MLB Stadium Saga: Oakland/Tampa Bay/Southside

[Sodboy13]

Look, @tBBP, you can't slide Vancouver Grizzlies relocation history into a thread and not expect me to bring up the attempted push at making them the Dixmoor Grizzlies.

[tBBP]

3 minutes ago, Sodboy13 said:

Look, @tBBP, you can't slide Vancouver Grizzlies relocation history into a thread and not expect me to bring up the attempted push at making them the Dixmoor Grizzlies.

 

I forgot all about that. Good hit. 

[GDAWG]

RIP Major League Sports in Oakland.  1960-2023.

[~Bear]

Moving out of Oakland aside, is moving TO Las Vegas even sustainable long-term? I know the city has grown quite a bit, but they've gotten 3 professional sports teams really quick, and the NBA seems to have their sights set on expanding there in the near future. I know that the A's wouldn't be directly competing with the Golden Knights or the Raiders most of the year...but still. There's only so much disposable income people have to go to sports game and buy merchandise. Beyond that, the city is growing almost too quickly for the amount of water they have access to. They aren't a very big media market comparatively to other metropolitan areas.  

 

The Golden Knights have been incredibly successful and helped the city heal after the horrible mass shooting. There's a deep bond there. The Raiders are an NFL team, and the NFL is always going to draw. The A's operate under a shoestring budget and are in the midst of what's probably going to be a long rebuild. If any of these teams are going to be the odd one out, it's going to be the A's.

[MiK]

The thing about Vegas is the draw of away-game fans. Is that a sustainable business model? No. But it's definitely a bigger factor there than most other markets.

[BBTV]

1 hour ago, OnWis97 said:

Las Vegas Rolling Bones

 

I'd be the first person to order a t-shirt.

 

25 minutes ago, who do you think said:

I'd head in to use the restroom then leave and bomb

 

I read this as "I'd head in to use the restroom and leave a bomb".

[tp49]

1 hour ago, OnWis97 said:

Recent teams that have kept names:

• Nets (but does that count?)
• Raiders
• Chargers

 

But what's the last team to move to a far away city with no connection and keep the name aside from the Radier?. The Oilers changed after a few years. The Hornets, but they ultimately changed. The Stars (if you count that).

Could it be argued that aside from the Raiders (who I maintain are a bit of a different case) the last team to 100% keep the name on a relocation of more than a two-hour drive is the Colts?

Everyone forgets the Sacramento Kings who kept the name when they moved from Kansas City/Omaha.

[Walk-Off]

1 hour ago, who do you think said:

[S]urely this Vegas development blows up the Utah proposal, right?

 

I doubt that.  If Big League Utah is anything like the Portland Diamond Project and/or the Music City Baseball consortium in Nashville, chances are that those in charge of the Salt Lake City group would be at least as satisfied with an expansion team as they would be with a relocated franchise.  Besides, every expansion-related public statement that I have seen or heard from any MLB official over the last few years has been that MLB will keep waiting until both the A's and the Rays gain new ballparks before expanding again.  Furthermore, among the comments that I have read outside this message board since the emergence of this tentative agreement has been a bit of speculation that the recent launch of Big League Utah and its MLB bid put a fresh wave of pressure on officials in the Las Vegas area to clinch a deal with the A's.

[BBTV]

2 minutes ago, MiK said:

The thing about Vegas is the draw of away-game fans. Is that a sustainable business model? No. But it's definitely a bigger factor there than most other markets.

 

I don't thin it's relevant.  Football is an event that people plan road trips around.  I don't think a significant amount of people are going to plan a trip to LV to sit and watch some run-of-the-mill Tuesday game between the Rolling Bones and Cleveland Guardians. 

 

That's why I'm suggesting they retire the A's name and go with a whole new brand.  They'll need more local connection, and in 2023, that's more important than anything historical (10 years ago me is slapping current me in the face for even suggesting this, but I've changed my views on this.)  If I'm a kid in LV who was born in 2000, Jimmie Fox and Reggie Jackson mean nothing to me.

 

10 minutes ago, ~Bear said:

There's only so much disposable income people have to go to sports game and buy merchandise.

 

You're assuming there's significant crossover between fanbases.  There's a difference between being a Knights fan and being a "sports" fan.  For example, between tickets and merch, I probably spend thousands on Phillies and Eagles each year, and 0 on Flyers and Sixers.  I simply don't care (unless the Sixers are in the finals, in which case I'll claim to have been a die-hard since day one.)

 

Even if the Phillies moved to Oakland (oh, the irony), I'd still spend 0 on the Sixers and Flyers.  At least in my case, there's no competition for my dollar.

[SCMODS]

The city of Oakland and the Bay Area in general have a whole lot more to deal with than sports teams staying or leaving. Not to get to political but it's becoming a dangerous place. 

[The_Admiral]

Crime is up everywhere, the entire country is going to hell in a bucket.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

It's true that no one is going to make a trip to Las Vegas to see an A's game; or, more precisely, the number of people who will do that is dwarfed by the number of people who will do that to see a Raiders game.  But, if the A's ballpark is walking distance from the casinos, then it will attract vacationers who go to Las Vegas for the usual reasons, and who decide once they are there to take in a game.

 

Also, any talk about changing the team's name is downright offensive. Civilisation needs to be protected from baseball "fans" who openly declare that they don't care about history. The move of the team is sickening enough; but trashing the team's long history would be compounding the crime.

[SCMODS]

The A's triple-A team, the Aviators play right there in Sumerlin. Vegas baseball fans should have a tiny bit of familiarity with the A's. 

[gosioux76]

6 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

Also, any talk about changing the team's name is downright offensive. Civilisation needs to be protected from baseball "fans" who openly declare that they don't care about history. The move of the team is sickening enough; but trashing the team's long history would be compounding the crime.

 

If anything, the A's are the perfect team for Las Vegas. Professional sports' most transient team representing a city built to serve the transient consumer. More reason to keep the name. 

[LMU]

The real winner in this whole scenario may be Fresno.  If Summerlin is taken over then they'll potentially be right back up in AAA after being swatted down to Low-A after the whole minor league reshuffle.

[BadSeed84]

19 minutes ago, the admiral said:

Crime is up everywhere, the entire country is going to hell in a bucket.

 

Mostly in big cities though.

[McCall]

18 minutes ago, LMU said:

The real winner in this whole scenario may be Fresno.  If Summerlin is taken over then they'll potentially be right back up in AAA after being swatted down to Low-A after the whole minor league reshuffle.

Unless they let them keep their Triple-A team in Summerlin.

Another option would be for them to let the Aviators stay, but they drop down to the California League, as the A's affiliate, with Fresno going up.

[Walk-Off]

1 hour ago, LMU said:

The real winner in this whole scenario may be Fresno.  If Summerlin is taken over then they'll potentially be right back up in AAA after being swatted down to Low-A after the whole minor league reshuffle.

 

As nice as it might be for Fresno to regain Class AAA professional baseball, another likely scenario is that the A's and the Aviators not only coexist in the Las Vegas market in general over the long term (just like the Atlanta Braves and the Gwinnett Stripers, the Houston Astros and the Sugar Land Space Cowboys, the Minnesota Twins (of Minneapolis) and the St. Paul Saints, or the Seattle Mariners and the Tacoma Rainiers), but also even play at the same ballpark in Summerlin while the big-league club's new venue is under construction.  I lived near Nashville when a now-demolished ballpark in that city hosted both the established Class AAA Sounds and a temporary Class AA team nicknamed the Xpress for two seasons, so I know that the A's and the Aviators would have at least one model for pulling off a similar situation.

[OnWis97]

59 minutes ago, MiK said:

The thing about Vegas is the draw of away-game fans. Is that a sustainable business model? No. But it's definitely a bigger factor there than most other markets.

I want to see all the MLB ballarks. But I'm not planning a July trip to Vegas to do so. (There's a reason that I haven't been to a D-backs game or games of Texas or Florida teams).

 

I guess people travel there year-round though.

 

Is there data about visiting team fandom for the Golden Knights?

[MiK]

43 minutes ago, BBTV said:

 

I don't think a significant amount of people are going to plan a trip to LV to sit and watch some run-of-the-mill Tuesday game between the Rolling Bones and Cleveland Guardians.

 

Not stadium-filling numbers, no. But I'd argue more away fans are drawn to Vegas than say Milwaukee or Cleveland on a Tuesday game. Just saying, their ticket sales to away fans will be higher than most. Revenue is revenue.

 

26 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

It's true that no one is going to make a trip to Las Vegas to see an A's game

 

No one makes a trip to Oakland to see an A's game