MLB Stadium Saga: Oakland/Tampa Bay/Southside

[FiddySicks]

9 hours ago, The_Admiral said:

 

I didn't even think Phoenix could have a light rail without someone shooting it and yelling "GET OFF MY PROPERTY"

I once had a geriatric psycho yell at me that I was a “:censored:ing thief” because I was using light rail as a student, and apparently that meant I wasn’t paying as high of a tax rate as him (which is such goddamn bull:censored: it’s really hard to wrap your head around). Then when I told him to mind his own business, his frail little wife flipped out on me for “disrespecting my elders”. Phoenix is great. 
 

9 hours ago, LMU said:

I mean, the one time I was on the Phoenix light rail the guy next to me had an ankle monitor so you're not that far off.

There are pretty much constant fights on Phoenix light rail because the handicap seats are all taken up by some lush who’s passed out and drooling. 
 

 

 

All that being said, it’s a great system. Cheap, too. 

[The_Admiral]

Just now, FiddySicks said:

I once had a geriatric psycho yell at me that I was a “:censored:ing thief” because I was using light rail as a student, and apparently that meant I wasn’t paying as high of a tax rate as him (which is such goddamn bull:censored: it’s really hard to wrap your head around). Then when I told him to mind his own business, his frail little wife flipped out on me for “disrespecting my elders”. Phoenix is great.

 

Topped my joke with an actual anecdote. What a great idea that city was.

[VampyrRabbit]

On 2024-03-07 at 2:17 AM, FrutigerAero said:

Amazing how people will defend Oakland as if they deserve to keep their baseball team while a team with similar success would be selling out all season long in Salt Lake City.

If the A's were in SLC currently playing in the last dual use stadium which got flooded by :censored:water on the regular and fielded a team that was on course for a third straight 100 loss season, with the owners blatantly sandbagging, there is no way on earth they would be selling out that stadium on one day, let alone eighty one of them.

[LaGrandeOrange]

1 hour ago, VampyrRabbit said:

If the A's were in SLC currently playing in the last dual use stadium which got flooded by :censored:water on the regular and fielded a team that was on course for a third straight 100 loss season, with the owners blatantly sandbagging, there is no way on earth they would be selling out that stadium on one day, let alone eighty one of them.

 

Yeah this drove me crazy as justification for moving the Expos at the end and really influenced a lot of how I feel about sports as a business. We were told we didn't deserve the team and were not good fans because we weren't going to the park for ownership who were cutting costs explicitly to kill the product so they could move the team. Why would we come out for that? I don't blame a single A's fan for basically cutting ties with the team- the ownership clearly doesn't want them. It's ridiculous that the media sometimes portrays the noble thing to do as to go out and support them anyway.

[FiddySicks]

1 hour ago, LaGrandeOrange said:

 

Yeah this drove me crazy as justification for moving the Expos at the end and really influenced a lot of how I feel about sports as a business. We were told we didn't deserve the team and were not good fans because we weren't going to the park for ownership who were cutting costs explicitly to kill the product so they could move the team. Why would we come out for that? I don't blame a single A's fan for basically cutting ties with the team- the ownership clearly doesn't want them. It's ridiculous that the media sometimes portrays the noble thing to do as to go out and support them anyway.

 

I think you can find a lot of parallels between these cities who have lost teams because they refuse to be held financially hostage by them. Ultimately it’s painful, but a worthy sacrifice. 
 

 

What unnerves me a bit is that most of the stadium situations in the Bay Area are good, other than the Sharks. They play in an old arena in a city that’s already made it pretty clear they’re not particularly interested in keeping them around if it means a certain level of public funding. Something is going to have to give with that arena sooner or later, then where are you? Who’s gonna blink first? Knowing these Bay Area cities and how they operate, it probably won’t be them. 
 

If you have an ownership group that has any sense, it’s sort of a moot point when push comes to shove. But if you have even an ounce of what they have going on up in Oakland? That’s how you end up with stupid like the Coyotes playing their fourth season in a parking lot while we’re gearing up for the first season of Salt Lake Sharks hockey. 

[The_Admiral]

Warriors and Sharks should have both gone in on San Francisco. 

 

Surveying the NHL cities that lost their teams by refusing to be held hostage, it's actually kind of a split decision. The Twin Cities didn't miss a beat financially with the loss of the North Stars/Met Center; they had a new arena and just built out the Mall of America even more. Everyone felt really bad about it but I don't think it had a devastating economic impact. I don't think losing the Nordiques helped Quebec City but probably didn't hurt it materially. Winnipeg is a rare case where getting the team back did seem to spur on economic development because TNSE captured pretty much all of downtown on the cheap, which wouldn't have happened without bringing the Jets back, so you can say that they were better off with hockey. Downtown Hartford was dying then and dead now; I think the causal relationship between that and the Whalers leaving is pretty solid but it's highly debatable whether Karmanos even held Hartford at ransom or was always going to try for Michigan anyway. Atlanta lost the Thrashers and hasn't felt a thing, but the situation never even progressed to tax-money-or-else.

 

So basically, if you're a moribund, borderline major-league market with very little else going for you but a desperate last gasp of civic pride, you might want to invest in pro sports at almost any cost, but if that's your situation, you may not even be presented with the option to begin with.

[monkeypower]

29 minutes ago, The_Admiral said:

Warriors and Sharks should have both gone in on San Francisco. 

 

Surveying the NHL cities that lost their teams by refusing to be held hostage, it's actually kind of a split decision. The Twin Cities didn't miss a beat financially with the loss of the North Stars/Met Center; they had a new arena and just built out the Mall of America even more. Everyone felt really bad about it but I don't think it had a devastating economic impact. I don't think losing the Nordiques helped Quebec City but probably didn't hurt it materially. Winnipeg is a rare case where getting the team back did seem to spur on economic development because TNSE captured pretty much all of downtown on the cheap, which wouldn't have happened without bringing the Jets back, so you can say that they were better off with hockey. Downtown Hartford was dying then and dead now; I think the causal relationship between that and the Whalers leaving is pretty solid but it's highly debatable whether Karmanos even held Hartford at ransom or was always going to try for Michigan anyway. Atlanta lost the Thrashers and hasn't felt a thing, but the situation never even progressed to tax-money-or-else.

 

So basically, if you're a moribund, borderline major-league market with very little else going for you but a desperate last gasp of civic pride, you might want to invest in pro sports at almost any cost, but if that's your situation, you may not even be presented with the option to begin with.

 

Not to derail this thread any more, but it's interesting reading that with what's happening/happened here in Calgary and this new arena. I definitely think Calgary is above a Winnipeg or a Hartford, but definitely below Atlanta (don't know much about the Twin Cities, but I think it might be somewhat equivalent). However, the interesting thing is that I don't think Calgary is truly a die-hard "sports town".

 

The difference here in Calgary is that all the sports teams are under the Flames/CSEC to varying levels of success under CSEC rule (but I'm unsure how CSEC measures success with the non-Flames teams nor what Hollywood accounting might be in place regarding finances) so if the Flames went, there would have been massive ripple effects.

[SFGiants58]

21 minutes ago, The_Admiral said:

Warriors and Sharks should have both gone in on San Francisco. 

The Warriors seem pretty hostile to the Sharks in general - did the Warriors even offer to make Chase hockey-compatible for them?

[Fowler2]

So it's a possibility the Bay Area could end up with just the 49ers, Warriors & Giants. IF that new arena gets built in San Diego, maybe the Sharks?  Earthquakes owner John Fisher (yeah him again) has complained that PayPal Park is already outdated. 

[BBTV]

3 hours ago, The_Admiral said:

So basically, if you're a moribund, borderline major-league market with very little else going for you but a desperate last gasp of civic pride, you might want to invest in pro sports at almost any cost, but if that's your situation, you may not even be presented with the option to begin with.

 

This is how I feel.  How many cities in the States would very few people have ever have a reason to hear about if not for pro sports?  Like Cincinnati for example.  Nothing at all against the fine people of Cincinnati, but if not for the Reds and Bengals, would >90% of Americans have any reason to know about it or even where it is?  A city like that should (as long as it's not at the expense of funding critical programs) consider providing some level of funding to keep teams around, as the city's reputation and recognition is literally at stake.  If not for the sports teams, the average person wouldn't even know some of these places exist.

 

I'm just using Cincinnati as an example of an otherwise anonymous city - not calling it "moribund".  I honestly don't know anything about it's economic situation.

[infrared41]

6 minutes ago, BBTV said:

Nothing at all against the fine people of Cincinnati, but if not for the Reds and Bengals, would >90% of Americans have any reason to know about it or even where it is? 

 

I think it's in Kentucky. Maybe Indiana. I'm not sure.

[The_Admiral]

There's something kind of grounding about Kroger and Procter & Gamble being headquartered in li'l ol' Cincinnati and not somewhere back east, but also, Kroger is terrible.

 

3 hours ago, SFGiants58 said:

The Warriors seem pretty hostile to the Sharks in general - did the Warriors even offer to make Chase hockey-compatible for them?

Doubt it, but I doubt the Sharks ever looked into it, either. It would have been pretty cool, though. So too would have been a new 49ers stadium at Candlestick, a new Raiders stadium on the Coliseum site, and the A's, I dunno, somewhere around there. 

[kolob]

On 3/8/2024 at 3:00 PM, Digby said:

 

Vermont is number one on this list, which is a searingly obvious tell that the methodology is too flawed to take seriously.

 

Real numbers say SLC's public transit usage is pretty anemic. Not really out of the ordinary for American cities but I'm not seeing this as a special selling point necessarily.

 

Being a resident I'd say it is pretty anemic compared to bigger cities. It's getting better ... if that means anything.

[SFGiants58]

2 hours ago, The_Admiral said:

Doubt it, but I doubt the Sharks ever looked into it, either. It would have been pretty cool, though.
 

 

Yeah, SF Sharks would’ve been good, but the Warriors’ ownership has never really wanted to foster a relationship with the Sharks. There was no partnership to build the SJ arena (when Oracle MK I was showing its age) and no invite into the SF arena (when the Sharks wanted to stupidly flee a serviceable arena). The Sharks are just a stupid organization for not approaching the Warriors, even if the Warriors would turn them down nine times out of ten. At worst, you’re renting the stadium with Sparky the SUV’s cousin occupying the dead space.

 

2 hours ago, The_Admiral said:

So too would have been a new 49ers stadium at Candlestick, a new Raiders stadium in LA, and the A's, I dunno, still in Kansas City. 

Fixes inserted - the Bay Area is fundamentally not a “multiple teams per sport” market, no matter how much the demographics support it.

[Digby]

Believe Chase Center is one of those basketball-layout-only type of arenas. Can't quite tell this with certainty, but it seems like their fancy VIP areas near the court would preclude an NHL-sized ice sheet. Is the Cow Palace still standing?

 

I also think -- and prognostication is a bad idea I realize -- that down the road, the sports industry will eventually view its abandonment of the Oakland market specifically as a mistake. It looks bad on paper but it's kind of a unique confluence that three different teams (two incompetent and bad-faith, one competent but too techbro-desperate) bailed without a fully fair shot.

Edited March 10 by Digby

[SFGiants58]

4 minutes ago, Digby said:

Is the Cow Palace still standing?

It is, but it’s about as inviting as the judge‘s mansion from Nothing But Trouble.

[GhostOfNormMacdonald]

             22 hours ago, monkeypower said:  (don't know much about the Twin Cities, but I think it might be somewhat equivalent) Even in outstate, Twins/Vikings merch was everywhere .     Far more than anything I see in Phoenix sans maybe the Suns.     Minnesota is die hard    From what I can tell 

[Gary]

1 hour ago, GhostOfNormMacdonald said:

             22 hours ago, monkeypower said:  (don't know much about the Twin Cities, but I think it might be somewhat equivalent) Even in outstate, Twins/Vikings merch was everywhere .     Far more than anything I see in Phoenix sans maybe the Suns.     Minnesota is die hard    From what I can tell 

I can tell you from a basic Phoenix native, we do care about the Suns, Cardinals and Diamondbacks, the Coyotes on the other hand, just why, they could be in the Stanley Cup Finals and I think maybe 5% would even care. At least when the Dbacks was in the playoffs to the World Series, the area went nuts. I just can’t see anyone that would really care about the Coyotes.

[The_Admiral]

7 hours ago, Digby said:

Believe Chase Center is one of those basketball-layout-only type of arenas. Can't quite tell this with certainty, but it seems like their fancy VIP areas near the court would preclude an NHL-sized ice sheet. Is the Cow Palace still standing?

 

Correct. Seems like we're seeing a move away from fully dual arenas lately, with the majority of new NBA arenas since 2000 being basketball-only, per se. The only two I can think of that aren't are Houston, which could have an NHL team but won't, God willing, and Detroit, which the Red Wings built for themselves and then let the Pistons in on at the last minute. Everyone else has the not-quite-wraparound bowl if they even have an ice plant. 

 

The Warriors, as they would, seemed to take it to a new level of opulence with their VIP sections. The 76ers are probably trying to do the same. I think that Chicago/Philly/DC/Dallas era of buildings that necessarily put the NHL first is over. I wish it weren't, though, because I'd rather have a versatile arena for the Warriors and Sharks to share than a 1% palace for one and a rapidly aging big metal box for the other. 

[spartacat_12]

On 3/8/2024 at 10:38 PM, FrutigerAero said:

-unfortunately, no map of Canada, It would be interesting to see Montreal.

 

As someone who was raised as an Expos fan until they left, I didn't really fully commit to becoming a Jays fan until I moved to Toronto ~8 years ago. Ottawa was home to the Expos AAA affiliate, and they managed to stick around for a few more years after Montreal lost the team, so I briefly tried following some new teams based on who Ottawa was farming for (Baltimore for a couple years, Philly for one season). 2015 felt like the time people outside of Southern Ontario started getting more invested in the team (ending a 21 year playoff drought will do that). 

 

I think the Jays having Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has helped bridge the gap a bit. I'm too young to remember the Expos ever being good, but Vladdy Sr. was the biggest name they had towards the end.