Category Archives: Owners

12.26.12
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Imagine a Coliseum without Mount Davis

Following up Monday’s post about Mt. Davis, here are the specifications for the Coliseum if the Raiders did not come back in 1995. The ballpark boom had begun, but the Coliseum hadn’t yet been completely overshadowed by the retro mallpark. In 1993, the Coliseum complex won a statewide architectural award. Improvements conceived by both the Coliseum and the A’s were feasible and small in scale. Compared to the $80 million $100 million $200 million renovation for the Raiders, the changes for the A’s would have been fairly modest at the outset.

4. PLANNED STADIUM MODIFICATIONS

4.1 Stadium Improvement Plan. Licensor (Coliseum JPA) and Licensee (A’s) have approved a scope of improvements to the Stadium as set forth in Exhibit C. In the event the Raiders have not entered into or agreed to enter into an agreement for more than ten years with Licensor for the Raiders’ use of the Stadium on or before September 30, 1995, Licensee shall have the right in its sole discretion by notice given not later than September 30, 1995, to cause Licensor to complete Stadium improvements as follows:

[a] Construction of up to 5,000 club seats and a related club lounge, for completion by March 31, 1996, and as more particularly described in Exhibit C. The total cost of the stadium improvements plan will not exceed $10 million. Licensee’s representatives will be included in all design, planning and construction meetings.

[b] Stadium improvements described in [a] above will be financed through the issuance of bonds. The bonds will be authorized in 1995 and sold as construction is implemented. It is understood that Licensor’s existing bonds will be deceased.

[c] Licensee shall have the right, at Licensee’s sole cost and obligation, to finance and cause Lincesor to construct such additional Stadium improvements as Licensor and Licensee shall mutually agree in connection with the construction of the Stadium improvements and finance plan described above.

[d] On or after November 1, 1995, either Licensor or Licensee may request the other to negotiate in good faith to approve, in the sole discretion of both parties, respectively, a Stadium improvements and finance plan to provide for the construction of improvements in addition to those set forth in Section 4.1[a] and [c] above, in an amount not to exceed $60 million and under financing terms mutually agreeable to Licensor and Licensee, provided however, to the extent permitted by such financing, Licensee shall recover the actual cost of additional Stadium improvements financed by it under Section 4.1[c] above. Licensee’s sole remedy for the parties failure to approve such a plan shall be the early termination rights described in Section 7.3 below.

[e] In order to provide amortization of the existing bonds issued by Licensor and new improvement bonds, Licensor’s revenue from the Stadium naming rights, club seat premium, together with ticket surcharge revenues would be deposited into an improvements construction fund beginning in 1995.

[f] In addition to stadium improvements, a stadium maintenance fund shall be established and funded by Licensor in the amount of $500,000 annually beginning in 1996 and escalated at 5% per year thereafter. Stadium major maintenance would be paid for from this fund annually. In the event that the transfer in any year is less than the required annual contribution, then Licensor shall deposit the shortfall. Surpluses in the improvements construction fund which are available for the transfer shall be used to offset prior years deficits.

Effectively, the renovation project would have only consisted of what is now known as the West Side Club, for $10 million ($1.2 million/year). Another $50 million could have been available over time, which would’ve been used to replace all of the orange seats and bleachers, redo the clubhouses (maybe the A’s would’ve taken the old Exhibit Hall space instead of the Raiders) while adding a batting cage, build more field boxes, maybe even remove the outfield stairs and move the bullpens there. New scoreboards would’ve required a new agreement and new funding.

All of that would’ve been nice for the 10-year lease that was under consideration. By the end of that lease, December 2004, the pressure would’ve been on to replace the Coliseum. Why? At the time, all of the old cookie-cutter stadia were in the process of being replaced. While Three Rivers and Veterans didn’t get any improvements prior to their replacement, Busch Stadium was made more baseball friendly after the football Cardinals left for Arizona and the Rams played half of the 1995 season at Busch. That arrangement lasted a decade, setting up a transition period until the current Busch was funded and built.

What we don’t know is whether or not Oakland and Alameda County would’ve given up on trying to get the Raiders back. My guess is that the various forces working to bring the team back (Don Perata, Elilu Harris, George Vukasin Sr., Scott Haggerty) would’ve kept trying, at least until Harris gave way to anti-stadium Jerry Brown. Who knows? Oakland by now may have completely established its identity as a baseball town, instead of dealing with two unsatisfied teams in, what Monte Poole called, “a house without distinction”.

12.24.12
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Mount Davis specifications

With all this talk of lease extensions, I decided to go back into the original 1995 lease the A’s had at the Coliseum (for my own edification). The document, which was signed by Wally Haas as he was selling the team, goes over two specific scenarios: what happens for the A’s if the Raiders return, and what happens for the A’s if the Raiders don’t return. That latter part will be covered soon. For now, take a look at the language that eventually resulted in what we now know as Mount Davis, the 10,000-seat, 90-skybox grandstand in the outfield. The language is copied verbatim, typos and all.

B. CENTER FIELD GRANDSTAND STRUCTURE PERFORMANCE SPECIFICATION

Design Intent:

Constructed in the 1960s, the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum has its origins in the symmetrical, reinforced concrete modernist style engineering structure that was prevalent throughout this period. Of these parks, Oakland is singularly the best baseball park. This is a great place to see a game with the fan close to the action and comfortable in spite of the facility’s size. Seating surrounds the field, is intimate and humanly scaled. Circulation reinforces one’s location and orientation to the field at all areas nd levels.

The proposed centerfield grandstand structure must reinforce this environment. It cannot be a monolith looming over the outfield fence. Other than the playing field, it will be the natural focus of the stadium. Therefore, the structure’s size, shape and mass must provide a positive contribution to the stadium’s overall design.

Mass:

Mitigation of the structure’s mass, vacant stadium seating and vacant luxury boxes must be part of the overall design concept. The upper level seating shall be covered in the baseball configuration, this level and potentially elements of the vertical elevation shall incorporate team graphics, back-lighted advertizing signage and regional artwork to break up and reduce the structure’s scale. These elements shall become an integral part of the structure’s overall appearance. However, mitigation cannot rely on coverings and signage alone.

The structure shall relate to the existing stadium’s size and proportion, not exceeding it in overall height. This structure shall incorporate league scale design elements: a diverse, articulated, angular building profile with strong shadow lines, which diminish the overall mass of the structure. It shall present an appropriate character of scale, proportion, facade detail and material to compliment the park. The structure shall also incorporate small scale design elements to enhance the seating, circulation and the overall pedestrian environment through texture, materials, color and detail.

Scoreboard and video boards shall be placed on the structure for optimal baseball viewing. These will include:

• A scoreboard/message board fully populated scoreboard, zone mapped and broke out as required for both video and text display.
• A separate video board.
• A manually operated out-of-town scoreboard.

BART Entry:

This must be an appropriate statement of entry, creating a welcome statement with a sense of place, even though it is not the main entry to the stadium. The BART bridge shall terminate at a formal gate and lead to a roomy concourse(s). The plus 33 concourse should connect flush with the rest of the stadium at that level or by ramp. The plus 6 level must be continuous around the entire stadium. The BART entry shall present a pedestrian scaled environment low height lighting, attractive street furniture with integrated signage, attractive fencing to screen from view the slew/industrial beyond and mitigation of the overhanging upper deck structure. These pedestrian areas shall be part of a cohesive circulation system that leads the visitor to all services, facilities and concessions stands.

Program Elements:

Program elements shall be considered which influence the massing and appearance of the building. The outfield fence shall maintain its general configuration, 8 feet high padded, 300 down the lines, 375 at the power alleys and 400 at deep centerfield. An asymmetrical angular fence is encouraged. The 5000 “bleacher” seats shall be as close to the field as possible. These seats must have unobstructed sight lines of the field consistent with the existing seating areas. This seating shall be continuous behind the fence, interrupted only by the batter’s eye. The batter’s eye shall match the existing 40 feet high x 96 feet wide; height to be confirmed. Best efforts will be made so that the first row of seating shall be no more than four feet above the top of the fence, possibly separated from the fence with landscaping.

Two years after the structure was completed, Steve Schott and Ken Hofmann sued the Coliseum JPA over lost revenue related to the Mt. Davis addition and the compromising of the Coliseum as a baseball venue. The parties eventually settled, resulting in the sweetheart lease the A’s currently have.

12.22.12
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“Temporary”

So what does “temporary” mean anyway?

For Lew Wolff, it means five years after 2013 spent at the Coliseum, followed by what he hopes is a smooth move to San Jose.

For Mark Davis, it means five more years at the Coliseum while a new Coliseum and village are built next door.

For the Coliseum Authority (JPA), it means… well, they haven’t exactly articulated what that means, have they? It may mean one new stadium, or two. It means having the Raiders and A’s pay more to stay temporarily at the Coliseum in order to reduce the subsidy Oakland and Alameda County currently pay to keep the place running. How much more? We don’t really know. It’s a delicate balancing act. In the previous post I alluded to Davis and Wolff not wanting significantly higher rents at the stadium, yet that’s exactly what will be required if the JPA is to reach its goal of offsetting costs better.

The Merc’s John Woolfork and the Chronicle’s John Shea have dug into the lease matter more, getting reaction from local pols.

Woolfork found that the lease extension talk started in July 2011, when A’s President Michael Crowley first requested a lease extension. With the negotiations going very slowly, the surprise is the MLB tried to help act as an intermediary in the discussions but was rejected by the A’s.

Shea’s big find was that Wolff, while preferring to stay in Oakland over a move to a “temporary home venue”, admitted that “there are options” for such a transitional home.

Those two new pieces of information are huge. Whether or not you believe Wolff is bluffing with the temporary venue idea, he just played that card. He’s thinking about it. And you can bet that he has at least one location in mind. It’s out of the standard team owner playbook. Many will feel that the A’s are locked into the East Bay thanks to territorial rights, and that more than anything should dictate how the A’s and MLB act. Most of the time, these positions are merely negotiating ploys to extract concessions. Playing the temporary venue card is a sure sign of desperation, which Wolff has displayed for some time. If it forces MLB to act on his request or the JPA to commit to a Raiders stadium that would remake the Coliseum complex (per the letter), it will have been well worth it. If it results in a “mutually beneficial” five year lease, it buys everyone time to figure out the next step.

There is a value proposition in play. In the short term (the length of the extension), the A’s will be averse to a lease that hurts their revenue position. For instance, the Warriors’ lease at Oracle Arena had the team pay $7.5 million for the 2011-12 season. That figure includes revenue sharing of club seat and suite sales, which helped finance the arena. The A’s rent for 2012 is $1 million, and they get to keep parking and some ad/concession revenues. If the A’s were forced to pay something closer to what the Warriors pay while giving up revenue, that’s up to a $10 million hit to team revenue, or -6% or so annually. Suddenly the lease extension isn’t just a matter of convenience, it’s a real question of cost-benefit. There is a point at which it costs too much to stay at the Coliseum, especially if there are no agreements on improvements to the old stadium such as scoreboards or even plumbing (those resources would be used on new stadia). I don’t think the A’s should get the sweetheart deal they’ve been on since 1995, but this seems like too much considering the age and state of the Coliseum.

That’s how the specter of a temporary home comes closer to being real. If the A’s are faced with having to forego $10 million in revenue each year for five years, would it make sense to invest that money in a different option? A temporary option?

One more to consider: If you attended a Warriors home game this year, you probably noticed the lovely, brand new high-definition, center-hung scoreboard. It’s part of an $8 million improvement plan at Oracle Arena that was implemented to upgrade technology. Half of the project was paid for by the W’s, and the rest was split between the JPA and AEG, the new arena operator. The bidding process for a new operator for both the Coliseum and Arena included a requirement that the winning bidder pay for improvements at Oracle Arena. The vendor for the arena’s technology package? Cisco. For whatever reason, there was no request to make any additional improvements to the Coliseum. New anything at the Coliseum could help convince either of the tenants to stay.

12.21.12
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Bills reach deal for 10-year lease extension and $130 million renovation

The Buffalo Bills announced that they have reached an agreement with Erie County and the State of New York to make $130 million of improvements to almost 40-year-old Ralph Wilson Stadium. The deal also includes a 10-year extension to the current lease for the Bills, which was originally scheduled to end next summer.

Oakland/Alameda County and the Raiders aren’t talking about renovating the Coliseum, they’re talking about a new Coliseum. If they were considering renovation, they probably wouldn’t be happy with the amount of public money that’s involved. Here’s how the whole deal breaks down.

  • $35 million from the Bills
  • $41 million from Erie County
  • $54 million from the State of New York

Improvements include a new scoreboard, changes to concession areas and gates and technology. $130 million doesn’t go as far as it used to.

A report in the Buffalo News digs deeper into the deal, and finds that the Bills can leave after year 7 of the lease by paying $28.3 million to buy out the remaining years. The report by Tim Graham also found an interesting loophole:

If a new owner bought the Bills and wanted to move them, then the county and state would have two remedies, as allowed by the lease agreement. The first is to file an injunction to prevent a move. If a judge declines to order the Bills to stay, then the Bills would have to pay $400 million in liquidated damages with the exception of a window after the seventh year of the deal.

An unlikely chain of events would create this scenario. The key is the health of Bills owner Ralph Wilson, who at 94 is the oldest owner in the NFL and has had trouble attending games over the past couple of years. If the Bills were sold, it seems like the new owner would wait until the “window” or after the lease expires to make the move.

It’s unclear if the Bills will apply for G-4 funding from the NFL. No mention was made of the NFL’s stadium loan program in today’s announcement. It seems possible that the Bills chose to go the cheaper route to avoid having to pay back the loan (no matter how small) when the team is sold, which is the current rule.

Bills CEO Russ Brandon was careful to characterize the improvements as short-term, with an eye towards a new permanent home sometime towards the end of the extension.

“The investment, while significant, is modest in contrast to building a new stadium or engaging in a major retrofit, far less than what the interest alone would be on a new stadium over the term. We look forward to the opportunity to execute this plan and to join Governor (Andrew) Cuomo and County Executive (Mark) Poloncarz as we work toward a shared vision for the future of the Buffalo Bills beyond the term of this deal.”

This eliminates the Bills as a Los Angeles relocation candidate, which is no surprise as they weren’t high on the list anyway. While Bills fans and local pols should be pleased by the deal, let’s not make more of it than what it really is: kicking the can down the road.

11.16.12
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News for 11/16/12

Belated congratulations to Bob Melvin for winning AL Manager of the Year. While there’s no photographic evidence, Melvin’s daughter Alexi admitted to pieing him in the face recently. All in celebration, of course.

On to the news.

  • MLB’s big three national television contracts were approved this week during the owners meetings. Apparently this was so anticlimactic that only a single tweet about the news emerged, from Eric Fisher of Sports Business Journal.
  • As mentioned yesterday, all ballots in Alameda County have been counted. With that, Measure B1 appears to have been narrowly defeated by less than 700 votes. Perhaps the backers had a false sense of security due to the lack of fervent opposition. Back to the drawing board, I guess. [Contra Costa Times/Denis Cuff]
  • Fox is fixin’ to buy a big piece of the YES Network. Not the Yankees’ piece, the part owned by Goldman Sachs and Providence Equity. The network is worth as much as $3 billion, making the two-thirds share up for grabs worth $2 billion. [NY Times/Amy Chosick, Michael Cieply]
  • The Rangers have announced that they will play two exhibition games at San Antonio’s Alamodome in March. The stadium’s only full-time tenants are the UTSA college football team and the AFL’s San Antonio Talons. The seating bowl layout (see pic below) makes it even less baseball friendly than previous square/rectilinear multipurpose domes like the Metrodome and Kingdome because it has a very limited number of corner seats. It’s also a bit narrower along the football sidelines than the Metrodome and not all of the rows retract, making the right field line dimension perhaps as small as 280 feet. Backers of MLB to San Antonio see this as a good sign, but the arrangement is a double-edged sword. Just as the Cowboys staged training camp in the same Alamodome multiple times, the Ryans are doing this to reaffirm the brand throughout the state, not to promote MLB there. After all, the Rangers have some solid TV money to protect.  [San Antonio Express News/Josh Baugh]

Picture of one side of the Alamodome stands retracted for a 2010 Dallas Cowboys training camp session. Picture from Sports Nickel.

  • The ballpark for the Midland Rockhounds (A’s AA affiliate) will soon be losing its naming rights partner. Citibank has been the sponsor since shortly after the ballpark opened. The ballpark sits as part of the nicely designed and manicured Scharbauer Sports Complex, alongside one of the best high school football stadia I’ve ever seen. It is the land of Friday Night Lights. [Midland Reporter-Telegram/Sara Higgins | Bud Swanson]
  • The Mariners are going a different route to make a splash in the offseason, unveiling plans for what will be the largest video/scoreboard in MLB. The display will measure 57 feet tall by 201.5 feet wide, with a resolution of 3840 x 1080. Effectively that’s two Full HD screens side-by-side. At 11,425 square feet, the display will be 70% larger than the display the Astros had installed at Minute Maid Park last year, and 30% larger than baseball’s largest current screen at Kauffman Stadium. Panasonic will be the manufacturer, displacing Daktronics. The display is part of a $15 million capital improvements fund, negotiated by Seattle/King County and the Mariners prior to the opening of Safeco Field. [MLB.com/Greg Johns]
  • Chris Hansen released renderings for his dream arena in the SoDo neighborhood of Seattle. The concept, penned by 360 Architecture, is reminiscent of 360’s Sprint Center project in Kansas City. It’s meant to house both basketball and hockey teams. Unlike Sprint Center, Hansen’s arena won’t be built without commitments from existing NBA and/or NHL franchises. Ironically, the opposite is what occurred in Kansas City, as the city chose to plow forward with an arena with no permanent tenants. That would put KC and Seattle in direct competition for any future franchise moves. [KING 5/Chris Daniels, Travis Pittman | 360 Architecture]
  • Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton (DFL) played to populist roots earlier this week by decrying the Vikings’ plans to sell PSLs at their $1 billion stadium. Most everyone throughout the Twin Cities expressed confusion at this sentiment, since it was pretty clear from the beginning that PSLs were a crucial piece of the financing plan. [MN Gov. Dayton | Minneapolis Star-Tribune Editorial Board]
  • Perhaps just in time for the start of the Mike D’Antoni era in LA, DirecTV and Time Warner Sportsnet agreed to a carriage deal of the fledgling regional sports network. (Laker fans weren’t missing much the last two weeks anyway.) Terms were undisclosed, but TWCSN has been seeking $3.95 per subscriber per month, making the channel among the most expensive RSNs in the nation. [LA Times/Joe Flint]
  • The City of Reno swore in a new City Council this week, and with that came swift action. They nixed the narrowly approved debt restructuring/refinancing plan completed just before the election. That puts both the team and the city in a bind. The team is threatening to leave without a tax subsidy. The Council clearly wants nothing to do with the debt liability. This snag gives the two sides about a year to figure out some sort of solution before Aces ownership figures out a move. If the Aces leave, Reno would be stuck with the debt anyway. Already the city has stopped making debt payments, pushing its credit rating into junk status. [Reno Gazette Journal/Brian Duggan]
  • Did you know about the Sacramento Sports Commission? If you didn’t , then it matters little as it’s about to be dissolved. The commission’s job was to attract different types of sporting events and maintain relationships with governing bodies like the NCAA, so that Sacramento venues could remain in constant rotation for major events such as NCAA championships. The task will probably end up with Sacramento’s Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. One of the reasons for the dissolution is that SSC failed to repay a $400,000 loan taken out for the 2011 World Masters Athletics Championships. [Sacramento Bee/Ryan Lillis]

That’s it for now. Feature on media coming over the weekend.

11.15.12
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Did anything happen at the owners meetings today (11/15)?

Yes.

Selig also had this quote:

“I know people say ‘Gee, it should be easy to do,'” Selig said. “Well, the more they’ve gotten into it, the more complicated it’s gotten. But we’re headed for resolution.”

Ever the charmer and problem-sover, Allan H. “Bud” Selig.

11.15.12
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The Fish that killed Miami

Somewhere along the way, Jeffrey Loria lost the script. It was fairly simple, really. An owner of a “poor” franchise kept his house in order and received revenue sharing checks until he built a new ballpark. Then when the new ballpark money started rolling in, the franchise would be healthier, the team could significantly reduce if not completely eliminate its revenue sharing take, and the owner could spend as much as he wanted. That’s how it worked in Minnesota and Washington, that’s how it would work for the other teams that hadn’t gotten new parks yet.

The unwritten rule of all of this is that Loria could also spend as little as he wanted, even with a new ballpark. Last December, Loria kicked off a free-spending phase that last all of seven months. He had Larry Beinfest trade for Jose Reyes and sign Mark Buehrle, Ozzie Guillen, and Heath Bell. The Marlins were in the running for Albert Pujols and lost out when they refused to include a no-trade clause. As the Marlins sputtered towards the All Star Break, Loria gave up on his high-roller mode and set Beinfest out to go into fire sale mode. Hanley Ramirez was first to go, then Gaby Sanchez and Edward Mujica. Loria and stepson David Samson saved the best for last with this week’s blockbuster trade of – well, all of their veterans – to the Blue Jays for clubhouse cancer Yunel Escobar and prospects. While Giancarlo Stanton is expected to stay put because he’s good and cost-controlled, Ricky Nolasco and Logan Morrison may also be on the outs. If they were traded, the Marlins’ 2013 payroll could be under $20 million, unless Commissioner Bud Selig steps in and forces the Marlins to add a bunch of veteran one-year contracts. As for the big trade that made so many in baseball angry, Selig is reviewing it and while he’s angry, so far he sees no reason to rescind the deal.

It’s not so much the trade itself that’s revolting, it’s the circumstances surrounding the trade. Already, many in Miami and within baseball had reason to be suspicious of Loria, who ran the Expos into the ground and ran the Marlins on the cheap when he acquired his current team. Dealings with municipalities became so rancorous that Samson had to become the frontman in stadium discussions and Selig had to send in Bob DuPuy to negotiate the deal. Somehow the City of Miami and Miami-Dade County were swindled as so many municipalities had in the last 30 years

Other sports that have salary caps also have salary floors, making it difficult to pull off fire sales of this magnitude. Thanks to the lack of a salary floor, there will probably be two teams in 2013 – the Marlins and Astros – whose payroll will be lower than any payroll in the other three major sports. Yet MLB will also have 5-7 team payrolls that are higher than anything in the other three major sports. The economic system in MLB not only allows this inequity, it promotes it among its ranks. Selig can talk all he wants about greater competition including low-revenue teams, but in the end the four LCS teams all had payrolls above $110 million. On the other end, the Marlins have no incentive to wean themselves off the revenue sharing teat because they, as a small market team, are entitled to revenue sharing under the current CBA. In revising the agreement, MLB went to pains to define big markets and small markets, ensuring that teams in the top 15 markets all transition off revenue sharing.

From the current MLB CBA, Attachment 26 – a list of teams in order of market size and their yearly revenue sharing status. Miami is 23rd, Oakland is tied for 7th with San Francisco.

Should the trade be approved, Selig could get punitive and take away some amount of revenue sharing money due to the Marlins next month. Since there’s no proper mechanism for redistributing or reallocating the funds, what will probably happen is that Selig will push Loria to end the fire sale at this point and then spend $20-30 million on veteran free agents who could round out a roster. It won’t do anything to heal the relationship with fans or lure premier players whose agents are rightfully suspicious of Loria. It will, however, give off a sheen of “trying” when it’s clear that Loria definitely isn’t. He must have learned to cut bait early when he tried to parlay the 2003 World Series win into multiple playoff appearances. The NL East proved tough sledding with a rebuilt Phillies squad and evergreen Braves team in competition. The Marlins finished 2004 and 2005 with above-.500 records, yet finished well back in the East. One recent suggestion has been to strip the Marlins of the 2015 All Star Game, which would be fair. The Game is a team’s reward for successfully building a stadium. Reassigning the game or postponing it for a few years is a reasonable punishment, though it pales in comparison to more punitive and less feasible actions such as engineering a franchise sale.

So yes, Loria will get a wristslap at worst. He’ll lose revenue at the ballpark for certain, especially if attendance dips below 20,000 per game as it was prior to Marlins Ballpark. Lost revenue could total $30 million. No one’s going to cry for him. Assuming he gets $40 million in annual revenue sharing, he’ll pull $85 million from MLB without selling a single ticket. In 2014 that will go up to $100+ million because of new national TV deals. Rent is incredibly cheap at $2.4 million. Loria can bide his time and let a rebuilding team move its way into contention, at which point he and Samson can try to convince the public and players that things will be different this time around. Once bitten, twice shy.

Reaction from the Marlins trade should have long resonating impact on efforts to build ballparks in the two Bay Areas, but I wouldn’t count on it. The differences between the Tampa and Oakland situations and what happened in Miami are vast. The Rays have fielded competitive teams for a long time but are locked into a lease at Tropicana Field, as well as the City of St. Petersburg because the mayor won’t allow the team to expand its search to Tampa. The A’s were competitive this year and have a bright future, but ownership also wants to look outside Oakland and is being prevented from doing so by the cross-bay Giants. Lew Wolff wants to self-finance the ballpark to avoid dicey public funding measures. By ratifying the new revenue sharing market definitions, Selig and the other owners are pushing for the A’s to get off the dole. Given the size of Tampa Bay market, it would seem that the local economy couldn’t capably support a privately-funded stadium. This memory will remain fresh if the respective owners or the commissioner play ransom when the CBA ends in 2016. Still, you can’t discount the collective ability of pols to buy into a bad deal. It happened in Miami, it happened in Oakland not too long ago, it’s happening in El Paso now.

It’s too bad this stadium business is so expensive. Teams that build their own stadia have the most incentive to remain competitive, to spend on payroll, to win. They don’t have gigantic subsidies to fall back on. If more teams went that route, we might have fewer instances like this Miami mess. And competition would be real, not a farce.

11.06.12
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Chronicle compares Giants’ Port deal with Warriors’ deal

Well, call it a deal framework for now. Plenty of detail needs to be hashed out to build a Warriors arena in South Beach, but at least the Chronicle’s John Coté has gone to the trouble of comparing the Warriors’ deal with what the City struck with the Giants 15 years ago.

SF Chronicle comparison of land deals for Warriors and Giants

For now, the city’s initial investment is higher, a reported $120 million for the W’s vs. $27 million (year 2000 dollars) for the Giants, not including project soft costs. In both cases, the tenant teams also received development rights to additional land. For the Giants it was the parking area on the other side of Mission Creek. The W’s would get Seawall 330 across the street, where some kind of high rise office tower, hotel, or residential building would presumably be constructed.

Not included in the comparison is the potential property tax impact. While infrastructure for AT&T Park was paid for via tax increment, that avenue is not directly available this time around for the Warriors. Instead, the City/Port could sell Seawall 330 to the W’s or offer a rebate of the City’s share of the W’s property tax payment (a subsidy). Let’s project that rebate a bit.

Say that the assessed value of the arena is $500 million. That’s low but could and will be argued by the Warriors as proper, just as it was by the Giants. That puts the annual property tax bill at $6 million per year if assessed at 1.2%. Roughly 30% of that goes to San Francisco, which is incorporated as both a City and County. The rest of the bill would go to schools, specifically SFUSD. That makes a potential rebate as much as $1.8 million, nearly the same amount as the W’s annual rent payment on Piers 30-32. The Warriors get a fantastic deal on two pieces of waterfront, an standard-bearer of an arena, and a massive franchise value increase due to the deal fundamentals. If you’re Joe Lacob and Peter Guber you jump on this deal toot sweet.

The City of Oakland should be following the progress of this deal project closely, as it provides a blueprint on how to make a Howard Terminal ballpark deal work out. At 40 acres, Howard Terminal provides space for both a ballpark and ancillary development. In San Jose there isn’t as much of an opportunity, since little city-owned land exists adjacent to the ballpark site.

10.31.12
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News for 10/31/12

All Hallows’ Evening edition.

  • The state’s Department of Finance nixed a settlement that would’ve satisfied the 49ers and Santa Clara Unified School District over the split and repayment of $30 million of redevelopment funds. The district, city, and county will appeal on November 26 with a ruling expected by December 18. If the deal remains rejected, the 49ers will sue in March. The ongoing dispute over the $30 million will not stop stadium construction, which is already starting on the upper deck. [San Jose Mercury News/Mike Rosenberg]
  • Speculation: Following along from that last story, I don’t think a deal between San Jose and Santa Clara County over the Diridon land will pass muster, even if the County finds money to fill the gap. The State appears to be putting its foot down to restrict redevelopment, at least through the rest of Governor Jerry Brown’s term. That’s not to say that Wolff/Fisher won’t be able to get the land. They may have to go through the normal sale process to get it, that’s all. [Sacramento Bee/Loretta Kalb]
  • The 45-day window for the Dodgers and Fox to negotiate a new TV deal has opened. Per the terms of the current deal, Fox has first dibs for the duration of the window. Guggenheim Partners paid $2 billion with the idea that the next TV deal would be a bonanza, so it would be not be a shock if no agreement emerges from the talks. There is a catch: the Dodgers have to name their price during the window, effectively setting the market. How much is too much for Fox, which has lost the Lakers and Pac-12 sports in the past year and has two channels to fill? We’ll see. [LA Times/Joe Flint]
  • Speaking of channels, Time Warner Cable SportsNet launched without carriage on DirecTV, Dish, and any SoCal cable operator other that Time Warner and Charter. The Pac-12 Network continues to be unavailable on DirecTV, AT&T U-verse, and Verizon FiOS.
  • From the Department of Audacity: the City of El Paso’s Proposition 3 asks voters to approve a ballpark deal. However, only recently was it revealed what would happen if voters said “No”. If that happens, the $50 million ballpark will continue to move forward, but not financed by bonds backed by a hotel tax. Instead, it’s highly likely that the general fund would have to be tapped to fund the ballpark. Cray cray. [El Paso Times/Cindy Ramirez]
  • Today an architectural review of Barclays Center was published, which I read with glee. NY Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman talks of the arena’s rusting metal panels being akin to “ancient chains binding a giant Gulliver”, or its technological excellence, including an “underground turntable for trucks that may sound eye-rollingly dull but makes traffic engineers like the city’s transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, swoon”. The latter half of the review rightfully critiques the arena’s lack of integration into the neighborhood and Brooklyn in general. [NY Times/Michael Kimmelman]
  • The Texas Rangers continue with $12 million in improvements to Rangers Ballpark, highlighted by an extra row of high-roller seats and a club area behind home plate. That brings the total of improvements over the last three years to $35 million. [Dallas Morning News/Sarah Mervosh]
  • For tonight’s home opener, the Philadelphia 76ers are unveiling the world’s largest (and scariest) T-shirt cannon. [The 700 Level/Enrico Campitelli, Jr.]

Be safe out there on Halloween.