bosrs1

57 minutes ago, DNAsports said:

 

Everything about this quote is great until you get to the gradient part. That tells me it’s more of a faux back with gradient elements than it is a true throwback to whatever uniform he’s talking about. Unless he’s just talking about the entire uniform set as whole.

Still can't understand how the Rams had the near perfect uniform to go back to, partially did go back to, then bailed on it for the land of gradient numbers. I mean IMO both LA teams screwed up what should have been slam dunks, but the Chargers at least didn't totally :censored: it up. It's about the only win over their landlords that the Chargers have had since their ill advised move to LA. 

And their woes continue... they had to cap fireworks night at 30,000 because they neglected to pay BART to run the trains after the fireworks like the Giants did last night. 

2 hours ago, gosioux76 said:

I agree. And no discredit to them, but my mind likes to separate the '94 Niners of George Seifert and Steve Young from the '81-88-89 Niners of Bill Walsh and Joe Montana. Having different uniforms is likely a big part of that. 

Probably why the '94's look so good in my view. I missed '81, was a preschooler in '84, and '88 was the Super Bowl I was forced to go to one of my dad's work friends houses to play hours of Excite Bike on the old Nintendo. '94 was the first season they made a Super Bowl I was really aware of the Niners and I really liked that uniform. Then they switched back to what has become their standard uniform and had a lesser season and it just seemed meh to me. 

Of course then they switched the cardinal, gold and drop shadow one 2 years later and my only reaction was, why the hell didn't they just wear the '94 rather than some inferior imitation of it. 

Well they actually increased it during the day game oddly. 5182 today. For the Texas series their total attendance was only 14,214. 

34 minutes ago, SFGiants58 said:

 

Well, it's not just Loria's fault. That's a misrepresentation that downplays other more critical, more demographics-based reasons why the Expos flopped. To quote myself:

 

If the A's keep up these attendances the Expos final years might end up an improvement. 

I mean they're harping they expect 30,000 this weekend for a series against the AL East leading Red Sox (not that they'll necessarily get it and even if they do it'll mostly be Red Sox fans). And mind the A's are only a half game out of first themselves. There was a time that match up on a weekday in that kind of situation would have necessitated opening Mount Davis' upper reaches. 

16 hours ago, alecgoff said:

 

Hot damn! I may just have to buy a Niners jersey even though I'm not a fan. Always thought that was their best uniform and that it was a crime they only wore it that one season. 

Attendance was even worse tonight (6/30). 4320 was the announced attendance. 

1 hour ago, spartacat_12 said:

 

Well cities like Phoenix & Miami will likely be uninhabitable by the end of this century, and that doesn't seem to be a concern for pro sports leagues. 

 

 

I don't think the Raiders drawing fans is going to be a problem. Only 9 home games, with most of them happening on the weekend means there will be plenty of out of town fans planning trips there around the schedule. The only issue they might face is that the crowds might be skewed towards the visiting team.

Plus the Raiders came with a built in fan base who seem more than willing to make the 8 times a year pilgrimage out to Vegas from SoCal to root for their team. What's 4 hours on the 15 when Las Vegas and it's dirt cheap hotel rooms and your favorite football team are on the other end of the drive. A form of visiting fan to be sure, but at least one that roots for the home team.

I think the Golden Knights are more indicative of the kind of support the A's will need to tap into than the Raiders. And it'll require a domed stadium without question, and likely some form of soft rebranding to make the team feel like Las Vegas' team in the same way the Golden Knights were and are Las Vegas's hockey team. An expansion baseball team would have been better, but beggars can't be choosers. But the worst thing I think a Las Vegas A's team could do would be to up and move to Vegas and keep the green and gold, the uniforms, the logos, etc... and all the same trappings of Oakland like the Raiders did. It won't hurt the Raiders much because their brand is uniquely borderless in that their fanbase has always been scattered due to it's odd "rebel" appeal. If anything moving to a more central, vacation oriented destination like Vegas closer to the bulk of their fan base in SoCal will likely have more upside than downside for the Raiders. The A's on the other hand don't have much of a fanbase outside of Oakland proper (and even that's the minority of local baseball fans in Oakland proper). The A's will be largely reliant on local fans like the Knights and will have to work hard to foster that. Which is doable, but it's going to require some big changes to the franchise and its branding. 

12 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

This might sound like a smartass question, but it's not: how is NYCFC different than Chivas USA?

They don't have race/national origin based hiring practices in place as a centerpiece of the team's culture? That and NYCFC don't really play up the City Football Group ownership much, where Chivas USA was operated as a subsidiary of Guadalajara and that was front and center in everything they did, particularly in the early years. In fact NYCFC seem to play up their minority owners, the Yankees, more than they do their City Football Group owners. And CFG isn't Man City itself, CFG just own all or part of Man City, Melbourne City FC, Montevideo City Torque, Lommel SK, NYCFC, Mumbai City FC, Girona FC, Sichuan Jiuniu FC, Yokohama F. Marinos and Troyes AC.  It's actually quite an impressive portfolio of teams. 

29 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

It took the fans of the Crew, and the other 25 teams to get the MLS to see that. 

I mean it wasn't without precedent. They got halfway there with the Earthquakes/Dynamo fiasco when they at least had the foresight to leave the San Jose IP in San Jose and found an ownership group pretty quickly to pick it up  making Houston a de jure if not de facto expansion side. But again it was the fans that got them there. 

Point is, Chivas was such a :censored:show that no one wanted anything to do with it. I don't even know that they had many pure Chivas USA fans that were really all that upset they shut down. They had no owner. They had no stadium. Hell at the time they didn't even have their own identity as they had no ties to Chivas Guad when they shut down. 

42 minutes ago, LMU said:

 

Chivas USA was also dealing with the discrimination lawsuits stemming from ownership firing anyone who didn't speak Spanish.  That, and it's kind of hard to market to fans of a team known for only signing Mexican players by signing mostly non-Mexican players.

Plus I mean it's not like MLS didn't eventually learn. They didn't do the same thing with Columbus/Austin and instead had Austin come in as an expansion team under Columbus' ownership and left Columbus in the league in the hands of new owners.  Then again, Columbus Crew had a brand (and history) worth saving. 

2 minutes ago, SFGiants58 said:

Indeed. Chivas USA was the exception, not the norm.

Chivas USA was also a mistake from the moment it was announced. One that was such a mistake that the LAFC ownership wanted nothing to do with being linked to it. The A's for all their issues, are still one of the most storied teams in MLB history with over 120 years of history that comes with them. 

3 hours ago, FiddySicks said:

Baseball would honestly be better off just contracting the A’s at this point

 

Yikes. I was at a USL soccer game last night that nearly topped that in attendance. I'd say, "poor A's" except they've done this to themselves. And it's likely intentional with their near daily reminders that they're looking at Las Vegas to move. And as I expected it's not driving Oakland to want to help them more, rather it's driving Oakland to say, "piss off and don't let the door hit your backside on the way out of town."

26 minutes ago, GDAWG said:

 

Players Association isn't going to allow it.

Not to mention they're talking expansion right now. They're not going to contract and then expand back to back. If anything they'll forego expansion and just relocate both teams. 

2 hours ago, kiwi_canadian said:

 

So why are these guys allowed to use the "Mounties" name and likeness on a logo but when Vancouver got the NBA and wanted to use the name, they were told no? I know the logo was terrible and the on court performance was dreadful but that aside, why is this ok and the NBA was not?

 

For the record, I much prefer the Grizzlies name over "Mounties".

My guess is their so low level no one cares. 

7 minutes ago, DNAsports said:

Two helmets?

Agreed. Plenty of teams that will be able to take advantage of this to their and the league's advantage, particularly with throwbacks. 

2 hours ago, LMU said:

This is the same reason that the LA Coliseum was such a clusterf*** before USC took over from the "Coliseum Commission." Too many politicians with no management/architecture/finance experience think that their grand vision trumps everyone else's grand vision.

Microcosm of everything wrong with politics today. Everyone has seemingly forgotten politics is by definition a series of compromises. No one should get everything they want, everyone should have to give and get about half of what they're asking for. But I agree, Oakland/AlCo was on the right track disengaging AlCo from the stadium game. If AlCo wants back in, forget it. The County and City are at such loggerheads lately that I doubt anything would get done, and not in the timetable the A's want. 

And yes the A's are already planning a return trip to Vegas. 

https://www.8newsnow.com/sports/west-coast-sports/as-making-return-trip-to-las-vegas/

4 hours ago, Walk-Off said:

 

Those tensions between the Oakland and Alameda County governments seemed to have added another chapter yesterday, as multiple members of the AlCo Board of Supervisors indicated that they (a) want a say when it comes to the Athletics' plan for Howard Terminal and (b) want to move at a noticeably slower pace on this matter than do their counterparts at Oakland's city hall.

 

https://newballpark.org/2021/06/15/6-15-alameda-county-board-of-supervisors-meeting-on-howard-terminal/

I mean what say do they think they're entitled to? It's not county land involved as I understand it or county tax revenues. Plus they expressed a desire to get out of the stadium game pretty definitively and now are having second thoughts? God I hate East Bay politics. 

One of the main reasons I became a stronger Padres fans after moving south than I otherwise would have been was I was long past tired of all of the off field bullcrap surrounding the A's, their stadium hunt, their continually cheapskate billionaire owners and indeed their dysfunctional city/county. 

52 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

 

They don't, actually.  They don't usually open the upper levels, unless it's a rivalry game or playoff.  Not that I'm knocking them at all for that; it's still very impressive. 

 

But nobody knew that at the time they were admitted into the league.  That's not why they were allowed to play in an NFL stadium.

 

No but I think it gave MLS the confidence to allow similar set ups going forward in ATL, NYCFC, Nashville, and even the move back to Chicago proper. 

14 hours ago, Gothamite said:

You are absolutely correct.  
 

when the Sounders came into the league, they shared ownership with the Seahawks. 

Didn't hurt that the Sounders can nearly fill their NFL venue on a weekly basis. 

3 hours ago, the admiral said:

I don't think it's that unquestionable. San Francisco and Oakland are separated by a bridge and a tunnel. San Jose is 40 miles away. 

In terms of the poles of the Bay Area... I'd say it's pretty unquestionable. I mean yes there's 40 miles between them but San Jose has grown into it's own beast and is the economic driver of the region along side San Francisco. Oakland, which is still a great city, has unfortunately become somewhat of a direct suburb of San Francisco with many having fled the city in recent years to live in the slightly more affordable town across the Bay. I mean it still has its own identity but it's place in the Bay Area has been irrevocably altered. 

52 minutes ago, B-Rich said:

Another thing to think of is the nature of the LEAGUES in regards to the teams named "Oakland".   When Oakland's first major league team (the Oakland Raiders) came about,  it was in a different LEAGUE, the AFL, which had its own TV contract.   TV markets being what they were (and are) this meant that the AFL had a foothold in the major Bay Area TV market, just as they did in NYC (and originally, LA).  With the merger, for many years you still had the two basic TV network contracts (AFC/NFC) plus the ABC Monday Night Football contract.  Today, in the realm of cable, NFL Network,  Sunday Ticket, flex scheduling and such, having two team in this major market is not as important.

 

Similarly, when the A's moved  from Kansas City to Oakland, it was when the leagues were still much more separate entities who only played each other in exhibition games and the World Series.   In a major market like the Bay Area, it made sense to have a team in each city ( just as it did in NY, Chicago,  and LA, and if you want to stretch this factor, that's why Texas, Missouri, Ohio, and later Florida worked so well with a team in both the NL and AL ).    Not just for broadcast factors, but because the local sports fans (of which there were many) could ostensibly see ALL of the teams (and star players) of both leagues over the course of a season.   With interleague play and unheralded media coverage of all games,  these factors are no longer important.

To me, the Bay Area (specifically San Francisco/Oakland)  has always been less a New York/LA type of place that merited two franchises in football and baseball, but more like a Tampa/St. Pete, or Minneapolis/St. Paul,  and probably most like a Dallas/Ft.  Worth "twin city" kind of situation.   I think that the Bay Area is just "right-sizing" in terms of sports franchises:  one each in all the five major sports. 

 

It is kind of interesting, though, that the result in terms of  NAME will be  two with "San Jose" (Sharks and Earthquakes), two with "San Francisco" (Giants and 49ers) and one regional (Golden State), but in terms of physical location/home stadium/arena it will be two in San Francisco (Giants and Warriors) but THREE in the south bay (Earthquakes, 49ers and Sharks).

Also a good set of points that is also an extension of mine. The current layout of the teams 2 in SF, 3 in San Jose (with one carrying the SF name), and the A's for now, is very much an expression of that shift I was talking about. When the teams were all founded or moved in, Oakland was the "twin city" to SF. Now it's unquestionably San Jose that is the "twin city" in that scenario. Oakland has fallen away to a distant third. And unlike Arlington, from your Dallas/Fort Worth comparison, Oakland as you say doesn't host teams that are designated by the region or the primary city like Arlington does. Even when they had the Warriors and their nonsensical naming. And I agree this is somewhat of a rightsizing. The only CSA's larger than the Bay Area are NY, Greater LA, DC/Baltimore (which have always been two separate markets despite being lumped into the same CSA), and Chicago. And of those 4: NY has 2 MLB, 2, NFL, 2 NBA, 3 NHL and 2 MLS; LA has 2 MLB, 2 NFL (and really is only supporting 1), 2 NBA, 2 NHL, 2 MLS; DC/Baltimore (which again have never been considered the same market) have 2 MLB, 2NFL, 1 NBA, 1 NHL, and 1 MLS;  and Chicago has 2 MLB, 1 NFL, 1 NBA, 1 NHL and 1 MLS. And if you go below the Bay Area to Boston, Dallas, Houston, Philly and Atlanta rounding out the top 10 CSAs each have 1 team in the 5 major sports save for no hockey in ATL. 

So really the Bay Area keeping the A's given Chicago having 5+1 extra MLB  or losing them given Boston having only 1 each in the Big 5 would seem appropriate either way it goes. But honestly given the way the poles swung over the last 4 decades in the Bay Area, the A's really should have been allowed to move to San Jose when they wanted to, and should have been renamed the San Jose A's to really reflect the reality of that pole switch.  

6 hours ago, FiddySicks said:

All of what bosrs1 is true, but I’ll add just a bit more to that, because Oakland’s situation is a bit more unique than most cities. Again, context is very important. 

 

1). Oakland just doesn’t have much money to spare. Due to several factors over the course of the last half century, the city doesn’t have the revenue coming in like they once did. For any city that’s going to cause problems, but it’s exasperated by the fact that Oakland is absolutely enormous. 

 

This leads me to my second point, which is a bit more touchy.

 

2). Oakland is one of the most racially diverse and multicultural cities in the country, and with that comes a unique set of challenges. The way Oakland views it (and this is absolutely the correct viewpoint to take), they simply have more important and pressing issues to deal with than doling out the little public money they have to sports venues. Crime, poverty, and substance abuse are a HUGE issues in the city, and the city has determined that putting its resources towards those issues is worth losing sports teams over. There’s always been quite a bit of dysfunction in Oakland, but it’s hard for me to see that as less than commendable. 

 

There’s also a bit of a racial component to it, as well. How are you going to both support the vulnerable classes within your city (which Oakland, again, has made their priority), while at the same time cutting huge money deals with billionaires for their toy projects? The optics just aren’t good. 

Part of Oakland's problem too is the development of the Bay Area. When it acquired all of the teams that it did, it was during the suburban flight time period (the 50's and 60's). Oakland was appealing in part because the way San Francisco is hemmed in on all but one side, it doesn't have any direct suburbs other than Daly City (which itself isn't very suburban), so Oakland and Alameda Co. was a prime location for a team like the Warriors to slide over to, or for the Raiders to found their team in, or for the A's to move their team to. And while a suburb, Oakland was the Bay Area's second largest city in its own right at the time with a bustling port, nearby military establishments in and right next to the city limits, etc... 

Fast forward 30 years and the Oakland port was passed over long ago by other California and west coast ports in importance, the military has all but abandoned the Bay Area including most importantly for Oakland and Alameda County,  NAS Alameda, and Oakland itself has seen itself eclipsed by San Jose as the other "pole" in the Bay Area (as SJ is on almost equal or superior footing to even SF in many respects).   

2 minutes ago, gosioux76 said:

 

Help me understand this: Is this Oakland being Oakland or is this Oakland taking a principled stand against doling out taxpayer money to billionaire owners. I can't say I've been paying close enough attention over the years to know whether to view this situation as Oakland just fumbling another opportunity or whether Oakland should be the standard bearer for holding the line on giveaways. 

It's a bit of both. In general California cities don't dole out money for sports teams anymore. Particular direct subsidies are a dead end with both city councils and taxpayers when it's come to the ballot as they've realized they're expensive vanity projects that have no major benefit for a city and are a waste of funds. Some teams have tried creative alternative tax redirections with mixed results at best but even those have been rejected. The best you can hope for as a sports owner is some form of tax incentivization rather than subsidy or tit for tat land rights sale and maybe support for ancillary development like the A's are looking for with the infrastructure. 

That said, Oakland has always been somewhat dysfunctional at the local governmental level, more so that even most California cities are accused of being even with getting those supportive measures that are palatable. You have multiple points of view that don't like to see eye to eye to get things done. And the Coliseum site and its teams were a prime example. You have not only Oakland but Alameda County as having been stake holders in that (so double the government double the problems, particularly since Oakland and AlCo don't work well together and never have).  AlCo in particular just wants out of the sport business. And Oakland has mixed feelings about where the A's want to build as it's prohibitively expensive (the whole project is $12 billion and they're still asking the city for the equivalent of $897 million in indirect subsidies, and half the city council can't understand why they just don't build and redevelop where the existing stadium is instead for far less.  With the Raiders it was similar, Oakland balked at the subsidy cost that the broke ass Mark Davis wanted (not to mention they couldn't compete with the almost billion dollars Vegas was offering even if they'd been willing to offer public support). The only one the Oakland pols are entirely blameless on is the Warriors. Their owner wanted to move to San Francisco and was willing to pony up to do so. There was little Oakland could have offered that would have derailed that move, even a public subsidy probably wouldn't have been enough. 

1 hour ago, Red Comet said:

And The Coliseum is an honest-to-God :censored:hole and not just because it’s in Oakland. As in, sewage issues have been chronic there for as long as I remember. 
 

And yeah, I know it’s a standard tactic but it always amazes me at its effectiveness. I guess no one wants to be Baltimore or Cleveland outside of the more mundane reasons they don’t want to be Baltimore or Cleveland.

Or Oakland. Remember this is the third team in the last decade trying to get Oakland to help out with something related to a stadium or they bail. That's the one reason I take the A's move threats more seriously than I would otherwise. Oakland has already lost two teams... that and again the A's stadium search being old enough to drink, have graduated from both a bachelors and masters program and is currently finishing up it's doctoral dissertation.