02.22.13
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Estuary Park Presentation on A’s Fan Radio

If someone – anyone – discovers a ballpark site is being discussed or presented, and he lets me know about it, I’ll take the time to cover it. Even though ownership is only focusing on one site and the City of Oakland has its own two sites in mind, it doesn’t hurt to be open-minded about others. We may find the best of breed or dismiss something entirely. Either way we’re getting educated and informed about it. I enjoy covering it, and I hope you enjoy reading about it. That brings me to the Estuary Waterfront Project, a ballpark concept by Oaklander D’Sjon Dixon. Dixon, a native East Bay guy by way of the University of Wisconsin (as he pointed out, like Bud Selig and Lew Wolff), is an excellent artist and has some brought some fresh thinking to the often static world of stadia. During his segment on A’s Fan Radio, Dixon frequently talked about his ballpark’s goals of sustainability and its ability to enhance both the waterfront and the city.

EstuaryPark-corner-med

D’Sjon Dixon’s Estuary Waterfront Project would place a ballpark on the site of Estuary Park and the Jack London Aquatic Center along the Embarcadero in Oakland

Over the years Estuary Park has aroused curiosity about its ability to work as a ballpark site. It’s located east of Jack London Square, across the tracks from Victory Court. I’ve gone there multiple times and several people have asked me about it over the years. My immediate answer to them is that it’s too small. The park measures roughly 400′ x 240′ plus some estuary frontage of varying width. The Jack London Aquatic Center, which opened in 2001, is a somewhat triangular piece of land that’s also 400′ long and 300′ wide at its widest point. JLAC has a boathouse with a community room that can be rented out for events. Rounding out the landscape is the old Cash and Carry warehouse, which the City bought through its old redevelopment arm a few years ago. That parcel, including a parking lot, measures 440′ x 340′. In all, the land (which is all city-owned at this point) totals just over seven acres.

EstuaryPark-overhead-med

Overhead picture of Estuary Park, the Jack London Aquatic Center (bottom right), and the vacant Cash & Carry building. Yellow line across field represents 400 feet.

It’s not small just because of the acreage, it’s small because of a single dimension. In the picture above, the yellow line represents a reasonable buildable width including mandated setbacks and easements for the water and the apartment complex to the west of the land (top). 400 feet is simply not wide enough to hold a ballpark. A grandstand including the concourse will measure around 170 feet deep. Add to that 50 feet from the first row to home plate, and then at least 300 feet for a short porch to right field, and the ballpark becomes 520 feet wide. There simply isn’t room for that kind of structure on the land, unless you do something unorthodox.

EstuaryPark-north-med

Water view shows footprint of ballpark extending beyond existing Estuary Park footprint

To address this, Dixon took two unorthodox approaches. First, he disregarded the Estuary Park limitations and simply built more of the ballpark out into the water. I didn’t notice this until I saw more images on the project website. Notice the second pic’s taper from JLAC to the park, and how that no longer exists with the ballpark. Anyone who has spent any time reviewing CEQA knows that building anything new over what is currently water is for all intents and purposes forbidden in California. Even the Warriors arena is getting a great deal of static for aiming to build on piers, which of course aren’t land. Additional creation of land in the Bay, regardless of purpose, practically requires an act of god to make it happen. Remember the plan to extend SFO’s runways a decade ago? That would’ve required bay fill. It died on the vine. A similar effort for this ballpark, even if it required only a 100′ x 400′ slab (1/2 acre), would be laughed out of committee or ripped to shreds by Save the Bay, Waterfront Action, or the BCDC if it ever got that far. The Bay is what makes our region distinct, and people and groups have shown that they’re willing to defend it endlessly and to the death. The other unusual step Dixon took that baseball fans noticed is that he oriented the ballpark west-southwest, so that it would face JLS, Alameda Point, and in the distance, San Francisco. As we’ve discussed several times, MLB prefers its ballparks to face east or northeast. In some instances such as domes it’s willing to have a ballpark aimed north or south. This is to ensure that the sun isn’t in the batter’s eyes during the day and to provide relatively predictable shadows during the season. Interestingly, Dixon tried to address this by placing an eight-story hotel tower in right field and a big scoreboard in center. Those measures will only work in certain sun-sky conditions. The ballpark could be re-oriented southeast to fix the sun problem, but it would take away from the view. Dixon couldn’t say what the ballpark’s capacity was or explain how much onsite parking would be there. The size of the ballpark would be “up to the developer”, though he also claimed he knew three people who could fund the ballpark. It all adds up to someone who has some great ideas and understands LEED, but knows next to nothing about CEQA. CEQA is the set of regulations that forces environmental review and places restrictions on what kinds of projects can be built in sensitive places. CEQA has led rise to hyper-NIMBYism in California. On the flip side, it has allowed our coasts to remain mostly in the public interest and not full of high-rises and private development. If this ballpark concept ever got off the ground, it would immediately have Bay and waterfront activists, open space and parks preservationists, boating enthusiasts, residents of the nearby apartment complex, and many others lined up to take it down. That doesn’t include the normal anti-stadium types or additional complications such as the PUC and other governmental agency interactions. This is the stuff that Lew Wolff talks about when he says that people can’t just point at a site and say that’s a site. There’s a ton of legwork that has to be done on each proposed site, and even more on the sites that actually get studied as alternatives. There are studies of noise and shade, seismicity and hydrology, cultural and paleontological resources, along with the more common traffic and transportation work. It’s a significant, seemingly endless amount of work, and the crazy thing is that a draft version of an EIR has not been finished for any ballpark site in Oakland: Victory Court, Howard Terminal, Coliseum City, this site or any other site. And it’s telling that Estuary Park, despite its rather prominent position where the Estuary meets Lake Merritt Channel, was never really considered a ballpark site in the past. That’s largely due to all of the issues identified in this post, and probably many more that I haven’t covered. Just a thousand feet across the Channel, HOK studied two sites at the Oak-to-Ninth (O29) site in 2001. That’s not to say that Dixon’s in the wrong. He has some great ideas, and the fact that he put he put his visual skills to use in fleshing them out can help a lot in terms of creating a real vision for Oakland going forward. If the concept ultimately serves as a catalyst, it would be incredibly productive for fans who want an Oakland ballpark and need a unified rallying point. This idea can be moved and modified to work at other sites. Dixon seems to like Coliseum City nearly as much as his own plan, as long as the A’s stay in town. If Save Oakland Sports and other groups can come to a consensus on one site that has energy behind it and has been properly vetted, they have a shot. If they stand by the City’s current vision of multiple sites being equal with no real consensus, there’s nothing to rally behind. They’re just circles on a map. —– Note: As I was writing this in the middle of the night, I did not ask Dixon for permission to use his images. I apologize for that in advance, though I also cite fair use as this is a review.

02.20.13
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Shaikin stirs it up again

Amidst all of the Lettergate hubbub (credit to Mike @muppet151 for the term), now comes an article from LA Times writer Bill Shaikin called MLB gives tentative guidelines for potential move to San Jose. There’s nothing revelatory in the article, and nothing to indicate that anything would happen soon. Yet the headline, much like this headline, seems aimed to inflame or at the very least act as clickbait.

Then again, the information seems to back many of the assertions I made when I wrote about the territorial rights saga last month. Whether there’s real fire to this smoke or this is part of an ongoing misinformation campaign (also exercised by the other side), we won’t know for certain until it’s all over.

This got me thinking about how much compensation should cost. Shaikin notes that determination of any compensation award would be entirely within the purview of the commissioner’s office. Then it occurred to me that when Lew Wolff presented the San Jose concept, it was thought that the A’s might move to San Jose after the current Coliseum lease expires, or the 2014 season. With the A’s unlikely to be able to move until 2018, that’s four full seasons of forgone revenue at Cisco Field, while the Giants continue to lap it up at AT&T Park. That “opportunity cost” is offset somewhat by ongoing revenue sharing in Oakland, which would go away after the new ballpark opened.

With the Giants able to maximize their hegemony over the region and the A’s continuing to limp on at the Coliseum, any thought of the A’s being any kind of financial threat to the Giants has evaporated. And that, right there, may well be the compensation in a sort of unstated, off-the-books form. An extra $40 million to the A’s via San Jose doesn’t necessarily mean it’s $40 million less for the Giants. But it does mean that no money moves in the current situation, which is just fine with the Giants. $160 million for those four years, without Bud Selig having to make the tough decision? Sounds like how baseball would work.

What would happen in 2018? That would be up to whoever is the commissioner, probably not Bud Selig. Maybe there’s some nominal amount of compensation. My argument for a while has been that there won’t be, not because of what Wally Haas did for the Giants 20 years ago, but because MLB and the owners don’t want to set a price for a territory. Doing so would set a precedent for future moves into other territories. In the Giants-A’s case, the situation is unique enough to be difficult to duplicate, and by not setting a real price for Santa Clara County, the owners don’t create a market.

I’m not the only person who thinks compensation will be a trivial matter:

 

This is one of those times I wish I had a time machine so I could tell you how it works out. For now we wait. Forever we wait.

02.20.13
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KHTK 1140 AM Sacramento will air 2013 A’s season

Two weeks ago, I tweeted this:

Today came this:

 

Which leads to this:

colbert-icalledit

There was some question as to whether KHTK would broadcast all 162 regular season games going into the announcement. Thankfully, it will be the full season. There are still some dead spots in parts of the East Bay and North Bay, but this is a huge improvement. The station may be looking to capitalize on the A’s recent success or is planning on replacement programming in case the Kings leave. In either case, it’s great news for A’s fans in Sacramento.

 

02.20.13
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Save Oakland Sports meeting with Santana, Blackwell (Updated with Oakland apology)

Update 7:20 PM – Around 4:30 today, an article by the Trib’s Matthew Artz indicated that Oakland officials apologized to Lew Wolff for erroneously stating that the City and Mayor Jean Quan didn’t receive the letter. Wolff angrily replied (in ALL CAPS no less) that he did, in fact, send the letter, and later produced a letter of acknowledgment from Quan dated January 2. During the Bucher & Towny show on The Game, Townsend explained that his crew and Phoenix reporter Kevin Curran had launched their own inquiry into the status of this now mythical letter. Curran sent an email to the Mayor’s office asking for the letter since, by law, the City has to file all such communications. This afternoon the story from Artz broke, followed by an email reply from Quan spokesperson Sean Maher explaining the situation. Apparently the original email, which was also sent to numerous media, was buried in the “mountain of (holiday) furlough email” the City received. Because of this, news outlets reported on it first, giving City staff the impression that they didn’t receive it, when in fact, they did. The explanation was also a bit wishy-washy because the Mayor supposedly “eventually” received the letter, giving the impression that she didn’t receive it directly. Statements coming out of the Mayor’s office yesterday continued to press that they didn’t receive the letter. In any case, Oakland comes off highly incompetent at the very least and petty on top of it all, just because Santana decided to lash out at Wolff. That’s simply poor form. Obviously, that led to today’s apology.

—–

Monday’s much-delayed Save Oakland Sports meeting was held at La Estrellita in downtown Oakland. Though host Chris Dobbins was keen to not put City Administrators Deanna Santana and (Asst. Admin.) Fred Blackwell on the hot seat, to their credit the staffers addressed several lingering issues with some degree of frankness and a general lack of spin.

Blackwell gave an update on the state of the Coliseum City studies and EIR. The study work should be awarded in the next month, and documents should be ready by the end of the year. Because of the broad scope of the project, there will be a master plan for the 750 acres on both side of 880 and a specific plan for each side, the big focus being on the sports complex. Blackwell called Coliseum City the most dynamic project in the state in terms of size and transit access.

View from east towards Oakland Estuary. Image: JRDV

View from east towards Oakland Estuary. Image: JRDV

Based on JRDV’s newest renderings, he has a point. Much of the area on either side of the Nimitz would undergo a drastic transformation. While there would be a new football stadium in Lot B and a ballpark pushed up to the corner of Lot A, almost everything else would get torn down and replaced. Chief among the changes is a new arena, which would be placed west of 880, where Coliseum Lexus and another empty car dealership are situated. Low and mid rise buildings would be tightly packed from Oakport to the Estuary and in between the two stadia. Two new pedestrian bridges would cross 880. The BART bridge would be transformed into a huge plaza over the Union Pacific tracks. The only two legacy structures that would remain intact in the vision are the 12-story high-rise office building that briefly housed the Tribune and the newer Zhone building.

Before your eyes roll completely into the back of your head, let’s look at the three venues, starting with the ballpark. Blackwell continued previous talk of Oakland giving Lew Wolff information on Coliseum City and Howard Terminal, repeating Wolff’s continued rejection of both sites on financial grounds. Blackwell flat out said that new ownership may be required to get something done in Oakland, and that a MLB could act on behalf of a team to get a deal done. Of course, Blackwell cited Miami as an example of that working. “Working” meant taxpayers putting up 2/3 of the cost and politicians who approved the deal being run out of office. MLB wouldn’t do that unless it felt it could get several pounds of flesh. In Oakland, there is no flesh to take. The only thing MLB has offered so far is to negotiate the short-term lease at the current Coliseum.

As for the Raiders, Santana mentioned upfront that it took four months to get all of the right people (City, County, Raiders) named and set to negotiate the future stadium deal. Four months? You’d figure an e-mail thread and a conference call or two would take care of that.

In a refreshing bit of candor, Santana and Blackwell talked about the challenges facing the Raiders’ stadium piece. Santana said twice that any new project would have to bake in the $100 million of remaining debt (Mt. Davis). As I’ve mentioned before, any advantages Oakland has because of “cheap land” are wiped away because of this albatross. It also makes financing somewhat unclean, though that would depend on how current and future debt are structured. Right now, Mt. Davis debt is tied to the general fund of both City and County and was refinanced last summer. I imagine it could be complicated to restructure the debt to be paid solely by stadium/project revenues and would drive up the cost of borrowing to boot. Santana also talked about how the defeat of Measure B1 in November negatively impacted funding for Coliseum City to the tune of $40 million.

Blackwell admitted that the NFL may have a hard time giving the $200 million that Mayor Jean Quan is looking for, citing fan and corporate support. Why? The G-3 and G-4 loan programs are dependent on two specific revenue streams: national TV money and club seats. TV money is not that big a deal since it’s highly distributed, but the NFL is wary of teams running into blackouts. The Raiders are a particular high-risk case because even though the stadium doesn’t have a large capacity among NFL stadia, it’s had its share of blackouts and has a relatively low season ticket base (30,000). The recent tarping and pricing moves done by the Raiders are being done to grow the season ticket figure and reduce the chance of blackouts. In future seasons, the Raiders could increase capacity as the roll grows and the team performs better. Corporate support is another matter. Blackwell said that the NFL considers corporate support more important than regular fan support. The 49ers have done exceedingly well selling to businesses, which allowed the NFL to release $200 million for the Santa Clara stadium. Corporate support is not great in the East Bay, and the 49ers may have taken some East Bay business from the Raiders, putting the Silver and Black in a very tough position. Blackwell didn’t offer any answers on this, other than to say that the East Bay will have to step up to show it can support the Raiders in a new stadium. It’s a sobering but realistic view, not one to go rah-rah about.

On the Warriors front, Blackwell laid out the City’s case very plainly: Oakland would wait until W’s ownership got frustrated with the process of building something at Piers 30/32, then welcome the team back with open arms. With the A’s, ownership is certainly frustrated (with MLB and the Giants), not enough to run back to make a deal with Oakland. While working in SF, Blackwell saw the same strategy in place for the 49ers, only to see the team start building in the South Bay.

Things got a little strange with Santana laid into the A’s. Santana accused the A’s of playing games, claiming that the letter Wolff wrote requesting a five-year lease extension was only sent to the media, not to City or County. That’s rather confusing, because as the Merc’s John Woolfork wrote on 12/21:

If Wolff’s letter was discouraging to Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, she didn’t let on, saying in a statement that she was “pleased to receive Mr. Wolff’s letter stating his desire to stay in Oakland for five more years.”

Considering that it took four months to figure out who the players were in a negotiation, I wouldn’t be surprised if the letter was lost somewhere. One thing to keep in mind is that Wolff has already done two lease extensions at the Coliseum during his tenure. If there’s one real piece of stability here it’s Wolff, not the turnover in Oakland City Hall.

The tough part of all of this back-and-forth is that even if Oakland is resurgent as its supporters say it is, it’s not to the scale of SF and SJ. It may never be to the scale of SJ. That makes it easy to make a case against the future of pro sports in Oakland. Without some kind of miraculous public and/or private miracle to really boost Oakland, it’s hard to see how Oakland could get to its rivals’ level. Maybe the argument is that Coliseum City is that miracle. Oakland has had nearly 50 years to show that pro sports is an economic stimulator. There’s no reason to believe Coliseum City, even in its fully realized, pipe dream scenario, is the miracle Oakland is looking for. The track record – in and out of Oakland – doesn’t support it.

—–

More reading:

Note: Look at how different the two Tavares articles are. Editors rule!

 

02.16.13
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Future NBA All Star Games key for Warriors Arena

Taking a page from the NFL, the NBA has sought to put its own All Star Weekend in warmer climes over the last decade. After visiting the then-named Arena in Oakland in 2000, the NBA held the All Star Game in Philadelphia and Washington the subsequent two years before settling on Sun Belt cities for the last decade. This weekend’s events at Houston’s Toyota Center mark the second time in eight years that Houston’s played host. Los Angeles has already hosted twice since Staples Center opened, and New Orleans will do it twice in seven years with next year’s edition.

With NBA All Star Weekend set for the middle of the season instead of the NFL’s season climax in the Super Bowl, the timing lends itself to a more scaled down spread of activities. At 3-4 days, it’s half the length of Super Bowl week (the week after the conference championship games is something of a dead week). Predictably, it has far less projected economic impact (~$100 million) than a Super Bowl ($200-300 million), though the cost to host ASW is at least proportionally less than the Super Bowl.

Even if economic impact is distilled only into direct spending in a region of $50 million or less, it’s still an impressive figure for only a few days and brings each host city an impressive amount of international attention due the high numbers of global media usually in attendance.

As with the Super Bowl, the NBA looks for cities where the game can be hosted at a modern arena, with a number of peripheral events hosted nearby at a convention center. Also preferred is a downtown location with lots of hotels and nightspots for current and former players to host their own activities.

The exceptions of the past decade have usually been experiments. 2007 had the game in Las Vegas, which is not a city with a NBA team but has most everything else the NBA wants in terms of amenities. Unfortunately, the weekend might have been a little too hot for the NBA, making the likelihood of a repeat performance in Sin City slim. 2010’s ASW was held at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, TX, and according to reports went much better than the weather-marred Super Bowl the following year. Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has started lobbying for the DFW area to host again, but with the game(s) held at American Airlines Center instead of Cowboys Stadium.

Other hosting years have usually followed a script.

Friday

  • Celebrity game
  • Rising Stars (rookies and sophomores) game
  • D-League skills & dunk contests [held at secondary arena]

Saturday

  • D-League All Star Game
  • Dunk, 3-point, and skills contests

Sunday

  • All Star Game

With a new arena, the Warriors and San Francisco would be well-positioned to enter a rotation of frequent ASW hosts, along with LA, Houston, New Orleans, and Phoenix. Positioned to compete with SF are Dallas and Orlando (which have hosted recently), and maybe Miami (which hasn’t) and New York (with two arenas). In conjunction with shared-hosting duties of the Super Bowl that could start in 2015, it’s an impactful combination even if each event is awarded only once a decade.

The main Saturday and Sunday events are typically held at an existing NBA arena like the ones I’ve mentioned. The secondary events are usually held at a nearby convention center. SF could try to use Moscone Center, but I’m not sure how that would work with the columns in Moscone’s North Hall and the low ceiling in the South Hall, and small footprint at Moscone West. Instead, the secondary events could be pushed to the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.

The Bay Area has only hosted the All Star Game twice, in 1967 at the Cow Palace and the aforementioned Oakland Arena gig in 2000. Besides SF’s dependence on a new arena, Oakland would probably need an adjacent or nearby convention center to host ASW on its own, which could come in the form of a retractable domed stadium that City Hall fancies. The NBA isn’t too keen on making promises in advance of All Star Weekends the same way the NFL and MLB do with the Super Bowl and baseball’s All Star Game, so it’s not something to bet on.

And let’s not forget that Sacramento also wants to host an All Star Game if it gets a downtown arena. With a convention center near either the Railyards or Downtown Plaza sites, Sacramento would be well-positioned for a bid, if not the most desirable of locales.

02.15.13
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Warriors revise arena site plan, find a critic

The Warriors anticipate a delay in final site plans for their Pier 30-32 arena, because they are looking to incorporate a cruise ship terminal on the eastern waterfront edge of the site.

Quick refresher: the original site plan looked like this:

Colors denote different site features. Warriors promised to have at least 50% of 15-acre site set as open space

The arena was placed at the southeast corner of the site to create the lowest visual impact from the rest of the city (height of structure notwithstanding for the moment). The inclusion of a cruise ship terminal would push the arena further north or west, while creating additional impact with its own structure, which could be 30,000 square feet or more. When Larry Ellison won the rights to develop Piers 30/32 as part of the America’s Cup deal, a cruise ship terminal was part of the plans. When Ellison backed away from 30/32, those plans were abandoned. Now, there is another cruise ship terminal planned for Pier 27, which is also part of the remaining America’s Cup development plans. The city wants to have at least two berths for such large ships, and Pier 35 is the current, space-limited main terminal.

Such changes are enough to warrant major EIR revisions, which is why we’re hearing the warnings about delays. The W’s may be forced to give up some ancillary development to regain open space. That shouldn’t be a big deal, since they could easily incorporate more square footage in the arena itself or push some of the ancillary stuff across the street to Seawall Lot 330 (the triangle). Adding the cruise ship terminal appears to be a nod towards gaining the acceptance of the ILWU, whose offices are in downtown SF, even though the union is much busier across the bay in Oakland.

Resistance to the arena has been measurable. Yesterday, Chronicle columnist Ann Killion chimed in with her critique of the plan. Killion wants to preserve the waterfront that has been opened up since the Embarcadero Freeway was torn down following Loma Prieta. While that’s admirable, it’s important to keep the arena’s visual impact in perspective. The arena will be about 400 feet long, 1/8th the length of the Embarcadero between the Bay Bridge and AT&T Park. AT&T Park along King Street is roughly twice as long, and not set back far from the street. Snøhetta knows a thing or two about building along the water, so they deserve the benefit of the doubt regarding their ability to integrate the arena along the waterfront and minimize the arena’s visual impact.

Killion argues that Lot A across from the ballpark would be a better fit. There is more parking available there and the infrastructure to bring 3,000 or more cars to the area is already in place. That isn’t the case at Piers 30/32. On the other hand, the Pier site is much closer to BART, doesn’t require a transfer, and because I expect very little parking to be made available in the immediate area, cars will be dispersed throughout the Financial District and South Beach areas instead of concentrated around the arena (where there will be no huge garage). Plus the Giants control the land south of AT&T Park, which means the W’s would have to split the revenue pie with the Giants. I’d just as soon not see the Giants’ tentacles in everything, thanks. That brings to mind another problem: with the expectation of reduced parking because of the Giants development plans at Mission Rock, if there’s an arena there as well, how will there be enough parking in that immediate area for simultaneous events at the arena and ballpark? At least with Piers 30/32 it’s spread out over a much larger radius.

This isn’t the first time Killion has come out against a stadium or arena concept. Killion was against the 49ers’ move to Santa Clara, the A’s plans to move to San Jose, and now this. Killion evens holds onto that anti-Niners sentiment even as the war over the 49ers has long been over. There’s an ill-researched jibe about rising tides here and a defense of Oakland there, or the idea that the arena will be obsolete in 20 years (not likely considering that it’ll be privately constructed, owned, and maintained). Change is inevitable. No need to channel Lowell Cohn before your time.

The arena plan will probably undergo at least a few more changes before it’s offered up for approval by the City and BCDC. There is every reason to think that a suitable plan will merge that satisfies vast majority of San Franciscans and Bay Area residents. If not, it should get voted down. Otherwise, Doug Boxer isn’t doing his job, is he?

02.15.13
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Stern nixes expansion idea

A month ago I wrote about a solution to the Seattle-Sacramento fight over the Kings. It would’ve involved either keeping the team in town or moving them north, with the loser getting an expansion team. Key to the solution would be to use a portion of the expansion fee (~$500 million) to pay off the Silna brothers, who get a 3/5ths of a team share of the NBA’s national TV money even though they’ve never owned a NBA franchise.

While in Houston for All Star Weekend festivities, David Stern quashed any idea of an expansion-based solution that would provide teams in both cities. That’s not to say that expansion couldn’t be explored in the future. But for Stern, who is retiring just short of a year from now, it won’t happen on his watch.

For now, Stern has his sights set on two dates: March 15 as the deadline for Sacramento interests to submit a bid/plan for the Kings and a downtown arena, and April 18 for the Board of Governors meeting to hear everything out. Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson is in Houston to try to lobby other owners who are also taking in the festivities. As a former All Star player, KJ has a level of respect within the NBA that no other mayor can match. Whether that will mean anything in the end uncertain. KJ is not meeting with Stern during the weekend.

Stern has set the stage for the other owners to make a very tough decision. On one hand, many of them may want to correct the wrong that was allowing the Sonics to leave, and would love to have big money ownership like Steve Ballmer among their ranks. Yet they may not want to move the Kings from a market that has supported the team well despite the arena’s flaws and poor and mismanaged teams over the past several years.

02.12.13
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Mesa looks for $8 million from AZ sports and tourism authority

The A’s and the City of Mesa are one small step closer to finalizing a deal to occupy Hohokam Stadium and Fitch Park. A month ago we did an overview of the renovation plans, which would entail a reduction in the number of seats and the addition of premium amenities such as bars.

To help cover Mesa’s $15 million commitment, the City is asking for $8 million from the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority, the quasi-governmental corporation that runs University of Phoenix Stadium and provides funds for the renovation and maintenance of numerous Cactus League facilities. Back in January, some sort of request was expected, though the amount was not disclosed. $8 million would cover about half of Mesa’s initial commitment, with Mesa’s Enterprise Fund to cover the rest. Mesa received a preliminary approval for the request. That should clear the way for an official announcement towards the end of spring training.

Phoenix hasn’t allowed old Municipal Stadium to be abandoned. Last week, the Arizona Board of Regents approved a 25-year lease for Arizona State University’s baseball team to play at Muni, which is twice the size of on-campus Packard Stadium and has a proper press box for TV broadcasting purposes. One team’s trash is another one’s treasure, a them we as A’s fans are all to familiar with. If you love Muni, it’s sad that the A’s will only have two more seasons there. It’s good to know that Muni will have games from ASU and perhaps continued work with the Arizona Fall League.

02.12.13
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USFL, reborn?

File this one in the out-of-the-box department. A new pro football league calling itself the USFL wants to launch in 2014. Like the original USFL, the new league plans to play its games in the spring. Unlike the 80’s version of the USFL, the new league has set it sights a bit lower and broader. The new USFL expects to launch with eight teams in markets such as Southern California and Alabama.

The kicker to the league’s business plan is that the USFL has inked a deal with an unnamed national developer to build “villages” containing a 20,000-seat stadium for each franchise and ancillary commercial development to go with it. If successful, the business model would turn minor league sports inside-out. Building a stadium has been hard enough in the past, let alone building stuff to go beside it. While it’s doubtful that the additional development can be built and filled quickly enough to help defray the stadium cost in every case, there’s a chance that there could be one or two shining examples. In the South or Texas, where regulations are lax and zoning in some cases doesn’t exist, this can be fairly simple. In California, where CEQA looms large over everything, it might not be such an easy task.

Going with a 20,000-seat stadium plan for each franchise and a single-entity operations model makes the new USFL similar to the launch of MLS in 1996. MLS took numerous years of billionaire owners like Phil Anschutz pumping in money to keep the league afloat, though that was with soccer, not football. Even with the more familiar sport, Americans generally haven’t taken well to lesser-talent football, finding that the NFL and NCAA FBS serves most of America extremely well. Only the Arena Football League has survived long enough to fill that minor league niche, though it experienced its own financial problems during the recession.

The potentially problematic thing about the 20,000-seat plan is that MLS has already filled numerous markets with that size of stadium, driving up competition for decreasing numbers of 20,000-strong outdoor events. In the USFL’s press release it has indicated interest in Ohio. Columbus could be a  spot but it has a stadium for the Columbus Crew MLS team. Cleveland, Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky, or Dayton may be better choices. Dallas and Houston also have those stadia, while San Antonio doesn’t. Alabama, Oklahoma, and Virginia seem to be ripe for this kind of thing, though the Virginia Beach UFL team hasn’t exactly made people sit up and notice.

If the UFL folds, the USFL would be poised to pick up the pieces and establish relationships. At the very least there will be some number of temporary stadia at which to play, though minor league football isn’t exactly the sexiest proposition. They’ll also be poised to become a feeder league for the NFL, a concept that generally failed to date (UFL, NFL Europe). The AFL has had a shaky record performing in this mode, and it plans to launch its own league in China in late 2014.

No element of the USFL’s plan is more mysterious than the partnership with the unnamed developer. It’ll be fascinating to see how aggressive each market’s deployment is, and whether each team is able to succeed quickly with its development goals. If it works, we may see many medium and smaller markets use this as an example on how to build the next generation of venues. If not, USFL2 will be relegated to the dustbin of history.

02.10.13
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49ers could have Raiders over a barrel in Santa Clara

When the 49ers rolled out the final cost estimate on their Santa Clara stadium, many including yours truly were incredulous. We thought that the 49ers would need help to pay it off, probably from a partnership with the Raiders. With a $80 million per year mortgage to pay off, the challenge to bring in enough events to properly service the debt should bring the 49ers and Raiders together. Yet there’s plenty of reason to think that the two sides may have a difficult time making that pact.

It all started when the 49ers negotiated with the City of Santa Clara to control full rights to seek a second tenant. The 49ers can control the terms of the lease, covering rent payments and details, revenue sharing at the stadium, and coverage of costs to hold games at the stadium. The lease can go in any number of directions, making it difficult to determine what the lease might look like. If the Raiders had gotten in on the ground floor and committed to Santa Clara early, they might have been able to shape the discussion. However, they also might have been asked to shoulder half of that $80 million mortgage. Given the difficulty the team has in selling tickets and PSLs, that’s a huge gamble.

Instead, if the Raiders ask to be a tenant in Santa Clara, they could pay a flat rate per game or per season. Right now they only pay $1.5 million in rent at the Coliseum, but that masks the millions of dollars it costs to operate the stadium. The 49ers’ stadium lease has language that requires an additional $1 million annual payment if the Raiders move in. There are costs for utilities, insurance, hundreds of personnel for concessions, parking, and security, plus emergency services. It’s common for total operating expenses for a full season of NFL games to run in the $10 million range or more. So those costs could be factored into the rent payment, or they could be left for the Raiders to pay separately on top of a rent payment. Knowing that, $11 million should be the baseline for an all-inclusive lease for the Raiders.

Of course, we know that the 49ers aren’t going to allow the Raiders to merely cover operating costs. They need to pull their own weight. The Raiders may have to pay $20 million per year to play in Santa Clara, or alternately, $1 million per game while surrendering concessions revenue. If that were to happen, the Raiders could find themselves somewhat stifled in terms of maximizing revenue generation. Still, that could prove a better proposition than a brand new stadium in which the Raiders would have to cover all of the costs themselves.

Then there’s the issue of stadium capacity. With 68,500 seats, the Santa Clara stadium will sit in the middle of the pack among NFL stadia, and 1,500 seats less than Candlestick Park. The Raiders have been operating at the 63,000-seat Coliseum since they came back in 1995. Last week they decided to tarp 10,000 seats to create their own artificial scarcity. If the Raiders come to Santa Clara, they could artificially reduce capacity by adding their own tarps or move forward with 68,500. If they do the latter, it’ll be a tough sell given the team’s history of underwhelming ticket sales. It’s not a make-or-break scenario, but it wouldn’t look good if the Raiders had to immediately tarp sections of a new stadium once they moved in.

The Raiders are looking to hire a new executive, perhaps to assist Amy Trask and Mark Davis on what will surely be difficult review of the team’s future stadium options.