Stadium/Arena Saga Omnibus

[gosioux76]

On 1/20/2024 at 8:05 PM, DustDevil61 said:

Of course, I can see a (not very likely) situation where funding for the Vegas stadium is delayed or falls through and Fisher is forced to sell the A’s to the Big League Utah group (while being granted a Las Vegas franchise), who in turn would build their planned Power District stadium west of downtown Salt Lake.

 

Could this be the first example of a team using another city as leverage over the new city it used as leverage over its current city? 

 

As much as I'd hate to see the Athletics name go away, there's a certain symmetry to the idea of them going from the A's to the Bees.  

[Dilbert]

 

59 minutes ago, gosioux76 said:

As much as I'd hate to see the Athletics name go away, there's a certain symmetry to the idea of them going from the A's to the Bees.  

They can use the new Oakland B's logo and call them the Salt Lake B's

 

[BBTV]

If SLC gets a permanent major-league team, I'll hold a contest for the board to pick the most humiliating user name that Infrared will allow, and I'll change to that for a year.  I'll also close every post with "but what do I know, I'm a flaming idiot."

 

It makes sense for them to not play in LV during the interim period.  Being awful isn't a good way to develop a fan base in a new market.  Their best plan would be to settle for the least-uncomfortable out-of-market place, and then overpay and do whatever it takes to put themselves in position to be competitive on day 1 in Vegas.

[Sykotyk]

50 minutes ago, BBTV said:

If SLC gets a permanent major-league team, I'll hold a contest for the board to pick the most humiliating user name that Infrared will allow, and I'll change to that for a year.  I'll also close every post with "but what do I know, I'm a flaming idiot."

 

It makes sense for them to not play in LV during the interim period.  Being awful isn't a good way to develop a fan base in a new market.  Their best plan would be to settle for the least-uncomfortable out-of-market place, and then overpay and do whatever it takes to put themselves in position to be competitive on day 1 in Vegas.

But they can't possibly make that much money in a back-up city. NFL tried it with Memphis and gave up. At least the Raiders staying in Oakland was because it was Oakland. While the Chargers sat in LA (roughly) at StubHub for a while before Sofi was built.

 

Plus, this idea that a new team to a city must storm out of the gates is rough. If you can't draw fans without winning year 1, you don't have fans at all.

[BBTV]

2 minutes ago, Sykotyk said:

If you can't draw fans without winning year 1, you don't have fans at all.

 

This is patently false.  Why on earth would people in LV go to an outdoor game in a non-major-league park in the summer time to watch a horrible team that they've had no previous connection to?  Also, why would they even be fans for any reason other than the city name on the jersey?  A team gets a grace period to endear themselves to a new location.  

 

I don't think people not showing up in Las Vegas in year one means anything about the type of market it will be.  I don't know if it will or won't be any good, but that first year (maybe even two) don't indicate anything.

 

 

Also, comparing a baseball relo to any other sport is not fair.  Baseball has 81 home dates to fill.  Eighty one.  It's going to be rough - I just think it's a good strategy to spare Vegas of that roughness and get off on the right foot in a new park with a (hopefully) decent team.

 

[TrueYankee26]

It's been a while since I heard about the Angels Long Beach rumors

[Sykotyk]

1 hour ago, BBTV said:

 

This is patently false.  Why on earth would people in LV go to an outdoor game in a non-major-league park in the summer time to watch a horrible team that they've had no previous connection to?  Also, why would they even be fans for any reason other than the city name on the jersey?  A team gets a grace period to endear themselves to a new location.  

 

I don't think people not showing up in Las Vegas in year one means anything about the type of market it will be.  I don't know if it will or won't be any good, but that first year (maybe even two) don't indicate anything.

 

 

Also, comparing a baseball relo to any other sport is not fair.  Baseball has 81 home dates to fill.  Eighty one.  It's going to be rough - I just think it's a good strategy to spare Vegas of that roughness and get off on the right foot in a new park with a (hopefully) decent team.

Why do Las Vegans go to Aviators games and sell out frequently? The stadium sits in the foothills west of town and has good air flow. Also is situated to avoid the sun for evening games. Sure, prices would go up, but they'd be watching major league players. And it would be THEIR team they're supporting. And even then, you'd have the 'visiting fan' effect that LV is counting on anyways. But the whole time you'd have "Las Vegas A's" or whatever the name is to grow support over a few years before your shiny new state of the art facility opens.

[McCall]

2 hours ago, Sykotyk said:

But they can't possibly make that much money in a back-up city. NFL tried it with Memphis and gave up. At least the Raiders staying in Oakland was because it was Oakland. While the Chargers sat in LA (roughly) at StubHub for a while before Sofi was built.

 

Plus, this idea that a new team to a city must storm out of the gates is rough. If you can't draw fans without winning year 1, you don't have fans at all.

The A's playing in Salt Lake is not the equivalent of Nashville playing in Memphis. Those two cities have a bitter rivalry and Memphis rejected the "little brother" sentiment of being only a temporary NFL city instead of a full-time one.

[LMU]

SLC is facing the potential of being a toxic wasteland with all of the exposed chemicals/dust from the disappearing lake so in that regard it’s the perfect foil to Vegas.

[Sykotyk]

5 minutes ago, McCall said:

The A's playing in Salt Lake is not the equivalent of Nashville playing in Memphis. Those two cities have a bitter rivalry and Memphis rejected the "little brother" sentiment of being only a temporary NFL city instead of a full-time one.

You think SLC fans would flock to an AAA venue to support a team destined for Las Vegas? I know the Memphis argument about 'little brother refusing to support big brother' but this was basically the first/only time this type of 'moving markets' and having a layover in another market was really even tried. Carolina played a year in Clemson. Bears played at U of Illinois for a season but never were 'moving', it was just Bears fans making the drive. Even Packers playing in Milwaukee was still an established team just playing a few games closer to a good portion of their already existing fan base.

 

But the NFL's attempt in Memphis failed for a lot of reasons. The 'little brother' argument was the easiest to not admit their mistake and instead just blamed Memphis for their problems.

 

If you survey everyone in the Memphis area and asked them 5 questions of why they didn't support Tennessee, certainly that would be a reason listed. But would it be THE reason it failed? No other reason?  I don't buy it. I think a market just didn't want to support a team that wasn't theirs. Regardless the name slapped on the team to make it palatable.

[tBBP]

For what it's worth, the entire reason the then-Tennesee Oilers ended up in Memphis in the first place was because at the time Vanderbilt didn't allow alcohol sales in its stadium, which is where the Oilers originally wanted to play while Adelphia Coliseum was being built. That the team made such big fanfare over moving to Nashville only to have to double back for such a reason and then settle on the Liberty Bowl as it's fallback stopgap option is what really did them in as far as apathetic "fan" support in Memphis (until the Steelers rolled into town...then half of West Tennessee was packed up into there).

 

But yeah...that Memphis was a rival city to Nashville at the time definitely exacerbated the issue.

[McCall]

9 minutes ago, Sykotyk said:

You think SLC fans would flock to an AAA venue to support a team destined for Las Vegas? I know the Memphis argument about 'little brother refusing to support big brother' but this was basically the first/only time this type of 'moving markets' and having a layover in another market was really even tried. Carolina played a year in Clemson. Bears played at U of Illinois for a season but never were 'moving', it was just Bears fans making the drive. Even Packers playing in Milwaukee was still an established team just playing a few games closer to a good portion of their already existing fan base.

 

But the NFL's attempt in Memphis failed for a lot of reasons. The 'little brother' argument was the easiest to not admit their mistake and instead just blamed Memphis for their problems.

 

If you survey everyone in the Memphis area and asked them 5 questions of why they didn't support Tennessee, certainly that would be a reason listed. But would it be THE reason it failed? No other reason?  I don't buy it. I think a market just didn't want to support a team that wasn't theirs. Regardless the name slapped on the team to make it palatable.

Yes.

[McCall]

9 minutes ago, Sykotyk said:

You think SLC fans would flock to an AAA venue to support a team destined for Las Vegas? I know the Memphis argument about 'little brother refusing to support big brother' but this was basically the first/only time this type of 'moving markets' and having a layover in another market was really even tried. Carolina played a year in Clemson. Bears played at U of Illinois for a season but never were 'moving', it was just Bears fans making the drive. Even Packers playing in Milwaukee was still an established team just playing a few games closer to a good portion of their already existing fan base.

 

But the NFL's attempt in Memphis failed for a lot of reasons. The 'little brother' argument was the easiest to not admit their mistake and instead just blamed Memphis for their problems.

 

If you survey everyone in the Memphis area and asked them 5 questions of why they didn't support Tennessee, certainly that would be a reason listed. But would it be THE reason it failed? No other reason?  I don't buy it. I think a market just didn't want to support a team that wasn't theirs. Regardless the name slapped on the team to make it palatable.

And yes.

 

SLC is not getting the A's full-time and they know that. But they're also looking at making an impression for the future.  Memphis knew that with the Oilers/Titans in Nashville, they were never going to get an NFL team of they're own. Tennessee is just not a two-market state in any sport. But Salt Lake can get an MLB team even with the A's in Vegas (not saying they will, but it's a possibility that doesn't exist in the Memphis-NFL scenario), so yes, it is a very strong possibility that they have a big turnout for the A's, even if only for a temporary basis.

[schlim]

3 hours ago, McCall said:

SLC is not getting the A's full-time and they know that. But they're also looking at making an impression for the future.  Memphis knew that with the Oilers/Titans in Nashville, they were never going to get an NFL team of they're own. Tennessee is just not a two-market state in any sport. But Salt Lake can get an MLB team even with the A's in Vegas (not saying they will, but it's a possibility that doesn't exist in the Memphis-NFL scenario), so yes, it is a very strong possibility that they have a big turnout for the A's, even if only for a temporary basis.

It worked for Oklahoma City and the Hornets.  The NBA had no problem allowing the Supersonics to relocate there after OKC drew nearly 16000 a game for two years.

[BBTV]

8 hours ago, McCall said:

But they're also looking at making an impression for the future. 

 

and I think this is not a good way to gauge interest.  I wouldn't go out of my way to go to a minor-league stadium to watch a team that wasn't mine, just to "prove that I'd go to a MLB game".  It's phrased as if it's their "job" to "prove" themselves by supporting some dreck.  

 

I think a market (not SLC, but some other one) might thrive as a Major League market without caring one bit about some temporarily-transported dumpster fire of a team.  

 

Also I've only been to SLC once (and even then, just driving through on my way to Moab) and driven through "SAC TOWN" (lol) once, so I have no idea if they'd care or go.  This can only work if the MiLB stadium is located within easy transit / commute to population centers, so it'd never work on the East Coast, unless there's more situations like the old Camden Riversharks (but that was independent baseball that held hundreds, not thousands.)

 

But, to quote the Rock, " it doesn't matter if they go".  It's a train wreck dumpster fire situation one way or the other.  I'm just suggesting to shield Vegas from the "before" photo, and introduce themselves as the "after" photo (and hopefully not the "very before" one!)

 

Oh - and as for the LV Aviators selling out every game?  False.  They're selling around 75-80% of their roughly 8,000 stadium.  Fine for MiLB, would likely remain at that level for MLB, unless they're asked to pay MLB prices (but, as we've seen by the pathetic DBacks franchise, can be like $3/game, lol.)

[gosioux76]

5 hours ago, BBTV said:

 

and I think this is not a good way to gauge interest.  I wouldn't go out of my way to go to a minor-league stadium to watch a team that wasn't mine, just to "prove that I'd go to a MLB game".  It's phrased as if it's their "job" to "prove" themselves by supporting some dreck.  

 

I think a market (not SLC, but some other one) might thrive as a Major League market without caring one bit about some temporarily-transported dumpster fire of a team.  

 

But it certainly wouldn't hurt if SLC residents were to adopt a temporarily nomadic A's franchise as their own for a couple seasons, not to prove a point but just because they happened to enjoy the experience.  

 

I seriously doubt the people of OKC showed up to support the Hornets to carry out some organized regional strategy to prove they were a major-league market. And they probably didn't need the experience of hosting the Hornets to show they had a good fan base.  But it sure seemed to help the cause.  

[Dilbert]

14 hours ago, McCall said:

The A's playing in Salt Lake is not the equivalent of Nashville playing in Memphis. Those two cities have a bitter rivalry and Memphis rejected the "little brother" sentiment of being only a temporary NFL city instead of a full-time one.

The team expected its fans to travel from Nashville to Memphis, plus get the locals in Memphis at games. Fans didnt  want to drive 3 hours back and forth and only got the little Memphis support they had plus road fans. The other issue compared to the A's in Salt Lake is the Oilers only had 8 games in Memphis (10 if you count preseason), once a week. The A's in Salt Lake would have 81 games for 3 years. Similar to when the Hornets were in OKC, you have more games.  Memphis had also just been rejected once again for NFL expansion, so when they finally got a team, it was only gonna be temporary, and that pissed off the fans in Memphis.

[The_Admiral]

4 hours ago, gosioux76 said:

I seriously doubt the people of OKC showed up to support the Hornets to carry out some organized regional strategy to prove they were a major-league market.

 

No, but the investors who subsidized the Hornets' layover, Aubrey McClendon and Clay Bennett, did.

[B-Rich]

On 1/23/2024 at 1:58 AM, schlim said:

It worked for Oklahoma City and the Hornets.  The NBA had no problem allowing the Supersonics to relocate there after OKC drew nearly 16000 a game for two years.

 

23 hours ago, gosioux76 said:

I seriously doubt the people of OKC showed up to support the Hornets to carry out some organized regional strategy to prove they were a major-league market. And they probably didn't need the experience of hosting the Hornets to show they had a good fan base.  But it sure seemed to help the cause.  

 

19 hours ago, The_Admiral said:

No, but the investors who subsidized the Hornets' layover, Aubrey McClendon and Clay Bennett, did.

 

Let's not forget that AT THAT TIME, the intent of those in OKC-- elected officials, 'business leaders' like Bennett and McClendon, and the locals/citizens, was to obtain an NBA franchise BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY. 

 

And they used an opportunity to not simply and graciously TEMPORARILY "host" an NBA team that was affected by probably the worst natural/man-made disaster to ever hit a major league metro area, but to try and KEEP that team for their own and make the temporary move PERMANENT.   The history of that is here on this board, as well as on their own fan boards, and can easily be found on the internet for anyone who wants to look for it.   

And when the (then) Hornets moved back to New Orleans full-time, they successfully used WHATEVER MEANS NECESSARY to acquire another team. 

[GDAWG]

Didn't OKC just vote to publicly fund a new arena for the Thunder?