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MLB Relocation? Naw...


Mac the Knife

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Mariners won't sign long-term lease extension without $180,000,000 in public funds for improvements

 

Meanwhile, the Diamondbacks and Maricopa County have been going round and round with respect to the stadium situation there, with the parties recently agreeing to a termination of the lease if I recall.

 

Honestly if I were a government official with unilateral control over the situation in either of these markets?  I'd not only be unwilling to commit public funding to upgrades to stadia that are only 20-25 years old and leased to these teams for nothing or next to nothing?  I'd wait until the last possible minute allowable under the terms of the lease agreements, and then I'd advise them that the municipality will be terminating the lease at the earliest effective date permissible.

 

Good luck building a new stadium in the area on what probably would be about a year's notice.

 

Good luck on finding a new market that'd be capable of supporting a Major League Baseball team with that little build-up.

 

And if you find one?  Good luck with the veritable cluster:censored: that will transpire with any relocation scenario thanks to professional baseball's incredibly specific, and often cryptic, territorial rights provisions, which literally break the entirety of Canada and the United States down by county and assign them to different Major or Minor League teams.  Because you're going to be spending at least $60-100 million just to buy out the market rights held in whatever city you're moving to.

 

Of course, the advisory would be a negotiation tactic, but I think that'd put them in their place vis-a-vis public subsidization of stadia.

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They can both eat :censored:. I've been to both of those stadiums in the last 4 years and I must say the teams don't need new stadiums and they should pay for renovations themselves. Safeco Field is my favorite ballpark that I've visited and feels brand new even 18 years after it was built. Bank One Ballpark kind of sucks, but I don't know how you could play baseball in the summer in Arizona without a domed stadium. Maybe, like basically the entire city of Phoenix, it just shouldn't exist

 

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Two things: 1. :censored: Atlanta for abandoning Turner Field after less than 20 years of play, which made other billionaire owners redefine the lifespan of a ballpark at something like 20 years rather than the Wrigleys and Fenways and Dodger Stadiums. If the Reds try to force a new stadium anytime in the next 20 years I think that could be the thing to end my fanhood.  2. At this point my guess is the teams know they'll get way more pushback than they would've 20 years ago, but figure they might as well try to get upgrades for free. Why pay for something when you might not have to? They could earn a lot of goodwill in the communities by promoting the fact that they paid for the upgrades themselves, but is that good PR worth 180 million bones? I don't know. 

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I give the Braves a slight pass.  Turner was built on the cheap due to the Olympic budget so I could see why they'd want to abandon that instead of burning money for a disproportionate amount of maintenance for decades.

 

Remember - THIS is how Turner first looked when built.

 

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2 hours ago, McCarthy said:

They can both eat :censored:. I've been to both of those stadiums in the last 4 years and I must say the teams don't need new stadiums and they should pay for renovations themselves. Safeco Field is my favorite ballpark that I've visited and feels brand new even 18 years after it was built. Bank One Ballpark kind of sucks, but I don't know how you could play baseball in the summer in Arizona without a domed stadium. Maybe, like basically the entire city of Phoenix, it just shouldn't exist

 

 

 

 

Two things: 1. :censored: Atlanta for abandoning Turner Field after less than 20 years of play, which made other billionaire owners redefine the lifespan of a ballpark at something like 20 years rather than the Wrigleys and Fenways and Dodger Stadiums. If the Reds try to force a new stadium anytime in the next 20 years I think that could be the thing to end my fanhood.  2. At this point my guess is the teams know they'll get way more pushback than they would've 20 years ago, but figure they might as well try to get upgrades for free. Why pay for something when you might not have to? They could earn a lot of goodwill in the communities by promoting the fact that they paid for the upgrades themselves, but is that good PR worth 180 million bones? I don't know. 

Between Atlanta and Texas, I am nervous that 20 is becoming the new 30.  As much as it feels like Target Field just opened, it's year 9.  The team could be 7 to 10 years from starting to drop hints. If that happens, they're gone.  And they should be.  By the way the Twins lead all of MLB in losses since we helped them construct a revenue-producing stadium.  

 

And I keep waiting for governments to stop paying for stadiums/arenas.  The optics seem to get worse and worse but they keep doing it and they don't really protect themselves from relocation and other demands.

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On 7/27/2018 at 1:55 PM, Mac the Knife said:

Good luck with the veritable cluster:censored: that will transpire with any relocation scenario thanks to professional baseball's incredibly specific, and often cryptic, territorial rights provisions, which literally break the entirety of Canada and the United States down by county and assign them to different Major or Minor League teams. 

 

Yup. Apparently, where you live in a county can make the difference on which teams are blacked out on MLB.TV and MLB Extra Innings. How they come up with it is just as weird as it is inexplicable. When I lived further south in the county in which I currently live, Cincinnati and Detroit were considered part of my local market - despite the fact that Detroit was over 150 miles away and in a different state. I moved exactly 18 miles north (and closer to Detroit) in the same county and now I can watch both the Reds and Tigers on both MLB.TV and Extra Innings. Despite calls to Direct TV and to MLB.TV, I've never been able to get an answer for why North Central Ohio was considered part of the Detroit market. I sort of understand Cincinnati, but Detroit has always baffled me.

 

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6 minutes ago, Digby said:

Given the way baseball's been trending on the whole these past couple of years, I don't quite understand how the relocation threat gambit would even work at this point.

 

Yeah...baseball has some pretty significant problems in attracting new audiences. I don't understand what alternate markets exist here, or what municipality would be foolish enough to build a damn baseball stadium.

 

Contraction seems like a way better idea than relocation or expansion. Baseball isn't going to die any time soon, but you have to believe it's best days are well behind it.

1 hour ago, ShutUpLutz! said:

and the drunken doodoobags jumping off the tops of SUV's/vans/RV's onto tables because, oh yeah, they are drunken drug abusing doodoobags

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2 hours ago, LMU said:

I give the Braves a slight pass.  Turner was built on the cheap due to the Olympic budget so I could see why they'd want to abandon that instead of burning money for a disproportionate amount of maintenance for decades.

 

Remember - THIS is how Turner first looked when built.

 

Qc4cO7B.jpg

 

Ahh, yes . . . the weirdest/stupidest looking Olympic stadium in history.

 

I've always been convinced that viewers around the world looked at it and wondered why it looked like that.

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24 minutes ago, Digby said:

Given the way baseball's been trending on the whole these past couple of years, I don't quite understand how the relocation threat gambit would even work at this point.

 

16 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

 

Yeah...baseball has some pretty significant problems in attracting new audiences. I don't understand what alternate markets exist here, or what municipality would be foolish enough to build a damn baseball stadium.

 

Contraction seems like a way better idea than relocation or expansion. Baseball isn't going to die any time soon, but you have to believe it's best days are well behind it.

 

It's pretty much Portland, Sacramento, Las Vegas, San Antonio, Indianapolis, Nashville, Raleigh, Charlotte & Montreal. I just don't see it happening in those markets unless some billionaire builds their own damn ballpark. 

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1 hour ago, Cardsblues02 said:

Relocate the Brewers to Chicago already. Half of their yearly attendance comes from Cubs fans anyway.

3 Chicago teams. No.

 

The only park that has needed to be upgraded is the rangers’, although beautiful it was hell in the summer.

Excellent!

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8 minutes ago, KRZYBDGRZ said:

3 Chicago teams. No.

 

The only park that has needed to be upgraded is the rangers’, although beautiful it was hell in the summer.

Haha, I was joking about the Brewers. I’ll actually be in arlington for a Texas/Seattle game in about a week and a half!

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6 hours ago, McCarthy said:

They can both eat :censored:. I've been to both of those stadiums in the last 4 years and I must say the teams don't need new stadiums and they should pay for renovations themselves. Safeco Field is my favorite ballpark that I've visited and feels brand new even 18 years after it was built. Bank One Ballpark kind of sucks, but I don't know how you could play baseball in the summer in Arizona without a domed stadium. Maybe, like basically the entire city of Phoenix, it just shouldn't exist

 

9xc7rfx72x4z.jpg

 

 

Two things: 1. :censored: Atlanta for abandoning Turner Field after less than 20 years of play, which made other billionaire owners redefine the lifespan of a ballpark at something like 20 years rather than the Wrigleys and Fenways and Dodger Stadiums. If the Reds try to force a new stadium anytime in the next 20 years I think that could be the thing to end my fanhood.  2. At this point my guess is the teams know they'll get way more pushback than they would've 20 years ago, but figure they might as well try to get upgrades for free. Why pay for something when you might not have to? They could earn a lot of goodwill in the communities by promoting the fact that they paid for the upgrades themselves, but is that good PR worth 180 million bones? I don't know. 

its the dry heat.  heat is heat no matter what you say.  

 

so long and thanks for all the fish.

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i think the cities shouldn't pay for new stadiums.  if anything, upgrade them (or have MLB pay for the upgrades).  have a fund that each year a little bit of money from the league goes into it (say 5% of what each team makes, or the league) and when things like this happen the league can help pay for it. 

 

so long and thanks for all the fish.

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5 hours ago, infrared41 said:

 

Yup. Apparently, where you live in a county can make the difference on which teams are blacked out on MLB.TV and MLB Extra Innings. How they come up with it is just as weird as it is inexplicable. When I lived further south in the county in which I currently live, Cincinnati and Detroit were considered part of my local market - despite the fact that Detroit was over 150 miles away and in a different state. I moved exactly 18 miles north (and closer to Detroit) in the same county and now I can watch both the Reds and Tigers on both MLB.TV and Extra Innings. Despite calls to Direct TV and to MLB.TV, I've never been able to get an answer for why North Central Ohio was considered part of the Detroit market. I sort of understand Cincinnati, but Detroit has always baffled me.

 

Las Vegas and the entire state of Iowa are victims of MLB's blackout policies...each region are blacked-out on Extra Innings/MLB.tv from six teams each.  I can't speak for Iowa, but for Las Vegas, you could get the Angels and Padres via cable through the respective Fox RSNs, and those two plus the Bay Area teams and the D-Backs are all available via DirecTV and Dish Network.  The Dodgers, because of their TV network situation, are only available via cable in greater Los Angeles, Hawaii, and some areas north of Los Angeles County; everything else from Fresno on north, is virtually all Comcast/Xfinity, and even from there, you're coming into Giants/Athletics territory.

 

One thing to keep in mind is that a lot of these MLB teams' broadcast territories are vestiges of their old over-the-air networks.  The Reds' old OTA TV network stretched as far north as Columbus, south to Nashville, and east to Charleston/Huntington; the Tigers aired games into northwest Ohio, northeast Indiana (Fort Wayne), and statewide throughout Michigan.  Hell, before the Rockies came into existence, the Royals were the closest team to the Denver area, and some of their games were televised into the Mile High City as well.

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1 hour ago, Cardsblues02 said:

Haha, I was joking about the Brewers. I’ll actually be in arlington for a Texas/Seattle game in about a week and a half!

Oof good luck, it’ll be hot. Check out the hall of fame and museum if it’s open. 

Excellent!

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2 hours ago, goalieboy82 said:

i think the cities shouldn't pay for new stadiums.  if anything, upgrade them (or have MLB pay for the upgrades).  have a fund that each year a little bit of money from the league goes into it (say 5% of what each team makes, or the league) and when things like this happen the league can help pay for it. 

 

 

That is a perfectly sensible idea.

1 hour ago, ShutUpLutz! said:

and the drunken doodoobags jumping off the tops of SUV's/vans/RV's onto tables because, oh yeah, they are drunken drug abusing doodoobags

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9 hours ago, KRZYBDGRZ said:

3 Chicago teams. No.

 

The only park that has needed to be upgraded is the rangers’, although beautiful it was hell in the summer.

 

The Rangers are getting a new stadium right across from the old one and have a retractable roof

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