Category Archives: Radio/TV

04.12.12
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All sides, now

KQED producer extraordinaire and friend-of-the-blog Nina Thorsen has been interviewing many people about the ballpark and potential relocation issue. Today she posted the second in a series, this one focusing on San Jose interests for and against Cisco Field. This follows up on last week’s Oakland-focused segment (which had a bit with our own Jeffrey). Next week will be a comparison of Oakland and San Jose from a bottom line standpoint. All of it is definitely worth a listen.

Something worth a read is a piece by Fox Sports’ Tracy Ringolsby from March 31. Somehow this article eluded me despite my best combing for news, and for that I apologize. Gojohn10 referred me to the article yesterday while we were at the game, and I was so astonished by the statement within that I couldn’t believe it. Sure enough, he brought up the article and I was very surprised. I posted the important blurb in the comments, but I’m putting it into this post so that front page readers will see it. Enjoy.

The challenges for Oakland A’s is not finding a buyer, but rather coming to agreement with the San Francisco Giants on the A’s desire to move their franchise to San Jose.

“Both sides are deeply positioned and I am in the middle of trying to fashion some type of an agreement,” Selig said. “It is very complicated.”

No other two-team market has territorial rights, but the Giants claim they control the San Jose area, and contend that was a critical part of their ability to finance AT&T Park. Giants officials also argue that Lewis Wolff and his partners were aware of that agreement at the time they purchased the franchise from the Haas Family, which is why they were able to buy the team for $180 million.

“It is different because in 1990 when Bob Lurie wanted to move the Giants to San Jose, Walter Haas, the wonderful owner of the Oakland club, who did things in the best interest of baseball, granted permission,” Selig said. “What got lost there is they didn’t feel it was permission in perpetuity. He gave Bob permission to go down there. Unfortunately or fortunately, it never got changed. We are dealing with a lot of history here.”

It’s part of the challenge of being commissioner.

“Nobody ever said it was going to be an easy job,” Selig said.

I’ve never heard or read Selig go into that much depth on the issue before. It’s a clear indicator that he is actually trying to broker a deal, which as I have written here repeatedly, would not be easy to do but could be done.

04.12.12
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Barbieri fired from KNBR

The Razor and Mr. T is no more.

Now it’s just Mr. T.

Longtime KNBR host Ralph Barbieri was unceremoniously fired earlier today with six months left on his contract. His cohort, Tom Tolbert, emotionally said goodbye to his radio partner of 15 years, while Barbieri had 7 minutes to clear his things and get escorted off the premises. While Tolbert has done well by himself when The Razor was away or on vacation, Tolbert will probably have a new partner sooner rather than later> This may simply be to keep Tolbert, who walked away from a lucrative national TV career to have more family time, happy.

Ratings for the February radio month were released two weeks ago, and while they show enormous dropoffs for both KNBR-680 and The Game, some of that is to be expected thanks to the ending of the football season and no baseball until March.

February 2012 radio ratings

There’s probably a simple bottom-line reason for the move. Tolbert is the real draw for the show and he resonates better with the younger demographic than the oft-acerbic Barbieri. KNBR parent Cumulus could easily stick someone else in there for much cheaper and continue to dominate the drivetime slot. There’s an opportunity for The Game’s “The Drive with Tierney and Davis” to get some of that audience, but remember that some of the KNBR audience is locked in thanks to a natural lead-in to Giants baseball.

KNBR could put Tolbert and Damon Bruce together, which seems like a good fit. Then KNBR could go to an all-syndicated lineup on 1050, except for new show as counter-programming to Giants games. As for Barbieri, it appears that he’s not saying much while he weighs his options. The Game’s relentless hammering of KNBR over the age of both Barbieri and Gary Radnich would make it a complete 180 for the station to hire The Razor, plus he wouldn’t come cheap. He famously revealed last year that he had Parkinson’s disease. The effects of his coping with the illness are obviously unclear at this point.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Giants’ recent extension with KNBR led to this management decision. The Giants are looking at every opportunity to maximize revenues in the wake of a slumbering Dodgers franchise, so cutting a little overhead here or there would make sense. Radio’s a tough business, and sometimes that means letting go of one of your biggest media supporters. Good luck to the Razor, wherever he lands.

03.09.12
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News for 3/9/12

Feels like we need this since the week has been dominated by the PR war.

  • The A’s announced today that they will have a private entrance for season ticket holders. The terms are that you’ll need the credential from your season ticket book along with your ticket to use the entrance. In addition, for any extra tickets you buy for a particular game, those holding the extra tickets won’t be able to use the entrance. It seems like this was done to reward STH during bobblehead and other high-demand giveaway games, though the FAQ emphasizes that distribution of giveaways will be proportional. The entrance will be next door to Ticket Services.
  • Jeff Moorad withdrew his application to become the “control person” of the Padres, leaving John Moores as the control person for the time being. The move is considered a procedural one, with the need to consummate a TV deal between the Padres and the new Fox Sports San Diego channel first. Moorad’s deal to acquire the team from Moores was constructed so that Moorad could stretch the timeline out to four years if necessary, though his intent was to acquire controlling interest sooner than that. MLB had raised concerns that Moorad might take a lot of the Fox money upfront and use it to buy out Moores or to pay down debt, instead of putting it into the franchise (the McCourt-Dodgers TV problem). It’s a smart move by MLB, because if the rumor had some merit it could’ve sapped some $10 milion per year in revenue from the team. Now the Padres are Exhibit A in how to pull off a sale that puts the team on the best financial footing. If anything, it looks like Moorad was putting the cart before the horse. And this article from the SD Union-Tribune sheds light on the group of owners set in opposition to Moorad. There’s a big difference between that and the supposed foment against T-rights changes that Lew Wolff faces.
  • In Miami, the 5,700+ parking spaces at the Marlins ballpark are proving to be a logistical nightmare, not like we didn’t see that coming. The suggestion: buy pre-paid parking or else you’re taking your chances finding a spot on someone’s lawn.
  • As he is wont to do, Peter Hartlaub went into the archives and found a concept for a huge, multipurpose stadium on what looks like Laney College. The year: 1960. 80,000 for football and 48,000 for baseball? Not without a lot of Astroturf.
  • MLS Commissioner Don Garber really wants a stadium and team somewhere in the five four boroughs of New York City. Sorry, Staten Island.
  • Bruce Jenkins has a few words about the A’s-Giants tete-a-tete. Surprisingly, he wants the Giants crushed and calls them bullies. Sounds good to me.
  • There’s a movement afoot to get rid of the television blackout once and for all.
  • Robert Gammon considers Coliseum City the last, best chance to retain Oakland’s teams. Sad then, that Oakland’s announcement was drowned out by the A’s-Giants drama. There was a press conference on Wednesday, though no representatives for the three teams showed up to provide support.
  • Tim Kawakami thinks Joe Lacob and Peter Guber should announce where they intend to settle by next year sometime. That might be a little premature. If the Giants were to build an arena in time for the 2017-18 NBA season, they wouldn’t have to break ground until summer 2015. That puts EIR and related prep work at the beginning of 2014. Even then, if there were some snags the Coliseum Authority isn’t going to say no to a year-to-year lease, since the debt service on Oracle Arena runs through 2027.
  • BTW – Yoenis Cespedes is expected to play his first MLB game ever on TV tomorrow against the Reds (CSNCA, Noon). Don’t miss it.

One more thing about the Giants’ press release: They implied that Wolff/Fisher got a no-San Jose discount when the A’s were purchased for $172 million in 2005. What then, do they say about Arte Moreno, who bought the Angels for $185 million in 2003? He didn’t have any territorial restrictions that called for a discount, and that was for a much larger market. Weak sauce Gigantes. Maybe if some of The Game’s and KNBR’s radio talent actually did some fact-checking they’d know this stuff.

Added 2:50 PM – The field is almost done!

03.05.12
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The last Bill Madden post

Listen to Bill Madden’s interview with The Drive. It’s far more substantial than the one with the KNBR morning zoo.

Bill Madden is not a pot-stirrer, or at least that’s not his reputation. On the Vecsey scale of sensationalism, he’s closer to George than to Peter.

Madden’s arguments are these:

  • From reading the Major League Constitution, the fact is that the Giants’ hold over the South Bay is ingrained. Per the document, any change would have to be via a 3/4 vote of the owners and could not occur via a Selig decree.
  • Changing T-rights would create a huge precedent, which Stuart Sternberg could use to move the Rays to New Jersey.
  • Bud Selig would like to broker an agreement but Madden doesn’t know how it could be done because Giant ownership feels it would be “committing suicide”.

Confronted by the A’s denial, Madden defiantly asked, “What did I get wrong?” Well, for starters, he got the history of the territorial rights arrangement wrong, though I figure he’d probably correct that if he had the chance. There is the question of how broad an action Selig can take. Madden says that Selig can’t. Lew Wolff’s position all this time has been that it is the commissioner’s decision to make. It’s not quite that simple, however.

Selig generally doesn’t operate by decree, so it’s something of a false argument. The only time in recent memory that he has “decreed” anything was the fateful decision to end the 2002 All Star Game in a tie. Everything other decision was the basis of him lobbying owners as a group to a specific decision or endgame. Yes, some kind of agreement has to be brokered, which Madden alluded to. No one’s breaking news there. How and for what $$$ have always been the sticking points, given the Giants’ and A’s positional gulf on the matter.

Madden even concedes this:

“… Or let Lew Wolff tell me how I’m wrong. I love Lew Wolff. He’s a great guy. My personally feeling is that I’d like to see the A’s in San Jose because I’d like to see them survive. San Jose is the second (sic) largest city in California and they ought to be able to have a baseball team. The fact of the matter is, for whatever reason, Wally Haas ceded those rights to Bob Lurie. And that was the reason Bob Lurie was able to sell the Giants for $100 million.”

San Jose is actually third largest, but I can see how a New York guy can get that wrong.

Eric Davis asks the proper question in the interview,

DAVIS: To your knowledge, have the A’s been denied San Jose or not?

MADDEN: No, I never said that. See, this is the problem. Everybody’s saying that Selig said has told the A’s that they aren’t going to San Jose. I DID NOT SAY THAT. The column does not say that… Is there anywhere in therewhere I said that Bud Selig’s gonna tell them they can’t go to San Jose? I’m saying that under these circumstances they’re not going to San Jose. But it’s not Selig that’s going to tell them that. These are the circumstances.

Bill Madden, you can thank your headline writer/editor/intern/monkey for having to go on the defensive on today. To his credit, he ends the interview with perhaps his most salient point:

I’m sure the commissioner’s not very happy with me on this story. Part of the reason being I’m sure he’s hoping he could broker a settlement between these two teams. Maybe he can. Right now I don’t see that happening.

After the Madden interview ended, Brandon Tierney and Eric Davis both came to the same conclusion: Madden’s connecting dots as opposed to reporting actual news. Is it nothing? Not at all. It’s properly giving attention to the elephant in the room, which is that the A’s and Giants are miles apart on what they think Santa Clara County is worth in terms of a settlement. It’s Selig’s job to broker that deal, and he reportedly won’t start brokering in earnest until the Giants’ astroturf group drops their lawsuit in San Jose. And let’s keep in mind that the way these settlements have gone in the past, there is a baseline: settling team pays half of $75 million “fee” to infringed team, league and other 28 owners pay the other half. Giants ownership know this and want no part of it. They’d just as soon pay the A’s to leave the Bay Area completely. Then again, there is the possibility that arbitration may be in order. Neither team is a stranger to the process. Shyam Das, get ready for Selig’s call on the batphone.

03.04.12
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More broadcast notes: Spanish broadcasts, opening series

Out of Joe Stiglich’s report about Lew Wolff’s dismissal of Bill Madden’s column, there’s a tiny nugget at the very end that’s more relevant than anything else that happened on Saturday: Spanish broadcasts of A’s games are on their way back! “A large majority” of games will be carried among three stations: KIQI 1010 AM (San Francisco), KATD 990 AM (Sacramento), and KWRU 1330 AM (Fresno). KATD rebroadcasts KIQI, and all three are owned by Multicultural Broadcasting.

Update: As mentioned by Stiglich and in the comments, Amaury Pi-Gonzalez and Manolo Hernandez-Douen will call the games.

Susan Slusser has an update on the opening series in Japan: the games will be on tape delay on MLB Network. Nothing has shown up on the MLB national broadcast schedule so far. The two games are now listed on the A’s April schedule as MLB.TV broadcasts, though those could be subject to blackouts. Slusser also mentioned that the A’s were able to scrounge up a repossessed, brand new scoreboard to use at Phoenix Muni this year. Not bad.

03.01.12
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2012 TV schedule

Far be it for any fan of a team, whose loftiest goal in 2012 is to stay out of the AL West cellar, to complain about TV coverage. Yet here I am, and I will. Normally at this time of year I’d be coming off of SF Beer Week and looking forward to NCAA basketball conference tournaments and the Big Dance. As I wrote yesterday, it’s all baseball for me this year. Whether this becomes a tradition is unclear. For now I’m going with it.

CSN California will carry 144 out of 162 regular season games this year, plus one spring training contest (and one A’s-Giants tilt on CSN Bay Area). Fox Sports will have two games per their Saturday game-of-the-week. The A’s don’t show up on ESPN’s national schedule. TBS hasn’t even published their schedule yet. MLB Network and MLB.tv will show another five spring training games. The coverage gaps are in the places we as A’s fans have become accustomed: midweek getaway day games.

I’ve already renewed my MLB radio subscription, so I don’t expect to miss anything regardless of where I am, starting tomorrow. I don’t need to see every spring training, especially the split squad affairs. But I am concerned about the first two games of the regular season, which are technically home games to be played at the Tokyo Dome. The two games will have their first pitches at 3:10 and 2:10 AM Pacific Time on 3/28 and 3/29, respectively. Four years ago, when the A’s were playing San Jose State to Boston’s Nebraska, the games were broadcast on ESPN, so if you wanted to stay up the games were there. This year that may not be the case.

For weeks now the games have shown up on the schedule for Mariners’ RSN ROOT Sports, and not on CSN California’s schedule. To get some clarity, I reached out to friend-of-the-blog and ace CSN producer Casey Pratt. He confirmed that CSNCA would not be carrying the games, whereas ROOT Sports would, and that there was a chance that MLB Network may carry those games even though they’re not on the schedule. An arrangement could be made per MLB Network’s retransmission agreements with the various RSNs. If it can’t, it’ll be a strange way to start the season, with no TV. Even if MLB Network were to delay it for rebroadcast in the morning, that would be fine. I’m not certain if the blackout rule for the premium Extra Innings or MLB.tv packages would be applicable in this case, with the A’s being the “home” team.

Japan games aside, the TV schedule isn’t too bad. I’d prefer every game to be televised, but if the businessperson specials aren’t that’s more reason to get out to the Coliseum. I don’t mind that one bit. That first time I hear Ken Korach describing balls and strikes, I’ll know spring’s here. Bring it on.

02.29.12
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News for 2/29/12 (Leap Day)

A good amount of stuff to report today:

  • Oakland’s CEDA Committee approved an action to have the City Council vote on EIR funding for Coliseum City. The City Council will take up the action next Tuesday night. A’s Fan Radio did a stalwart job of covering today’s proceedings. A similar action was taken prior to the City Council voting on Victory Court in December 2010. If the City Council approves the expenditure, two things need to happen: A) The work has to actually happen, unlike Victory Court, and B) A plan must be clearly articulated to show how the teams and venues will be accommodated. That last bit is probably the most important to the leagues, who are the real gatekeepers. Update 12:10 PM: As Bryan Grunwald notes in the comments, the 980 Park concept will be included as an alternative.
  • The Santa Clara City Council approved the 40-year ground lease for the 49ers stadium. This was considered a formality because the Council approved the lease to the Stadium Authority, which is simply the City Council wearing different hats. The interesting note to come out of the session was dissenter Jamie McLeod’s mentioning the ongoing California Supreme Court case over a potential new referendum. The case could be decided in the next week.
  • A new grassroots group trying to keep all three teams in Oakland has been formed. The group is called Save Oakland Sports. Seems a bit late to do something like this, but it can’t hurt. Besides, Baseball Oakland has gone largely dormant since the Victory Court plan was scrapped.
  • Frank McCourt has been unwilling to sell the parking lots surrounding Dodger Stadium, and several bidding groups have dropped out as a result. One of the drop-outs was the group led by Rick Caruso and Joe Torre, considered one of the frontrunners. The parking lot attendant has truly come full circle.
  • The Kings arena deal looks complex. And yes, it does look like the Maloofs will be borrowing to put up their share. The term sheet is due for public release on Thursday.
  • The City of Miami approved funding for rubber wheel trolleys that will run between downtown and the Marlins Ballpark in Little Havana.
  • San Francisco’s America’s Cup will be missing one major venue going forward: Piers 30 & 32. The piers were supposed to be used as a large staging area for teams. Costs may have proved prohibitive. The race will continue as planned, but there will be huge distances between the venues.
  • MLB and the MLBPA are finalizing details of the revised playoff system that will include a fifth team in each league and a wildcard playoff game.

Radio ratings were released last week. The winter results show a sort of stabilization. As baseball season begins, KNBR-680’s ratings should rise. Will The Game’s? As the Warriors end their season early, KNBR-1050 should take a hit.

Arbitron ratings for the last three months

If you’re wondering, former A’s station KTRB finally showed up in the ratings book last month. The rating? 0.0 in the SF market.

02.23.12
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Dead-market team

If you haven’t seen it yet, make sure you read USA Today baseball writer Jorge Ortiz’s team capsule of the A’s. And I mean read all of it. There are some choice quotes from Billy Beane, like this one on trading Cahill/Gio/Bailey:

“We’re not doing it to be mean,” says Beane, aware of the trades’ impact on the team and its shrinking fan base. “It’s not like I come into this office like I just jumped off the stage of Wicked with a green-painted face and go, ‘How can I trade my guys?’ We do it because we have no other choice.”

Cue someone in the RF bleachers pasting a giant, green-tinted, smiling Beane face on Elphaba. Or maybe Brad Pitt’s face? It’s hard to tell them apart these days.

Then there’s ESPN Magazine cover boy Brandon McCarthy, who may have displayed a little too much of his trademark candor when he said this about how the A’s operate:

“It makes team-building and the competitive aspect that much harder here,” says right-hander Brandon McCarthy, the A’s likely opening-day starter. “It’s not even being a small-market team. It’s being a dead-market team.”

Merde.

Later in the article, Wolff provides two crucial pieces of information that I had not known previously.

  • Moving the team to San Jose should increase revenue $80-100 million annually.
  • The TV rights deal with CSN California runs 25 years with an opt-out at 15 (2024).

In last October’s post titled “$230,000,000“, I attempted to estimate what the A’s revenue model could look like if they moved into Cisco Field in 2015. I figured it would be $64 million more than they get currently. Clearly, Lew Wolff is aiming higher, though he may be using a lower 2010-11 revenue estimate of $150 million or thereabouts to make the comparison (which would fall in line with a +80 million target). In any case, he and the rest of the business side seem to have a pretty good idea of where they’re going.

The A’s TV rights deal with Comcast, which unlike most other recently negotiated team TV deals, did not have its numbers or length revealed, is of similar length to others negotiated by the Rangers, Angels, Astros, and Mariners. I hope the deal isn’t a flat, non-escalating deal, because if it is the A’s will surely be forgoing revenue during what should be considered their competitive window from 2015 through 2020 and beyond. The flipside of that is that at least it’s comforting to know that the A’s are locked in somewhere for at least 15 years. That’s a lot of time to build brand equity, and it’s a damn sight better than the broadcast musical chairs the A’s had to deal with during the pre-cable days.

Comparison of current and future AL West TV rights contracts

I had theorized that the A’s were getting $15 million per year via their cable deal, though I’ve been too lazy to actually verify this. Based on the actual revenue the A’s report or the Forbes reported figures, I can’t see how it’d be much higher than $20 million. Either number is a pittance compared to what the division foes are getting, and will be even less competitive once the M’s negotiate a new deal in the near future. While the A’s can’t control what other teams get and appear to be locked in with CSNCA, they should at the very least have the opportunity to get the $80-100 million Wolff claims he can get via a new ballpark. Because if he can’t, Brandon McCarthy will be more correct than anyone would’ve had the temerity to suggest. For all intents and purposes, the A’s will be in a dead market. Or as he said towards the end of the article:

“It’s a major issue,” says McCarthy, who also has pitched for the Rangers and Chicago White Sox. “I think it’s one of those things that’s crippling this franchise. I’ve never seen anything like this where something like that could just become the rolling avalanche of things not being the way they should. A decision has to come.”

No fan wants to hear this type of thing, whether they’re in Oakland, San Jose, or Springfield. It belies the optimism that spring should bring. But whether you believe McCarthy is simply regurgitating the team line or he’s a blunt, independent thinker as he’s repeatedly shown, he’s right. Something needs to happen. Hopefully McCarthy will stay healthy enough to get a nice payday next year, even if it isn’t with the A’s.

…

P.S. – McCarthy and Dallas Braden were interviewed by The Rise Guys this morning. Good audio.

02.14.12
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Ground broken on Pac-12 Network headquarters

A ceremony was held today at the San Francisco site where the Pac-12 Network studios are expected to be constructed. Officials called it a groundbreaking, but it was more of a wallbreaking, since the studios will be in the same building as the Comcast Sportsnet studios on Third and Harrison.

The new network, which will be the third conference-specific network after the Big Ten Network and the mtn., is expected to be the first to be wholly owned by a conference. Despite the Pac-12’s insistence on owning the network solo, it will have no shortage of partners, starting with housemates Comcast. College football will always be a considerable draw, and while college basketball throughout the conference may be in a bit of a slump, there should be plenty of interest in many of the non-marquee sports (baseball, softball, soccer, volleyball, etc.) to provide plenty of programming. When the network launches in August, it’s scheduled to show 850 sporting events every year.

One operational difference between P12N and other conference networks is that they’re setting up to provide up to six regional feeds along with its national feed. That should allow every market and cable operator to show games specific to those markets if multiple events are happening simultaneously. I’m not sure how this would work with satellite providers like DirecTV and Dish, other than for them to pick up a package of all seven channels. Will all seven be available on both cable and satellite? The Merc’s Jon Wilner has some info from last week’s pre-launch announcement.

With just the cable providers, the network will be available to 40-45 million households. At $0.50 per month per household, that’s potentially $270 million per year in subscriber revenue alone, or $22.5 million per school before costs are deducted (not accounting for ad revenue). That figure could reach nearly half a billion annually if the satellite providers are included, perhaps more if the cost for the channel were more than $1 per month. The University of Texas’s Longhorn Network charges $0.40 per month/subscriber, the Big Ten Network charges $0.36. The Longhorn Network experienced problems getting cable systems to partner up, a problem Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott is looking to avoid. The network, or at least the national and specific regional channels, will appear on lower tier cable packages, so Joe Customer will be paying for it.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens to the various RSNs now that a significant amount of Pac-12 programming will be going elsewhere. The other western college conferences have little general fan interest compared to the Pac-12. On one hand, carrying Pac-12 games and shows is a cost. On the other hand, it’s good filler and has a fairly good fanbase to draw upon. The alternatives are to focus more on a market’s pro teams, high school sports, or the aforementioned non-glamour conferences. Heck, the only FBS schools in California besides the Pac-12 members are San Diego State, Fresno State, and San Jose State. Not exactly a ratings bonanza waiting there.

Personally, I don’t look forward to my DirecTV bill going up because the Pac-12 wants a little more coin. However, I wouldn’t mind seeing more college baseball, soccer, even women’s sports. That might make it worth it.

01.17.12
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News for 1/17/12

Today I did an TV interview on Get Real with Brian Stuckey, a show produced out of CreaTV San Jose. CreaTV is a non-profit to whom Comcast has farmed out all of their public access programming for much of the South Bay. The segment will air January 30 on Comcast channel 15 with a web stream simulcast, so my ugly mug won’t show up until then. I doubt anything will have fundamentally changed by then, but you never know.

On to the news.

  • Matier and Ross report that nothing official happened on the A’s-to-San Jose front. That’s true at least when it comes to making a decision or coming to a compromise plan. We set those expectations going into the owners meetings. Yet background work did occur, including the presentation to the executive committee and Selig’s statement that the A’s are now on the front burner. Write that off all you want, it’s movement that wasn’t happening six, nine, twelve months ago. Remember that as incalcitrant the Giants are, there’s always the threat of binding arbitration to force the Giants’ hand. Commissioner Selig won’t give San Jose a greenlight for a vote (for either MLB owners or the city referendum) unless the Giants drop their lawsuit, making the legal action the last real weapon in the Giants’ arsenal to block the A’s efforts.
  • While the Giants are doing everything possible to stop A’s ownership, they’re actively encouraging new arena deals. We all know about their overtures towards the Warriors. Yesterday, Larry Baer gave a pep talk to Sacramento civic leaders pushing for a new downtown Kings arena. Baer said that after four defeats at the ballot box, the effort to get a ballpark going was “worth the fight.” I imagine that Lew Wolff feels the exact same way, Larry.

“It can be done, don’t give up,” Baer said. “You must persevere, you must exercise patience, you must have strong leadership in the private and public sector.”

When a man’s right, he’s right.

  • While the Oakland-only crowd was eager to jump on a graf in the M&R report, they buried the lead: Thanks to the death of redevelopment, the City of Oakland will have to cut 200 jobs and hand out 1,500 pink slips. The Mayor and City Council may also have to take huge cuts in pay on top of cuts already taken last year. How does this affect San Jose? Not that much, since as of the end of 2011 there were only about 10-12 people left in SJRA, with budget cuts and changes already enacted. Not that San Jose actually anticipated the change. SJRA’s fiscal issues forced it shut down early.
  • Less than three months from the opening of the Marlins Ballpark in Miami, and there’s no solution for funding transit options that can bring fans from downtown or the nearest Metrorail (BART-like) station.
  • The Cubs are replacing their right field bleacher section with a Green Monster Seats-style party deck, fronted by one of those new-fangled LED scoreboards.
  • Santa Clara’s City Attorney declared a petition effort by 49er stadium opponents illegal. That doesn’t mean the opponents can’t sue. We’ll see if they have the resources to sue for the right. We’ve seen this happen before.

On a lighter note – since Jeffrey and I will both be at FanFest, would any readers like to do a meetup? Not exactly sure of where we could do it, we can talk through the details.