MLB Stadium Saga: Oakland/Tampa Bay/Southside

[LMU]

 

[Cujo]

Finally. It's almost over. 

 

[who do you think]

Quote

 

The Oakland A’s are closing in on an agreement to construct a $1 billion baseball stadium north of Allegiant Stadium with the support of Gov. Joe Lombardo and top lawmakers in a deal that will not involve new taxes, multiple sources confirmed to The Nevada Independent on Wednesday.

 

According to sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the A’s will cover the costs for the 30,000-to-35,000-seat retractable-roof stadium to house the Major League Baseball franchise on a nearly 100-acre site near Tropicana Boulevard and Interstate 15.

 

 

turn down for HUWHAT

 

Isn't this the same franchise that has to go out and panhandle just to afford the likes of Mitch Moreland?

[Cujo]

 

[ZapRowsdower8]

Most of the time I hate to see a team move, but I think this one will hurt more than most, purely from a uni point of view. I don’t see the current A’s look fitting with what Vegas teams want to bring to the table. We may be losing one of the best uniforms in all of sports. 

[WestCoastBias]

Sad.

[aawagner011]

Las Vegas becoming quite the sports town. Within just a couple years, they’ll have gone from zero top level professional teams to hosting NHL, NFL, and now MLB.

[GDAWG]

1 minute ago, aawagner011 said:

Las Vegas becoming quite the sports town. Within just a couple years, they’ll have gone from zero top level professional teams to hosting NHL, NFL, and now MLB.

 

NBA and MLS are next.

[SCMODS]

It won't  really matter because 30 years from now Vegas will be swallowed up by the desert sands. 

[McCall]

5 hours ago, ZapRowsdower8 said:

Most of the time I hate to see a team move, but I think this one will hurt more than most, purely from a uni point of view. I don’t see the current A’s look fitting with what Vegas teams want to bring to the table. We may be losing one of the best uniforms in all of sports. 

Nah. They aren't gonna be changing their uniforms drastically. Probably not all, save for some Las Vegas sleeve patch. Maybe replace "A's" with an "LV" on the elephant logo, but not color change or hat logo change.

[McCall]

6 hours ago, Cujo said:

Finally. It's almost over. 

 

Future home of XFL/USFL Oakland.

[Walk-Off]

Shortly after the news broke in Las Vegas, both Casey Pratt and Brodie Brazil uploaded YouTube videos in which they gave their respective initial reactions.

 

I will let everyone reading this post watch either or both of those videos and make up their own minds as to what to think about Pratt's and/or Brazil's takes.  However, I do find it amusing that Brazil's video has already attracted at least one commenter advocating for MLB to put an expansion team in Oakland if and when the A's leave and even at least one other commenter expressing a hope that the Tampa Bay Rays would move to Oakland if and when the A's depart from that city.

 

Should the A's consummate a move to the Las Vegas area or any other place well away from the overall Oakland-San Francisco-San José media market, I, for one, do not see MLB letting any existing team relocate to join the Giants in the Bay Area, nor can I imagine Oakland per se regaining a presence in MLB even via an expansion franchise.  Instead, as far as I can tell, the absolute best hope for a post-A's Bay Area to have two MLB teams again would be through an expansion that adds a club to San José or another South Bay locale.  Yes, the Giants have succeeded mightily at quashing any and all efforts by the A's to get a ballpark in any Bay Area community south of Alameda County.  However, I happen to be cynical enough to think that the Giants would tolerate a South Bay MLB expansion team -- a franchise that would be probably required to pay both a hefty expansion fee to MLB as a whole and a special indemnity to the Giants organization and which would need to start from scratch with its brand, roster, history, etc. -- much more than they have ever been willing to accept a relocation of a history-rich club like the A's to that same region.

[BBTV]

1 hour ago, McCall said:

Nah. They aren't gonna be changing their uniforms drastically. Probably not all, save for some Las Vegas sleeve patch. Maybe replace "A's" with an "LV" on the elephant logo, but not color change or hat logo change.

 

unpopular opinion, but I hope the Athletics brand is retired when they move to LV, and that they start over.

 

They're so far removed - both time wise and geographically - from the Connie Mack / Jimie Foxx team, and even time wise from the '70s era, that it no longer has any brand equity.  Had they remained in Phila, then even the name could be explained as being historic, but 3 cities later?  Not so much.  And especially in Las Vegas - it just doesn't fit.

 

I'm not saying to retire the whole franchise and treat LV like an expansion team... though I wouldn't be opposed to it.  I don't think the Phila A's have retired numbers (since numbers weren't a thing for a while) but I don't see why a team in LV needs premium numbers like Dave Stewart's and Ricky Henderson's out of circulation.

 

[SailorOfSilence102]

19 minutes ago, BBTV said:

 

unpopular opinion, but I hope the Athletics brand is retired when they move to LV, and that they start over.

 

They're so far removed - both time wise and geographically - from the Connie Mack / Jimie Foxx team, and even time wise from the '70s era, that it no longer has any brand equity.  Had they remained in Phila, then even the name could be explained as being historic, but 3 cities later?  Not so much.  And especially in Las Vegas - it just doesn't fit.

 

I'm not saying to retire the whole franchise and treat LV like an expansion team... though I wouldn't be opposed to it.  I don't think the Phila A's have retired numbers (since numbers weren't a thing for a while) but I don't see why a team in LV needs premium numbers like Dave Stewart's and Ricky Henderson's out of circulation.

 

I don't know, yeah the A's have moved around a lot, like a fair bit, but it's not like their the (NFL) Cardinals or anything, their a really historic franchise with a lot of history.  I know they've been a bit of a punching bag this year and the last, and the ownership for so long has been awful, but I would hate if the A's branding went away, their one of the classic baseball teams, it would be a huge loss if a team that has always had a large footprint in baseball history kinda became a thing of the past. I don't think they should consider changing any part of the branding outside of a LV here and there.

[BBTV]

9 minutes ago, SailorOfSilence102 said:

I don't know, yeah the A's have moved around a lot, like a fair bit, but it's not like their the (NFL) Cardinals or anything, their a really historic franchise with a lot of history.  I know they've been a bit of a punching bag this year and the last, and the ownership for so long has been awful, but I would hate if the A's branding went away, their one of the classic baseball teams, it would be a huge loss if a team that has always had a large footprint in baseball history kinda became a thing of the past. I don't think they should consider changing any part of the branding outside of a LV here and there.

 

 

I've never experienced a team relocating to my city so I could be wrong here, but if I'm a born-and-raised Las Vegan (lol), I wouldn't feel any connection to the A's other than they're someone's sloppy fourths.  I might have a connection the the Las Vegas Somethings, with either a modern or western motif.  

 

Baseball isn't like football, which can rely on visiting fans making road trips.  Baseball requires the local connection, and to me, keeping the A's brand would be more of a hinderance. 

 

[TrueYankee26]

And there it is.

 

Oakland also lost the Golden Seals to Cleveland in 1976, so the City of Oakland lost their NHL, NBA, NFL and soon to be MLB teams in a span of 47 years. Less than a HALF CENTURY.

[Lights Out]

This feels like the Chargers' relocation all over again, with horrible cheapskate owners deliberately running off fans and blaming everyone but themselves.  I don't suppose the A's will start actually paying to keep talent on their roster once they get their precious Vegas ballpark.

 

Sad day for baseball.

[raysox]

Incredible what years of neglect for a stadium and on field roster can do.

I am very unsure Vegas is a 3 team market. 81 games is a hell of a lot to sell tickets for, and there's only so many midwesterners willing to fly in to see 3 games

Anyway, just modify this and call it a day

[Sodboy13]

20 minutes ago, Lights Out said:

This feels like the Chargers' relocation all over again, with horrible cheapskate owners deliberately running off fans and blaming everyone but themselves. 

Also, Montréal says "Allo."

 

I read the Review-Journal rah-rah "story" on this and it makes so little sense. You're building a 30,000 seat ballpark, minuscule by MLB standards, with a "partially retractable roof" in the middle of the desert. So you're building small and cheap. And not only are you building small, you're doing it as the "who needs to draw fans, we get free money from broadcast rights fees" business model is completely evaporating in front of your eyes. Like, teams are literally not getting paid what they are owed right now by Sinclair/Diamond/Bally and MLB may have to take over the responsibility for production of their telecasts. And the ownership of the regional sports network covering Vegas is very loudly announcing its desire to sell off its RSNs to somebody, anybody, please.

 

"But 30,000 a night in Vegas is still better than 4,000 a night in Oakland" yeah well maybe if ownership spent its time and money on fielding AN ACTUAL BASEBALL TEAM instead of blowing it all on lobbyists the next state over, the people of Oakland might be more inclined to show up.

[Walk-Off]

1 hour ago, BBTV said:

Baseball isn't like football, which can rely on visiting fans making road trips.  Baseball requires the local connection, and to me, keeping the A's brand would be more of a hinderance.

 

Even if baseball requires more of a local connection than does football, it seems quite clear to me that baseball requires also more of a historical connection than does football or any other team sport with a traditionally large following in North America.  For many decades, baseball has tended to attract lots of North American fans who have cared more deeply about the history and traditions of that sport than the average North American fan of football, basketball, or hockey has cared about that particular sport's history and traditions.

 

Thus, I think that keeping the championship-filled, Hall of Famer-laden, geographically very portable Athletics / A's brand upon relocating to the Las Vegas area would be much safer and much wiser than conjuring a new, patently Las Vegas-centric identity.  As I see it, that latter alternative would make decidedly more sense for a team that has a geographically far more specific nickname and/or plays a sport with a clearly less history-conscious fandom.