After I got home from the game I walked around the neighborhood for two hours because I was still on edge. Then this occurred to me:
This is how Detroit Tiger President/GM Dave Dombrowski’s 9th inning went.
It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve done one of these. Time to catch up.
A Removal Action Work plan (RAW) was drawn up, and the RAW leads to several questions that have yet to be discussed publically by officials who have spoken in favor of an A’s stadium at the Howard Terminal site, more specifically the role City and County governments would play in regards to the RAW.
The RAW states that should these asphalt concrete caps break, the removal of contamination would cost “in excess of $100 million. It would also require the terminal to shut down for a long period of time.” If the caps were to be broken during the building of a stadium, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say cost over runs could be in the neighborhood of $200 million (contamination removal and stadium building costs), and could delay the opening of a Howard Terminal stadium by at least a year and possibly longer. The worst case scenario being the project being permanently shut down causing the A’s to leave the Bay Area altogether. Such an accident would undoubtedly find its way into a court room as well.
Today’s report from Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand indicates that MLB’s national television deals are just about locked in. We’ve discussed this a couple times now. I’ve done some rough math on it, and the financial picture looks even healthier than I previously projected. Sure, the TV deals will more than double in value, from $660 million to $1.55 billion. But it’s when that figure is coupled with all other sources of national revenue that the picture starts to really brighten.
Come 2014, every team could rake well over $80 million per year without selling a single ticket.
The table above reflects rising revenues from every source except for Sirius XM, whose deal was locked in years ago with the money paid in advance. MLB Advanced Media, the internet and broadcasting subsidiary of MLB, admitted last year that it was hitting nearly $500 million in revenue just for 2010. Combine each team’s share with other non-TV sources (adjusted for inflation), and each team comes away with $31.8 million per year. All told, that’s an estimated $83.5 million per year.
That doesn’t even include the dividend each team ownership group gets as an equity partner in MLB AM.
Every team is going to get this windfall, so it’s not as if the A’s or Rays are getting some great competitive advantage. It will allow both teams to be able to confidently offer FA-competitive long-term deals to their own free agents, though $100 million payrolls are still probably beyond reach. To get $100 or $110 million payrolls, both teams will need new stadia. The impressive thing about these bumps is that the A’s will get $10-15 million more via Central Revenue than they get from playing in the Coliseum. Add in local TV/radio and the usual $30 million or so in annual revenue sharing, and the A’s should net $180-185 million per year starting in 2014. Not rich compared to the other teams, but a far cry from destitute.
The highlight of Blog Day may have been a 25-minute discussion with Ray Fosse that spanned all manner of subjects: broadcasting, teams he played on. At one point Fosse started talking, unprovoked, about the need for a new ballpark. As a great player and broadcaster, his words carry far more weight than mine ever will. So here’s the snippet of him talking ballparks, which started as a question about comparing the current team to previous teams he played on or covered. Without further adieu:
This group of guys has a chance to be as good as (the 1989 squad), but the thing they have to do is stay together. There’s free agency and arbitration, and lots of money, the most important thing now is that the A’s somehow get a new stadium. Because as soon as a shovel is in the ground, they can keep all of these guys. Because they know what the revenue stream is going to be. Until that happens, they don’t know.
Q: Would you say you’re in favor of San Jose or in favor of a new stadium?
I’d say a new stadium, wherever it is. I don’t wanna upset people here… but unfortunately that monstrosity (points at Mt. Davis) killed us. If you can imagine when you watched games before, you could look out and see the Oakland hills, see the ivy up there.
This is the last remaining multipurpose stadium in all of baseball. Clay Wood does a great job, but he can only do so much. So to think about minimizing foul territory, which you can do when the pitchers are good enough… You can tarp the upstairs, tarp Mt. Davis, people complain – well you fill it up, and they’ll take the tarps off.
I don’t even like talking about excuses about, “Well, if we don’t leave…” Listen. To me, leaving and going to San Jose, if that’s where they go, that’s not leaving, folks. Leaving is going to another state or across the country. Staying in this area and (going to) a downtown – we’re fortunate to go to Baltimore and Cleveland in particular. Of course Boston’s downtown. Seattle. You get a downtown stadium, and what it does to revitalize a downtown area, it’s tremendous. To be honest, I’ve never been to a Sharks game but all I’ve heard are great things about downtown San Jose when the Sharks play. They support the team, it brings everyone out.
He also talked A.J. Griffin, Yoenis Cespedes, Scott Hatteberg, Chef Rodney, and more. I can’t post the audio here per the terms of the media credential (no podcasts), but these subjects and Fosse’s quotes should elicit a good amount of conversation. I’ll leave it at that.
Adding to the intrigue regarding last week’s reshuffling of 95.7 The Game, several radio announcements have been made in the last week or so. First, KNBR’s Tom Tolbert will contribute a minute-long segment at the top of every hour on CBS Sports Radio. (The segment is much like ESPN Radio’s Sports Minute with Mike Tirico, which is heard in other markets with ESPN Radio stations.) The new network was announced in June and will launch on September 4, anchored by numerous CBS and Cumulus stations, including the two KNBRs.
This CBS Sports Radio is different from the previous one, which was syndicator Dial Global’s (Westwood One) mostly game broadcasts with the CBS brand. The new CBS Sports Radio is a 24/7 sports talk network with no carriage of the four major pro sports at the outset. That’s no big deal for the KNBR twins since they have the Giants and 49ers. They’ll be fine, although I’m curious to see how much ESPN Radio remains in the lineup.
You may also remember that, back in March, Dial Global cut a deal with Entercom to switch its game broadcasts from KNBR to 95.7 The Game, coinciding with the NCAA tournament. Dial Global has the NFL, It’s additional sports programming to help bring in new listeners, though it’s not the same as landing a team like the Warriors or Raiders.
Turns out that Dial Global and NBC Sports are also launching their own network. They’ve announced a flurry of new hosts to fill their talk lineup, including the oft-traveled Erik Kuselias (meh) and former NY Giants (and De La Salle Spartan) Amani Toomer. Toomer’s show will be in the late night Eastern (10 PM – 1 AM ET) slot. Current NFL TV analyst Rodney Harrison will get his own weekend show. The interesting thing about NBC Sports Radio is its launch date: also September 4.
That lines up with The Game’s scheduled programming changes, which have a few details remaining to hash out. For now, Dial Global hasn’t said whether it’ll go whole hog with the NBC branding, but it stands to reason that it will. The name Dial Global has no recognition outside of the radio industry, and NBC has been thorough in having the NBC Sports moniker permeate all of its TV sports properties, from the former Versus network (now NBC Sports Network) to the Comcast SportsNets, which have NBC Sports as part of their tagline with every broadcast.
I’m merely connecting the dots, but it makes sense, doesn’t it? Come Tuesday, fifth tier Yahoo! Sports Radio will be ditched for NBC Sports Radio, which has much stronger recognition despite its startup status. Funny thing is that for decades, KNBR-680 was the NBC affiliate for Northern California, a stint that only ended as the station switched to the sports format full time. Throughout the 2000’s the A’s shuffled between CBS-owned affiliates before signing with The Game. Remember how I remarked how cozy the relationship was between The Game and CSN Bay Area/California? That may well have been a prelude to something much bigger. And there’s still the Warriors situation to shake out. September could be a banner month for 95.7, as The Game literally changes.
95.7 The Game had another of its “blockbuster” announcements today during The Wheelhouse, and for once there was actual news. The lineup is changing from 4 shows spanning 6 AM – 10 PM to 4 shows from 6 AM to 7 PM, starting after Labor Day.
Listeners are asking what happened to The Chris Townsend Show from 7-10. I think the answer is simple. The Warriors have been rumored to be talking to Entercom about switching from KNBR to The Game, so to properly accommodate W’s games and pre/post-game programming they had to move things around. Using the old schedule with Townsend from 6 to 10, he’d be preempted several times a week by the W’s during the fall/winter and then daily with the A’s. The 7 PM slot is plum when it isn’t being preempted, when it is you get Damon Bruce moving to 1050 after years of frustration.
Making Steinmetz a permanent host would seem to be clincher. He’s a good basketball analyst, though unfortunately he’s pretty bad or inattentive to other sports. Having Steinmetz on is good from a “morning after” analysis standpoint, and Townsend can deftly handle the other sports. The curious thing about the change is that the slot is only two hours, which is not unheard of in other markets but in the Bay Area is unusual. Seems like it would make more sense to shorten the morning show to 9 and give Townsend-Steinmetz 9-noon.
The 7 PM slot is a bit of a mystery. I could see rotating shows for the football teams and maybe a college football show, unless the station wanted to go cheap and use Yahoo! Sports programming. It’s also possible that Townsend could do double-duty with the 10-12 slot and night slot since he’s done it in the past. You’d think that if that were the case The Game would’ve announced it. Warriors broadcasts plus postgame will preempt regular programming for at least an hour 50-60 times throughout the season, and if the W’s go to the playoffs that number is sure to grow.
Ratings for the San Francisco market dating back to November 2011
Change is afoot, and Entercom clearly needs to ink deals to lift the station. The Warriors haven’t announced a radio partner yet and we’re only six weeks away from the first preseason game. The next move seems obvious.
We’re overdue for a news roundup. Now seems like a good time for one.
From BANG’s Joe Stiglich:
A’s managing partner Lew Wolff says, to his knowledge, the team’s stadium issue is not on agenda for next week’s owners meetings.
#Athletics— Joe Stiglich (@joestiglich) August 10, 2012
Last week’s visit to Oakland and San Jose by Bud Selig’s three-man panel foreshadowed this.
Update 1:04 PM – Stiglich has a writeup with quotes from Wolff, such as:
“It’s up to the commissioner’s office,” Wolff said. “… This is a process that unfortunately is taking longer than I hoped, but it’s a fair process.”
Other news:
More if it comes.
During last night’s game I made an observation on Twitter that initiated a robust debate.
Bay Area media unwritten rule: Write about #SFGiants year round, more if they suck. Ignore #Athletics unless they’re good.
— newballpark (@newballpark) July 26, 2012
That begat the following responses from BANG’s Tim Kawakami:
@newballpark Conspiracy! You must’ve bugged one of our secret meetings.
— Tim Kawakami (@timkawakami) July 26, 2012
and…
Some angry A’s fans are funny. I guess there’s a vetting process to cover them now? Swear on Fosse’s scorecard? Root Beer Float ID card? — Tim Kawakami (@timkawakami) July 26, 2012
and a bewildered response from the Chronicle’s Susan Slusser:
Thanks all! I was just taken about to hear Bay Area media biased against the A’s when I tweeted about astonishing Reddick catch. All OK now.
— Susan Slusser (@susanslusser) July 26, 2012
Clearly, I wasn’t referring to Slusser, who has been the best in the business for years, and her beat colleagues Joe Stiglich and Jane Lee. I was referring to columnists like Kawakami, or the Scott Ostler column from yesterday. To his credit, Kawakami’s interview with Billy Beane was very illuminating and should answer a lot of questions about the organization’s postseason intentions. That said, such columns are few and far between. What’s more common is the standard tripe proffered by Lowell Cohn or Ostler, who may have confused the column space for a long tweet.
I’ve been following the A’s for more than 30 years, well before the popularity of Sports Talk Radio and the Internet. I was aware as a kid of the coverage inequity between the two teams. It was something I simply accepted as part of the sports media landscape. Fortunately for A’s fans, the expansion of information sources and real-time availability has not only lessened the impact of the gruff, eternally cynical, cigar-chomping (or free-food chomping) columnist, it has made that character a dinosaur. The A’s get better coverage now thanks to the tireless work of the local beats and the added perspective of national writers who, frankly, love Billy Beane (which helps). I’m perfectly fine with that. I no longer worry much about the lazy, often provocative style of the local sports columnist. Well, enough to get it off my chest for two posts, but anyway…
FWIW – Kawakami’s best work was when he was covering the Lakers for the LA Times.
P.S. – If you want to see a lazy, provocative media type get thoroughly destroyed, check out former Merc columnist Skip Bayless shrink in the face of Mavs owner Mark Cuban’s withering commentary.
Come 2014, the A’s will be a much richer team, a team capable of fielding a $100 million payroll. And they won’t have to build a ballpark, negotiate any new local media deals, or raise ticket prices to do it. That’s because new national television deals will be in place for the 2014 season, and they promise to make every team a good deal richer.
A flurry of stories have come out in the last week to trumpet the coming broadcast rights war. All of the current national broadcast deals expire at the end of next season, making this next set of TV rights negotiations a total free-for-all. I’ve assembled some of the articles for your perusal.
Currently every team gets around $24 million per year in national TV money via three contracts (Fox, ESPN, TBS) plus international and digital media revenue. All told, it’s at least $33 million per team per year from baseball’s central revenue, or $1 billion for MLB total annually. According to many industry observers, the new TV rights deals should net MLB around $2 billion per year by themselves, at least doubling if not tripling the amount each team will get. That won’t mean all that much to the Yankees or Red Sox, since they’re often up against the luxury tax threshold. For a team like the A’s, however, it’s manna from heaven. A bump to $2.1 billion (a reasonable guess at this point) will put $70 million in every owner’s pockets, every year.
Let’s look at this at the micro level. Estimates have the A’s 2011 revenue at $160 million, though Lew Wolff will argue that it’s less. With greater ticket sales this year and other incrementally growing revenues, I’d wager that $160 million is a realistic number for this year (Forbes might say that it’s $165 million or more). Now add $42 million in fresh national TV money, and suddenly every team in baseball, including the A’s, is a $200 million revenue franchise. Use the typical 50/50 ratio of payroll to revenue, and the A’s payroll is $100 million. Simple, right? ($230 million doesn’t seem so far away anymore.)
Ah, but there’s more to it than that. Chances are the digital media and international broadcast money will also grow. Several teams will approach $300 million in revenue, which means that $150 million payrolls will become more commonplace. Again, all without raising the price of a single ticket. The A’s will continue to be a have-not relatively speaking, but that extra money should make it easier for ownership to sign a young slugger past arb years, or more than one. While we currently think of $75-80 million as the practical upper limit for payroll when Billy Beane feels the team is in contention, that amount should be the lower limit for payroll in the coming years. Giants ownership grumbled loudly about keeping this year’s payroll to $130 million. That figure should be their lower limit in 2014.
Exploding TV money will have one other important effect on teams: franchise valuations and sale prices should continue to grow. The Padres sold for $600 million plus $200 million for their share of the new Fox Sports San Diego network. I figure that puts the A’s at $500 million now, and that’s without the benefit of the new TV money. In 2014, the A’s should be worth $600 million easy. Knowing the gravy train that’s coming, Wolff/Fisher would be crazy to sell the franchise anytime soon, regardless of what happens to their San Jose ballpark pursuit in the near term. On the flip side, the growing franchise value will only make it that much more difficult for an outside group (Don Knauss & Co.) to buy the franchise and finance a stadium, soon to be a combined $1.1 billion price tag. If we’re looking for an event to burst the valuation bubble or dissuade Wolff/Fisher from continuing to own the team, the new TV contracts definitely aren’t it.
The most fascinating part of this will undoubtedly be the negotiations. When the last rights were negotiated, baseball was considered a sport on the decline among the networks, best relegated to regional sports networks and ESPN. Since then, NBC and CBS have launched their own sports network competitors to ESPN. Fox may convert Speed to all sports instead of just motorsports, the same way NBC converted OLN and CBS did CSTV. All three would want baseball as a tentpole for their fledgling networks and for their cable bundling efforts, the better to wring ever higher subscriber fees from consumers.
There’s a decent chance that MLB will structure bidding so that a network can bid on a specific league, the way the NFL splits broadcasts for its two conferences. That would be an interesting twist, though it would create an inherently unequal situation due to the popularity of the Yankees and Red Sox. I’m certainly not digging the idea of AL nights and NL nights. Digital carriage also has to enter the picture. Streaming of national games may be part of every deal, though you can bet that they’d still be subject to those frustrating blackout rules.
How do think this new windfall will affect the A’s in the future? How should broadcast rights be distributed? Do you have a favorite channels on which you’d like to see national broadcasts?
Good stuff in this edition.
Happy reading.
newballpark.org 