MLB Stadium Saga: Oakland/Tampa Bay/Southside

[Digby]

It is strange to me to have the Oakland exodus on the heels of Oakland becoming cool and kinda gentrified, since you have to be either a multi-millionaire or homeless to exist in SF (no in-between). But I guess it only got gentrified to middle-class and it’s multi-millionaire to get you a new stadium. Kind of a shame to lose a distinctive sporting culture, but also that ship sailed as soon as the Warriors got good / villainous enough to attract the tech bros.

 

Also it's like people had no idea the Tenderloin existed before they saw videos on TikTok.

[MiK]

13 minutes ago, OnWis97 said:

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

 

Not that I know of, I'd be very curious to know. Especially considering their early success and how that impacted local sales from what was 'expected'. It's a unique set of circumstances for that franchise. At some point, the Knights will have a bad season and it will be interesting to see the impact that has on attendance.

 

On the Raiders side of things, it's been voiced about the number of opposing fans in Vegas. But like BBTV said, people plan trips well in advance for football games. Not really a fair comparison.

Edited April 20, 2023 by MiK
Reworded

[Rockstar Matt]

3 hours ago, heavybass said:

The City mostly, they tried to get the A's to fund the refurbishment of the stadium... team was like that wasn't part of the deal and basically both sides aren't heroes in this.

 

Billionaires should build and fund their own stadiums, not the taxpayers (*cough* Spanos, *cough). Make no mistake, the A's owner could have refurbished the Coliseum when they purchased the franchise back in '05 and in the years since, but hasn't done so purely because he's trying to earn the maximum profit possible from his ownership.

[WestCoastBias]

59 minutes ago, Walk-Off said:

 

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.

 

MLB really did Fresno dirty with taking away their Triple-A team after the MiLB reshuffling. The fans went from watching future stars (all of the World Series Giants and a lot of the World Series Astros) to Low-A scrubs in an empty 10,000 stadium. To stop Fresno from suing them MLB guaranteed a MiLB through 2030 but did not guarantee a future Triple-A team, only saying they'd recommend Fresno as a Triple-A option in the future but that's it. 

 

I also don't see how Vegas can (or why they should) support a Triple-A team and an MLB team. 

[BBTV]

The new rules definitely benefit Las Vegas, since people may be more likely to take 2:30 out of their time to go see a game then get back to whatever else they're doing, rather than go from some fast-paced vacation to go sit through a 4-hour snooze fest then get back to whatever they're dong.

[Bmac]

With all the entertainment options in Vegas, I just can't imagine many folks flocking to see a poorly run franchise play a meaningless baseball game on a daily basis. It's going to be a nearly empty stadium most of the time. Another Marlins Park situation.

[WestCoastBias]

Portland A's would have been better than the Las Vegas A's

[gosioux76]

15 minutes ago, Bmac said:

With all the entertainment options in Vegas, I just can't imagine many folks flocking to see a poorly run franchise play a meaningless baseball game on a daily basis. It's going to be a nearly empty stadium most of the time. Another Marlins Park situation.

 

Maybe, but baseball — especially, as @BBTVnoted, with shorter run times — can be more like an impulse purchase as opposed to the reason for being there. Compared with the NHL of NFL, the tickets are cheap and accessible, so someone could just decide to take a flier and take in a game, knowing it'll only take 2 1/2 hours out of their day. 

[BBTV]

12 minutes ago, Bmac said:

With all the entertainment options in Vegas, I just can't imagine many folks flocking to see a poorly run franchise play a meaningless baseball game on a daily basis. It's going to be a nearly empty stadium most of the time. Another Marlins Park situation.

 

Being in LV might help them attract free agents.  Not necessarily because of the "action", but there's a growing number of players from the LV area that may want to sign with a cash-infused hometown team.

[BBTV]

1 minute ago, gosioux76 said:

 

Maybe, but baseball — especially, as @Gothamite noted, with shorter run times — can be more like an impulse purchase as opposed to the reason for being there. Compared with the NHL of NFL, the tickets are cheap and accessible, so someone could just decide to take a flier and take in a game, knowing it'll only take 2 1/2 hours out of their day. 

 

This is like the third time in the past few days you've referred to me as Gothamite, who hasn't been around here forever.  'Sup with that?

[gosioux76]

Just now, BBTV said:

 

This is like the third time in the past few days you've referred to me as Gothamite, who hasn't been around here forever.  'Sup with that?

Huh. Not sure why. My apologies. 

[WestCoastBias]

2 minutes ago, BBTV said:

 

Being in LV might help them attract free agents.  Not necessarily because of the "action", but there's a growing number of players from the LV area that may want to sign with a cash-infused hometown team.

 

Too bad for them that Kris Bryant (he's not good anymore anyway) and Bryce Harper are already locked for this entire decade. They'll have to settle for Joey Gallo.

[raysox]

1 hour ago, MiK said:

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

Definitely planning on a trip out there just to cross off the Coliseum before it's gone. AT&T too, I suppose lol.

 

Bummer city

 

[BrySmalls]

54 minutes ago, BBTV said:

The new rules definitely benefit Las Vegas, since people may be more likely to take 2:30 out of their time to go see a game then get back to whatever else they're doing, rather than go from some fast-paced vacation to go sit through a 4-hour snooze fest then get back to whatever they're dong.

 

It's already a win if/when more than 3,050* people go to a future A's game in Vegas.

 

* 3,035 is currently the lowest attended A's game so far in the 2023 season.

[spartacat_12]

3 hours ago, BBTV said:

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

 

 

12 minutes ago, BBTV said:

Being in LV might help them attract free agents.  Not necessarily because of the "action", but there's a growing number of players from the LV area that may want to sign with a cash-infused hometown team.

 

I'd say going from a market with a 13% state tax to one with 0 state taxes would be the main appeal for free agents.

[SCMODS]

I believe A's owner John Fisher owns part of the Coliseum property. That's going to be fun negotiations. He'll probably let it rot for 10 years. 

[~Bear]

2 hours ago, BBTV said:

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.

I do think you're underselling crossover fan potential a bit. Philadelphia is also a MASSIVE market that can afford to hold teams in each of the Big 4 leagues, notwithstanding each franchise's long history in the city. Regardless sure, many people might be "just a fan of x sport," but even if there's a split between 2 of the 3 teams in the city, that's significant. Most people aren't going to spend thousands between two teams in a calendar year.  If the decision is to buy a Golden Knights jersey or an A's jersey, sure, diehard baseball fans are going to buy the A's jersey, but a lot of people are going to go for the jersey of the team that's competent and has a preexisting connection to the city.

 

Regardless, sports teams in an area are still going to compete against each other for marketing ground, as they are going to try and appeal to the general middle-class to upper-class base that are going to be spending sizeable amounts on merch and season tickets. I imagine it was a lot easier for the Golden Knights to cater to this crowd when they were the only sports team in town. Obviously, Las Vegas wasn't known for its hockey market when they first came to town, and I remember they would explain general rules before games their inaugural season. But, they had the advantage of filling a sports niche in a city that was lacking it and, through various factors including fielding a consistently successful product, built a strong fanbase. This avenue for "converting" fans is going to be a lot harder for the A's when the Golden Knights and the Raiders are in town.  Hell, the Raiders already struggle with this, but only 8 or 9 home games a year is easier to get away with and easier to make an "event" out of than 81. 

 

I don't know how many baseball fans live in Las Vegas. Maybe there is a sizeable, untapped market there. Maybe there are enough "baseball first" fans to cater to and that will buy season tickets; even if they aren't A's fans, maybe they'll go to enough games when their favorite team comes to town. Obviously, the team CAN succeed. But I look at the race among the Big 4 sports leagues to put teams in Las Vegas, and it doesn't feel like a recipe for success. There's a real chance that Vegas will go from 0 to 4 teams in under 20 years (which as an aside, I think it's an almost guaranteed recipe for disaster for an NBA team to go to Las Vegas). When the dust settles, is Las Vegas really big enough to allow all these teams to coexist? Is there enough fans of each sport to cater to in the market? And is the MLB team, a league that is already having to make radical changes because of its unpopularity among younger people, which is led by a cheapskate owner and constantly fields one of the lowest payrolls, going to be the team that wins out long-term? We really aren't far enough removed yet to judge Las Vegas as a professional sports market, but I have doubts. I'm open to being proven wrong, though. 

[goalieboy82]

how long until someone says, if you are putting a team in Las Vegas, Pete Rose should be unbanned from MLB.

[Dilbert]

9 minutes ago, goalieboy82 said:

how long until someone says, if you are putting a team in Las Vegas, Pete Rose should be unbanned from MLB.

I mean when sports betting became legal in Ohio on January 1 this year, Pete made the first bet at Hard Rock Casino Cincinnati. To no surprise, he bet on the Reds winning the World Series this year. At this point his ban is pretty pointless.

[TrueYankee26]

1 hour ago, BrySmalls said:

 

It's already a win if/when more than 3,050* people go to a future A's game in Vegas.

 

* 3,035 is currently the lowest attended A's game so far in the 2023 season.

Oakland Athletics for the next 312 home games (69 home games left this year plus 243 from 2024-2026)