Category Archives: Owners

09.13.13
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Earthquakes Stadium slips again to 2015

After what has to be considered the most excruciating site excavation ever, the Earthquakes revealed today that their stadium’s opening date is slipping (yet again) to 2015. The stadium was originally supposed to open in 2014 after last year’s groundbreaking ceremony. Then it slipped to midseason as crews encountered difficulties clearing the former defense plant of underground concrete bunkers and various other surprises found on site.

The full scope of the site-related work could only be determined when the work was fully underway, and the site-related work has continued to take longer than expected. Beyond the complications announced in July, there have been additional complexities in connecting the stadium to the city sewer system, and the high water table has slowed the site utility phase.

“Projects of this size and scope often encounter delays, especially with the amount of demolition and site preparation we had to do. What is most important is that we build a great stadium that will stand the test of time for our fans and this community,” Kaval elaborated.

Despite the complications at the site, progress has been made on the project. Demolition and grading are now complete and the site utilities have been installed. Additionally, the footings are currently being placed. The next steps in the process will be the pouring of the foundations for both the stadium and team building, followed by the steel erection. The steel has been ordered through Schuff Steel and is currently being fabricated in Stockton. The team office building is scheduled to be erected in November, followed by the stadium bowl in late December.

Well, at least they’ve ordered the guts of the new stadium. It’s just amazing that the 49ers stadium, which is nearly four times the size and well past ten times as expensive, will open before the Earthquakes’ digs. All because the site was cleaner to start. Beware, all you who think you can build on brownfields quickly. Something lurks beneath the surface.

09.11.13
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Roger Noll declaration

Economist and Stanford Professor Emeritus Roger Noll made a declaration in support of the City of San Jose’s antitrust lawsuit against Major League Baseball. He also provided a (presumably paid for) analysis of the issues at stake. The following is Professor Noll’s complete statement. A PDF version is available here.

DECLARATION OF EXPERT WITNESS ROGER G. NOLL

1. My name is Roger G. Noll. I reside in Palo Alto, California. I am Professor Emeritus of Economics at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, where I am Co-Director of the Program on Regulatory Policy. My educational background includes a B.S. in mathematics from the California Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. My complete curriculum vita is attached as Appendix A.

2. My primary area of scholarship is the field of industrial organization economics, which includes antitrust economics and the economics of specific industries. I have taught antitrust economics at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. I am the author, co-author, or editor of thirteen books, and the author or co-author of over 300 articles. Many of these publications deal with antitrust economics. I also have published extensively on the economics of sports, including Sports, Jobs and Taxes, co-edited with Andrew Zimbalist, which deals with the economic impact of sports teams and facilities and for which Professor Zimbalist and I wrote a chapter on the implications of the economic impact of teams and facilities for antitrust policy.

3. I have served as a consultant in antitrust litigation, including matters pertaining to sports. I have served as an economic expert for the players’ association in all major U.S. team sports (baseball, basketball, football, hockey, and soccer) on the economic effects of restrictions on competition in markets for the playing services of professional athletes, including testimony at trial in Freeman McNeil, et al., vs. National Football League (U.S. District Court, Minnesota) and John Mackey vs. National Football League (U.S. district Court, Minnesota). In Bernard Parrish, et al., vs. National Football League Players Association (U. S. District Court, Northern District of California) I testified on behalf of the players’ association about the value of licensing rights for retired NFL players.

4. Other cases in which I have testified at trial in recent years are the following:

• In re Application of MobiTV Related to U.S. vs. ASCAP (U.S. District Court, New York City);

• Reggie White, et al., v. NFL: Lockout Insurance & Lockout Loans (U.S. District Court, Minneapolis);

• SmithKlein Beecham d/b/a GlaxoSmithKline vs. Abbott Laboratories (U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, Oakland);

• Novell vs. Microsoft (U. S. District Court, Salt Lake City);

• DVD CCA vs. Kaleidescape (Superior Court, San Jose); and

• In the Matter of Adjustment of Rates and Terms for Pre-existing Subscription and Satellite Digital Audio Radio Service (Copyright Royalty Board, Washington, D.C.).

5. In addition to the cases in which I have testified at trial, I have submitted expert reports and/or been deposed in numerous matters. I have also testified before the U.S. Congress on antitrust and sports matters on numerous occasions.

ASSIGNMENT

6. Attorneys for Plaintiffs have asked me to analyze Plaintiffs’ allegations in this matter to determine the economic evidence and analysis that would be used to prove liability in support of their claims. In undertaking this task I have read the Complaint, which was filed on June 18, 2013. I also have read Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss, filed on August 7, 2013. Finally, I have made use of information that has been collected from other public sources and my four decades of research on the economics of sports.

7. The purpose of this Declaration is to provide a preliminary analysis of the economic issues in this litigation before discovery has taken place. Hence, I reserve the right to revise my analysis and amend my conclusions on the basis of new information that has not yet become available. In particular, I understand that this Declaration is being submitted in connection with settling of the pleadings and that I am not being asked to opine on the merits of the claims. I would like to have the benefits of the complete discovery record before reaching my conclusions on the merits.

ANALYSIS

8. The objective of an antitrust economics analysis of liability is to determine whether conduct by Defendants caused harm to the competitive process. Ultimately, harm to the competitive process means harm to consumers, in this case sports fans. My main conclusion is that preventing the Oakland Athletics baseball team from moving to San Jose causes harm to competition because relocating to San Jose would substantially increase the potential fan base and attendance of the team.

9. Major League Baseball (“MLB”) is made up of thirty teams. These teams are economic competitors in many markets, including markets for players, coaches, regional television rights, and product licenses. If teams are geographically close, they also compete for attendance among sports fans in a local area. Presently MLB has local teams that compete for attendance in Baltimore-Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and the Bay Area.

10. Economics research and prior litigation have concluded that each major professional sports league in the U.S., including MLB, possesses market power in the provision of major league games in its sport in North America. Among the ways that MLB exercises its market power is by controlling the number and geographic location of major league baseball teams in North America. MLB has adopted rules that define the “home territory” of each team in the league and that place restrictions on franchise relocation. For now irrelevant historical reasons MLB has placed San Jose in the home territory of the San Francisco Giants, even though a team in San Jose would be less of a direct competitor to the Giants than is a team in Oakland because San Jose is much further than Oakland from the Giants’ home stadium.

11. One domain of competition in MLB as well as other professional sports is competition among cities to attract or to retain a team. Economics research shows that the financial success of a baseball team depends on the economic and demographic characteristics of its home territory, the quality of its home stadium, and the financial terms and other arrangements concerning the stadium. Cities actively compete for baseball teams on the basis of agreements that they offer to a team concerning a home stadium. The alleged anti-competitive conduct in this case is Defendants’ inhibition of competition and restraint of trade through the application of restrictions on team relocation which are preventing the City of San José from competing with the City of Oakland for the Athletics Baseball Club (Athletics).

12. Economists who have studied the location of teams in a league have concluded that in some circumstances a league has a reasonable business justification for restricting relocation. In particular, because the success of a league depends on the financial success of each team, leagues have a valid interest in assuring that each team will enjoy sufficient popularity in its home territory to be financially viable. This pro-competitive justification does not apply to MLB’s refusal to allow the Athletics to move to the City of San José.

13. San Jose is much more attractive than Oakland as a home location for a baseball team for several reasons. First, San Jose has a much larger population base, and so substantially greater potential home attendance for a local team. Second, San Jose is located in the Silicon Valley, which is the corporate home to many of the world’s leading high technology companies. This feature of San Jose is important because an increasingly important component of the revenue of a major league sports team is the sale of luxury boxes and other reserve seating to corporations, law firms, and wealthy individuals. Third, San Jose has identified and made available to the Athletics a location for a new stadium that will be a substantial improvement over the facility and location where the Athletics currently play. For these reasons San Jose is a much more attractive home territory for the Athletics than Oakland. Moreover, relocation to San Jose is financially attractive to the Athletics precisely because it increases total economic output, which in sports is the number of fans in attendance.

14. Competition in the local market for major league baseball would be enhanced if the Athletics relocate to San José. By increasing the potential revenue of the Athletics, relocation to San Jose would increase the financial incentive of the Athletics to field a team of higher quality. Making the Athletics more competitive would intensify competition between the Athletics and the San Francisco Giants, the other Bay Area major league baseball team.

15. MLB has not yet set forth its complete business justifications for preventing the movement of the Athletics to San Jose, so a full analysis of this issue is not feasible at this time. In antitrust economics, a restriction on competition can be justified only if it is reasonably necessary to achieve a pro-competitive objective, which is defined as an improvement in performance that benefits consumers. Given that San Jose is substantially more economically attractive than Oakland as a home location for the Athletics, the only plausible reason for preventing relocation of the Athletics to San Jose is to protect the Giants from more intense competition from the Athletics.

16. Protecting an incumbent firm from losing business to a more efficient competitor is never a reasonable business justification for a restriction on competition. In this instance, such protection is especially unwarranted. Since moving to their new stadium in downtown San Francisco, the Giants are among the most successful teams in MLB. Indeed, the success of the Giants since relocating to a new and much superior stadium illustrates why the quality and location of a stadium is extremely important to the success of a team. While the Giants will experience more intense competition from the Athletics if the latter move into a much better stadium in San Jose, historical experience with stadium improvements demonstrates that increased attendance at home games of the Athletics will not come at the expense of the Giants, just as the Giants’ improved attendance since relocating to downtown San Francisco has not come primarily at the expense of the Athletics.

I declare that the foregoing is true to the best of my knowledge and belief. Executed on September 6, 2013 at Stanford, California.

ROGER G. NOLL

09.07.13
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Raiders want to build at current Coliseum site, whither the A’s?

Absent a short or long-term lease at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, the Raiders made an unusual request of the Coliseum Authority (JPA): they want to build a new stadium on the site of the current Coliseum.

That’s a departure from the commonly held belief that the Raiders wanted a stadium next to the current one, in the Coliseum’s B Lot. Should the JPA take up the Raiders’ request, both the Raiders and A’s would be unable to play in the Coliseum as the old one was torn down and a new one built. Of course, this isn’t necessarily a problem for the Raiders, since they could become roommates with the 49ers in Santa Clara for a few years while all of the upheaval occurred. As for the A’s, they’d be out of a place to play.

Of all the different ways we all considered how this dance could play out, the Raiders wanting the Coliseum to themselves in this way did not climb to the top of the list. If you think about it for a minute, it makes sense. What the Raiders want is what many teams want at their stadium sites – full control of the complex. All parking revenues, all signage, all ancillary event money, all of it. And I don’t blame them. If they say they’re going to put up $300+ million for the stadium, they want to ensure that they’ll get that back. Pushing the A’s out of the complex is the best way to do it because there’s much less chance of the legal (and revenue-sharing) love triangle between the Raiders, A’s, and JPA that Mt. Davis wrought.

Lame duck JPA board Vice Chair Larry Reid knows what this means for the A’s and MLB.

Lew Wolff would be happy if that was the scenario that played out. He could tell Major League Baseball, ‘See, they didn’t want us. Look what they’re doing for the Raiders.’

Exactly. The JPA knows this and they don’t want to be caught throwing more good money after bad, in this case, a second Mt. Davis. We don’t know yet what commitments Oakland and Alameda County are willing to make, yet the Raiders are making demands. At least the Raiders have put some cards on the table. The City/County haven’t. And the A’s have no interest in playing.

Funny thing is that there’s still doubt about what revenue the Raiders could generate to back a new stadium that could cost upwards of $800 million to build. Yet they don’t have to prove anything at the moment. This is about getting the JPA to commit to one team over the other. This won’t make the A’s respond with a different stance in the least. They sent a lease offer to the JPA that accounted for this. And that puts the JPA in a very, very tough position.

The Raiders have options and they’re playing this like they’re ready to exercise any of them. They could go to Santa Clara. Mark Davis is in talks with LA, despite how unlikely that move sounds. They’re giving the appearance of a team that wants, but does not need, Oakland. I told all of you about a reckoning earlier in the summer. It’s starting.

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Update 9:15 PM – In an ESPN interview today, Mark Davis laid out more specifically what he wants. Most interesting is the news that he confirmed the 58,000-seat capacity stadium concept.

I’ve come to the conclusion that a 53,000-seat stadium, that we played in from the 60’s and all that, is basically what our market is. We’re not an 80,000-seat stadium, we’re not a 65,000-seat stadium, really, unless you’re winning every game and all that stuff. But those aren’t the hardcore fans that are there … for us the 53,000–seat stadium is good and maybe 5,000 club seats bring it up to 58,000 seats.

Like I said, Davis is laying down his cards.

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.

08.18.13
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Talking bobbleheads, giveaways, and expectations

The A’s held a 1973 team reunion on April 27. A raft of greats from that repeat championship team were on hand, including Sal Bando, Blue Moon Odom, Bert Campaneris, and Reggie Jackson, who was honored with a commemorative bobblehead.

While the weekend-long reunion went well, the bobblehead giveaway didn’t. Only 10,000 bobbleheads were available for the 31,292 in attendance, which left many who had waited long hours sans souvenir. It’s becoming a common theme: schedule a bobblehead day, line up a bunch of fans, someone inevitably goes home unhappy. Subsequent bobblehead days for Coco Crisp (in June) and Yoenis Cespedes (yesterday) attracted sellout crowds, leaving even more fans without a souvenir. It’s gotten to the point where if a fan is not in line several hours before first pitch, chances are he’ll go home empty handed.

A’s marketing guys Troy Smith and Travis LaDolce invited into the business offices in Oracle Arena before today’s game. I spoke with them for 90 minutes about all manner of giveaways and marketing strategy. Smith admitted that Reggie Jackson day was a debacle and that there was major room for improvement. To that end they bumped up the orders for both the Crisp and Cespedes giveaways from 10,000 to 15,000, a move they had to make months ahead of time in order to ensure prompt delivery. It’s all part of the guessing game the A’s front office constantly has to play regarding demand.

Collectible pins, which get far less attention than bobbleheads

Collectible pins, which get far less attention than bobbleheads

For instance, take yesterday’s game. Now that we’ve come to expect sellouts on bobblehead day, it’s natural to want greater quantities of items. Because of the parking situation associated with the circus next door at the arena, it was decided that the gates should open at 2:30, 90 minutes before the normal time. Throughout the day A’s marketing staff including Smith and LaDolce were monitoring the situation. D Gate, which appeared to be most heavily impacted, ran out of bobbleheads at 3:27 PM. However, by that point lines had fully dissipated so if you had walked up prior to 3:30, chances were good you’d get one. Chances were even better at the season ticket entrance, which usually is stocked well enough to handle giveaways past the point when other gates run out.

What wasn’t known about the game was that the A’s had only sold 25,000 tickets to the game 24 hours prior to first pitch. An incredible 10,000 tickets were sold as either walkups or online during that period. That’s rather typical these days due to the rather predictable number of advance tickets sold. Some additional amount were sold after Cespy won the Home Run Derby. The problem is that the A’s have to plan everything for each game well ahead of time, including staffing and giveaways. Staffing can be handled with some flexibility. Because of the lead times associated with giveaways, bobbleheads have almost no flexibility (well, except for the actual bobblehead itself).

Two other examples of this phenomenon occurred in the last several weeks. The first was on Grant Balfour Gnome Day (June 16), which was a full standing room only sellout. Walkup sales were so high that in the week prior to the game, the front office worried if only 25,000 would show up. On the Fourth of July, less than 27,000 showed up for a picnic blanket giveaway, which left the marketing crew (and me) baffled because the annual fleece blanket giveaway day typically goes gangbusters.

Now think about the leadup to yesterday. All sorts of things could’ve dampened attendance. Cespedes could’ve been eliminated early in the HR Derby. He could’ve been injured early in the season. The team might not have been in postseason contention. All of this comes into play, and if you’re working off a steady base of about 10-15,000 attendees, it can be difficult to justify bumping it up more. The easy thing to say is to order 30-35,000 right off the bat. Because of the team’s limited marketing budget, 35,000 bobbleheads would’ve negatively impacted some other promotional day, potentially getting rid of a promotion altogether. I asked about other teams that sell 40,000 or full capacity quantities such as the Brewers or Dodgers. Those teams can afford to do it because marginal tickets they sell in the leadup to the game are usually very expensive ($100 or more), so they have headroom to make up for it. The A’s have dynamic pricing, but even then prices might go up only 20-30% in the process. Sponsors attached to each giveaway have little say over the quantity since the giveaways have to be planned as early as November prior to the following season, and they generally don’t directly fund giveaway purchases. I pressed on with 35,000 items. Smith countered that the last thing the team wants is to have 5,000 left over. When I said the items could just be sold in the team store, he said (I’m paraphrasing here) that if that’s the case, they’re not a good promotional tool. The whole point is of giveaways is to get people in the park and to give them a special memento. Sell overstock in team store would defeat the purpose (though I suppose it would give the naming rights sponsor an avenue, hint-hint). Judging from the response at the Coliseum, it’s working whether the quantity is 10,000 or 15,000. He admitted that there may be room for more in the future, but it would all be linked to ticket sales since everything flows from there.

jamesvenes-bobblehead_chart

James Venes’ June chart showing different teams’ bobblehead giveaway figures

The chart above, put together by the inimitable James Venes independently from this article two months ago, shows the wide spectrum of bobblehead quantities for the various teams. The Brewers and Phillies give to capacity, the Giants and Dodgers are pretty close. Then again, those four teams surpass 3 million in attendance annually. The A’s are in the middle of the pack as far as the bobblehead-to-capacity ratio goes. Last weekend I attended the Ken Griffey Jr. day at Safeco Field. Despite a sure sellout crowd (47,000), they had only 20,000 bobbleheads. Like it or not, giving items to around 40% of the house is standard practice.

Over the years the A’s have tweaked the types of giveaways they’ve done. Gone are the cheapo caps of yesteryear as few people care about those. Smith showed me a commemorative back-to-back World Series champs pennant from 1974, to which his mother added “1974” in pen. I asked why there aren’t giveaway pennants anymore. Smith replied that people don’t seem to hold them in any value. I imagine the same thing could be said about the old end-of-season baseball card giveaways (remember how those were sponsored by Mother’s Cookies?). LaDolce had a similar pennant commemorating the A’s 1992 division crown, a moment that reflected the true end of the Haas era. Nowadays the stuff people want are collectibles, with bobbleheads at the forefront.

Troy Smith's assembled scorecards from The Streak. Note the attendance figures from each.

Troy Smith’s assembled scorecards from The Streak. Note the attendance figures from each. Game 20 isn’t there because Smith he was working the scoreboard that day.

When I was asked for future giveaway suggestions, I only had one: an A’s fan. Preferably an action figure or figurine with a gold jersey if that can be done. He/she might be donning a green cape or a Reddick luchador mask. I can’t speak to how racially non-specific it should be or to anatomical correctness. I’m sure it can be done. It would be a great acknowledgement of how faithful the hardcore A’s fan is, a kind of olive branch disguised as an in-joke. I’m no marketing genius, but I think it’d be cool. Accessories could be given away at future games. Besides, if the marketing folks have to order these before knowing what will happen with the notoriously volatile A’s roster, a good bet would be one thing Billy Beane can’t trade: a fan.

Yours truly posing with the three straight American League Championship trophies

Yours truly posing with the three straight American League Championship trophies

We talked about a great number of topics including the upper deck tarps, ballpark sites, the Josh Reddick effect, crossing over from being a lifelong fan to working for the team (as both Smith and LaDolce are), what it means to move from an old stadium to a new ballpark, and other matters. They showed me a prototype Green Day trucker hat to be given away at the end of the month, along with a hint about surprise guest they’re hoping to secure in time for the next Star Wars fireworks night. We didn’t talk about costs to produce items, though some of that information can be found elsewhere. I don’t know if our talk or the feedback from this article will effect change. The team has a fan committee that it listens to regularly. Smith and LaDolce were happy to talk to me at length. They read this blog, as do others around the league. Hopefully the kinks can be worked out to a happy medium. Maybe they can institute a ticket system like the kind employed for concert ticket sales or iPhone/iPad launches. There are ways to get these things in the hands of people that really want them. Until then, we’ll keep waiting in line. Thanks to Troy Smith and Travis LaDolce for inviting me into the inner sanctum for a little bit. I’m sure we’ll have more to chat about in due course. Maybe we’ll be talking action figures.

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P.S. – The team and bobblehead manufacturers can take months to work on items and still not get them exactly right. Case in point:

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.

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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.