Angels tell Anaheim they're opting out of their lease on Angel Stadium

[Red Comet]

7 hours ago, dfwabel said:

 

Remember, a City Manager is hired and can only recommend items.  S/he can ask for the world, but if s/he fail, they will be gone quickly. 

They don't make policy, they recommend policy.

 

There are some places where a city manager has a lot of power. Like Kansas City. Artifact of an era where the city was run by a one-man Tammany Hall but it is still an example nonetheless.

[Gothamite]

10 hours ago, monkeypower said:

Did Anaheim pay them to change to Anaheim? I always thought it was attributed to Disney.

 

It was one of the things Anaheim requested as part of the stadium upgrades.  No name change, no public money. 
 

I'm sure Disney was more than willing, since for years Disney wanted to make “Anaheim” a synonym for their company the same way that “Hollywood” is for the film industry.  Their interests were served by the deal, but it was still a naming rights deal. 

[Gothamite]

11 hours ago, dfwabel said:

Remember, a City Manager is hired and can only recommend items.  S/he can ask for the world, but if s/he fail, they will be gone quickly. 

They don't make policy, they recommend policy.

 

I didn’t read that as the City Manager alone made the request, I read that as the city itself.  Which may have been the City Manager, or whomever is in charge of the negotiations.  But didn’t think at all that was just one person’s ask. 

[JayMac]

It was showing the MLB changes topic as "hot" and this one has some activity too, so I thought a team was unveiling a new uniform set or a new Angels stadium was being built. Nope, just multiple pages on what city/state/area to use for the Angels in both threads.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

13 hours ago, SFGiants58 said:

Anaheim is a legitimate city name for a team.

 

Anaheim is nowhere. It is known for exactly one thing, and is insignificant as a city. It has no metropolitan area — because it is part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

 

All of this tells us (1) that "Anaheim" is not a fit name for a Major League Baseball team, and (2) that any Major League Baseball team located in that city should be called "Los Angeles".

 

You cannot sit thirty miles away from one of the world's biggest and most important cities and pretend not to be within that city's sphere of influence (even if you're in another county). Anaheim is to Los Angeles as Pontiac is to Detroit, as Richfield is to Cleveland, and as Chester is to Philadelphia.

 

 

14 hours ago, SFGiants58 said:

Look at the Ducks and don't give me that "but hockey" is different crap.

 

Sorry, but hockey is indeed different.

 

The NHL is not on the level of Major League Baseball or the NFL. It is on the level of MLS; there might one day be something like an FC Anaheim, just as there is an Anaheim team in the NHL. But Major League Baseball and the NFL are simply too big for that town; teams from those leagues located in Anaheim would not take that city's name without a hefty bribe of the sort that caused the Angels to temporarily stoop to doing so.

[infrared41]

46 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

Anaheim is to Los Angeles as Pontiac is to Detroit, as Richfield is to Cleveland, and as Chester is to Philadelphia.

 

 

I hate to break this to you, but the Richfield Coliseum, former home of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Cleveland Crusaders, was in a field out in the middle of nowhere. The Richfield Coliseum was located in Richfield Township which is almost as big as it sounds. Richfield is as close to Akron as it is Cleveland. (And no, Akron and Cleveland are not the same market.) Point being, the Coliseum and Richfield Township were more under the "sphere of influence" of the Amish than they were of the City of Cleveland. Don't believe me? See for yourself. 

 

 

 

Aerial shots of the Richfield Coliseum. 

 

 

Quote

Anaheim is nowhere.

 

No, this is nowhere. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MilSox]

37 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

Anaheim is nowhere. It is known for exactly one thing, and is insignificant as a city. It has no metropolitan area — because it is part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

 

All of this tells us (1) that "Anaheim" is not a fit name for a Major League Baseball team, and (2) that any Major League Baseball team located in that city should be called "Los Angeles".

 

You cannot sit thirty miles away from one of the world's biggest and most important cities and pretend not to be within that city's sphere of influence (even if you're in another county). Anaheim is to Los Angeles as Pontiac is to Detroit, as Richfield is to Cleveland, and as Chester is to Philadelphia.

None of those places have Disney.  I think a lot of people making this argument are sleeping on what a game changer that is.  It makes Anaheim more comparable to Orlando than Pontiac.

I'm not saying Anaheim is necessarily what the Angels should call themselves (I'm Team California, FWIW), and I know they'll probably never be anything but Los Angeles because there's too much of a financial incentive.  It doesn't change the fact that they have almost no fans in LA proper.

[Hat Boy]

Is there any metric or statistical evidence that demonstrates one way or the other the impact of the Angels using "Los Angeles" in their name? 

[Digby]

8 hours ago, NicDB said:

None of those places have Disney.  I think a lot of people making this argument are sleeping on what a game changer that is.  It makes Anaheim more comparable to Orlando than Pontiac.

I'm not saying Anaheim is necessarily what the Angels should call themselves (I'm Team California, FWIW), and I know they'll probably never be anything but Los Angeles because there's too much of a financial incentive.  It doesn't change the fact that they have almost no fans in LA proper.

 

Disney’s been trying to make Anaheim a thing of its own for what, 50? 60 years? If it hasn’t happened yet, not sure what’ll ever change. 

[Digby]

1 hour ago, Hat Boy said:

Is there any metric or statistical evidence that demonstrates one way or the other the impact of the Angels using "Los Angeles" in their name? 

 

If I were in charge I’d be most interested in media mentions and merch sales.

 

at any rate I don’t think any useful metrics are ones we would have access to! So instead we all fight about it subjectively.

[Ben in LA]

Should’ve never changed from Anaheim Angels IMHO. California Angels was fine as well. I’ve yet to meet any Angels fans call them the Los Angeles Angels...and I live in the metro area. I’ve yet to meet anyone in said metro area call the Los Angeles Angels. 
 

It’s FAR from being “nowhere”; it’s literally the largest city in the county and one of its most important (besides county seat Santa Ana).

[BBTV]

Holy hell - those Richfield photos are shocking (to me.)  What was the idea behind putting it there?  Make it as inconvenient as possible for anyone to go?  Make it impossible to take mass transit?  It blows my mind that a 20k-seat venue can be that isolated.

[MilSox]

13 hours ago, Digby said:

 

Disney’s been trying to make Anaheim a thing of its own for what, 50? 60 years? If it hasn’t happened yet, not sure what’ll ever change. 

 I think the fact that we're even having this debate at all is proof that it has.  Even outside of Disney, The OC was a big enough phenomenon that it made "OC" part for the American lexicon.  Even if you weren't a fan of that show (which I wasn't), you still knew what it was referring to.

[MilSox]

2 hours ago, BringBackTheVet said:

Holy hell - those Richfield photos are shocking (to me.)  What was the idea behind putting it there?  Make it as inconvenient as possible for anyone to go?  Make it impossible to take mass transit?  It blows my mind that a 20k-seat venue can be that isolated.

The interstate system led to a lot of terrible ideas with infrastructure in low density areas, and the Richfield Coliiseum is one of my go-tos when making this point.  The idea was that if they put a venue equidistant from Cleveland and Akron, it could draw crowds from two cities rather than one.  So, naturally, the exact opposite happened.  Because no one considered that people don't want to commute such a distance to see a game on a weeknight.

[SFGiants58]

2 minutes ago, NicDB said:

The interstate system led to a lot of terrible ideas with infrastructure in low density areas, and the Richfield Coliiseum is one of my go-tos when making this point.  The idea was that if they put a venue equidistant from Cleveland and Akron, it could draw crowds from two cities rather than one.  So, naturally, the exact opposite happened, because no one considered that people don't want to commute such a distance to see a game on a weeknight.

Look at the area on Google Maps today: 

 

 

There’s almost no evidence of it, aside from being a large field in a forested area.

[Gothamite]

What an amazingly terrible idea. 

[BBTV]

how the hell did they average >18K there?  Apparently a lot of people were willing to make the trek, though I can't imagine how.  It sucks for urban dwellers that don't have cars to not be able to go to games.

[Digby]

Foxborough/Gillette is still like that! Maybe worse!

[pmoehrin]

On 12/21/2019 at 9:22 PM, Hat Boy said:

Is there any metric or statistical evidence that demonstrates one way or the other the impact of the Angels using "Los Angeles" in their name? 

 

None that I know. The Angels could try a survey, but I think a lot of fans would lie about how much they care about the name.

 

The only thing you could do is compare at attendance figures, TV ratings, and merchandise sales before and after the name change. The last year the Angels used the Anaheim name; they drew 3.37 million people. In 2005 with the LA name, they drew 3.4 million. Based on that alone, I doubt you will find any evidence the name change has impacted the team's revenue flow in any way.

 

My personal preference is for the Angels to go back to being the California Angels. To me, that's the name best representative of their fanbase. There's no simple way of saying the Angels play in an area where you have half a dozen mid-size cities bordering each other, but California comes the closest. Anaheim Angels makes it seem like they're a small market team playing in a city of 350K, and Los Angeles Angles makes it seem like they play in Los Angeles.

 

[Digby]

I think it’s useful to go back to why the name has changed to start with; as far as I know “California Angels” was just fine and they only changed to “Anaheim” because Disney was trying to synergize. That’s not a good enough reason!