the affected cities seemed to use the same playbook, all had unique circumstances that ultimately made them ripe for an NFL team to bolt.
Oakland – For years Davis pestered the Coliseum Commission for skyboxes and other improvements and was rejected. He moved the Raiders for promises of suites and pay-per-view TV money in LA, neither of which materialized. In response, the OACC worked with Wally Haas to refurbish the Coliseum for baseball after the Raiders left, including the suites Davis wanted. When Davis brought the Raiders back, the Coliseum was set back to the old Mausoleum days (at least for baseball) and little has changed since.
Baltimore – Like Davis, Irsay complained about the state of Memorial Stadium, which lacked modern amenities. Wanting to prevent a repeat of the Colts’ move, Baltimore and Maryland officials worked with the Orioles on a successor to Memorial which became Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Construction of OP@CY started only 5 years after the Colts left. The model used to build OP@CY was so successful that it was replicated in nearly every MLB market, and was extended when Baltimore lured the Browns away from Cleveland. Coincidentally, both the current baseball and football teams in the Charm City were once named the Browns – St. Louis and Cleveland, respectively.
St. Louis – For decades there were two teams that played at Busch Stadium that were called the Cardinals. Only one truly mattered. St. Louis is a baseball town first and foremost, with football being a mostly unpleasant diversion throughout the two tenures of NFL football in the city. So when the football Cards left for Arizona, there was little drama or protest, at least compared to other cities. Later there would be a love affair with the Greatest Show on Turf-era Rams, but that too fizzled, leaving many wondering if the Rams will return to LA.
Cleveland – Modell largely brought the team’s demise in Cleveland on himself. He chose to take control of Cleveland Municipal Stadium from the City, including all revenue and operations costs, the latter of which only grew while the former dwindled. While he supported some domed stadium concepts in the 80’s, in error he chose not to become a partner in the Gateway Center project, a broad redevelopment plan in downtown Cleveland that could have netted a successor to Muni. This may have been due to a cash-flow problem on Modell’s part, as Dick Jacobs was able to fund roughly half of a new Indians ballpark. The ballpark would go on to fuel the Indians’ resurgence and partly salved the wound made by Modell.
Houston – Unlike Oakland and Baltimore, Adams was granted significant improvements to the Astrodome that should’ve kept the Oilers in town for 20 years, if not more. 10,000 seats were added to the back wall, replacing what was once the largest scoreboard in the world. Suites also helped modernize the Dome. Despite the improvements, the total capacity was only 60,000, a number that would prove too small in the coming era of NFL football (70k is the comfort zone with 5-10k more for Super Bowls). Reliant Stadium, built next to the Astrodome, has a capacity of 71,000. A countywide effort spurred partly by the Oilers’ move resulted in a new ballpark (Minute Maid Park), arena (Toyota Center), and Reliant.
Los Angeles – Still has no NFL replacement 17 years after both teams left. Two competing NFL stadium proposals exist, only one will get enough popular support and resources to move forward if one or two teams commit to moving to LA. All the while forces looking to bring a pro team back to LA are competing with USC and to a lesser extent UCLA, who both “secretly” view the NFL as competition. The cost to bring the NFL back is so high for all parties (city, developers, team) that there’s a legitimate doubt as to whether it will happen. Meanwhile the Angels have only flourished in a baseball-remodeled stadium made possible by the Rams’ exodus, and the Dodgers have continued to gain in value regardless of the quality of ownership involved.
Which of those cities are football towns, and which are baseball towns? Oakland had the Raiders before the A’s, and attendance trends point to it being a football-first market. Baltimore isn’t big enough to be a four-sport town like Philadelphia, Boston, or New York City. Historically, Baltimore ignores hockey and its experiment with the NBA Bullets failed. Continued success of the Orioles kept attendance in the top half of the American League, until right around the time the Ravens started playing at a neighboring stadium in the Inner Harbor. While the situation is too complex to blame the O’s downturn specifically on football, there is an argument to be made that a smaller media market’s attention is finite, so locals turned their attention to a fresh, exciting Ravens team as post-Cal Ripken, Jr. era began. St. Louis and Houston both suffered from apathy, though Houston was certainly a better football market. If St. Louis is a baseball town, is Houston a football town? Within Texas, the Oilers were always overshadowed by the Cowboys, and the Oilers’ annual bridesmaid status made it hard to stick with the team when the times got tough. Cleveland’s a unique case in that it hasn’t won anything since 1964, a psychologically crushing phenomenon that I can only be thankful I never had to experience. Like Baltimore, it can be considered at the very least a true two-sport town, with basketball providing a winter diversion.
Winning played a major factor in building up the support necessary to build new venues for the baseball Cardinals and the Orioles. The Astros and Indians were both part of large-scale downtown redevelopment efforts. That leaves the A’s, who can’t be classified in either category. When East Bay civic leaders put together the resources to build the Coliseum complex nearly 50 years ago, the idea was to put Oakland on the map, an effort that mostly succeeded. Now that Oakland is struggling to retain its teams, it once again has to decide how much resources to use to maintain its sports town status. Even then it’s not clear just what kind of sports town Oakland is. That may seem like an academic question, but it’s important as those finite resources will be devoted to some effort. If more people feel it’s necessary to keep the Raiders than the A’s or vice-versa, they’ll pledge their effort to it. It’s the decision that Oakland and the East Bay doesn’t want to make. Yet it’s coming, like it or not.
Not much to celebrate on the field, so we’ll focus off it.
Sure, the A’s didn’t draw well Tuesday and Wednesday. Neither did the White Sox, Nationals and Braves. Yet league attendance is up 3% over last year. Nothing changes overnight.
Good to see that the regular media (Merc, NBC BA, KQED) picked up on the recent S4SJ lawsuit activity. I’ve heard that S4SJ is expected to respond with its own motion by Monday 9/10, followed by another response by the City by 9/14. If nothing else it keeps the case in the news.
Forbes NFL team valuations are in right on schedule. #1 is the Cowboys at a whopping $2.1 billion, followed by the Patriots and Redskins. The 49ers are at #9 with a $1.175 billion, thanks to the team’s playoff run and the start of stadium construction. The Raiders came in at #30 with a $785 million valuation, and were one of two teams to have an operating loss (according to Forbes). [Mike Ozanian]
We’re 9 days from the NHL’s lockout deadline, and there’s no telling what will happen. The two sides are reportedly very far apart. [SB Nation DC/Ted Starkey]
With ESPN’s TV deal signed, MLB may be looking for $800 million per year for the combined Fox/Turner schedules. Combined with ESPN, MLB would net $1.5 billion per year, translating to $50 million per team. Add other central revenue to that (merchandise, MLB AM, XM, etc.) teams should be able to get $70 million in national revenue every season starting in 2014. That figure doesn’t include revenue sharing (local redistribution). [Sports Business Journal/John Ourand]
So I guessed wrong on 95.7 The Game getting the Warriors and switching to NBC Sports Radio. The station stayed with Houston-based Yahoo! Sports Radio, and the W’s chose to renew their deal with KNBR, apparently feeling that the signal coverage was worth the third-tier status on the stations. That’s a bad loss for Entercom, though it highlights the biggest problems with The Game: its ratings aren’t going to get much better until they get more local pro teams and boost the station’s signal. The new deal runs through the 2015-16 season.
The good news for The Game is that the station posted a 1.1 rating for August, the highest since the programming change. The A’s haven’t moved the needle at The Game for well over a year. Perhaps this is a sign that now they are effecting change. [BA Sports Guy/Scott Willis]
Legislators are attempting to bring back redevelopment through various bills that have just reached Governor Brown’s desk. I won’t give the bills much attention unless Brown signs them into law. In the meantime, some groups are applying for federal tax credits to help foot the bills for projects. [ABC 7/Kendall Taggart; 10 News San Diego]
Save Oakland Sports has a profile in the Tribune. When talking about the upcoming fundraiser, co-founder Jim Zelinski said, “A cynic might laugh … but it all adds up.” Sure it does. Fundraisers like this, which has no set fundraising goal, can help – about 1 PSL’s worth at a time. [Oakland Tribune/Matthew Artz]
The federal government will lose up $4 billion in tax revenue ($146 million annually) thanks to tax-exempt bonds used on many stadia, including the Coliseum and the new 49ers stadium. [Bloomberg Businessweek/Aaron Kuriloff and Darrell Preston]
I’ve been taking pictures of the 49ers Stadium site every so often from the Amtrak station. It’s amazing how quickly it’s going up. First, a shot from five weeks ago.
July 30
Now one from eight days ago.
August 27
Then from yesterday.
September 3
Much of this is possible due of the extensive use of steel. The foundation was drilled piers, so locals didn’t hear constant piledriving racket as they did when the garage across the street was built. And unlike the garage, the stadium has little concrete at the moment so there’s no curing time. This allows the crews to put up level after level very quickly, starting with what I assume are the field club and main concourses. Clark Pacific in Woodland is building the precast concrete risers that will eventually make up the seating bowl and many of the concrete walls inside. At this rate I’m starting to think the Niners will make their Fall 2014 opening date. I just hope that Turner Devcon will take this expertise to the Quakes and A’s stadia.
newballpark.org 