Category Archives: San Jose

06.13.11
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Time to band together

Athletics Nation’s resident raconteur, emperor nobody, posted a beautiful plea to A’s fans and Bud Selig in the wee hours this morning. A Facebook page was also created named “Hey Bud, PleA’se stop the TeA’se” whose purpose is to spread the message. The message? It’s time for Selig to make a decision and lead. Whether the future is in Oakland or San Jose matters less than the idea that there is a future for the A’s and A’s fans.

In the emperor’s inimitable way, he asks us to be indomitable:

Yes, the Giants are holding it all up, I get that.  Yes, Oakland’s “Victory Court” Environmental Impact Report (EIR) is proceeding at a speed somewhere between that of a glacier and Bengie Molina running out a triple, I get that too.  Yes, in Bud’s mind his hands are tied, so he has gone into a sort of administrative fetal position on this matter, all curled up with his thumb is his mouth — or some other convenient orifice of choice.  Be all that as it may, there’s no cavalry coming to shake him back to sentience and make him bring leadership to a difficult and distasteful set of circumstances.  I hate to say it to you, but the A’s fanbase — the group of people who form the natural constituency of concern here — has been whittled down pretty significantly.  So if you’re looking through your binoculars to see if the cavalry is approaching to save the day — or at least to start some shit so the real players in the drama can feel the heat and act accordingly — I’d suggest you lay the spyglass down and refer to your nearest mirror.  Because that’s where the cavalry is gonna come from, if it’s to make the scene at all in time to keep this franchise from circling the Eternal Drain of Irrelevance and Depredation.

More details about the movement will be unveiled on Chris Townsend’s show at 3 PM. It’s time for real accountability. It’s time for a decision. I’m onboard with this movement and have liked the page. How about you?

06.07.11
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The Cost of Indecision

It’s been a while since I have posted here. Not that ML needs any help, but I felt like it was time I stepped up and earned the fact that my name gets to appear with his on the side bar.

This desire to contribute didn’t come out of the blue. It actually took root in a recent meeting that I arranged, at my workplace and over lunch, with ML and one Doug Boxer. Many of you know that Doug is the driving force behind Let’s Go Oakland, a group of people who are passionate and committed to keeping the A’s in Oaktown.

While we didn’t really talk about anything that anyone that reads this site with regularity doesn’t already know, I was impressed with Boxer and his straight forward style in discussing both the advantages of Oakland as well as the challenges it faces. I wish many of the Pro Oakland folks that I know were equally as honest about the challenges that face the Town in their pursuit of having a stadium built. Challenges, that while real, are not impossible to overcome if accepted and addressed. Especially when you have smart people working on a realistic solution. In short, if there is a solution in Oakland, Boxer will be part of sorting it out… Even if he doesn’t have all the answers about funding the joint right now, something I think he would freely acknowledge.

After having this more than an hour discussion, I can say a few things with absolute certitude. The City of Oakland has had an opportunity to put forward it’s best ideas. The ideas they have chosen as the best have been listened to. The people of Oakland are fortunate to have a guy like Doug Boxer in their corner. If he can’t help find a way to make it work in Oakland, I am confident saying that no one can, or will.

One of the topics of discussion, something I hoped to glean but didn’t, was what the heck this two year delay has been all about. ML, Doug and I all had our own thoughts, though none of us really know for certain. The reality is that it doesn’t matter, Bud Selig’s lack of foresight has already been extremely costly to our favorite franchise and should offend the sensibilities of all of us A’s fans in the Bay Area. After all, we live in a region with a long history of successful companies that grow from flashes of imagination to household names in the time it has taken for Bud’s panel to do absolutely nothing but “study” an already pretty clear situation.

From Pandora to Facebook, companies in the Bay Area prove all the time that chasing a perfect solution to any problem is a waste of time and detrimental to getting something done. So is sitting on one’s own hands and waiting for a solution to appear. It seems that one of these two scenarios is playing out before our very eyes. Either Bud is waiting for Oakland, or San Jose, to give up so he doesn’t have to force the issue, or he is expecting years of research to come up with a magic bullet to slay the Beast of Where an A’s Stadium Should Reside. Both are foolish.

A brief interlude… As you can probably already tell, I am kind of cranky. That isn’t really anything new for us A’s fans. Really, it’s like we are all building blocks in the 9th Wonder of the World: The Frustrated Pyramid of Oakland. Think about it for a minute, we are the bottom few rows of humongous sandy blocks. We make up the first few layers of frustration as we sit helplessly watching the players flail away. Those same players make up the next few rows of the great pyramid. As they struggle to figure out how a promising season devolved in one week’s time. Decimated pitching staff? check! Underperforming veterans? Check! But most importantly, clearly incapable of carrying out the most important parts of his duties manager? Double check!

I’d throw Bob Geren in as the next level of frustration, but I am not sure how long he is going to be around. Color me skeptical, but when was the last time an owner went on record in support of his Manager only to change his mind not so long after? Maybe, if Bob Geren gets crushed between the pressure of Billy Beane’s frustration at not being able to get a premier bat to come to Oakland and all the grumpy players (players who are grumpy because Bob Geren, himself, can’t communicate or manage a bullpen) it will provide some stress relief for all of us?

And on top of Beane’s frustration we have Uncle Lew. Now, some of you who read here regularly are going to have real trouble trying to sympathize with Lew Wolff, but just imagine the conspiracy angle is true. Imagine Bud invited Lew to buy the A’s so that he could move the team out of Oakland. Imagine Lew playing his part perfectly… Nope no land in Oakland. Nope, $30M later, Fremont won’t work. Hey Bud, time to pull the trigger on that San Jose thing you asked me to get done… Oh, wait.

Now pretend the conspiracy isn’t real (or accept that it isn’t, depending on your view)… Imagine spending a few years reaching out to different people in Oakland, as Lew did. Imagine amassing the magic “binder” of letter’s rejecting the use of places like Howard Terminal, researching how a river of crap flowing beneath the old HomeBase site impacts potential development, and so on and so forth. Imagine having a solution and walking into Bud’s office and being told… “Hold on a minute while we redo everything you have done and let the local press savage you for the next 2 years and take no action to help you move forward either way… Oh, and please keep holding the line for now. Afterall, we are ‘working’ on it.”

Man alive that is a whole lot of frustration from top to bottom! But how about our two fair cities of consideration? Where do they fit in this Great Pyramid of Teeth Grindage? Has Bud’s indecision cost them anything?

First, an election will need to happen in San Jose should that locale be chosen. He had voter support to make it happen. Who knows what he has now? This is the cost of indecision.

Second, he had some momentum in Oakland… A grass roots group of supporters that are willing to make the case for a new stadium doesn’t exactly fall out of trees. How long does a Facebook group and clicking a link to send a form letter keep people’s attention? This is the cost of indecision.

These are just two, of many examples, of the cost of indecision. Bud didn’t capitalize on either. Instead he says “this is a complex situation” and insults our intelligence. That isn’t how you build the most successful internet radio platform. This isn’t how you build a social network with hundreds of millions of users. This isn’t how you should run Major League Baseball.

At Facebook, there are signs posted all around the place that say “Done is Better Than Perfect.” I think Bud needs to visit and catch a glimpse of how business is done these days. At Pandora, I am sure that copyright law policy and advertising sales campaigns and boosting subscription service account holders are all issues worked in unison. No, the “Dodgers and Mets have really screwed up… everything else is on hold” sort of dalliances don’t usually hold muster at companies that own the future.

Having a consensus builder at the helm isn’t exactly like having a visionary running the show. Having a man who can’t make a decision without the approval of those he “leads” is cutting into our fan base. And by our, I mean we. Me and you and all of us who should be preparing for a new yard instead of bickering about where that home should be.

Some other things that are currently cutting into the A’s fandom? Monte Poole’s monthly “Lew Wolff and John Fisher are characters from an Austin Powers film” column. By now, Poole should have been able to write off the A’s as the 30 mile moving carpet baggers or embraced Wolff for getting something done in the East Bay. Instead I have to argue with my friends, who support the same team I do, once a month about how Lew Wolff isn’t Emperor Palpatine and that, no, me pointing that out doesn’t make me an apologist. I will be really happy when I don’t have to read those columns anymore.

By now, our focus could be on how we band together to get Bob Geren the heck out of Dodge. Instead we argue, here and other places, about what Oakland could have done 15 years ago. As if that matters.

By now, some of us could have moved on to not being A’s fans if we so chose. Instead we drone on and on about what Lew Wolff’s intentions were when he bought the team. As if that has any bearing on MLB’s committee.

By now, some of us could be driving down to check out progress on the new yard every other week. Instead we fight about funding models for an imaginary stadium.

By now, we could all be looking at 3D illustrations and picking a seat for our season ticket package. Instead we are nitpicking “projections” of how many thousands of people would be sitting in the tarped off section of the O.co Coliseum.

By now, we could all be celebrating the signing of some free agent with a power bat. Instead we take sides in a debate over whether Scott Boras was telling the truth about why Adrian Beltre didn’t sign in Oakland.

By now, we could be talking about things that are relevant to the future of our favorite baseball franchise. Instead we are in a perpetual discussion over things that are irrelevant.

This is the cost of indecision. Something tells me a bad decision couldn’t be any worse.

05.22.11
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The Neukom Doctrine

In the mid-90’s, Microsoft was at the top of the world. With unmitigated dominance over the computer operating system market, smaller competitors were crying foul as Microsoft used its stature to enter new markets and take them over. Often MSFT did this by bundling features into Windows for free, such as its Internet Explorer browser. This strategy was called “embrace and extend” though it really meant “embrace, extend and extinguish” to competitors, as Microsoft frequently added features that would lock out competitors.

Giants managing partner Bill Neukom is no stranger to this strategy, as he defended Microsoft’s practice of it during his tenure as general counsel until he left the company in 2002. Initially he and Microsoft lost the landmark antitrust case against the Department of Justice in 1999, only to have the decision overturned by an appellate court. The company and the government eventually settled out of court, which allowed the company to stay intact (DoJ was seeking to break it up). Historically, the decision for Microsoft is viewed as a somewhat pyrrhic victory, as it has struggled to innovate in the face of Google, Apple, and smaller upstarts over the past decade, resulting in flat stock performance during that period.

By building AT&T Park, Peter Magowan initiated his own form of “embrace and extend” with the fanbase by choosing a more attractable, accessible location for the Giants than the windy, transit-poor Candlestick Park. Suddenly it became much easier to bring in fans from throughout the city proper, plus well-heeled fans in Marin County (via ferry) and the Peninsula (via train). The Giants got the added bonus of tons of fans coming from the East Bay via ferry and BART. Many of those fans were ex-SF residents who moved out to warmer, cheaper suburbs like Concord and Pleasanton. In doing so, they struck at a huge part of the A’s East Bay fanbase, and while many of the hardcore A’s fans would stay allied with Oakland, the A’s lost one very important demographic: Giants fans who could frequently go to A’s games as a more accessible substitute.

Since then-A’s-owner Steve Schott couldn’t object based on the fact that the Giants were building within city limits, all he could do was to deal with it and look to improve the A’s stadium situation, which he tried with Lew Wolff at the HomeBase site and in Santa Clara. The former was declined by Coliseum officials, the latter by Santa Clara officials when rumors of Schott wanting to sell arose. Schott also infamously didn’t show for a presentation on Oakland’s Uptown site, which is the very least he should’ve done – even though Jerry Brown was never going to let an Uptown ballpark happen on his watch.

Neukom further extended Magowan’s strategy by acquiring the San Jose Giants. He also had the World Series trophy paraded all over the East Bay – though not Oakland, obviously. Now, he’s preparing to make an interesting choice regarding the Giants’ future.

Since the beginning of his tenure as managing partner, Neukom has been steadfast about the Giants’ territorial rights to Santa Clara County. The argument goes that the value of those rights was baked into the financing of AT&T Park, which means they’re also baked into the franchise’s value. As such, they’re sacrosanct and not up for negotiation. Naturally, being steadfast is not the only option that he has since Bud Selig may choose to nudge him in one direction or another. With that in mind, it appears that Neukom and the rest of his ownership group have three distinct options moving forward.

  • Don’t budge, let the A’s leave the Bay Area. The Giants have said publicly that they “hope” that the A’s are able to work out a ballpark deal in the East Bay, since it would respect the existing six-counties-to-two distribution of territories in the Bay Area. Secretly, they have to be hoping the A’s fail completely in the Bay Area and are forced to look elsewhere. The only really advanced threat of building in either Alameda or Contra Costa Counties was when Pacific Commons was in the planning stages. It concerned Magowan and Giants President Larry Baer enough that they scouted the location to see how close it was to Santa Clara County. With Fremont a bust and many outside Oakland skeptical that a privately financed ballpark deal can be done in Oakland, the Giants have to be licking their chops at the thought of a Bay Area completely to themselves. While there don’t appear to be any good relocation markets for the A’s at the moment, there’s no certainty that will remain so five or ten years down the road. Should the A’s leave the Bay Area, they would be compensated by the Giants for ceding the East Bay. The interesting thing about such a transaction is that like the Giants ceding Santa Clara County, it would place a price tag on a territory. If the argument among the big market teams is that they don’t want to see such a precedent, then they don’t want either outcome to happen. Strange, huh? It would get even more complex if the A’s were to move to Sacramento as Baer has suggested, because the A’s could lobby MLB hard to split up Northern California to gain exclusivity over much of the region up to the Oregon border and Northern Nevada, the same way Warriors and Kings TV territories are split. The split would be damaging to the the value of the Giants’ TV rights since they’d give up millions of households every game. The result is ultimate dominance over the Bay Area for the Giants, but a huge loss throughout their broader territory. From a bottom line revenues standpoint, it’s hard to say how much this helps the Giants. If the A’s move out of state, the Giants pay nine figures upfront. If the A’s move to Sacramento, the Giants lose money on an annual basis. There have been rumors about the the Giants being willing to pay off the A’s to leave, so it’s not like both teams haven’t thought about it.
  • Don’t budge, keep status quo. This option assumes many events occurring in sequence. First, Lew Wolff (or whoever the owner is if Wolff sells) would have to stay in the Coliseum several more years past the existing end of the lease while working out the details of a ballpark in Oakland. It also assumes that MLB absolutely believes that a privately financed ballpark deal can be and is being done in Oakland. The Giants would be fine with this as it maintains regional hegemony. It might not work quite as well for MLB. If the A’s have trouble filling the ballpark due to poor performance, high priced tickets, or both, the A’s will have an extremely bad debt position for MLB to deal with. As long as the A’s struggle (whether in old or new digs), the Giants will continue to essentially pay part of their revenue sharing payment directly across the Bay to the A’s, which could be $20 million or more in coming years. Remember that the Bay Area is the only market where one team effectively subsidizes the other. That’s another situation that has to give MLB and Giants ownership pause.
  • Allow the A’s to move to San Jose. Again, Neukom has been steadfast about not allowing this. How bad would the Giants be damaged? Once you remove TV money and other Bay Area local revenue, I figure that Santa Clara County alone is worth at least $25 million per year in revenue to the Giants (back of napkin guess). That’s a lot. That pays off AT&T Park all by itself and then some. Neukom’s argument is that they’d lose that revenue. Wolff and South Bay proponents counter that hardcore Giants fans will remain that way and the Giants’ losses won’t be so deep. In particular, Wolff has argued that the league should look at compensation for T-rights on an annual basis, where a threshold is set and the A’s pay for the gap that doesn’t meet that threshold. Whatever the compensation model, I don’t think the Giants would lose $25 million annually. They’d probably lose 50% of that number since many of the fans are casual and both fans and sponsors can be replaced by East Bay fans. Years ago Magowan floated a number like $100 million for Santa Clara County, while Roger Noll estimates that the actual value is around to $20-30 million. If you’re Neukom and his partners, how do you attack this? A one-time payoff, even $100 million, dissipates within 7-10 years and doesn’t do much for franchise value (currently $563 million). Noll’s number is a mere pittance to them. Even if the A’s come off revenue sharing, it doesn’t mean the Giants won’t stop paying in – they most assuredly will continue to pay, though a few million less every year. The best thing for them may be to simply shut up. But that sets up the possibility that Selig will name the price for them.

No matter what Neukom decides, it looks like he’ll have to pay. He either keeps paying to keep the A’s in their stadium rut, he pays them to leave, or he gets less revenue if he cedes the South Bay. With the aura of the World Series and record revenues pouring in, such a possibility seems extremely remote. When the time comes to figure out how all of this should work out, that glow will be the furthest thing from his mind. By no means am I sympathetic to either Neukom or Selig for dragging this out for more than two years, but this is a thumbnail sketch of the dilemma and it took 1,600 words. What price hegemony? It’s definitely not cheap. Or easy.

05.20.11
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News for 5/21/11 (Rapture Day)

KNBR update man Dan Dibley announced Friday that he was leaving the station for 95.7 Sports Radio, where it appears he will have similar (perhaps expanded) duties. He’s a quality guy who’s from the Bay Area and knows the local sports scene (including the Quakes), which for KBWF is half the battle.

Speaking of 95.7, does anyone know where Chris Townsend is? His Twitter feed has been silent for 24 hours. Maybe he’s just getting a day or weekend off. He has worked pretty much every day without a break since the station switched formats on Opening Day, so he deserves a rest. I hope everything’s alright otherwise.

Marcos Breton and Ann Killion both have profiles of the A’s as the team labors in in relative anonymity across the Bay from the World Champs. Such is life.

San Jose’s redevelopment king, Harry Mavrogenes, announced that he’s stepping down in a month. SJRA has been cutting staff and running on fumes for a year now, making Mavrogenes’ departure more symbolic than anything. The agency has been dying for a while, and for better or worse, will never be the same. With land acquisition and development powers transferred to the San Jose Diridon Development Authority (of which Mavrogenes was a signatory), his capacity as SJRA head was no longer needed to finish the ballpark work.

Did you know that the headquarters of Family Radio (whose leader Harold Camping is predicting The Rapture on Saturday) is on Hegenberger, just across the Nimitz from the Coliseum? There is a tangential relation to the A’s besides proximity. Family Radio bought KFRC-610 from CBS in 2005, creating a very uncomfortable combination of God talk and A’s talk/games during the 2005 season.

SFGate/Chronicle blogger Peter Hartlaub has a couple of great posts showing what BART could’ve been like if vision didn’t give way to politics and construction photos including the Transbay Tube.

Jamie McCourt wants an immediate sale of the Dodgers so that she can cash out while she can. Which would be awesome for Dodgers fans who want to turn the page, A’s fans who want the team taken off the backburner, and pretty much everyone else except for Angels and Giants fans who are experiencing some deep schadenfreude.

The athletic facilities at Stanford are going to turn into one gigantic WiFi hotspot, thanks to AT&T. You know, it’d be nice if Verizon did the same for the Coliseum, seeing as they’re the telecom sponsor there.

Added 5/21 9:30 AM- John Fisher has to be taking it in the shorts this weekend as the GAP dove 17% in trading yesterday after it reset annual earnings expectations down 22%.

05.18.11
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Wall Street Journal piece explains everything you already know

Tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal more-or-less has an article by the paper’s Silicon Valley reporter, John Letzing, that resets all of the current, relevant information about the San Jose’s ballpark pursuit.

The takeaways are these:

  • Lew Wolff declined to comment, deferring instead to A’s broadcasting veep Ken Pries.
  • Giants spokesperson Staci Slaughter likewise refrained from comment on territorial rights.
  • Oakland’s Dan Lindheim gave his brief statement in support of keeping the A’s, then declined further comment.
  • Pries, for his part, said Wolff may not be willing to fund construction of a ballpark in Oakland.
  • Longtime ballpark opponent Marc Morris thinks there are better uses for ballpark project money.

Then there’s this, which was sourced from San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed’s letter from Monday:

Last week, San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed wrote to Mr. Selig, noting that seven years had passed since the A’s first considered moving to San Jose and added: “Despite your lengthy deliberative process, success is still achievable,” according to a copy of the letter Mr. Reed released.

Remember that Wolff joined the A’s in the venue development capacity in 2003, then exercised an option to buy the team in 2005. Also remember that then-Mayor Ron Gonzales made his ill-fated pitch at spring training in front of Phoenix Muni in March 2005. I even started this blog in March 2005. Obviously, something’s up with that, right?

Well, no.

Wolff’s job from 2003 until 2009 was to search all over the East Bay, including Oakland and Fremont. That he did, though the veracity with which he did his search will always be up for debate. If Gonzales came calling in 2004 or 2005, Wolff could take the call but he couldn’t work out any details, just as Wolff and Reed can’t do now. Back in 2004, Diridon was not the preferred site. In fact, it was considered one of the most difficult sites to make work simply because it had multiple owners, so it required multiple negotiations to acquire the entire site. The possibility or relocating the PG&E substation was also considered problematic. Territorial rights perhaps moreso. If someone’s looking for some great pipedream involving Wolff and Diridon – it wasn’t there.

However, there is absolutely nothing wrong with keeping San Jose a fallback option. Any businessman worth his salt would. As 2005 became 2006 and so on, Wolff focused on Fremont instead of Oakland because of the difficulty doing the land deal at Coliseum North – again, related to potentially complex negotiations with multiple landowners instead of one. When the economic collapse killed the major tenets of the Pacific Commons deal, Wolff went to Warm Springs and met a ton of hostility there. Knowing that he’d have to figure out a more “sure thing” in terms of financing a ballpark, he went to San Jose.

The thing I continually puzzle over is this obsession with Wolff’s intent, whether it was in 2003, 2005, 2009, or now. All I know is that Wolff’s intent is to build a ballpark. He was willing to forego San Jose if he could get cheap land and a financing mechanism in place in Fremont or Oakland. That blew up and he had to adapt. If he’s wrong in his assessment that it can’t be done in Oakland, Selig and his committee should able to prove Oakland’s economic fitness. If not, San Jose should not be dismissed. It’s much, much too late in this saga to worry which city’s first, and whose citizens are being offended. It’s time to lay cards on the table. If Wolff’s bluffing, we’ll know. If either Oakland’s or San Jose’s hand is a loser, we’ll know. Like Wolff, I’d rather get a decision than hang in the ether for years. Because when that decision comes we can focus on whatever gets built, whenever that is. And we can start healing the rift that has created by this whole mess.

Added 8:42 PM – At San Jose Inside, Josh Koehn considers the impact of San Jose putting Mayor Reed’s pension reform measure and a ballpark measure on the same ballot.

Added 5/19 10:30 AM – Dave Newhouse wrote about what happened after Andy Dolich’s email was hacked. (Interestingly, I got one of those emails too but recognized it as a Nigerian prince-type scam immediately so I deleted it.) Dolich maintains that the solution for the A’s (and Raiders/49ers) is at the Coliseum, whereas San Jose would be too costly due to T-rights and Victory Court doesn’t have the funding to get it done.

05.16.11
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News for 5/16/11

The Houston Astros and current owner Drayton McLane have announced that the team is being sold to Houston businessman Jim Crane for $680 million. Approval should take 30-60 days. Among the hangups were discussions over the Astros’ share of a new regional sports network to be shared with the Houston Rockets.

The Maloofs have agreed to share the Sacramento Kings’ financial data with pro-arena interests in the Capitol. This is a departure from other teams in other leagues who are generally reticent to share such data. As part of ongoing CBA discussions, owners have similarly shared data with the players’ union.

George Vukasin, Jr. of Peerless Coffee alerted me to this editorial in the Trib about eminent domain. A bill passed in 2007 tightens controls over how eminent doman can used to the point that “blight” has to be more clearly defined than it has in the past. Both Oakland and San Jose could be affected by these restrictions enough that land acquisitions could be further delayed or even stopped altogether.

Sacramento’s Matthew Mahood was named CEO of the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce. As for whether this will make a difference for San Jose’s pursuit of the A’s, Mayor Chuck Reed said this:

“The issue of the A’s stadium is way beyond what the chamber president can do,” Mayor Chuck Reed said. “It’s all between Lew (Wolff) and Major League Baseball.”

April’s radio ratings are scheduled for release today. We’ll get to see how the KBWF and KTRB shakeups have affected the Bay Area’s sports radio landscape. Update 2:17 PM – And they’re out.

As long as KBWF’s only permanent host is Chris Townsend, KBWF will struggle to gain listeners. Hopefully they can get that straightened out in short order. It’s a long game, and if the first goal is to supplant 1050, mission accomplished. I know that many have been clamoring for Rick Tittle to take the 10-1 slot. I’d rather him take a night slot with a more established name at midday.

Update 3:30 PM – ESPN is reporting that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has granted the NFL owners a stay in the lockout, meaning the lockout is still on. They have also asked the owners to submit a new proposal to the players. The two sides are in mediation today and it looks like the session will be extended several hours longer to accommodate the new proposal. Retired players rep Carl Eller said on SportsCenter that progress is being made, which could be very promising. Both the NBA and MLB are watching these talks carefully (NBA moreso).

Added 5/17 11:15 AM – From Baseball San Jose (via LoneStranger), San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed sent a letter to Bud Selig asking for a decision.

Governor Jerry Brown sent out his revised budget proposal for May, which continues to include a call to dismantle all redevelopment agencies despite growing revenues statewide.

05.13.11
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SJ Mayor Reed plays hardball with unions

As part of an effort to control upwardly spiraling pensions, San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed has called for the City to declare a state of fiscal emergency. This comes after months of ongoing negotiations with several public employee unions, which have yielded mixed results. Should this action pass with the City Council, in November voters would be allowed to approve or deny a major overhaul of existing benefits.

San Jose is not alone in facing increasing pension costs, as shown by recent statements by San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and Oakland Mayor Jean Quan. Reed is taking what could be regarded as the most radical step by throwing his hands in the air and taking it to the voters. There’s some degree of negotiation tactics in doing this move, whether it yields results is another thing altogether. While it’s clear steps need to be taken, I’m not a fan of this tactic since it follows the pattern of “legislation by vote” that has turned Sacramento into gridlock. Internal struggles should have internal solutions, whether through collective bargaining negotiations or mediation. It’ll be interesting to see if this goes on the ballot, since it will set a precedent many cities may follow in short order.

It’s possible that a ballpark measure could be on the November ballot, though MLB has not given any suggestion that it would allow that to occur. Without polling, it’s hard to tell what impact a pension reform ballot measure would have on a ballpark measure. You’d have fiscal conservatives and union backers coming out in droves and in opposition. If I were in the group backing the ballpark, I’d seriously consider redoing polling during the summer to see how this fiscal issue impacts the ballpark. If a ballpark vote were to be held in the following primary (February or June), then it might be a different story. Then again, fiscal conservatives may be out en masse again because it is the presidential primary. Either way, the pulse taken last summer loses weight with each passing month.

05.13.11
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Wolff on Monty Show interview is up (updated with notes)

If you didn’t get a chance to listen to Lew Wolff on The Monty Show at 8, the good people at Sports Radio 95.7 got the MP3 version out in a hurry. Download it and give it a listen. Then come back here and comment away.

My thoughts:

I think we actually got some new insight into how MLB’s panel is operating. Wolff said that the committee hasn’t contacted him about Victory Court or any other Oakland option. Combine that with the zero communication between Wolff and the City of Oakland, and it has me wondering if the committee is supposed to be keeping everyone at arms length. While Victory Court is being evaluated and the EIR process is happening (note the updated counter on the right) any additional talks among the parties would be premature at best. Wolff is only going to act based on the panel’s recommendations and Selig’s actions. I don’t think that’s the way this should be progressing, but that appears to be the game.

As Jeffrey pointed out, the panel is looking at financing, which is the make-or-break issue for Oakland. Oakland can minimize site and infrastructure costs by reducing footprint (and needed parcel buys) and limiting new parking construction cost, both of which have been done in San Jose. I figure panel is not going to recommend that Wolff builds at Victory Court unless the financing pencils out, because MLB is not going to put a team’s ownership in a bad debt position just to satiate local critics. For reasons explained previously, it’s a bad assumption to think that the money in San Jose is easily transferable to Oakland.

Undoubtedly, the ongoing redevelopment saga will factor in. If SB 286 passes and both Oakland and San Jose require votes for their stadium projects, how would that affect the panel’s perspective? Adding a vote requirement complicate the timeline for Oakland, since it’s not a given that they’ll be able to line up EIR certification and ballot deadline perfectly. Consider the following timeline:

  • SB 286 passes and is signed into law by Governor Brown (as opposed to scrapping redevelopment altogether) this June.
  • Victory Court Draft EIR emerges, also in June. (hypothetical date)
  • 60-day review and comment period puts us in August.
  • EIR staff takes another 3 months to respond to questions and comments. That puts us in November.
  • Final EIR is distributed in December.
  • Final EIR comment period is 45-60 days, puts us at February 2012.
  • Currently the 2012 primary is scheduled for February 7, though a bill (AB 80) is working its way through the legislature that might push the date back to June. If it passes, Oakland could get its vote in June. If not, November or a special election/vote-by-mail.
  • That puts a Victory Court opening day at 2016 unless Oakland is simultaneously doing additional site acquisition, which Mayor Quan has indicated they aren’t. It also messes with the Raiders’ new Coliseum project because the A’s would have to play at the current Coliseum through 2015. The Raiders’ stadium would also require its own vote. Now that’s tangled.

The redevelopment stuff wasn’t discussed in the Wolff interview, but it may provide insight into how the panel is doing its work. As long as these pieces keep moving and the earth shifts, it’s going to be hard to make a decision until everything settles.

Sidebar: Wolff started the interview by plugging the film Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story, which is playing as part of the Silicon Valley Jewish Film Festival. The film will play at the Camera 3 theater at 7 PM. After the showing there will be panel with Wolff, retired player Shawn Green, and A’s play-by-play man Ken Korach as the moderator.

05.12.11
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Could Cisco’s shift affect Wolff’s plans?

Merc columnist Scott Herhold recaps various political and economic happenings of the past few months and describes how they could impact San Jose’s and Lew Wolff’s ballpark plans. I won’t rehash all of them since we’ve covered them in great detail here. The thrust of Herhold’s piece is relevant: how long does this opportunity last? He also touches on a related issue that may or may not have real implications for the A’s: Is the Cisco in “Cisco Field” in jeopardy?

The story started a month ago, when Cisco Systems abruptly announced that it was killing its consumer video camera division, Flip Video. Flip was acquired by Cisco in 2009 for over half a billion dollars in stock. The acquisition was part of Cisco’s continuing attempts (and frequent failures) at breaking into the consumer space. Cisco is best known for making equipment that acts as the backbone of the internet, and CEO John Chambers’ desire to expand the brand into a more consumer-aware mindset came via acquisitions of companies like Flip/Pure Digital, Scientific Atlanta (cable boxes) and Linksys (home networking).

These acquisitions have had mixed results at best. While it’s generally acknowledged that smartphones with better-and-better cameras would eat into Flip’s market, Flip was clearly the leader in its market and it might have made more sense to either sell or spin off the division, which was based in Irvine, not San Jose. Cable boxes don’t seem to be getting better as a result of the Scientific Atlanta buy, and while Linksys hasn’t lost market share since it was bought by Cisco, it hasn’t really expanded share much either.

Cisco’s handling of consumer-oriented properties has made shareholders and institutional investors wonder whether Cisco is getting distracted from its core competencies. Frankly, it has and Chambers has admitted as much. It’s possible that shuttering Flip won’t be the last move the company makes, as Chambers reset growth expectations from 17% to 12% for this year. Cisco could sell all three of Flip/Pure Digital, Scientific Atlanta, and Linksys without even batting an eye, since according to Forbes, the equity value of all three combined is only 5% of the Cisco’s equity value. Such a move might impress investors enough to convince them that Cisco’s retrenching is not just all talk.

But what about the other stuff that Cisco’s doing? No, not routers and switches. What about the ads? These days you can’t watch a game broadcast on ESPN without seeing a Cisco TV ad. Cisco is pushing its Telepresence video conferencing product everywhere, from cute, quirky ads with actress Ellen Page to MLB Network’s Ballpark Cam to product placement in NCIS. Telepresence is not a consumer product, it’s aimed at businesses and enterprises, and is a major part of the company’s future. It’s unlikely that kind of advertising is going away. (Update: One analyst thinks Cisco should cut its marketing budget by 25%.)

Cisco Field is supposed to be a showcase for (when it opens) current and future technologies, a chance to make all of its “hidden” technologies more tangible for the public. Could Cisco abandon this quest in order to focus better? Perhaps. There’s only one problem with that. Right now it doesn’t cost Cisco a dime to have its name on this vaportecture Downtown San Jose ballpark. Cisco get mentions here and there by local and national media, and it’s all gravy. If a ballpark deal comes to fruition, they could drop the deal and let someone else pay for the privilege. However, let’s put this in perspective. Last year, Cisco’s operating income was $11 billion (on $31 billion in revenue). Naming rights for the Pacific Commons ballpark was to be $4 million per year. That puts the value of naming rights at 0.3% of income, practically a rounding error for a company of Cisco’s size. Yet if they moved forward they’d get huge exposure both locally and nationally. They’d also be able to elbow out a competitor the same way a ballclub might pick up a guy on waivers near the deadline just to keep him away from another team.

It might be that Cisco loses stature as the ubiquitous networking giant as competitors such as Juniper and Brocade start to horn in on segments Cisco has historically dominated. It doesn’t look like a situation in which Cisco is in any real trouble, nothing it can’t innovate its way out of. When you really sit down to think what Cisco is trying to accomplish with Cisco Field, if it doesn’t have great technologies to showcase, well there isn’t much point in putting your name on the building, is there? And if that’s the case, someone else will pay for the privilege to show off its own wares.

05.03.11
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New redevelopment bill SB 286 introduced (updated)

State Senator Rod Wright (D-Inglewood) introduced a “compromise” redevelopment bill last week. SB 286 is intended to deal with the excesses of current redevelopment by introducing new levels of oversight, including regular audits of redevelopment agencies. The agencies themselves would remain largely intact, but they face new restrictions on what specific types of projects they could take on. A big one is the elimination of projects on currently non-urbanized parcel five acres or larger in size. Simply put, all projects have to be done on infill land. Development on “blighted” farmland and open space would be verboten. Direct assistance also couldn’t be provided to casinos, race tracks, speedways, and golf courses. And there’s one extremely important new rule related to sports facilities.

SEC. 7. Section 33426.5 of the Health and Safety Code is amended to read:
33426.5. Notwithstanding the provisions of Sections 33391, 33430, 33433, and 33445, or any other provision of this part, an agency shall not provide any form of direct assistance to the following:
…
(e) A development or business, for the acquisition, construction, improvement, rehabilitation, or replacement of property that is or would be used for a stadium, coliseum, arena, ballpark or other sports facility that is intended for use by a professional sports franchise unless the proposed assistance or another component of the financing for the proposed project is submitted to the electorate that resides in the territorial jurisdiction of the agency providing assistance, and is approved by a majority of the voters voting on the proposed development.

The upshot is that every stadium or arena project throughout the state would require a vote if the bill is passed. In San Jose that’s not such a big deal because a vote is required per the city charter. Now everything from LA’s Farmers Field to Oakland’s Victory Court to Sacramento’s Kings-saving railyards arena would automatically trigger referenda. If it’s a city project, city voters would have to approve. If it’s a county project, county voters would have to approve.

Keep in mind that the alternative, as we know it right now, is the complete elimination of redevelopment as dreamed by Governor Jerry Brown, and redevelopment’s replacement by successor agencies with an even smaller scope and breadth of powers than specified in SB 286. Furthermore, SB 286 is sponsored by the pro-redevelopment League of California Cities and the California Redevelopment Association. While the bill could undergo changes in committee, it’s unlikely that the sports facilities clause will see a big change since a reversal would strike at the heart of the bill’s intent, weakening the bill in the process.

So, that talking point that the Oakland-only crowd has but putting out about not needing a vote in The Town? Might have been a little premature about that one.

Updated 3:04 PM – Governor Brown is pushing AB 101, which would kill all redevelopment agencies and cap borrowing as of July 1. The League of California Cities has said the bill is unconstitutional. That makes it SB 286 vs. AB 101 for the future of redevelopment. It’s possible that one or both don’t make it out of committee. It’ll be interesting to see if they end up as competing ballot initiatives with poison pills.