Category Archives: Owners

02.26.13
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New Sacramento-based bidding group for Kings emerges

In what has to be considered a potential game changer, a Sacramento group wants to buy the Kings and build a privately-financed arena to keep the team in town. The kicker is that the group is headed by current Kings minority partner John Kehriotis, who owns 12.2% of the franchise. According to FOX 40 in Sacramento, the plan is to spend $750 million to buy the Kings and build an arena at either of the downtown sites or elsewhere in the region. The group claims that their plan won’t require any public money, such as the pledging of parking revenues from the 2012 arena plan.

This surprise news comes before the expected unveiling of the “whales” group which could contain Ron Burkle and/or Mark Mastrov. That’s supposed to happen towards the end of the week, when the league-imposed deadline for Sacramento to make a proposal (March 1) comes. The City-backed plan includes a public-private partnership on a downtown arena.

An unnamed source within the Kehriotis group explained that the group has $350 million in hand and a verbal commitment for the remaining $400 million. The key to the Kehriotis group’s bid is that Kehriotis, as a minority partner, has a right-of-first-refusal clause for any team sale. When this was revealed last month, it wasn’t clear that any of the minority partners would be able to put together the resources to put in a bid. If Kehriotis can pull this off, it could be the best and most politically easy way to keep the Kings in the capital. As big as $750 million, it’s well under the $1 billion Seattle and the Hansen-Ballmer group expected to put into Sonics 2.0. In addition, I’ve thought for some time that the cost estimates for a Sacramento were lowball, with the true cost of the arena approaching $500 million when completed.

The Kehriotis bid would also have to come under scrutiny first. The list of failed NBA team buyers is long and generally forgotten, and in a competitive situation, ROFR doesn’t necessarily mean the Kehriotis bid will be accepted. The group will undergo the same kind of vetting Hansen-Ballmer is getting, though Kehriotis’s status as a partner in the Kings should automatically generate some goodwill. The issue for the NBA will be the group’s ability to pull together all of its financing plan, which considering the size of the market, is extremely aggressive. It even contradicts a City staff report released Monday ahead of Tuesday’s city council meeting, which states that a fully private arena would not be “not economically viable” in Sacramento.

Unlike the NFL and MLB, there are a number of privately financed and owned arenas throughout the NBA, spanning both older venues (Madison Square Garden, The Palace of Auburn Hills, EnergySolutions Arena) to newer ones (Staples Center, Rose Garden). The Warriors plan to build their own privately financed arena with the league’s approval. If the Kehriotis group can make the numbers work, David Stern and the Board of Governors may see the arena as the path of least resistance. Both the Seattle arena plan and the main Sacramento plan involve large pledges of public money, which are subject to public review and referenda in all likelihood.

Ironically, the Kehriotis bid is sort of a double-edged sword for Sacramento, whose Mayor, Kevin Johnson, has been making the rounds and working the phones to put together a big bid of their own. With a public that is already predisposed to oppose a large public investment for an arena, citizens could easily look at Kehriotis and proclaim him the savior, rendering the “whales” bid and public arena investment unnecessary. There’s a delicate bit of negotiating at work here in that if both Sacramento groups’ ultimate goal is to keep the team in town without breaking the bank, one may have to step aside to avoid their own internal bidding war. Another possibility is the merging of groups to lighten the load, but if both have fundamentally different new arena plans and financing approaches, it may be difficult to come to a consensus. Besides, it’s a bit late to start merging plans.

Like the very hot Warriors sale situation in 2010, I would expect Stern and the BOG to simply pick the bid that works best for the league and the Maloofs. That means dollars, dollars, dollars. Stern will wake Tuesday morning to news of the Kehriotis bid, and I can’t imagine that he’ll be frowning about it.

02.22.13
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Estuary Park Presentation on A’s Fan Radio

If someone – anyone – discovers a ballpark site is being discussed or presented, and he lets me know about it, I’ll take the time to cover it. Even though ownership is only focusing on one site and the City of Oakland has its own two sites in mind, it doesn’t hurt to be open-minded about others. We may find the best of breed or dismiss something entirely. Either way we’re getting educated and informed about it. I enjoy covering it, and I hope you enjoy reading about it. That brings me to the Estuary Waterfront Project, a ballpark concept by Oaklander D’Sjon Dixon. Dixon, a native East Bay guy by way of the University of Wisconsin (as he pointed out, like Bud Selig and Lew Wolff), is an excellent artist and has some brought some fresh thinking to the often static world of stadia. During his segment on A’s Fan Radio, Dixon frequently talked about his ballpark’s goals of sustainability and its ability to enhance both the waterfront and the city.

EstuaryPark-corner-med

D’Sjon Dixon’s Estuary Waterfront Project would place a ballpark on the site of Estuary Park and the Jack London Aquatic Center along the Embarcadero in Oakland

Over the years Estuary Park has aroused curiosity about its ability to work as a ballpark site. It’s located east of Jack London Square, across the tracks from Victory Court. I’ve gone there multiple times and several people have asked me about it over the years. My immediate answer to them is that it’s too small. The park measures roughly 400′ x 240′ plus some estuary frontage of varying width. The Jack London Aquatic Center, which opened in 2001, is a somewhat triangular piece of land that’s also 400′ long and 300′ wide at its widest point. JLAC has a boathouse with a community room that can be rented out for events. Rounding out the landscape is the old Cash and Carry warehouse, which the City bought through its old redevelopment arm a few years ago. That parcel, including a parking lot, measures 440′ x 340′. In all, the land (which is all city-owned at this point) totals just over seven acres.

EstuaryPark-overhead-med

Overhead picture of Estuary Park, the Jack London Aquatic Center (bottom right), and the vacant Cash & Carry building. Yellow line across field represents 400 feet.

It’s not small just because of the acreage, it’s small because of a single dimension. In the picture above, the yellow line represents a reasonable buildable width including mandated setbacks and easements for the water and the apartment complex to the west of the land (top). 400 feet is simply not wide enough to hold a ballpark. A grandstand including the concourse will measure around 170 feet deep. Add to that 50 feet from the first row to home plate, and then at least 300 feet for a short porch to right field, and the ballpark becomes 520 feet wide. There simply isn’t room for that kind of structure on the land, unless you do something unorthodox.

EstuaryPark-north-med

Water view shows footprint of ballpark extending beyond existing Estuary Park footprint

To address this, Dixon took two unorthodox approaches. First, he disregarded the Estuary Park limitations and simply built more of the ballpark out into the water. I didn’t notice this until I saw more images on the project website. Notice the second pic’s taper from JLAC to the park, and how that no longer exists with the ballpark. Anyone who has spent any time reviewing CEQA knows that building anything new over what is currently water is for all intents and purposes forbidden in California. Even the Warriors arena is getting a great deal of static for aiming to build on piers, which of course aren’t land. Additional creation of land in the Bay, regardless of purpose, practically requires an act of god to make it happen. Remember the plan to extend SFO’s runways a decade ago? That would’ve required bay fill. It died on the vine. A similar effort for this ballpark, even if it required only a 100′ x 400′ slab (1/2 acre), would be laughed out of committee or ripped to shreds by Save the Bay, Waterfront Action, or the BCDC if it ever got that far. The Bay is what makes our region distinct, and people and groups have shown that they’re willing to defend it endlessly and to the death. The other unusual step Dixon took that baseball fans noticed is that he oriented the ballpark west-southwest, so that it would face JLS, Alameda Point, and in the distance, San Francisco. As we’ve discussed several times, MLB prefers its ballparks to face east or northeast. In some instances such as domes it’s willing to have a ballpark aimed north or south. This is to ensure that the sun isn’t in the batter’s eyes during the day and to provide relatively predictable shadows during the season. Interestingly, Dixon tried to address this by placing an eight-story hotel tower in right field and a big scoreboard in center. Those measures will only work in certain sun-sky conditions. The ballpark could be re-oriented southeast to fix the sun problem, but it would take away from the view. Dixon couldn’t say what the ballpark’s capacity was or explain how much onsite parking would be there. The size of the ballpark would be “up to the developer”, though he also claimed he knew three people who could fund the ballpark. It all adds up to someone who has some great ideas and understands LEED, but knows next to nothing about CEQA. CEQA is the set of regulations that forces environmental review and places restrictions on what kinds of projects can be built in sensitive places. CEQA has led rise to hyper-NIMBYism in California. On the flip side, it has allowed our coasts to remain mostly in the public interest and not full of high-rises and private development. If this ballpark concept ever got off the ground, it would immediately have Bay and waterfront activists, open space and parks preservationists, boating enthusiasts, residents of the nearby apartment complex, and many others lined up to take it down. That doesn’t include the normal anti-stadium types or additional complications such as the PUC and other governmental agency interactions. This is the stuff that Lew Wolff talks about when he says that people can’t just point at a site and say that’s a site. There’s a ton of legwork that has to be done on each proposed site, and even more on the sites that actually get studied as alternatives. There are studies of noise and shade, seismicity and hydrology, cultural and paleontological resources, along with the more common traffic and transportation work. It’s a significant, seemingly endless amount of work, and the crazy thing is that a draft version of an EIR has not been finished for any ballpark site in Oakland: Victory Court, Howard Terminal, Coliseum City, this site or any other site. And it’s telling that Estuary Park, despite its rather prominent position where the Estuary meets Lake Merritt Channel, was never really considered a ballpark site in the past. That’s largely due to all of the issues identified in this post, and probably many more that I haven’t covered. Just a thousand feet across the Channel, HOK studied two sites at the Oak-to-Ninth (O29) site in 2001. That’s not to say that Dixon’s in the wrong. He has some great ideas, and the fact that he put he put his visual skills to use in fleshing them out can help a lot in terms of creating a real vision for Oakland going forward. If the concept ultimately serves as a catalyst, it would be incredibly productive for fans who want an Oakland ballpark and need a unified rallying point. This idea can be moved and modified to work at other sites. Dixon seems to like Coliseum City nearly as much as his own plan, as long as the A’s stay in town. If Save Oakland Sports and other groups can come to a consensus on one site that has energy behind it and has been properly vetted, they have a shot. If they stand by the City’s current vision of multiple sites being equal with no real consensus, there’s nothing to rally behind. They’re just circles on a map. —– Note: As I was writing this in the middle of the night, I did not ask Dixon for permission to use his images. I apologize for that in advance, though I also cite fair use as this is a review.

02.20.13
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Shaikin stirs it up again

Amidst all of the Lettergate hubbub (credit to Mike @muppet151 for the term), now comes an article from LA Times writer Bill Shaikin called MLB gives tentative guidelines for potential move to San Jose. There’s nothing revelatory in the article, and nothing to indicate that anything would happen soon. Yet the headline, much like this headline, seems aimed to inflame or at the very least act as clickbait.

Then again, the information seems to back many of the assertions I made when I wrote about the territorial rights saga last month. Whether there’s real fire to this smoke or this is part of an ongoing misinformation campaign (also exercised by the other side), we won’t know for certain until it’s all over.

This got me thinking about how much compensation should cost. Shaikin notes that determination of any compensation award would be entirely within the purview of the commissioner’s office. Then it occurred to me that when Lew Wolff presented the San Jose concept, it was thought that the A’s might move to San Jose after the current Coliseum lease expires, or the 2014 season. With the A’s unlikely to be able to move until 2018, that’s four full seasons of forgone revenue at Cisco Field, while the Giants continue to lap it up at AT&T Park. That “opportunity cost” is offset somewhat by ongoing revenue sharing in Oakland, which would go away after the new ballpark opened.

With the Giants able to maximize their hegemony over the region and the A’s continuing to limp on at the Coliseum, any thought of the A’s being any kind of financial threat to the Giants has evaporated. And that, right there, may well be the compensation in a sort of unstated, off-the-books form. An extra $40 million to the A’s via San Jose doesn’t necessarily mean it’s $40 million less for the Giants. But it does mean that no money moves in the current situation, which is just fine with the Giants. $160 million for those four years, without Bud Selig having to make the tough decision? Sounds like how baseball would work.

What would happen in 2018? That would be up to whoever is the commissioner, probably not Bud Selig. Maybe there’s some nominal amount of compensation. My argument for a while has been that there won’t be, not because of what Wally Haas did for the Giants 20 years ago, but because MLB and the owners don’t want to set a price for a territory. Doing so would set a precedent for future moves into other territories. In the Giants-A’s case, the situation is unique enough to be difficult to duplicate, and by not setting a real price for Santa Clara County, the owners don’t create a market.

I’m not the only person who thinks compensation will be a trivial matter:

 

This is one of those times I wish I had a time machine so I could tell you how it works out. For now we wait. Forever we wait.

02.20.13
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Save Oakland Sports meeting with Santana, Blackwell (Updated with Oakland apology)

Update 7:20 PM – Around 4:30 today, an article by the Trib’s Matthew Artz indicated that Oakland officials apologized to Lew Wolff for erroneously stating that the City and Mayor Jean Quan didn’t receive the letter. Wolff angrily replied (in ALL CAPS no less) that he did, in fact, send the letter, and later produced a letter of acknowledgment from Quan dated January 2. During the Bucher & Towny show on The Game, Townsend explained that his crew and Phoenix reporter Kevin Curran had launched their own inquiry into the status of this now mythical letter. Curran sent an email to the Mayor’s office asking for the letter since, by law, the City has to file all such communications. This afternoon the story from Artz broke, followed by an email reply from Quan spokesperson Sean Maher explaining the situation. Apparently the original email, which was also sent to numerous media, was buried in the “mountain of (holiday) furlough email” the City received. Because of this, news outlets reported on it first, giving City staff the impression that they didn’t receive it, when in fact, they did. The explanation was also a bit wishy-washy because the Mayor supposedly “eventually” received the letter, giving the impression that she didn’t receive it directly. Statements coming out of the Mayor’s office yesterday continued to press that they didn’t receive the letter. In any case, Oakland comes off highly incompetent at the very least and petty on top of it all, just because Santana decided to lash out at Wolff. That’s simply poor form. Obviously, that led to today’s apology.

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Monday’s much-delayed Save Oakland Sports meeting was held at La Estrellita in downtown Oakland. Though host Chris Dobbins was keen to not put City Administrators Deanna Santana and (Asst. Admin.) Fred Blackwell on the hot seat, to their credit the staffers addressed several lingering issues with some degree of frankness and a general lack of spin.

Blackwell gave an update on the state of the Coliseum City studies and EIR. The study work should be awarded in the next month, and documents should be ready by the end of the year. Because of the broad scope of the project, there will be a master plan for the 750 acres on both side of 880 and a specific plan for each side, the big focus being on the sports complex. Blackwell called Coliseum City the most dynamic project in the state in terms of size and transit access.

View from east towards Oakland Estuary. Image: JRDV

View from east towards Oakland Estuary. Image: JRDV

Based on JRDV’s newest renderings, he has a point. Much of the area on either side of the Nimitz would undergo a drastic transformation. While there would be a new football stadium in Lot B and a ballpark pushed up to the corner of Lot A, almost everything else would get torn down and replaced. Chief among the changes is a new arena, which would be placed west of 880, where Coliseum Lexus and another empty car dealership are situated. Low and mid rise buildings would be tightly packed from Oakport to the Estuary and in between the two stadia. Two new pedestrian bridges would cross 880. The BART bridge would be transformed into a huge plaza over the Union Pacific tracks. The only two legacy structures that would remain intact in the vision are the 12-story high-rise office building that briefly housed the Tribune and the newer Zhone building.

Before your eyes roll completely into the back of your head, let’s look at the three venues, starting with the ballpark. Blackwell continued previous talk of Oakland giving Lew Wolff information on Coliseum City and Howard Terminal, repeating Wolff’s continued rejection of both sites on financial grounds. Blackwell flat out said that new ownership may be required to get something done in Oakland, and that a MLB could act on behalf of a team to get a deal done. Of course, Blackwell cited Miami as an example of that working. “Working” meant taxpayers putting up 2/3 of the cost and politicians who approved the deal being run out of office. MLB wouldn’t do that unless it felt it could get several pounds of flesh. In Oakland, there is no flesh to take. The only thing MLB has offered so far is to negotiate the short-term lease at the current Coliseum.

As for the Raiders, Santana mentioned upfront that it took four months to get all of the right people (City, County, Raiders) named and set to negotiate the future stadium deal. Four months? You’d figure an e-mail thread and a conference call or two would take care of that.

In a refreshing bit of candor, Santana and Blackwell talked about the challenges facing the Raiders’ stadium piece. Santana said twice that any new project would have to bake in the $100 million of remaining debt (Mt. Davis). As I’ve mentioned before, any advantages Oakland has because of “cheap land” are wiped away because of this albatross. It also makes financing somewhat unclean, though that would depend on how current and future debt are structured. Right now, Mt. Davis debt is tied to the general fund of both City and County and was refinanced last summer. I imagine it could be complicated to restructure the debt to be paid solely by stadium/project revenues and would drive up the cost of borrowing to boot. Santana also talked about how the defeat of Measure B1 in November negatively impacted funding for Coliseum City to the tune of $40 million.

Blackwell admitted that the NFL may have a hard time giving the $200 million that Mayor Jean Quan is looking for, citing fan and corporate support. Why? The G-3 and G-4 loan programs are dependent on two specific revenue streams: national TV money and club seats. TV money is not that big a deal since it’s highly distributed, but the NFL is wary of teams running into blackouts. The Raiders are a particular high-risk case because even though the stadium doesn’t have a large capacity among NFL stadia, it’s had its share of blackouts and has a relatively low season ticket base (30,000). The recent tarping and pricing moves done by the Raiders are being done to grow the season ticket figure and reduce the chance of blackouts. In future seasons, the Raiders could increase capacity as the roll grows and the team performs better. Corporate support is another matter. Blackwell said that the NFL considers corporate support more important than regular fan support. The 49ers have done exceedingly well selling to businesses, which allowed the NFL to release $200 million for the Santa Clara stadium. Corporate support is not great in the East Bay, and the 49ers may have taken some East Bay business from the Raiders, putting the Silver and Black in a very tough position. Blackwell didn’t offer any answers on this, other than to say that the East Bay will have to step up to show it can support the Raiders in a new stadium. It’s a sobering but realistic view, not one to go rah-rah about.

On the Warriors front, Blackwell laid out the City’s case very plainly: Oakland would wait until W’s ownership got frustrated with the process of building something at Piers 30/32, then welcome the team back with open arms. With the A’s, ownership is certainly frustrated (with MLB and the Giants), not enough to run back to make a deal with Oakland. While working in SF, Blackwell saw the same strategy in place for the 49ers, only to see the team start building in the South Bay.

Things got a little strange with Santana laid into the A’s. Santana accused the A’s of playing games, claiming that the letter Wolff wrote requesting a five-year lease extension was only sent to the media, not to City or County. That’s rather confusing, because as the Merc’s John Woolfork wrote on 12/21:

If Wolff’s letter was discouraging to Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, she didn’t let on, saying in a statement that she was “pleased to receive Mr. Wolff’s letter stating his desire to stay in Oakland for five more years.”

Considering that it took four months to figure out who the players were in a negotiation, I wouldn’t be surprised if the letter was lost somewhere. One thing to keep in mind is that Wolff has already done two lease extensions at the Coliseum during his tenure. If there’s one real piece of stability here it’s Wolff, not the turnover in Oakland City Hall.

The tough part of all of this back-and-forth is that even if Oakland is resurgent as its supporters say it is, it’s not to the scale of SF and SJ. It may never be to the scale of SJ. That makes it easy to make a case against the future of pro sports in Oakland. Without some kind of miraculous public and/or private miracle to really boost Oakland, it’s hard to see how Oakland could get to its rivals’ level. Maybe the argument is that Coliseum City is that miracle. Oakland has had nearly 50 years to show that pro sports is an economic stimulator. There’s no reason to believe Coliseum City, even in its fully realized, pipe dream scenario, is the miracle Oakland is looking for. The track record – in and out of Oakland – doesn’t support it.

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More reading:

Note: Look at how different the two Tavares articles are. Editors rule!

 

02.15.13
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Warriors revise arena site plan, find a critic

The Warriors anticipate a delay in final site plans for their Pier 30-32 arena, because they are looking to incorporate a cruise ship terminal on the eastern waterfront edge of the site.

Quick refresher: the original site plan looked like this:

Colors denote different site features. Warriors promised to have at least 50% of 15-acre site set as open space

The arena was placed at the southeast corner of the site to create the lowest visual impact from the rest of the city (height of structure notwithstanding for the moment). The inclusion of a cruise ship terminal would push the arena further north or west, while creating additional impact with its own structure, which could be 30,000 square feet or more. When Larry Ellison won the rights to develop Piers 30/32 as part of the America’s Cup deal, a cruise ship terminal was part of the plans. When Ellison backed away from 30/32, those plans were abandoned. Now, there is another cruise ship terminal planned for Pier 27, which is also part of the remaining America’s Cup development plans. The city wants to have at least two berths for such large ships, and Pier 35 is the current, space-limited main terminal.

Such changes are enough to warrant major EIR revisions, which is why we’re hearing the warnings about delays. The W’s may be forced to give up some ancillary development to regain open space. That shouldn’t be a big deal, since they could easily incorporate more square footage in the arena itself or push some of the ancillary stuff across the street to Seawall Lot 330 (the triangle). Adding the cruise ship terminal appears to be a nod towards gaining the acceptance of the ILWU, whose offices are in downtown SF, even though the union is much busier across the bay in Oakland.

Resistance to the arena has been measurable. Yesterday, Chronicle columnist Ann Killion chimed in with her critique of the plan. Killion wants to preserve the waterfront that has been opened up since the Embarcadero Freeway was torn down following Loma Prieta. While that’s admirable, it’s important to keep the arena’s visual impact in perspective. The arena will be about 400 feet long, 1/8th the length of the Embarcadero between the Bay Bridge and AT&T Park. AT&T Park along King Street is roughly twice as long, and not set back far from the street. Snøhetta knows a thing or two about building along the water, so they deserve the benefit of the doubt regarding their ability to integrate the arena along the waterfront and minimize the arena’s visual impact.

Killion argues that Lot A across from the ballpark would be a better fit. There is more parking available there and the infrastructure to bring 3,000 or more cars to the area is already in place. That isn’t the case at Piers 30/32. On the other hand, the Pier site is much closer to BART, doesn’t require a transfer, and because I expect very little parking to be made available in the immediate area, cars will be dispersed throughout the Financial District and South Beach areas instead of concentrated around the arena (where there will be no huge garage). Plus the Giants control the land south of AT&T Park, which means the W’s would have to split the revenue pie with the Giants. I’d just as soon not see the Giants’ tentacles in everything, thanks. That brings to mind another problem: with the expectation of reduced parking because of the Giants development plans at Mission Rock, if there’s an arena there as well, how will there be enough parking in that immediate area for simultaneous events at the arena and ballpark? At least with Piers 30/32 it’s spread out over a much larger radius.

This isn’t the first time Killion has come out against a stadium or arena concept. Killion was against the 49ers’ move to Santa Clara, the A’s plans to move to San Jose, and now this. Killion evens holds onto that anti-Niners sentiment even as the war over the 49ers has long been over. There’s an ill-researched jibe about rising tides here and a defense of Oakland there, or the idea that the arena will be obsolete in 20 years (not likely considering that it’ll be privately constructed, owned, and maintained). Change is inevitable. No need to channel Lowell Cohn before your time.

The arena plan will probably undergo at least a few more changes before it’s offered up for approval by the City and BCDC. There is every reason to think that a suitable plan will merge that satisfies vast majority of San Franciscans and Bay Area residents. If not, it should get voted down. Otherwise, Doug Boxer isn’t doing his job, is he?

02.15.13
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Stern nixes expansion idea

A month ago I wrote about a solution to the Seattle-Sacramento fight over the Kings. It would’ve involved either keeping the team in town or moving them north, with the loser getting an expansion team. Key to the solution would be to use a portion of the expansion fee (~$500 million) to pay off the Silna brothers, who get a 3/5ths of a team share of the NBA’s national TV money even though they’ve never owned a NBA franchise.

While in Houston for All Star Weekend festivities, David Stern quashed any idea of an expansion-based solution that would provide teams in both cities. That’s not to say that expansion couldn’t be explored in the future. But for Stern, who is retiring just short of a year from now, it won’t happen on his watch.

For now, Stern has his sights set on two dates: March 15 as the deadline for Sacramento interests to submit a bid/plan for the Kings and a downtown arena, and April 18 for the Board of Governors meeting to hear everything out. Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson is in Houston to try to lobby other owners who are also taking in the festivities. As a former All Star player, KJ has a level of respect within the NBA that no other mayor can match. Whether that will mean anything in the end uncertain. KJ is not meeting with Stern during the weekend.

Stern has set the stage for the other owners to make a very tough decision. On one hand, many of them may want to correct the wrong that was allowing the Sonics to leave, and would love to have big money ownership like Steve Ballmer among their ranks. Yet they may not want to move the Kings from a market that has supported the team well despite the arena’s flaws and poor and mismanaged teams over the past several years.

02.12.13
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Mesa looks for $8 million from AZ sports and tourism authority

The A’s and the City of Mesa are one small step closer to finalizing a deal to occupy Hohokam Stadium and Fitch Park. A month ago we did an overview of the renovation plans, which would entail a reduction in the number of seats and the addition of premium amenities such as bars.

To help cover Mesa’s $15 million commitment, the City is asking for $8 million from the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority, the quasi-governmental corporation that runs University of Phoenix Stadium and provides funds for the renovation and maintenance of numerous Cactus League facilities. Back in January, some sort of request was expected, though the amount was not disclosed. $8 million would cover about half of Mesa’s initial commitment, with Mesa’s Enterprise Fund to cover the rest. Mesa received a preliminary approval for the request. That should clear the way for an official announcement towards the end of spring training.

Phoenix hasn’t allowed old Municipal Stadium to be abandoned. Last week, the Arizona Board of Regents approved a 25-year lease for Arizona State University’s baseball team to play at Muni, which is twice the size of on-campus Packard Stadium and has a proper press box for TV broadcasting purposes. One team’s trash is another one’s treasure, a them we as A’s fans are all to familiar with. If you love Muni, it’s sad that the A’s will only have two more seasons there. It’s good to know that Muni will have games from ASU and perhaps continued work with the Arizona Fall League.

02.08.13
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Pay Up Or GTFO

We’ve talked a lot in the past year about how the Maloof family is broke and can’t do anything on their own, whether it’s funding their piece of a downtown arena or sell anymore pieces of the Kings without losing control of the franchise. Travel west along I-80, and you can see that Oakland and the Raiders are in the same situation. Oakland has had to rob Peter to pay Paul for the Raiders study, and the prospects for the Coliseum are bleak without some extremely creative (and probably public) financing. Al Davis had his estate structured so that his son Mark could keep control of the Raiders, but the Raiders can’t sell additional shares of the club without giving up control. Overextended as they all are, they’re still under the gun to come up with a future stadium solution that works for both parties, while not adding significantly to either party’s debt load.

That puts the Oakland/Alameda County and the Raiders in very tense dance over how much each side will pay to create an anchor for Coliseum City. Make no mistake, both sides will have to pay something, starting at $100 million depending on how extensive the project will be. If there’s a new stadium, especially one with a retractable roof, up to $200 million could be provided by the NFL. If it’s a redone Coliseum, the NFL will offer significantly less. It’s all based on the scale of the project.

For example, take the deal struck between the Carolina Panthers and the City of Charlotte. They’re partnering on a $302.5 million package of improvements for 17-year-old Bank of America Stadium. The breakdown looks like this:

  • $96.25 million from Panthers (33%)
  • $143.75 million from City of Charlotte/Mecklenburg County via a 1% food and beverage tax hike (47%)
  • $62.5 million from North Carolina (20%, pending state approval)

The actual improvements will cost $250 million, the rest will cover the establishment of a maintenance fund, costs associated with staging City/County events, and other gameday expenses such as traffic control. The stadium, which was privately built by Panthers owner Jerry Richardson, will not get any major structural changes such as the addition or elimination of seating decks. Accessibility will be improved by the addition of escalators. Video boards will be replaced. Obviously those items won’t cost $250 million by themselves, so there will be other buildouts elsewhere in the stadium. Perhaps they’ll expand concourses, build field suites, or create additional premium spaces inside the stadium. BofA Stadium still ranks as excellent in terms of design, sightlines, and amenities, so the new improvements may be what Richardson wants to make the venue a viable future Super Bowl candidate. The Panthers would be guaranteed to stay and additional 15 years if the deal is approved and improvements completed.

Sidebar: It was the enormous success of the Panthers’ initial PSL plan that helped sell the 1995 Coliseum renovation plans to Oakland/Alameda County and Al Davis. The Panthers paid for their entire stadium with PSLs and other private sources, with the City only providing a cheap land lease. Where the East Bay went wrong was in severely overestimating demand.

Earlier this morning, Andy Dolich spoke with the Rise Guys about the Raiders’ tarp news and the prospects of Coliseum City. While he continues to believe that the best place for the A’s and Raiders is the Coliseum, his vision has shifted a bit. In 2010 he talked about a new multipurpose stadium with “technology” that could accommodate both teams. Now he prefers a separate ballpark at the complex and a refurbished Coliseum, which he estimated to cost $300-400 million. My immediate response:

Considering what’s budgeted for the Panthers and the Bills, does anyone think a $300-400 million budget as realistic for what the Raiders and the NFL would want? Frankly, I think that by the time everything got going, $500 million may be undershooting it by quite a bit. Dolich also thinks the Diridon ballpark cost could rise to $600-700 million based on additional costs to get the site ready. I tend to disagree with that, though if this saga keeps dragging on $600 million is an easy reach. Even if the land is free, why would two-thirds of a larger football stadium cost half as much as a nearly half-capacity ballpark?

Also, consider that we explored a Coliseum refurb on this blog back in 2008. It would’ve involved gutting the original bowl and replacing it with a new West stand and a single deck of seats along each end zone.

2008-refurb_d

Colors denote different seating decks or phases of development

The project as described back then would’ve taken two full NFL seasons and about 18 months to complete, with the Raiders playing in a 47,000-seat temporary configuration while construction work progressed, similar to their 1995 season at the Coliseum. Complicating matters is that Lew Wolff wants an out clause in his five-year lease extension request if the Raiders begin this very type of project. That makes sense, since there’s no way the stadium could host baseball during this period.

Let’s say that a refurb could be capped at $500 million. The breakdown of costs by party could look like this:

  • $200 million from Oakland/Alameda County (Coliseum Authority)
  • $200 million from Raiders
  • $100 million from NFL

The Coliseum Authority could get their piece from land leases, new stadium taxes, or other sources. However, they have factor in the remaining $100 million of debt on Mt. Davis since it affects City and County budgets every year ($20 million annual subsidy). The Raiders and the NFL could work together to sell new PSLs, naming rights, etc.

The NFL has two, maybe three $200 million slots in its G-4 program for new stadia, one already claimed by 49ers. Another could be the Vikings or Falcons. In theirs and the Raiders’ cases, the teams have to at least match the NFL spend, which means that they have to come up with $200 million of their own. The 49ers came up with closer to $800 million, though much of that is money borrowed through the quasi-governmental Santa Clara Stadium Authority. Chances are that the Coliseum City stadium project would borrow through the Coliseum Authority.

Oakland pols will want as much private funds going into the project as possible, but the Raiders will be wary of digging themselves too deep a hole. That stands to reason because of poor suite and club seat sales over the years, along with mediocre season ticket rolls. There’s been a lot of talk about Oakland not requiring a vote, none about how much it’s willing to invest besides land and infrastructure improvements. Unfortunately for Oakland, land and infrastructure only gets you in the door these days. How much skin will each side put into the game? The answer won’t be known without a (hopefully public) discussion about what it’ll take to make Coliseum City happen.

02.08.13
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Quakes to start building February 26

The San Jose Earthquakes are set to start building their 18,000-seat, $60 million soccer specific stadium on February 26, according to the Silicon Valley Business Journal’s Lauren Hepler. That comes four months after the venue’s world record groundbreaking ceremony.

Shovels set in the dirt prior to the October groundbreaking ceremony

The timing of the start of construction will give the Quakes roughly one year to complete the stadium. Major League Soccer’s regular season runs from the beginning of March until the end of December. The Quakes will want to do at least one preseason game that attracts as large a crowd as possible and another smaller event that it can use as a dry run. Plus there are those always fun “group flushing” tests and other tasks that need to be completed to properly test the facility’s readiness. A web cam will be placed at the site for fans to monitor construction progress.

Some smaller minor league ballparks have been built in a year or less, so it’s possible that the Quakes stadium can be finished in a year. By doing the bulk of the major work during the dry months, the last three winter months should be fine for buttoning up the building. Devcon, the same company working on the 49ers stadium in Santa Clara (along with Turner Construction), has long been tied to this project. If the progress in Santa Clara is any indicator, the Quakes’ new digs should proceed at a rapid pace. By comparison, Houston’s 22,000-seat BBVA Compass Stadium took 15 months to build, forcing the zombie-Quakes/Dynamo to play on the road for two months.

It’s funny that a stadium that will be about one-quarter the size of the 49ers’ stadium will also take 40% of the time to build. The Quakes stadium will be a far less complex building, with a single ground level concourse underneath the seating bowl. A long wait for the inordinately patient Earthquakes fanbase is nearing its end.

02.06.13
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Raiders not selling Mt. Davis in 2013

This week the Raiders released a seating map for their 2013 season. The startling revelation from this release is that the Mount Davis upper deck seats have been completely eliminated, as have the outer sections of the original third deck.

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Sections for sale do not include the outer 4 sections of the original upper deck or the newer Mt. Davis sections

A look at 2012 attendance sheds some light on what the Raiders’ motivation may be. While the first two home games were considered sellouts (for blackout purposes, not complete sellouts), attendance dropped off quickly as an unappealing group of non-division opponents accompanied a six-game slide into irrelevance. Whatever goodwill was earned during the “Oakland Loves Its Sports Teams” rally was squandered by Thanksgiving, with many fans already looking forward to 2013 when the team was forgotten locally as the 49ers continued their surge into the playoffs.

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2012 Raiders Home Attendance

The stated football capacity of the Coliseum 63,132 64,200 according to the Raiders, already the second (or fifth) smallest stadium in the NFL. If Mt. Davis and the ends of the original upper deck are removed, the new capacity should will be 51,000 53,250, with Mt. Davis accounting for some 10,000 seats by itself. While this would increase the team’s chances of hitting every game’s blackout target, if the NFL approves this change it’s tantamount to admitting that those seats are unsellable, at least while the team remains mediocre. CSN’s Paul Gutierrez notes that there was only one home blackout in 2012 because of the Raiders’ use of the 85% rule, so blackouts may not the issue. Instead, the Raiders may be eschewing the 85% plan altogether, because it somewhat disincentivizes sales above the 85% mark of regular, non-club seats. Per the CBA, revenue from marginal sales above the 85% mark had to be split evenly between the Raiders and the visiting team. If the Raiders presell a ton of the best seats to Raider fans and not invading fans, they might be able to boost the home crowd feel even as fewer seats are available. That was certainly the case for the A’s at the end of the 2012 season and in the postseason.

HNTB, the firm that architected the Coliseum renovation in 1995, was commissioned by the Chargers to examine deficiencies at Qualcomm Stadium compared to other newer stadia. Interestingly, the study included the Coliseum, even though the Coliseum is less than half new. Included in the study was a measurement of the highest, farthest seat at the 50-yard line for each stadium. That seat on Mt. Davis is 336 feet from the 50, the farthest of the 10 venues in the comparison. While the same seat on the opposite side of the field was not measured, given what is known about the bowl that seat is probably 100 feet closer.

If there’s a winner in this, it’s the LA firm that Lew Wolff contracts to remove and replace the A’s tarps every season. Looks like they’ll be getting a new customer right quick. Fans also get very inexpensive seats in the process. Wolff himself is probably feeling rather victorious today. Losers? 11th hour or walkup ticket buyers. There will be a much smaller inventory for the secondary market, which in recent years had tickets on Mt. Davis for less than $10 on StubHub.

Raider fan, what do you think about this? Good/bad move? An admission that the team will be terrible? Sound off below.