MLB Stadium Saga: Oakland/Tampa Bay/Southside

[who do you think]

9 hours ago, bosrs1 said:

 

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. 

 

Expand to where? Forget expansion, baseball has no good landing spots for the A's or Rays if their stadium issues don't get resolved (and seeing as both battles have been going for well over a decade at this point with no resolution...).

>Montreal

Failed the first time around, had a Coyotes-tier final decade, not much reason to think they would succeed this time around other than blind optimism... and they're the most appealing city on the list.

>Nashville

>North Carolina

For NBA/NHL, maybe. For MLB, with twice as many home dates and seats to fill per game? You're scraping the bottom of the barrel hoping they can be as good a market as Milwaukee or Arizona, and praying that it's not Florida all over again... I don't know about that. Have we mentioned that all three cities are transplant hell?

>NBA city roll call

oh please

[bosrs1]

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

[Ridleylash]

14 hours ago, who do you think said:

>Montreal

Failed the first time around, had a Coyotes-tier final decade, not much reason to think they would succeed this time around other than blind optimism... and they're the most appealing city on the list.

I mean, considering they succeeded the first time until Jeff Loria decided to it all the way up, I don't think it's the market's fault the Expos left. The team being run like crap post-94 is what ultimately sealed the Expos' fate, and the downturning Canadian economy at the time didn't help matters.

[SFGiants58]

6 minutes ago, Ridleylash said:

I mean, considering they succeeded the first time until Jeff Loria decided to it all the way up, I don't think it's the market's fault the Expos left. The team being run like crap post-94 is what ultimately sealed the Expos' fate, and the downturning Canadian economy at the time didn't help matters.

 

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:

 

On 8/6/2019 at 7:43 PM, SFGiants58 said:

 

 

1. The passage of the Quebec language law known as La charte de la langue française, or Bill 101, in 1977 was the first blow. Many have argued that it was a necessary measure to protect to province’s cultural heritage, appease the FLQ, and dismantle the “anglophone ruling class” and the “Catholic shadow government.” However, the establishment of the “language police”/Office québécois de la langue française and their harassment of both the Anglophone and Jewish communities, mandates of primarily French public education, and the threat of independence referendums incited tension. The business community largely left the province, with the Bank of Montréal, Royal Bank of Canada, and Sun Life moving to Toronto. Both the Anglophone and Jewish demographics saw significant emigration to Ontario, with the remnants of said groups facing persecution from the “language police's” abuses.¹

 

While this may seem like it would not impact the Expos, the unfortunate reality was that most of the baseball community and fans in Montréal were Anglophones. While there were plenty of Francophone fans of the team (i.e., “Nos Amours” and English/French broadcasts/announcements), they simply didn’t have the numbers of the Anglophone supporters. Another blow was the loss of business community to support baseball with suite purchases and sponsorships, a necessity for running a team.²

 

Several of the later reasons described here have some relevance to the post-Bill 101 economic problems faced by Quebec and Montréal. These include:

• The Blue Jays took the Southern Ontario market away from the Expos. This represented a notable loss in revenue for the Expos, as they would have to depend on the economic fortunes of a less-powerful Quebec. 
• These language laws made free agency unattractive for players on the market, along with higher Canadian taxes.
• Because of the added economic stress from the Canadian Dollar’s decline (at times worth less than 70% of the US dollar) and the prospect of an independence referendum in October 1995, the partners in Claude Brochu’s ownership group were unwilling to spend more on the team. This, along with lost revenue from the 1994 strike and the group’s cheapness, incited the ‘90s fire sale. 
• The lack of a strong business community made it harder to find a buyer from Quebec or necessary corporate support. Even the Canadiens couldn’t find a local buyer, nor did they use public funds to build the Bell Centre. Trying to gain both a strong local ownership group and getting public funds from a concerned government would prove difficult obstacles for the Expos.³

 

 

2. The construction of Olympic Stadium/Le Stade Olympique was a disaster that proved concerning for publicly-funded venues in Montréal. Building the stadium involved delays, costs going from $124 million to $600 million, and political cronyism. Even upon completion, the stadium’s roof would frequently rip and barely retracted, a 55-ton beam fell off of the building in 1991, the turf surface hurt players, and it was in a location with few local entertainment options and far from Anglophone neighborhoods. The team felt the need for a replacement in the ‘90s, one which resulted in the Labatt Park impasses. With all parties unwilling to foot the bill, especially after Le Stade Olympique’s controversy, the team would remain at The (unsuitable) Big O.⁴

 

 

3. The Toronto Blue Jays claimed exclusivity in Southern Ontario, taking away a lucrative market away from the Expos. Even though both commissioners Bowie Kuhn and Peter Ueberroth offered compromises (i.e., 15 games a year broadcast in Southern Ontario, would have to pay for broadcasting rights afterwards), owner Charles Bronfman rejected these proposals. Losing this market eliminated a significant revenue stream, one which the Blue Jays built upon and secured by contending throughout the 1980s (during a competitive downturn for the Expos) and early 1990s. Playing in the cultural capital of Anglophone Canada further cemented the club as a multi-provincial entity. The Expos would have to be content with being a provincial squad, further isolated due to Quebec separatism.⁵  

 

 

 

4. Post-Bronfman ownership ran the team as cheaply as possible, inciting fan apathy and enabling MLB to pull the Expos’ plug. While Bronfman did engage in salary cutting measures due to declines in revenue streams and the season ticket base (e.g., trading Gary Carter), the Brochu group made them standard from 1991-98. His partners refused to chip in much beyond their initial investments while imposing cost-cutting measures. This forced the team to sell off most of their franchise players to satisfy the books (which were probably cooked to a decent degree). Even when a team put together a contender in 1994, there were concerns about whether or not a World Series titles would get them to break even. The fire sale of the 1994 team was a result of this cheapness, along with the loss of playoff game money. Continually being cheap on player salaries and failing to provide any significant capital towards the Labatt Park plan (only $40 million in PSL’s) crippled fan engagement.⁶

 

The Loria ownership of 1998-2002 took things further, refusing broadcasting contracts (paying a high $1,000 per game for radio and only receiving $5,000 for TSN games compared to the Blue Jays’ $200,000) and leaving the team without English radio, tanking stadium talks further (although the negotiations were fairly untenable when he arrived) and selling off the rights to potential stadium land, not marketing the club, and taking every piece of valuable organization property upon selling the team to MLB. Loria also wrestled control away from Brochu’s consortium partners, although any of the other owners could have answered his cash calls to stop him.⁷

 

Under MLB ownership and following the failure of the 2001 contraction, the club never called up minor leaguers in September 2003 and began playing games in San Juan, Puerto Rico. With owners who were unwilling to put in money for baseball, the baseball fandom of Montréal turned their interests away from the club.⁸

 

Stephen Bronfman speculated that Loria’s ownership was more or less a conspiracy to kill off the failing market in Montréal (financial losses, smaller crowds, and bad publicity with the ownership/community), which fits with the actions of both the Brochu and Loria partnerships.⁹

 

 

TL;DR: It was not one factor that killed the Expos, but rather a chain of events set off by Bill 101, the shoddiness of Olympic Stadium, the Blue Jays claiming Southern Ontario, and cheap ownership by Brochu/his partners and Loria that did the damage.  

 

Also, the 1994 strike ending the Expos’ greatest season was not the deciding factor that led to their doom. It didn’t help matters (given the post-strike weariness towards baseball and lost revenue), but the Brochu group’s money problems and attitude towards payroll would have still induced a star liquidation. They might have had more clout for a publicly-funded stadium, but a 1990s Quebec was in no position to publicly finance it. Heck, had the referendum resulted in a “oui,” the Expos probably would have fled far sooner (something Bronfman pondered in his sale).¹⁰

This synopsis of the Expos’ downfall is my synthesis of Jonah Keri’s Up, Up, & Away! for the baseball-specific information and Daniel S. Greene’s thesis paper “Analyzing the Parallelism between the Rise and Fall of Baseball in Quebec and the Quebec Secession Movement” providing the socioeconomic/political data. I recommend that you check both of them out (although given recent domestic violence allegations made against Keri, just go to the library for his volume).

 

¹ CBC, “CBC Digital Archives - Fighting Words: Bill 101 - Bill 101: Politics of Smoked Meat,” accessed August 6, 2019, http://web.archive.org/web/20131203041117/http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/politics/language-culture/fighting-words-bill-101/politics-of-smoked-meat.html; Daniel S. Greene, “Analyzing the Parallelism between the Rise and Fall of Baseball in Quebec and the Quebec Secession Movement” (Honors Thesis, Union College, 2011), 47–50, https://digitalworks.union.edu/theses/988; Bennet Kelley, “Quebec’s Fateful Day: Embracing Decline in the Name of Culture,” Bennet Kelley’s Clippings & More (blog), July 27, 2014, https://bennetkelley.wordpress.com/2014/07/27/quebecs-fateful-day/; Jonah Keri, Up, Up, and Away: The Kid, the Hawk, Rock, Vladi, Pedro, Le Grand Orange, Youppi!, The Crazy Business of Baseball, and the Ill-Fated but Unforgettable Montreal Expos, Reprint edition (Toronto, ON: Vintage Canada, 2015), 98–101; League for Human Rights B’nai Brith Canada, “1996 Annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents - Antisemitism in Canada: Current Climate and Trends,” January 7, 2004, http://web.archive.org/web/20040107134104/https://www.bnaibrith.ca/publications/audit1996/audit1996-06.html; Susan Taylor Martin, “In Quebec, Some Take Law as Sign of Discrimination,” St. Petersburg Times, August 9, 1999, sec. National, America’s News.

² Jonathan Kay, “Separatism and the Expos,” NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture 12, no. 1 (July 24, 2003): 153–55, https://doi.org/10.1353/nin.2003.0044; Keri, Up, Up, and Away, 56–59 and 383; Bill Mann, “Strike Trois! -- Down Go the Expos,” MarketWatch, November 9, 2001, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/quel-dommage-strike-trois-for-the-montreal-expos; Stuart Shea, Calling the Game: Baseball Broadcasting from 1920 to the Present, ed. Gary Gillette (Phoenix, AZ: Society for American Baseball Research, 2015), 340–41; Paul Taunton, “The Nord Remembers,” Hazlitt, October 3, 2014, https://hazlitt.net/feature/nord-remembers.

³ Keri, Up, Up, and Away, 212–16, 248–51, 261, 314–15, 337–40.

⁴ Kay, “Separatism and the Expos,” 154; Keri, Up, Up, and Away, 103–9, 230–45, 265, and 335–41.

⁵ Keri, Up, Up, and Away, 212–16, 275, and 365–66.

⁶ Keri, 207–9, 221–22, 249–52, 311–16, and 337.

⁷ Greene, “Analyzing the Parallelism between the Rise and Fall of Baseball in Quebec and the Quebec Secession Movement,” 86–88; Keri, Up, Up, and Away, 345–67.

⁸ Greene, “Analyzing the Parallelism between the Rise and Fall of Baseball in Quebec and the Quebec Secession Movement,” 88–89; Keri, Up, Up, and Away, 364–77; Matthew Surridge, “Remembering MLB in Montreal,” Splice Today, February 20, 2015, https://www.splicetoday.com/sports/remembering-mlb-in-montreal.

⁹ Keri, Up, Up, and Away, 364.

¹⁰ Linda Kay, “Expos Unable to Escape Quebec’s Political Tumult,” Chicago Tribune, July 29, 1990, https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1990-07-29-9003040407-story.html.

[bosrs1]

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. 

 

 

[B-Rich]

2 hours 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:

 

Well written, researched and presented, young man.

[bosrs1]

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

[bosrs1]

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. 

 

 

[tBBP]

Totally unrelated, but...I did some looking into their history yesterday just because I was curious.  And I know the club has set up shop in three different cities, but...one would think a club that has nine Word Series titles, three coming during their little mini-dynasty at the beginning of the 70s that apparently barely gets mentioned in the story of Major League Baseball (not that I'm a knowledgeable historian because I certainly am not), would be better deserving than the mess they're currently enduring/they've gotten themselves into.

 

Sidebar complete--now back to relevant discussion...

[Red Comet]

30 minutes ago, bosrs1 said:

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. 

 

 

Wait, what? Two things. First, why do the A’s have to pay BART so that BART can run their trains? Second, why are they so cheap as to not pay BART if that is what is required to get fans in for fireworks night? That might’ve actually given them a bit of a boost in attendance too. 

[bosrs1]

8 minutes ago, Red Comet said:

Wait, what? Two things. First, why do the A’s have to pay BART so that BART can run their trains? Second, why are they so cheap as to not pay BART if that is what is required to get fans in for fireworks night? That might’ve actually given them a bit of a boost in attendance too. 

 

Because BART isn't running late trains right now because they're still on COVID footing. Yet the Giants magically had late trains during their fireworks night up to 40 mins after last fireworks. You can't tell me the Giants, or SF city government, or both,  didn't make it worth their while to have trains running late since clearly trains don't just magically appear. 

 

And why are they so cheap? People have been asking that of A's ownership for almost 30 years now. The current ownership group in particular are one of the richest in MLB, yet they act like they have no money, and perpetually sabotage themselves off field. They'd rather play this up as a shaming game on social media trying to get BART to run trains than just making it happen like their competition across the Bay. But then being an embarrassment is nothing new to the A's or their ownership. Easily a bottom 3 ownership group in all of sports, and they unfortunately own two teams who they bungle management of with the Earthquakes in MLS too. 

 

[SFGiants58]

6 minutes ago, bosrs1 said:

 

And why are they so cheap? People have been asking that of A's ownership for almost 30 years now. The current ownership group in particular are one of the richest in MLB, yet they act like they have no money, and perpetually sabotage themselves off field. They'd rather play this up as a shaming game on social media trying to get BART to run trains than just making it happen like their competition across the Bay. But then being an embarrassment is nothing new to the A's or their ownership. Easily a bottom 3 ownership group in all of sports, and they unfortunately own two teams who they bungle management of with the Earthquakes in MLS too.

 

That reminds me of how the A's got kicked out of revenue sharing a few years ago (IIRC). They're a part of Fisher's real estate plans, which is why the "Howard Terminal or Bust" stuff is more about Fisher getting to develop the area. Revenue sharing took some of the "burden" off Fisher, until MLB kicked them off of it. Kaval simply replaced Wolff as the public face.

 

42 minutes ago, tBBP said:

Totally unrelated, but...I did some looking into their history yesterday just because I was curious.  And I know the club has set up shop in three different cities, but...one would think a club that has nine Word Series titles, three coming during their little mini-dynasty at the beginning of the 70s that apparently barely gets mentioned in the story of Major League Baseball (not that I'm a knowledgeable historian because I certainly am not), would be better deserving than the mess they're currently enduring/they've gotten themselves into.

 

Sidebar complete--now back to relevant discussion...

 

Well, we must first put those nine titles (and six additional AL pennants) into context. The Athletics have been a boom-and-bust franchise going back over 100 years, with the 1910s titles followed by Connie Mack getting cheap and losing his core. The Great Depression broke up the 1929-31 teams with Mack's investments taking a hit. The Kansas City years are a black mark for everybody involved. The early-mid '70s A's dynasty met its demise through Charlie O. being incredibly cheap and opposing the arrival of free agency (also, those clubs derived a lot of unity from their mutual dislike of Charlie O. ). The A's of the late-'80s and early-'90s just gradually fell apart over the '90s and turned into the team you see today.

 

A boom-and-bust franchise history, rather than just pure consistency with small bits of downtime (Yankees and Cardinals), is why the A's are where they are now. Honestly, maybe things would've turned out better if Charlie O. sold the team to Ewing Kauffman and Kauffman kept the team in KC. 

[bosrs1]

18 minutes ago, SFGiants58 said:

 

That reminds me of how the A's got kicked out of revenue sharing a few years ago (IIRC). They're a part of Fisher's real estate plans, which is why the "Howard Terminal or Bust" stuff is more about Fisher getting to develop the area. Revenue sharing took some of the "burden" off Fisher, until MLB kicked them off of it. Kaval simply replaced Wolff as the public face.

 

 

Well, we must first put those nine titles (and six additional AL pennants) into context. The Athletics have been a boom-and-bust franchise going back over 100 years, with the 1910s titles followed by Connie Mack getting cheap and losing his core. The Great Depression broke up the 1929-31 teams with Mack's investments taking a hit. The Kansas City years are a black mark for everybody involved. The early-mid '70s A's dynasty met its demise through Charlie O. being incredibly cheap and opposing the arrival of free agency (also, those clubs derived a lot of unity from their mutual dislike of Charlie O. ). The A's of the late-'80s and early-'90s just gradually fell apart over the '90s and turned into the team you see today.

 

A boom-and-bust franchise history, rather than just pure consistency with small bits of downtime (Yankees and Cardinals), is why the A's are where they are now. Honestly, maybe things would've turned out better if Charlie O. sold the team to Ewing Kauffman and Kauffman kept the team in KC. 

 

Actually that is the one consistent thing about the A's... that they've been consistently owned by cheap ass owners. First was Mack/Shibe ownership, then Mack himself, then Arnold (who in addition to being cheap was also likely colluding with the Yankees), then Finley, later Schott/Hoffman, then Wolff/Fisher, and now Fisher alone. Other than the one bright spot of the all too brief Haas ownership in the 80's, the A's have never had an owner particularly interested in paying the kind of money needed consistently to make the team a winner both off and on field. Historically all they have is ownership that occasionally gets lucky on field, but has no clue how to translate that to success off field.

[tBBP]

17 minutes ago, SFGiants58 said:

 

That reminds me of how the A's got kicked out of revenue sharing a few years ago (IIRC). They're a part of Fisher's real estate plans, which is why the "Howard Terminal or Bust" stuff is more about Fisher getting to develop the area. Revenue sharing took some of the "burden" off Fisher, until MLB kicked them off of it. Kaval simply replaced Wolff as the public face.

 

 

Well, we must first put those nine titles (and six additional AL pennants) into context. The Athletics have been a boom-and-bust franchise going back over 100 years, with the 1910s titles followed by Connie Mack getting cheap and losing his core. The Great Depression broke up the 1929-31 teams with Mack's investments taking a hit. The Kansas City years are a black mark for everybody involved. The early-mid '70s A's dynasty met its demise through Charlie O. being incredibly cheap and opposing the arrival of free agency (also, those clubs derived a lot of unity from their mutual dislike of Charlie O. ). The A's of the late-'80s and early-'90s just gradually fell apart over the '90s and turned into the team you see today.

 

A boom-and-bust franchise history, rather than just pure consistency with small bits of downtime (Yankees and Cardinals), is why the A's are where they are now. Honestly, maybe things would've turned out better if Charlie O. sold the team to Ewing Kauffman and Kauffman kept the team in KC. 

 

Ah, so...and yes, I did read about the tenure with Connie Mack at the helm (for 50 years!), but from what you contributed, it seems the Athletics organization has had cheapskate-itis in its veins for a loooonnngg time.  

[bosrs1]

54 minutes ago, tBBP said:

 

Ah, so...and yes, I did read about the tenure with Connie Mack at the helm (for 50 years!), but from what you contributed, it seems the Athletics organization has had cheapskate-itis in its veins for a loooonnngg time.  

 

If not for their 9 World Series wins it might actually be a mercy to erase the A's from MLB and start fresh with an organization no so permeated with penny pinching.  And I say this who grew up a die hard A's fan, whose parents are still A's fans, and who has probably seen more games at the Coliseum than I'd care to admit.  But even someone of my attachment to them couldn't endure the seemingly never ending decades of this nonsense.  

 

Thankfully I moved to San Diego and learned to fall in love with baseball all over again thanks to an organization that mostly has had no clue how to win, but at least knew how to treat its fans and city well while losing.  

[29texan]

[Red Comet]

I don't think Portland is likely. Is there a big movement to get an MLB team in Portland? Would there be political support to build a new stadium if taxpayer dollars are used? Civic Stadium is out as the Timbers are not about to let a team turn their soccer pitch back into a multipurpose stadium anytime soon.  How much corporate support would there be in Portland for a team? Or hell, who in office in Portland right now would support having a MLB team in Portland? 

 

Las Vegas, for better or worse, is more than willing to support a MLB team at least when it comes to supporting all that it would take to attract the team there. Portland is a lot more questionable in that regard IMO. 

[Ridleylash]

8 minutes ago, 29texan said:

More likely;

[29texan]

Just now, Ridleylash said:

More likely;

I still say Portland.

[bosrs1]

6 minutes ago, 29texan said:

I still say Portland.

 

Except for the fact the A's have had no contact to date with Portland. They've made two research trips to Vegas already and identified a bunch of potential sites. And MLB had been doing ground work in Vegas before the A's were even involved. 

 

So yeah no. If they move it'll be to Vegas.