Category Archives: News

08.25.13
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On Subsidies and Votes

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’re probably already familiar with my stance on public subsidies for sports teams. It has perhaps become more hardline over the years, as civic coffers have dried up and redevelopment died out. The ideas are pretty simple, and I don’t expect everyone to think the same way I do:

  1. Public money for stadia in the form of cash, loans, or bonds – whether or not secured by upfront taxes or fees – should never happen in this day and age.
  2. All new or renovated venues that do not require public money are generally good, as long as they don’t come with significant kickbacks for the team and developers.
  3. Any public assistance that goes beyond processing permits or planning work (providing land, money, or other benefits) should require a public vote over the terms of the deal.

Note that I haven’t specified dollar values for anything. That means that it doesn’t matter if a municipality provides $1 million or $1 billion in assistance – any assistance merits a referendum. There is no gray area at work.

As currently structured right now the Sacramento Kings’ new arena will not go to the ballot box. The City Council and Mayor Kevin Johnson have argued that a referendum isn’t necessary isn’t because no new general taxes are being levied. Councilman Steve Hansen (no relation to Seattle investor Chris Hansen – we’ll get to that in a bit) even argued in a forum earlier this week that because Sacramento’s airport received $1 billion in publicly-funded improvements without a vote, the arena shouldn’t either. That is utterly absurd. First of all, an airport in a major city is a pretty important piece of public infrastructure, incomparable to an arena, which is a luxury. Secondly, it’s foolish to use third grade-level reasoning to justify a political move such as this (“My friend’s parents let him stay out late, why can’t I?”). Not voting on airport improvements was arguably a bad move in the first place. Not voting on an arena would only compound that error.

An anti-arena group, STOP, emerged as the only entity with enough cash to fund a petition drive that would’ve put the arena on a ballot. STOP’s origins were murky, as it was connected to Loeb & Loeb, a Southern California law firm associated with the Maloof family (former Kings owners). Initially that led to accusations that the Maloofs funded STOP. It turns out that the aforementioned Chris Hansen had actually funded STOP to the tune of $100,000. The non-disclosure and solicitation of the contribution(s) were all state campaign-reporting violations. Hansen eventually admitted his part in the subterfuge and apologized, explaining that he wouldn’t fund the campaign further. Arena advocates are rightly incensed and not satisfied with Hansen’s apology, going as far as asking the hedge fund manager to pull back all gathered signatures. In addition, STOP pulled some shady tactics in misrepresenting aspects of the arena plan, which has caused several thousand petition signers to request their names be removed.

Messy, right? This brouhaha didn’t start with Hansen or pro-arena forces. It started with the need for a referendum. Since the City decided the arena didn’t need one, the anti-arena political machine geared up to get enough signatures to force one. That got another group going in defense of the plan, trying to head off the petition drive at the pass. All of it, and I mean all of it, is unsavory. There’s a very simple, easy way to resolve this once and for all: just allow the referendum to take place. Even if the delay counts for several months it shouldn’t materially impact the construction plan, which has numerous pieces to work out including a potential eminent domain land acquisition. If the pro-arena forces are as confident as they say they are about the plan, there’s no reason to skip this crucial civic step. Mayor KJ has called the arena the biggest project in the City’s history. Shouldn’t the biggest project in the City’s history be confirmed by plebiscite? Forget the dirty politics, the real and phony outrage. Let it all air out in a real campaign. Sacramento voters at least deserve that amount of respect.

Plus, let’s not forget that one famous Sacramentan was caught on the other side of this divide. Last year I wrote about Gregg Lukenbill’s plot to kill the original China Basin ballpark in 1989 with mailers targeting San Francisco voters, all part of a plan to coax the team northeast along I-80 to land next to ARCO (Sleep Train) Arena. (An even more revealing account can be found at The California Fix.) Why no outrage? Because that’s part of the game. It’s also part of the past. After all, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan certainly picked up a few votes after the revelation that Lew Wolff donated $25k to presumed frontrunner Dom Perata’s campaign in 2010. How’d that work out in the end for Oakland?

Eventually, San Francisco got new ownership in that were willing to spend their own money on a ballpark, with minimal city assistance (land, infrastructure). Even that plan ended up in a referendum, one that won in a landslide. Santa Clara’s 49ers stadium plans received legitimacy thanks to their victory at the ballot box, as did San Jose’s arena plans. Meanwhile, Oakland pushed Mt. Davis (and arena renovations) through without a city or county vote to disastrous effects, and pols are hinting at even more stadium plans that won’t require referenda. Are these people nuts? Have some respect for your citizens, politicians. Allow for campaigns. Allow the citizens and fans to be fully educated on the issues. You owe them that much. Sure, campaigns are expensive. The billionaires and millionaires who want these projects can afford campaign costs, they’ve seen and done it before. Chances are that they’ll outspend opponents 10:1. They have the resources. That’s fine. That’s the way the process works. The track record, at least in this state, is that allowing proper vetting of stadium projects is good for all concerned. If stadium and arena proponents aren’t willing to accede to a referendum request, it’s worth wondering what they’re hiding.

08.24.13
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Kawakami interviews Mark Davis about Coliseum plans

Say what you will about Tim Kawakami, but he’s the only local columnist talking Raiders’ (and Warriors’) stadium issues. He got a little time in with Raiders owner Mark Davis, who didn’t crack. Davis did, however, reveal some of his motivations for moving the way he has.

Davis continues to not consider Santa Clara as an option after 2013. He said that the team is still only talking to the JPA (Coliseum Authority) about a lease extension, with no actual negotiation yet on a long-term deal – which he prefers. Asked why he prefers a long-term deal, he replied:

(A short-term extension) doesn’t seem to be something that I want to do. I don’t see where that does any good.

If you go back and look at when we did the three-year extension last time, and you look at the quotes from the politicians and the people around, they said, ‘Great, now we’ve got an opportunity to work on a long-term deal with the Raiders.’

If we do it again, then it’s, ‘Great, now we’ve got a long time to work on a long-term deal with the Raiders.’ I think we’ve got to get a little more urgency about it.

Pretty subtle dig at the JPA and Oakland/Alameda County pols there. It’s a good move for Davis strategically, since it will eventually force the JPA to make commitments to a timeline and some minimal level of funding if they really want to keep the Raiders in town. If they’re reticent to make a deal, Davis can turn to Roger Goodell and say, See, I tried. Davis certainly sounds sincere about his stance, though it would be crazy if he didn’t take calls from interested municipalities. He also revealed that he was able to buy out a minority partner, bringing the family’s share of the team to above 50%.

Kawakami brought up Cal’s Memorial Stadium as a temporary venue option. Davis didn’t discount the possibility, but his response showed that he hadn’t considered it much either:

Sure. I mean, if they’d want us. We’ve done it before. There’s some… things about Berkeley that wouldn’t be optimal–the parking and all of that stuff is always tough.

But at the same time, if it’s (there’s a need to play elsewhere for a while) for a new stadium… and we like Berkeley. I think what they’ve done with the new stadium is great.

The issue at Memorial Stadium is a legal one. Neighbors who fought the stadium renovation project hard got a settlement in 2010 that placed a cap on the number of high-capacity events at the stadium and prohibited NFL games as well.

Contrast the Davis’s and Wolff’s positions on lease extensions at the Coliseum. Davis wants a long-term deal that includes a replacement Coliseum with untold amounts of public and private money. Wolff prefers a five-year, short-term extension that allows him to build a privately-funded stadium in San Jose. Neither owner has lashed out at the other or the team, instead calling the shared-stadium situation something their respective teams have to suffer through.

At the moment it doesn’t look like the two teams’ extension will be wrapped up before the end of the baseball season, at the very least. That will only put more pressure on the JPA to make commitments. The timeline will also coincide with a building Oakland mayoral race, which has gone from having few challengers to incumbent Jean Quan to several. It’ll be interesting to see how the sports teams are treated and cited on the campaign trail. Sports may be the one of the highest profile things about the City, but it’s also one of the trickiest to manage.

08.20.13
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A’s recommit to Stockton Ports through 2016

Happy news out of the Delta today, as the Stockton Ports and Oakland Athletics have re-upped their Player Development Contract (PDC) that keeps the Ports as the High-A, California League affiliate of the A’s through 2016. There was no drama associated with the announcement because there were no rumors of affiliation moves recently.

STOCKTON, Calif.-The Oakland Athletics and Stockton Ports have jointly announced the extension of their Player Development Contract (PDC) through the 2016 season. Prior to this new two-year extension, the A’s and Ports had signed a two-year agreement April 15, 2010 for the 2013 and 2014 seasons.
“It is great to see so many former Stockton Ports making an impact in Oakland,” said Filippone, the Ports’ president.

“The Athletics are a first-class organization, and we are eager to continue building upon the tradition in Stockton as an A’s affiliate well into the future”.

Media availability has been scheduled for Tuesday August 20th from 6:30-6:55 in the Ports front office with Athletics Assistant General Manager David Forst and Ports President Pat Filippone. A pregame ceremony will immediately take place at 7 p.m. recognizing the extension agreement on the field prior to the Ports/San Jose Giants contest.

The Stockton Ports are one of the A’s five minor league affiliates, joining the Triple-A Sacramento River Cats (Pacific Coast League), Double-A Midland RockHounds (Texas League), Low-A Beloit Snappers (Midwest League), Low-A Vermont Lake Monsters (New-York Penn League)

The California League has proven to be one of the more stable minor leagues in baseball, with the biggest coming in 2005 when the A’s organization dropped Modesto for Stockton and its new ballpark. Bakersfield is getting new digs next year, further contributing to that stability.

08.17.13
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Selig to the rescue in Tampa

I hope that when Bud Selig makes his expected perfunctory visit to the Tampa Bay area, he wears a cape. Or maybe a mask. Something to signify that he is the man with a plan to fix all that ails the Rays and the market.

Chances are Selig won’t do anything other than make that visit. He’ll decry the attendance woes at Tropicana Field. He’ll continue to say that the team needs a long-term solution. Yet when he attempts to proselytize St. Pete Mayor Bill Foster and other pols, he’ll do so with the knowledge that he has very little leverage in the matter.

Simply put, the Rays are stuck at the Trop through 2027. A plan to vacate the Trop by 2017 was floated a few years ago, with development proceeds used to pay off the remaining debt on the stadium. Obviously that plan went nowhere. Since then we’ve heard officials from neighboring Tampa and Hillsborough County express frustration that they can’t formally talk to Rays ownership without suffering a lawsuit from St. Pete. A developer’s plan to build in St. Pete across the Howard Frankland Bridge from Tampa has come and gone (for the time being, at least).

It’s a situation rich with irony. As MLB’s lawyers puff up to the point of arrogance against San Jose, The Lodge essentially powerless against St. Pete. The clear solution for them would be to cut a check to pay off the remaining ~$60 million in debt. $60 million doesn’t seem like that big a price to escape in the grand scheme of things, does it? Rays owner Stuart Sternberg refuses to name a specific amount he’s willing to pay. It sounds very similar to the impasse between the Giants and the A’s over territorial rights. Both sides have an unstated, unreasonable figure they prefer and have shown little interest in truly negotiating to get to a compromise amount.

Contrast that with our home situation, where the Giants have all the leverage over the A’s internally with MLB and MLB has leverage over San Jose. As we saw with MLB’s response to the antitrust lawsuit, they’re perfectly willing to shove the antitrust exemption in San Jose’s face when they feel they have power. What about in St. Pete, where they have little power? How about using ATE now, Bud?

them-apples

I got an ironclad lease, Bud. How do ya like dem apples?

It used to be that Selig didn’t have to don his cape and fly out from city to city. Instead he used right-hand man Bob DuPuy as his henchman. DuPuy has been out for a few years, so unless Selig is comfortable with Rob Manfred as his toady, poor old Bud’s gonna have to do it himself. But what can he do? Unless he’s promising something to St. Pete to protect the city even more than the existing lease, whatever he sells will probably fall on deaf ears. Before the season started Sternberg offered $1.42 million per year via a lease amendment just to explore sites outside St. Pete. Perhaps Selig will have to sweeten the pot.

The impasse seemed to break last week, when Foster admitted that the team should be able to look outside city/county limits. It was thought that the $1.42 million/year deal could be the key. Foster maintains that the team will have to finish its lease at the Trop, while a framework for the Rays to look elsewhere could be agreed upon. That sounds good except for the whole 2027 part. That’s 14 more years!

Look on the bright side. 14 years is a long time to save money. Bud should suggest a Rays ballpark layaway plan. That’s part of the way we fund infrastructure in California. The BART-to-Silicon Valley extension is being partly funded by accrued sales tax increment. Only when the revenues hit certain targets will the full extension to downtown San Jose take place. Both Tampa and St. Petersburg have indicated they have limited funds to throw at what will surely be a $600-800 million (in today’s dollars) stadium when all is said and done. Even with some sort of out-of-the-box financing plan, there still will be a major public component, which is unsavory to say the least.

Then again, a layaway plan would be a lot more than what Selig has proposed to resolve the A’s-Giants’ T-rights kerfuffle. Don’t expect much substance from Selig. It’s been 53 months since Selig convened a panel to look into the A’s situation, with no resolution in sight. He has 17 months left as commissioner unless he chooses to get himself re-elected again. All of Selig’s recent activity regarding PEDs and replay suggest a man that wants to burnish his legacy before leaving. What about these tough, infighting oriented problems in Oakland and Tampa Bay? They’re probably left for Selig’s hand-picked successor. Hopefully that guy has more spine. And a cape, while he’s at it.

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P.S. – For my Tampa Bay ballpark news counterpart, check out WTSP investigative reporter Noah Pransky’s Shadow of the Stadium blog. Exemplary work by a legit journalist, not some mere blogger (such as myself).

08.15.13
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Battle: Field

Raiders owner Mark Davis was interviewed during Friday’s home exhibition opener at the Coliseum against the Cowboys. Davis left no doubt about how he felt about sharing the Coli with the A’s, calling the situation a “travesty“.

Just as the A’s and MLB complain about the state of the field when the Raiders invade the Coliseum every August, the Raiders and the NFL complain about the dirt infield dominating the football field. While that has proved to be something of a home field advantage because of Sebastian Janikowski’s well-developed skill in kicking off the brown stuff, the Polish cannon is not going to be around forever. Every other team has either a pristine grass or fake grass field, and frankly the Raiders should have the same conditions in today’s era.

081313-notbad

The baseball configuration 96 hours after the first Raiders game doesn’t look that bad.

Three more conversions to the football setup are planned through the rest of the baseball regular season. Another two or three could occur if the A’s reach the postseason and go deep. There’s an especially tricky period from September 29 to October 6, which will have two Raiders home games sandwiching an indeterminate number of A’s home postseason games. The home dates could be a division tiebreaker, wild card game, part of the best-of-five divisional series.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and the other franchise owners are monitoring the Oakland situation continually, with the knowledge that the Raiders’ lease expires at the end of the season. The ratcheted up rhetoric by Davis and the Raiders’ broadcast team is no coincidence. The state of the field is a wedge issue in lease negotiations for both tenants at the Coliseum, with both teams basically saying that they’d rather have the field in their preferred condition. Of course, the only way to truly get that is to get the other tenant to leave. The A’s and Raiders have a friendly and professional relationship so you won’t see them going after each other. Instead they’ll send their gripes the JPA’s way.

At the moment the Raiders have an advantage over the A’s in their respective lease talks due to their ongoing dialogue with the JPA over Coliseum City. However, the A’s need the field ready sooner because their season starts in April. In fact, lease decisions will have to be made in the fall because decisions have to be made about when to start growing grass and rebuilding the infield, a process that usually starts in late January or early February. And you can bet that MLB, which has stayed hands off for the moment, will have no choice but to get involved if there’s a threat of the A’s being “homeless” for 2014.

Davis has said previously that even a temporary lease at the Coliseum is tied to development of a new stadium at the Coliseum complex, which only serves to make negotiations even more complicated. Perhaps the Raiders can commit with only a tentative agreement on how to move forward with Coliseum City. The feasibility study should be complete in a month or so, whereas an EIR is still ongoing.

With all of the lease factors in play, let’s talk about what has to happen next. A Raiders lease extension will need to be finalized well before the end of the season, probably as early as November. The same goes for the A’s because of the earlier start. If the teams are forced to share, there may be a way to minimize the conversion impact. That would probably include the A’s playing late season games at AT&T Park, allowing for the “permanent” football conversion to commence earlier, or the Raiders playing preseason games in Santa Clara (which makes more sense for the A’s). The JPA has to be careful not to appear as if they’re playing favorites, considering that both tenants don’t need much impetus to bolt. Davis may not have formal discussions with anyone in LA, but he’s probably getting a lot of whispers. We know that Lew Wolff only wants to stay long enough to get a San Jose ballpark built.

For now, let’s shelve the possibility that one of the tenants will move. We’ll have the chance to talk about the more drastic scenarios in posts I’ve scheduled for the weekend. Let’s assume that both will stay for now. What do you think the JPA, Oakland, and Alameda County will need to do to keep the teams happy?

08.07.13
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MLB asserts antitrust exemption in filing motion to dismiss San Jose lawsuit

MLB filed a motion to dismiss San Jose’s antitrust lawsuit today. The 32-page filing claims that the City’s only agreement with the A’s is the land option on the Diridon ballpark site, and nothing else. This was to be expected.

Perhaps more interestingly, MLB asserted the very thing being attacked, baseball’s antitrust exemption, in the motion. It didn’t have to do this, yet it did and in the process, kind of rubbed the City’s face in it. From page 13:

To withstand a motion to dismiss, Plaintiffs must plausibly demonstrate that Defendants committed an act that is “proscribed by some constitutional, statutory, regulatory, common law, or other determinable legal standard.” Id. at 1159. Here, the only independently wrongful act that Plaintiffs have asserted is an antitrust violation. Since Defendants are exempt from antitrust regulation here, there is no “independently wrongful act.”

In addition, MLB says that it is no “stranger” to the relationship between the A’s and San Jose because of baseball’s covenant including the member clubs. One of the key claims is that since San Jose is not a part of MLB, only a city hoping to host a MLB club, the City has no standing. Consider what that message effectively says to all cities: The teams matter, you don’t.

The motion reads as a pretty vigorous defense of MLB’s business practices, and shows that baseball is intent on not allowing those practices to be changed. Plaintiffs will have a chance to respond before the initial hearing, and just like this filing and the initial filing, it promises to be juicy reading.

I’ll let the armchair legal experts sound off in the comments. The best ones will be added to this post.

08.02.13
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Stand for San Jose launches second lawsuit against City of San Jose

Earlier this week I added a section to the sidebar called Lawsuits so that people could easily find references to the ongoing legal battles among the City of San Jose, MLB, and the Giants. Little did I know at the time that the section would have to be expanded. Yet here we are with now a third lawsuit to keep track of. This time it’s between the same Giants-lawyered astroturf group that filed the first lawsuit, Stand for San Jose, and the City of San Jose.

Santa Clara Superior Court Case 1-13-CV-250372, filed Wednesday, seeks to challenge the transfer of the Diridon ballpark site [thanks John Woolfolk of the Merc] to the Successor Agency (SARA), whose oversight board is composed of San Jose and Santa Clara County representatives. In March, the State Controller ruled that the transfer of the Diridon parcels to the separate Diridon Development Authority was not allowed, which forced the City to hand over the properties to SARA. At the time, SARA had its own objections to the ruling, namely that it felt it had a deal with A’s ownership by virtue of the option inked in November 2011. The Controller ruled that the November deal came after the cutoff date proscribed by AB 1X26, whereas the City said that the date was meaningless. Naturally, the Controller stuck with its original ruling, which led to the June transfer of the land to SARA.

Keep in mind that the land wasn’t transferred or sold to the A’s. It was only moved from one governmental body to another as defined by the new law. The option was signed by the A’s, with the only obligation within the first five years being that the A’s pay a nominal annual fee.

S4SJ’s argument is that the option isn’t valid at all because of the ruling. It’s a strange set of circumstances because in the other lawsuit, S4SJ is challenging the entirety of the ballpark deal on three issues:

  • The EIR was “incomplete” (despite having been certified for two different-sized stadia and with updated traffic studies)
  • The deal would take funds away from schools and city services (hard to argue because per the terms of the AB 1X26, city/county/schools have to be made whole)
  • The deal was done without a public vote (City was dissuaded from holding a referendum by Bud Selig).

Now S4SJ is going after the SARA transfer, but what they’re really after is the option. The option is a basic tenet of San Jose’s lawsuit against MLB, and if S4SJ can disarm that threat the antitrust suit would take a big hit. The argument is that there’s no option because the Controller ruled against the transfer to DDA. But that’s as far as the Controller’s power goes. Once the land ends up in SARA’s hands, it can dispose of it as it sees fit, including to the “late” A’s. The Controller and SARA went back and forth after the final ruling. From the Controller’s final ruling:

The City feels that this finding is “simply form over substance and wastes valuable time, energy and resources to arrive at the same result;” however, the legislation is clear that the oversight board shall have the authority to dispose of all assets and properties of the former redevelopment agency (Health and Safety Code Section 34181 (a)). Any attempt to deny the oversight board its rights would be thwarting the intent of the legislation.

SARA’s argument is that the deal with the A’s was going to happen with either DDA (transfer upheld) or SARA (transfer rejected). Which is exactly what happened. San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed telegraphed the strategy at the time. Did the deal not count because the Controller ruled it was late? Is it a deal because of the technicality the City is trying to argue? Or is it a deal regardless?

The real question is, How quickly can S4SJ get a ruling on this? I have no idea how this lawsuit would proceed through the system, especially because it has a related case just starting its trial phase in the fall. S4SJ attorney Ronald Van Buskirk indicates that the two S4SJ lawsuits will be combined, likely creating further delay. Importantly, the new suit names SARA as a party. SARA didn’t exist when the original lawsuit was filed.

Woolfolk notes that the San Jose Giants aren’t a plaintiff/petitioner, which would presumably protect the lawsuit from the discovery actions taken by the City last summer. Still, it’s clear that the SF Giants are behind the whole thing since this move was timed a few weeks after the antitrust lawsuit – just as the S4SJ lawsuit was filed a month after the A’s option deal was struck. At this point, all of the players must have a good idea what moves can and will be played by their counterparts.

Armchair legal experts, have at it.

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P.S. – I have a request or two. Please try to stay on topic, and also try to stay away from the usual “XXXX Sucks” type of discourse. If all you’re going to do is vent, I’ll probably delete it. Bite a towel or something.

07.29.13
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Earthquakes Stadium opening delayed until 2H 2014

If you’ve been following the (lack of) progress in getting the Airport West/FMC site ready for an 18,000-seat soccer stadium, you’d know that they been finding some interesting and unusual things in the excavation process. Just about everywhere there have been thick foundation work, underground facilities, and in keeping with the site’s previous life as a munitions manufacturer, bomb shelters. Both President Dave Kaval and Lew Wolff have been backtracking in recent months about opening the stadium in time for the 2014 MLS season, and today’s announcement makes it official.

Unfortunately, the news creates a bit of confusion for fans, who until now have been sold on the prospects of a brand new stadium opening in March of next year, not June or July. Quakes management has a bit of a mess to deal with at the stadium site and at Buck Shaw Stadium, whose capacity is barely more than half of the new venue’s. Kaval will have a Google Hangout at 3:30 today, in which he’ll field questions from fans.

Several other MLS stadia have also experienced opening delays, including StubHub Center (LA Galaxy home, formerly Home Depot Center), Sporting Park (Kansas City), Saputo Stadium (Montreal), PPL Park (Philadelphia), and Toyota Park (Chicago). Utah’s Rio Tinto Stadium didn’t open until the end of the 2008 season, and even the first soccer specific stadium, Columbus Crew Stadium, was delayed long enough (mid-May 1999) to have the team embark on a lengthy road trip to start the season.

It just goes to show that having a site considered “shovel-ready” isn’t enough. Sometimes you need more than shovels.

07.28.13
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Giants propaganda invades A’s airspace

Normally when I see a plane in or around the Coliseum I tune it out, because it’s always an ad. I’m not interested.

During today’s game, apparently Budweiser went a bit too far with their plane-flown banner…

 

 

The plane and banner were courtesy of Anheuser Busch/Inbev, not the Giants directly. I suppose they got a two-for-one deal by flying the plane a few hours later over AT&T Park, if that happened. Whatever happened, I’m not outraged by it. I appreciate the moxie required to get that ad in the air. This after Budweiser opened one of its signature “Bowtie Bar” locations inside the Coliseum.

That said, I hope y’all don’t mind if I continuously laugh at the Giants’ current foibles. “Defending” World Champs in name only, not in effort, assholes.

Well, I guess it’s a good thing that the concept of territorial rights only applies to building ballparks on a site, not airspace, radio or TV airwaves, placing team stores, or any other extension of a team’s marketing machine.

One other thing – Support local craft beer!

07.26.13
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TV rights wave brings A’s along for the ride

When the A’s made the move to basic cable full-time, it was considered to be a solid, though not groundbreaking, improvement for the A’s in terms of revenue. More games would be broadcast (still not all games), and peripheral coverage would would improve via CSN California’s revamped local programming. While the second part would prove true, it wasn’t clear what financial benefits the A’s were getting. As late as last fall the rights fee being paid by Comcast to the A’s was kept hush-hush. I had heard the rights fee started at $15 million with escalators for improved ratings. Whatever the figure truly was, it wasn’t supposed to be terribly competitive within the new TV rights bubble, let alone the mega-deals signed by the LA teams and Texas.

Well, turns out that Lew Wolff and Ken Pries worked out a pretty good deal after all. In Wendy Thurm’s latest post on Fangraphs there’s a table that shows updated TV rights deals (courtesy of Sports Business Journal). The A’s are in pretty decent shape with a deal that works out to $43-48 million per year, which is a lot more than previously speculated or earned in the previous contract. $43+ million still pales in comparison to the Rangers’ or Angels’ $150 million, but those teams were playing a different game from the A’s anyway. The boost is enough to help the team competitively, not enough for management to start making a bunch of stupid personnel decisions. The annual rights fee puts the A’s at 11th or 12th depending on how you’re counting, squarely within MLB’s CBA-defined Top 15 markets.

Of course, the downside is that what looks good now could look puny a decade from now, when the A’s can exercise their first option to renegotiate or extend the CSNCA deal. Several teams will have the opportunity to renegotiate their deals or start their own RSNs before the end of the decade. Chances are good that they’ll do just that. Look for the A’s to follow suit a years later.

How the A's TV deal stacks up against division and crossbar rivals

How the A’s TV deal stacks up against division and crossbay rivals

Despite the added revenue, let’s be clear about something: the A’s are still last in the AL West in terms of TV revenue (and probably radio as well). I suppose that no A’s fan will care as long as the team keeps leading the division in the standings.

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Note: The SBJ article dates back to Opening Day. Either I missed it completely or I skipped over the updated figure. Apologies.