Silicon Valley Sports & Entertainment, the group that owns the Sharks and manages HP Pavilion, has entered talks with San Jose and Santa Clara about building a 27,000-seat soccer stadium somewhere in either Santa Clara or San Jose. What does this have to do with the A’s? One of the sites mentioned as a possible home is Diridon South, though it appears to be down the list a bit.

San Jose City Council member and mayoral candidate Dave Cortese brought up Diridon South as a backup plan if a ballpark doesn’t materialize. Considering the cost of acquiring the land – which could be more than the cost of constructing a soccer stadium – it may be a tough sell. The Quakes have only 20 home games per year, which makes it a more difficult anchor for downtown restaurant/bar businesses.

The preferred sites for the stadium are in Santa Clara, all near Great America. They include the overflow parking lot across the street from the 49ers headquarters. Ironically enough, this was once considered the prime site for the A’s when Steve Schott tried to move them to Santa Clara a few years ago. The site is also close to a new youth soccer park, making it a prime candidate. Another site is on another existing parking lot at Great America, which was also a ballpark site at one time. Yet one more possibility is land near Mission College. Though the exact land wasn’t specified, it may very well be a small part of the college property between the athletic fields/tennis courts and the Mercado shopping center. As a person who grew up in the neighborhood just to the west of Mission College, I can say that this site would bad because of the noise coming from night games and scarce parking.

The upshot here is that if San Jose/Santa Clara can put together a deal to keep the Quakes in the area permanently, it would eliminate one group of potential ballpark non-supporters: those would want to keep the Quakes in San Jose above any attempt to lure a baseball team. Depending on what the proposal looks like, San Jose will need as many supporters of its ballpark plan as it can get.

The Chronicle’s A’s beat writer Susan Slusser confirmed the drop of View level season tickets, exactly for the reasons I cited in Tuesday’s post. What was not clarified was the status of the View level for single game tickets, to which A’s VP of marketing David Alioto said, “It would be premature to talk about it.”

It was revealed that “Double Play Wednesdays” would still remain in effect for 2006, though it’s unclear what that means. Is that for tickets? Hot dogs? A possible BART fare discount?

Ironically, the closing of the View level probably wouldn’t be necessary if the 1995 improvements hadn’t taken place, because the Coliseum would still have only two concourses (instead of 2 1/2) and few of the staffing issues they currently face.

Here’s an idea that might work: tarp the first 2-3 rows of the View level. It would ease circulation since the patrons walking along the aisle at the front of the deck won’t have to compete for space with fans in seats, who already have a miserable experience because they’re constantly getting their view blocked by the walking patrons. That should cut some 1200-1800 seats out of the total, contributing to ticket scarcity and enhancing the View level experience. View level regulars know that the best view comes above the vomitory (access tunnel), though that changed when the place was rebuilt. Get above the 4th row and you’re usually okay.

Merc sports columnist Mark Purdy weighed in on the San Jose plan. Like his employer, he endorses it, though he uses a different rationale:

From the day I moved to San Jose in 1984, I was mystified about one thing. I could never understand why city officials had never set aside land for future big projects — a stadium, an arena, a convention center, museums, a world-class park, whatever.

What San Jose is doing is an effort to not only control the land for a future proposal, but also to rein in acquisition costs and required time that can easily spin out of control in this era of stadium-building.

Not surprisingly, the San Jose Mercury News came out in favor of the Stephens Meat site acquisition and other preparatory work being undertaken to secure the Diridon South site for an offer. In the op-ed is a mention of the progress brought on by the Arena project. The paper argues that it is of utmost importance that the city keep the public involved in the planning process and debate, which the city hasn’t done so far.

The San Jose City Council approved the purchase of the former Stephens Meat plant and a $600,000 environmental impact study to be done by HOK on the Diridon South site. This is expected to be one of many steps that need to be taken for San Jose to secure the entire site.

All of the posts at Athletics Nation and other boards reek of overreaction. There’s a lot of information going around, and it’s important to keep everything in perspective.

First, the only ticket prices that have been posted and verified are those for which season tickets will be sold. This is largely a marketing decision that aims at the parts of the Coliseum that will have the most consistent service. The problem with the previous situation is that for games where you could expect 25,000 or less, it was difficult to determine the proper staffing levels. In fact, it was common on Monday and Tuesday nights to see no concesssion stands open on the View concourse and the outer reaches of the Plaza concourse. That may not mean much to fans who are, well, used to the situation, but it makes for a pretty time-consuming affair just to get a hot dog if you were unfortunate enough to sit in the affected sections. Since those concession stands will only be open for high-attendance games, it makes sense to only sell season tickets for sections whose level of service will be relatively consistent and homogenous regardless of the game date, time, or attendance scenario. Season ticket holders should feel that they are getting some kind of value-added aspect to their commitment, and this pricing scheme moves things in that direction. Remember that Wolff is a hotelier and fully understands basic and advanced concepts of customer service. There’s plenty to criticize in the handling of this matter, but I’ll get to that later.

Second, the A’s needed to establish greater price differentiation among their tickets. The pre-2006 pricing structure was probably the simplest in the major leagues. That made it easy for walk-up fans, but it made it difficult for the A’s to sell value among the pricing tiers. Even low-revenue teams like Kansas City and Minnesota had more sophisticated pricing structures than Oakland, where the entire upper deck is a single price. The new pricing structure is much more graduated than in years past. The obvious holes in the structure are at the $12, $16, and $24 levels (based on single game prices). $12 or $16 can be filled by the View level seats. Before you start screaming in a comments post, keep in mind that similar seats at the Metrodome cost $18. At Kauffman Stadium they’re $12, and across the bay at China Basin they’re $19 or $24 depending on whether the games are on weekdays or weekends. View level seats are usually subject to heavy discounting, and that probably won’t change if the View level seats are sold. We can probably say goodbye to the Double Play Wednesday promotion, since it may have hurt the A’s seasonal ticket revenue in the long run. Think more along the lines of more frequent newspaper family packs or half-price nights for students (wishful thinking? I’m not a student).

The argument above assumes that the View level seats are sold, which is not a given. The A’s are in a tough position regarding the View level. There’s no way to cut corners on service without completely eliminating concessions and security to parts of the View level. The split-level concourse design prevents the A’s from easily closing off sections of seats while providing service to those that are open, as the Dodgers do with the Pavilion bleachers in their outfield. The A’s could go with a two or three-tiered pricing scheme with the View level, say $16, $12, and $8 or $6, but they’d have to keep the facilities open on the upper concourse to justify the price hike along the infield.

There is an interesting potential benefit to this. Since the big-ticket games (Giants, Yankees, BoSox, fireworks) usually have high advance sales, pushing season ticket holders (A’s fans) to the lower decks relegates more of the opposing team’s fans to the View level.

Whatever happens with the View level, the A’s have a few months and much initial feedback upon which they can put together a viable single-game pricing strategy. In doing that, they can do the one thing that would help clear up a lot of the confusion: FIX THE WEBSITE! It looks like they just pasted the new table of prices without updating the seating map or the interactive pricing map guide. Fans looked at the site and saw two different prices for seats along with no explanation for the missing View level in the table. Bad information begets FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt). Get the graphics fixed and post a message about the View level that explains it once and for all, and you’ll put the nervous nellies’ minds at ease. The sooner it gets done, the better. I have the feeling that the calls and e-mails from early Monday afternoon elicited responses from the ticket sales staff that weren’t properly prepared or informed. By the time I called just before 5 p.m. on Monday, it sounded like the ship was in order. Still, there’s still a good amount of confusion (and perhaps misconceptions) among some of the most faithful fans, so there should be some sort of release that addresses their concerns.

Update: The A’s ticket office has told me that there are no plans to sell any season tickets in the View level, because they say it is difficult to provide the same level of service there as they do in the lower two levels. No decision has been made on whether single-game seats will be sold in the View level. It’s possible they might open the View level for select games (Yankees, Giants, fireworks). They might leave it open all season as the “walk up deck.” They might leave it closed for the entire season. I can say that as a season ticket fence-sitter, the likelihood of me going for season tickets has increased. It appears that this move is meant partly to motivate fans like me. We’ll find out if they get people like me in enough numbers to counter any backlash they may get in the coming months.

Posters on Athletics Nation are reporting that the View level (euphemism for upper deck) will not be sold next season. I’ve confirmed that as of now, this only affects season ticket sales. There is no set policy with regard to regular single-game tickets, but if the A’s choose not to sell the View level at all, there are serious ramifications:

• The upper deck held around 12,000. That should knock capacity down to 34-35,000
• No more View level promotions like “BART Double Play Wednesdays” or “Pepsi can weeknights”
• No need to staff the upper-upper concourse behind sections 310-325.
• Far fewer walkup seats for every date

Consider this a trial balloon for Lew Wolff’s ballpark plan. If the ticket supply can be constrained enough to force fans to buy season tickets, then a good business model will be in place for the new ballpark with the demand far less elastic than before. There are definite risks with this new pricing plan. Depending on what promotions are planned for 2006, there will be no tickets priced below $10, and the only tickets at $10 will be the bleachers and plaza bleachers.

There is the risk of backlash. Fans may not respond well to the disappearance of cheap walkup seats in the View level. The walkup situation has become something of an institution, and if A’s marketing doesn’t properly inform fans of this change, they may find fans either confused by the new ticket offerings or even turned away for certain games. The task for the A’s is to handle this with as much diplomacy as possible. There are plenty of fans that think the seats in sections 315-320 are perfectly fine (including me). How do the A’s convince them that those seats aren’t good?

The upshot of all of this is to find out if the season ticket base can expand. If it does, the A’s will have a good subscription base from which they can start marketing a new ballpark. If not, it becomes a reason to leave Oakland, since the lack of season ticket sales will “prove” that Oakland is not a ripe market. It’s not fair to Oakland, since the Coliseum is not the same as a new ballpark, but Wolff needs some data upon which he can create a business case for a new ballpark, and that makes us guinea pigs.

A new report in the San Jose Business Journal estimates that the cost to acquire the 14-acre, 12-parcel site could reach the $80-100 million range, based on a value of $125-130 per square foot. And for the first time, at least one property owner has expressed reluctance to sell his property.

The city has budgeted $60.5 million to acquire the land, which makes it well short of $70.8 million in pure real estate value and doesn’t include relocation costs for the affected businesses. The businesses include:

• A PG&E substation (northwest corner next to the railroad tracks)
• A SBC work center and storage facility
• One residence
• A small bar at the corner of W. San Fernando and S. Montgomery
• A welding supply company south of the bar
• An imports wholesaler/retailer at the Autumn/Montgomery “fork”
• A storage facility for Amtrak/Caltrain (northeast corner of the site)

The currently vacant parcels include the former Stephens Meat plant and the former KNTV (NBC-11) studio. The site is in green in the picture below:

All of the parcels are important, and it is unlikely that ballpark could be situated on the site without acquiring every parcel. It might be doable without the PG&E substation, but that would require reconfiguring the street grid by moving Autumn St to the east and acquiring additional land to compensate. Since the plan would eliminate Montgomery Street, Autumn Street would have to be reconfigured as a two-way thoroughfare. That reconfiguration is already in the Diridon/Arena General Plan because of a need to connect the area with the development occurring north of the Arena. That change could take up as much as 1/3 acre from the ballpark site.

Fortunately for the San Jose Redevelopment Agency, there’s no talk of eminent domain, which proved to be an extremely divisive issue when the Arena (now HP Pavilion) was built. The parcels will be bought at market rate or at some negotiable rate, which should prevent any lengthy legal trouble. There would only be a problem if one of the owners refused to sell.

One way for the city to bridge that $10-20 million gap is to figure out a way for PG&E to reconfigure the substation. I don’t have any knowledge of how this can be done, but when looking just at space, it would make sense to move the substation to the southwest corner of the site and realign it to run parallel with the railroad tracks. That should minimize the impact on available ballpark area. There would undoubtedly be safety and clearance/setback regulations that would have to be addressed, but it would be a way to give PG&E nearly 2 acres of land at the site without forcing them to move power lines. By doing this, the city would save money since it wouldn’t have to purchase land from PG&E, only exchange it. That could cut some $5-10 million off the final price tag, depending on how much it costs to move the existing equipment. The $25,000 the city approved last week for PG&E is being used to study this option.

As for SBC/AT&T, they’re sitting on some valuable land there, though I’m pretty sure the facility is strictly a work center with no line services coming from it. It has a small maintenance garage and building for storage, but the local central office is downtown on Market and San Fernando, not at this site. The big issue there is vehicle parking, which is scarce downtown. My guess is that in selling the land, SBC will try to work in some deal for parking in the downtown area.

If I were a real estate speculator, I’d look into buying land east of Autumn St next to the ballpark site. Why? Someone could build some nice, expensive condos there, complete with views into the ballpark a la Wrigley Field.

One thing is fairly certain: Diridon South is the most feasible, best-situated ballpark site in San Jose. All others have either been acquired for other development (Del Monte, Coleman Ave) or have infrastructure issues (Spartan/Muni, Reed & Graham).

The Merc’s Barry Witt describes the problem facing San Jose: How exactly does it go about attracting the A’s when the team hasn’t wavered in it’s position that it’s not looking in San Jose? Witt lays out two options:

• San Jose puts out a speculative ballpark plan based on the idea that a “Yes” vote will prove appealing to the A’s – The egg.
• San Jose waits for the all efforts in Oakland to be exhausted, which will force the A’s to look south, preferably to San Jose – The chicken.

There are obvious problems with both strategies. No ballpark has been built on a speculative basis since the Florida Suncoast Dome in St. Petersburg, which waited eight years until it finally became the home of a MLB franchise. The first option above does not call for a ballpark to be built, only a plan. With today’s skyrocketing costs, no public entity could actually build a new ballpark without it team; it would be tantamount to political suicide. Still, putting together a plan isn’t too costly, and since San Jose has a fallback plan with the site land, the risk isn’t too high. If approved, the next plan could set the bar high for any competing cities and give San Jose a leg up on them – territorial rights not withstanding.

The second strategy is the least risky, since it delays any action until it is abundantly clear that the A’s have no future in Oakland. However, it puts San Jose on equal footing with other cities should the A’s express interest in leaving, which would turn the pursuit of the A’s into a bidding war. It is important to note that the A’s have expressed the idea that if efforts in Oakland run their course without a suitable solution, they will first turn to greater Alameda County, which would presumably put Fremont in an enviable position. Fremont’s strategy would no doubt be to position itself as the gateway to Silicon Valley’s corporate customer base, while remaining beyond the reach of the Giants’ territorial rights. Fremont may also have a large amount of land on which a ballpark could be built, though no site is without its issues (Warm Springs is still mostly owned by NUMMI, and Pacific Commons is not near BART). Portland, Las Vegas, and perhaps Sacramento could also get into the mix. Each of the three have distinct advantages and disadvantages.

The City Council will vote on Tuesday to approve the purchase of the Stephens Meat plant and a feasibility study to be undertaken by leading sports architecture firm HOK Sport + Venue + Event. HOK is no stranger to this type of study, since it did the same for Oakland in 2001, to no avail.

Reports from both the Oakland Tribune and Contra Costa Times indicate that no decisions on the A’s broadcast team will be made until after Thanksgiving. Negotiations will start on a new contract for long-time broadcaster Ken Korach, who would presumably fill the late Bill King’s #1 spot. I remember King also holding a “Director of Broadcasting” title at one time, and I wonder if Korach will be gunning for that as well (I need to check a recent media guide). Hank Greenwald is officially re-retired, and he may help his son Doug move from the Fresno Grizzlies’ booth to Oakland. Other local notable candidates include Steve Bitker (KCBS and part-time radio with the A’s), Ted Robinson (Stanford football, recently of the Mets and Giants) and Roxy Bernstein (Cal sports, Florida Marlins). A decision regarding the makeup of the TV booth should be made in the same timeframe.