Category Archives: Giants

08.17.12
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The other kind of walkoff

The A’s made hay in July via a series of walkoff wins. It’s fitting that the team is capitalizing on a phenomenon coined by former Athletic Dennis Eckersley, almost karmic (I’d rather have won the ’88 WS). The A’s soccer brethren, the Earthquakes, have also gotten into the act, stringing together several winning and tying goals in the waning moments of numerous games this season. Let’s just say that the organization is no stranger to theatrics.

That comes in stark contrast to the neverending ballpark struggle, which has entered its 41st month according to our counter, but really has gone on for more than twice that long if you count back to when the Wolff/Fisher group took ownership. And if you believe Jayson Stark’s take coming out of the owners meetings this week, there’s no end in sight:

For about the 78th consecutive meeting of baseball’s problem-solving owners, there was no resolution this week of the A’s-Giants standoff. But if it wasn’t clear before now, it’s more obvious than ever that, in the words of one baseball official, that moving the A’s to San Jose is, most likely, “never going to happen.”

One sports attorney who has looked into this told Rumblings that the Giants have “a hell of a case” — centered around a document signed by the commissioner defining their territorial rights to include San Jose. And that’s critical, because any move by the A’s, or by the sport, to ignore or override those territorial rights could open a messy can of larvae for baseball.

How? Well, if the Giants’ territorial rights were suddenly deemed to no longer apply, it could set a precedent that might inspire some other team to attempt to move to New York or Southern California, by arguing the territorial rights of the Yankees, Mets, Dodgers and Angels were no longer valid, either.

So if the A’s aren’t bound for San Jose, what is likely to happen to them? Behind the scenes, baseball people are predicting they’ll eventually have to give up on this battle and settle for a new, Pittsburgh-size park in Oakland — and then do their best to beat up on the Giants in interleague play.

Stark didn’t articulate how this ballpark would be paid for. It’s a legitimate question. Oakland isn’t alone here. Field of Schemes’ Neil deMause pointed out in a recent Slate article that Seattle is facing the same dilemma.

Stanford economist Roger Noll pegs the operating profits of a typical arena at somewhere between $20 and $30 million a year. That could be enough—barely—to pay off $400 million or so in arena debt. But then Hansen and his as-yet-unnamed investors will still need to put down a huge amount of money to purchase an NBA franchise to play there. If every penny of revenue is going to pay off construction debts, that will leave nothing to offer his moneymen as return on their investment. “The gross revenues of an NBA team in Seattle could not possibly be sufficient,” says Noll, to cover the costs of both building an arena and buying a team.

Replace Seattle with Oakland and “NBA team” with “Athletics” and you have the first half of our local quandary. The crux of the argument to keep the A’s in Oakland is that some sugar daddy ownership group (Don Knauss & Co.) will swoop in, buy the A’s from Wolff/Fisher ($500 million) and pay for a new ballpark ($500-600 million). Using deMause’s corollary, which we’ve espoused here repeatedly, how does this new ownership make money, or even prevent themselves from being buried in debt? Even in San Jose a $500 million ballpark will require tons of upfront commitments to ensure that Wolff/Fisher aren’t leveraged to the hilt.

Moreover, this ongoing stalemate does no one any favors except the Giants, who must love the status quo – except for that pesky drug suspension thing. If the other big market teams are truly afraid of breaking precedent, then the naysayers are right, there is no way to San Jose. We’ve never heard anything directly from any owner to confirm this, so it’s just more grist for the mill. Funny thing is that there are protections in the Major League Constitution to keep the two-team markets safe. From Doug Pappas’ old article dissection the Major League Rules (emphasis mine):

Under Rule 1(c), either league can move into a territory belonging to a club in the other league, so long as (a) 3/4 of the affected league’s teams consent; (b) the two parks are at least five air miles apart unless the two clubs mutually agree otherwise; (c) the newcomer pays the existing club $100,000 plus half of any previous indemnification to invade the territory; and (d) the move leaves no more than two clubs in the territory. This provision dates to late 1960, when it was adopted to establish the terms for the expansion Los Angeles Angels to play in the territory claimed by the Dodgers in 1958.

That leaves Boston and Philadelphia as the only “vulnerable” markets, and any move to either city would face just as many political and logistical obstacles as the A’s face going to San Jose, if not more. Even with that technicality out of the way, the big market owners may be looking at T-rights as sacrosanct and untouchable, nevermind the actual language.

Bringing us back to Stark’s blurb, what can Wolff do? He seems content to play the nice guy role among the owners and not push the matter. If the Giants are lined up looking to sue, the A’s can do the same. San Jose is putting together its own legal resources should a decision come down not in their favor. But there is one maneuver, one trump card that Wolff can play that we’ve only skirted around, and it’s fairly simple.

Wolff could refuse to negotiate a Coliseum lease extension.

Fitting that this last bit of “inaction” could finally force action. It worked for the Minnesota Vikings. It most certainly won’t get the kind of results Zygi Wilf got (a publicly financed stadium), but it would at least force the powers that be to act. It would absolutely burn the last bridge Wolff had with Oakland and would be the worst PR move ever on top of many other missteps, but as we’ve seen in the Vikings’ case, it’s practically standard operating procedure for owners looking to get new stadia. Oakland pols have bragged that the A’s have nowhere to play besides the Coliseum. Do they really want to make that bluff?

Wolff’s refusal would create a nightmare for MLB. MLB could proceed one of two ways, either A) rule once and for all on the T-rights matter and let the franchise move forward, or B) try to assume control of the A’s by alleging that Wolff was not acting as a proper caretaker of the franchise in the market. The A’s can’t be contracted through the rest of the current CBA. Two teams would have to be contracted as a matter of practice and the Rays are locked into their lease, making contraction impossible in the near term. If MLB rules for the Giants, then at least Wolff would be able to decide if he wants to build in Fremont or give up completely and sell the team. And if MLB rules for the A’s, then Wolff will have gotten what he wanted, although he had to be a dick to Selig and the Lodge to make it happen, and Selig would have to deal with the Giants’ legal onslaught.

Selig could try to buy Wolff’s silence by subsidizing an East Bay stadium (also unprecedented) or having the other owners buy out the Wolff/Fisher group, which won’t be cheap. Wolff/Fisher are in a strong position in that they don’t have to sell, at any price if they don’t like.

Now, if MLB were to try to wrest control of the A’s from Wolff, the league would land in litigation hell. Wolff could easily point to Selig’s committee’s 41 months with no plan or decision, and it would drag out for a long time. Unlike the McCourt-Dodgers fiasco, the Wolff/Fisher group are more than solvent (underneath it all A’s ownership is the 4th richest in baseball). T-rights would finally be dragged out into the open, in court. Meanwhile, MLB would have to step in and negotiate lease terms with Oakland/Alameda County for some unknown period. They can’t go around Wolff to negotiate a lease while he’s still the franchise’s control person, since he still has to sign on the line which is dotted. MLB can’t get an injunction on Wolff not doing something. Can they force him to negotiate a lease? We’ll see. Beyond the Bay Area, there will be at least one mayor who’ll look at the ending lease and make a play for the A’s, even if the resources aren’t there. Effectively the A’s would turn into the Expos, a team in limbo for an indeterminate period.

All of that’s possible from Wolff making a simple declaration. He doesn’t have to make it now. He could wait until the end of the 2013 season if he likes. The chaos would put a great toll on the franchise and the fanbase, and you’d have to wonder if, in the end, it’s worth it. Walking away from the lease could be the first domino. At least someone would be playing. We’ve been talking about post-2013 for a while now. The closer we get to that point without a resolution, the more likely someone’s going to make a move out of desperation. Often large bureaucratic organizations don’t make moves until things reach crisis mode. If Selig wanted to end his tenure without drama, this definitely wouldn’t be a way to do it.

07.30.12
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Back-to-back double-dips

Thanks to a bit of serendipitous scheduling from the baseball gods, we in the Bay Area have the opportunity to see the Giants and A’s play day-night, cross-bay doubleheaders – not once, but twice – this week. I’ve raved about these experiences before and I won’t stop now. If you’re a baseball fan and you have a some time to get away from the office to take in a doubleheader, you should do it. Put it on your bucket list. It’s worth it.

The happy scheduling quirk comes from the fact that the A’s and Giants have overlapping 10-day homestands. Normally the overlap is three games. In this case it’s four, which leads to the back-to-back double-dips. The Giants have a four-game series with the Mets starting tonight before going on the road, whereas the A’s have a three-game set with the Rays followed by a four-game set with the Blue Jays. No off days to mess with this schedule, which is a rarity in itself.

The schedule:

  • Wednesday, August 1: Rays @ A’s, 12:35 p.m.; Mets @ Giants, 7:15 p.m.
  • Thursday, August 2: Mets @ Giants, 12:45 p.m.; Blue Jays @ A’s, 7:05 p.m.

The slightly tighter scheduling of the Thursday doubleheader may prove more hospitable for some, while Wednesday may be better in the sense that the Coliseum is a vastly better as a day venue than for night games. I’m definitely going to Wednesday’s set, not so sure about Thursday. Thanks to the magic of dynamic pricing, no seat for the Wednesday night Giants game can be had for less than $40 at tickets.com, although at least SRO is available.

See you at the yard(s).

07.25.12
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AT&T Park to host World Baseball Classic finals, semis

The Giants’ AT&T Park has been named the host stadium the 2013 World Baseball Classic finals and semifinals. The tournament, which runs every four years like other “World Cup” style tourneys, was largely centered on Southern California in 2009. Then, the Dodgers hosted the finals while the elimination rounds were held in San Diego and Miami.

Shortly after the news came out, a couple of astute national writers made some half-serious tweets about the circumstances.

Hey, it wouldn’t surprise me if the WBC was part of whatever “settlement” the Giants received. Previously, no marquee round of the WBC had been held in an outdoor stadium north of SoCal, which along with Arizona and Florida has more baseball-hospitable weather in March than the Bay Area.

The Giants will get three games, and judging from the attendance at the 2009 Classic, all three should garner crowds of 40,000 or more. 40,000 fans X $50 per fan X 3 games = $6 million. That doesn’t include parking, broadcast rights, or the additional economic impact the series will have on San Francisco. If the award is part of Selig’s plan to compensate the Giants (MLB runs the tournament), it’s a good move that doesn’t cost baseball or the A’s anything.

As long as it doesn’t rain, of course.

07.18.12
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Lather, Rinse, Repeat

We’ve heard this one before. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale was on The Chris Townsend Show with guest host Brodie Brazil on Monday night. He indicated that something will happen in August, when the next owner’s meetings are slated to be held in Denver. Nightengale claims that if a vote isn’t held (Wolff has asked for one as a procedural matter), Bud Selig will rule on the matter. Nightengale noted that he has been wrong about this before (as have I), and at this point – 40 months into the debate – there’s little evidence to indicate that this will be resolved in short order.

The big admission of this apparent deadlock is that when asked about the situation during a press conference prior to the All Star Game, Selig replied that both teams still have numerous questions to answer. Seriously? At 40 months? Surely, the commissioner and his exploratory committee have had ample time to look at every option, look under every rock, comb every bit of the Bay Area landscape. Admittedly, there are plenty of questions for the contingent cities as to how they’ll complete the deals that will be necessary to host a new ballpark. Those issues aren’t under the Giants’ and A’s control, and they can’t see proper resolution until a decision on how to progress is made. Whichever way it goes, one team (and some city) is going to be upset. The longer this gets delayed, the more expensive the eventual solution becomes – whether it’s in Oakland, San Jose, or elsewhere.

Then again, why bother? It’s not as if the A’s matter to baseball. Inertia, thy name is Selig.

07.11.12
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Revised interleague play coming

During yesterday’s press conference, Bud Selig was asked about what shape interleague play would take, now that realignment into two 15-team leagues has been locked in. Perhaps the most experimental notion was to reverse the advantage the two leagues currently have, by having pitchers hit in AL parks while deploying the DH in NL parks. For some of you it may seem blasphemous. I’m not partial to that change or the status quo. I can see some grumbling among fans in one-team markets, since as a fan you might pay to see a DH in your home park and he may be relegated to the bench in this scenario.

2013 MLB divisional realignment

For me, the bigger news is the change to scheduling. Under the new CBA, teams can play up to 20 interleague games per year. For most AL teams it’s 18, for NL teams it’s either 18 or 15. Now with fully balanced divisions and leagues, all teams can be expected to play 18-20 interleague contests per season. If MLB wants each division to play a scheduled interleague division straight up, that translates to 15 games per team, plus a certain number against the crosstown rival (if applicable). Since 15 games is not an even number, and because a team like the Mets is stuck getting hammered by the Yankees every year, the crosstown rival series may be trimmed to 3 games in one park or a 2+2 home-and-home set. In the latter scenario it’s still not an even number (19 total interleague games), so that odd number would have to be accounted for somehow.

Naturally, this means that for the A’s, they’d only play the Giants in Oakland every other year, a sure revenue hit. The A’s are the team that benefits most from the current 3+3 crosstown rival scheduling format, far more than the Chicago, LA, NY, or Beltway teams, all of whose attendance figures are less impacted by the crosstown series than the A’s.

Then again, it might be nice to have invading Giants fans only once every other year. They’re like in-laws, I guess.

I have a number of other questions about how the format will work:

  • When the AL West is playing the NL West with the established crosstown rivalries, will MLB hold to the reduced games? If it does, will it schedule another three-game series between teams in other divisions to get the total up to 18? (Math: 4 or 5 series x 3 games + 3, 4, or 6 vs. crosstown rival)
  • Since the crosstown rivalry series makes for efficient travel (the A’s played in SF at the end of a road trip this season, for instance), how much will MLB explore the 2+2 format?
  • Will some teams push for the opening and closing series as part of their interleague schedule? Or will they run away from it?
  • Will MLB try to force teams without natural rivals to lock in rivalries?

Selig has admitted that this is the kind of stuff that he geeks out about, and I’m kind of in the same boat with him there. Whatever your feeling on the changes, the result should be more equitable to all teams than the current format. Interleague play is no longer an annual aberration to be endured, it’s here all season long and it’s here for good.

07.10.12
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39 months and counting

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MLB Commissioner Bud Selig just had his midseason “state of baseball” presser prior to tonight’s All Star Game. He fielded numerous questions about expanded instant replay (not yet), the Mitchell Report (feel good about it), and TV blackouts (working on it). As for the A’s:

There’s a bottle of Balvenie DoubleWood sitting across from me as I write this, and even though it’s early it’s looking really good right about now.

06.15.12
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I got your lease right here!

In the world of pro sports, $85,000 is not much money. It barely pays for a month of a rookie minimum contract in MLB. It’s the rough equivalent of one decent section’s worth of revenue at a San Francisco Giants game, or the A’s typical daily parking take. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not much. For the City of San Jose, it might be a very important piece of leverage which the City can use against the San Jose SF Giants.

The Merc’s John Woolfork reports that the City wants to get more financial disclosures from the team before it authorizes $85,000 in maintenance funds for Municipal Stadium. The main thrust of the argument against the expenditure comes from a memo (PDF) jointly written by councilmembers Sam Liccardo and Pete Constant.

Finally, as we contemplate whether to continue subsidizing the rent and repair at Municipal Stadium or any other City facility, we should know the extent to which any related entity is financing litigation costing our taxpayers thousands of dollars. Extended delays caused by frivolous CEQA litigation could stall or prevent the most transformative private economic development project – a privately-financed half-billion dollar major league baseball stadium- in anyone’s memory. It would seem minimally sensible to know whether we’re paying for the bullets with which we’re being shot.

Indeed, why subsidize someone else’s antagonism? It’s not exactly neighborly of the Giants to continually come to the trough while suing the city.

Moreover, the memo shed some light on the sweetheart deal the SJ Giants have been getting from San Jose for years. The team is set up as a nonprofit, which is not entirely unique among minor league teams. Thanks to the Giants being a nonprofit, their rent at Muni starts at $1,000 per month. Think about that. The Giants pay less in rent than most apartment renters in San Jose, or the rest Bay Area for that matter. The Giants contribute to upkeep as part of the lease terms, as does the City. But keep in mind that whatever leasehold improvements the team makes can be a tax writeoff (one of many depreciation items), which makes it the costs only slightly more than trivial. And the nature of the improvements is important: the City has paid for structural maintenance and improvements, such as a new scoreboard, electrical equipment, and lockers. The Giants have paid for value-add items like flat screen TVs on the concourse. Next year, the last of the current lease, the Giants will pay $29,000 in rent, which is a tiny improvement.

The memo also compares the Giants’ deal with the Sharks’ lease at Sharks Ice (next door to Muni) and Team San Jose’s arrangement at the San Jose Convention Center. The Sharks paid $5.5 million over the last two years for capital improvements and debt service for Sharks Ice, in addition to $5.3 million in rent just last year alone at HP Pavilion. With the lease due for renegotiation next year, the SJ Giants will be lumped in with the A’s and Raiders, whose respective leases also expire in 2013. Just as you can expect the Oakland leases to reflect additional contributions from the teams, the same should be expected of the SJ Giants.

After all, the Giants definitely don’t need the nonprofit status they’ve had since the beginning of their existence in 1988. That might have made sense back then, when it wasn’t clear how well the community would support the franchise (Lew Wolff knows a little about that). The Giants are routinely one of the best gate performers in A-ball and have their operations almost completely subsidized by their SF parent club/owners. If the Giants want to keep operating as a nonprofit, per the next lease they should comply with the Council Policy 7-1 (PDF), which requires financial disclosures of nonprofits operating city facilities:

…under Council Policy 7-1, non-profit organizations obtaining use of city facilities at a reduced rent must provide a “certified financial statement, including sources of funding and any constraints applied to funds,” and the “City may require, prior to and during the lease/property use agreement, the submission of such additional information as may be needed.”

It would be the neighborly thing to do. If the Giants don’t like it, well, I’m sure there are plenty of other places ready to offer a sweetheart stadium deal. Then we’ll see what kind of blowback the Giants get for being both leeches and antagonists. The irony is delicious. Oh, and if you think this has no teeth, here’s some very interesting language from Council Policy 7.1:

A below market lease/property use agreement may be terminated by the City at any time for any of the reasons established in the lease/property use agreement…

– and –

The City will not enter into leases or property use agreements at below market rates to organizations engaged in political activities or to religious organizations that would use the leased premises to promote sectarian or religious purposes.

Can the Giants’ efforts to derail Cisco Field be called political? Not overtly, but there’s something there.

06.08.12
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Baer, Wolff had dialogue (really!)

Thanks to CSN’s Casey Pratt for going to the trouble of pulling quotes from two of The Game’s Newsmakers interviews with Larry Baer (Monday) and Lew Wolff (Thursday). For the most part, neither executive said anything substantive about the Giants-A’s stalemate, which means that once again, we’ve got to put up the proper image.

If you want to torture yourself by reading into the interviews, you can glean a few things about what has been happening:

  • Both Baer and Wolff are pointing to Commissioner Bud Selig to resolve the dispute.
  • Baer and Wolff have had an ongoing dialogue (negotiations) regarding territorial rights.
  • Baer backed off from saying that the Giants would welcome the A’s looking elsewhere, such as Sacramento. The Giants consider the Bay Area a two-team market.
  • Wolff continues to press that the plan is San Jose-or-bust.
  • Asked about what happened during Wolff’s meeting with Don Knauss, Wolff demurred and asked the interviewers (Tierney and Townsend) to ask Knauss.

Everything else we’ve heard before ad nauseum. This concludes your weekly non-update.

05.18.12
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The illusion of pendulum swings

There’s been a wide range of reaction from Bud Selig’s non-update yesterday.

  • Gwen Knapp: “No decision means ‘no’ to the A’s. They aren’t getting the rights to San Jose, not yet, not soon, not even over Larry Baer’s stone-cold corpse.”
  • Mark Purdy: “And no action was taken — although Wolff’s quotes do indicate the blue-ribbon panel’s findings back up his contention that none of the Oakland stadium ‘proposals’ amount to anything.” (Purdy also brought up a potential antitrust case on KNBR.)
  • Ray Ratto: “So [the owners] see no compelling reason to hurry toward a decision they don’t want to make anyway.”
  • Art Spander: “The solution to all this is for Wolff, who wants nothing to do with authorities and business people in Oakland, a place he doesn’t live, to reach a compromise.”
  • Robert Gammon: “…it seems clear that the Giants’ presentation was more persuasive and that the rest of the league has no intention of overruling the Giants’ opposition to the A’s move.”
  • Jon Heyman: “Some progress is seen in that a significant amount of discussion is being dedicated to the A’s to the point where the talk has moved from committees to baseball’s Executive Council.”
  • Buster Olney: “The time has come for Oakland Athletics owner Lew Wolff to start firing off lawsuits in effort to move to San Jose — or sell the team.”
  • Ken Rosenthal: “Do not get distracted by any of this. The A’s focus is still on San Jose. The focus of the entire sport is on how the A’s can get to San Jose.”
All of that came from a few rather innocuous quotes from Bud Selig. At this point it doesn’t matter what Selig did or didn’t say – the quotes have been twisted so completely that anyone can weave their own “truth” from owners meetings.

Here’s what we knew going into the meetings:

  • There would be no official action taken on T-rights.

That’s it. Both the A’s and Giants made presentations, which some believe is encouraging and some don’t. Former Giants managing partner Bill Neukom was present at the meetings, presumably to plead the Giants’ case. It seems likely that both teams will continue to make presentations at future owners meetings until a decision is made.

The decision thing is the issue. The sad truth of the matter is that MLB doesn’t have to decide anything anytime soon, just as Lew Wolff doesn’t have to sell the team anytime soon. The A’s will stay afloat via revenue sharing through the end of the CBA, and as long as Wolff and Billy Beane don’t get out in front of their skis in terms of payroll, the team should continue to make money. In that short-term vein, the “best interests of baseball” may be to keep the status quo. You could easily say that Selig is kicking the can down the road, where his eventual successor will have to resolve the dispute. You might also say that the tossed off comment about moving outside the Bay Area is strategic one meant to incite at least a little panic. That may have worked in Miami and Minneapolis, but it’s not going to work here. It never has.

Eventually that short-term position will end and be replaced by a long-term, permanent solution. That’s when some kind of decision will have to be made. Unfortunately for us A’s fans, we have no idea when that might happen. There’s certainly no urgency on the matter. Maybe MLB is waiting for the Giants to retire debt, though the prospect of the team refinancing some of the remaining debt creates a gray area in its own right. The post-redevelopment world hasn’t shaken out yet, and won’t for at least several months.

Until some of these variables settle, it’s in baseball’s best interests to keep both Oakland and San Jose in play. For Selig to kill either option would be poor strategy on his part. San Jose boosters and politicians may be frustrated, but at least the city has most of its pieces in place. Oakland is finally getting some momentum thanks to Don Knauss, though it’s too early to tell if that momentum is real and sustainable. As long as a decision isn’t made on San Jose that shuts out Oakland, another lease extension at the Coliseum can be negotiated. This vague flexibility even opens up the possibility that Fremont could re-enter the picture, perhaps as soon as the next elected mayor takes office in 2013.

The wildcard here would be if San Jose decides to unleash the legal hounds. Again, this is where I think Selig’s M.O. comes into play. As long as Selig can say, “We’re still studying this,” there’s no specific decision to point to that San Jose can build an antitrust case around. Sure, they can make threats, but until someone files a case it won’t mean much.

Until then, what we’ve got here is a Mexican standoff. How do those usually turn out?

05.17.12
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Update from May 2012 Owners Meetings

Piping hot updates from Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal and Sports Business Journal’s Eric Fisher. First Rosenthal:

;

Now Fisher:

In sum, no news, they’re still working on it and it may take longer to get right.

Selig deserves a lot of criticism for not being more decisive on this matter, but he is absolutely right about the issue being very complicated. Then again, he gets paid $18 million a year to run baseball. It’s his job to deal with complicated issues.

Update 11:26 AM – The media AP is running with the “move out of Oakland” story.

Update 11:47 AM – For added context, a Jon Heyman article yesterday had Bill Neukom at the meetings this week. The fact that he’s still representing the Giants indicates that he’s still the lead for the team on the T-rights issue. Like it or not, he casts a shadow.

Update 2:44 PM – As predicted in the comments, Lew Wolff had to clean up Bud Selig’s mess.

“Number one, my only objective is to remain in the Bay Area,” A’s owner Lew Wolff said Thursday. “And based on all our studies, plus receiving no indication from the blue-ribbon committee that we missed anything, the only location we can find to build a ballpark that’s do-able is in downtown San Jose. I intend to do that. And we intend to invest half a billion dollars in private funds to do so.”

Cleaning up Selig’s mess. That’s what a fraternity brother is for.