MLB Stadium Saga: Oakland/Tampa Bay/Southside

[Sykotyk]

22 minutes ago, WestCoastBias said:

 

And so that means Oakland after over 50 years can't identify with those colors and the name? Same with the Dodgers and LA? Giants and SF? Braves and Atlanta?

I think ownership of a term/name/logo/colors is really dependent on origination. You can love the Giants or Dodgers all you want, but they're not San Francisco's and Los Angeles'. They're just there currently.

 

It's the same as the Rams. They started in Cleveland. Cleveland essentially spoke with their support that they wanted to get behind the new team the Browns and not the defending NFL champions (if you can believe that). So, Rams are wherever. Nobody outside St. Louis cared that the Rams were leaving STL just as nobody really raised a huff over the Rams leaving LA before that. They're a vagabond now.

 

Now things like the Colts or Oilers, yes. Those had a bit of a harshness since they had been in their two cities since founding, and it was a lot harder for fans to accept that their old name was never returning. This isn't the 20s and 30s where teams moving and taking their name with them was a matter of finances of not replacing uniforms or equipment. Today, even the city name changing is a huge PR move that will probably be followed by a slightly changed/tweaked logo/uniform.

 

But once a team moves and keeps the name, the name travels with the team no matter how long it plants itself in its current city.

 

[McCall]

47 minutes ago, WestCoastBias said:

 

And so that means Oakland after over 50 years can't identify with those colors and the name? Same with the Dodgers and LA? Giants and SF? Braves and Atlanta?

No... 

It means they can't prevent the organization that has been around for 123 years and originated it and still uses it to this day, can't take it with them if they relocate.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

6 hours ago, NYCdog said:

Barbara Lee is simply using the A’s relocation to pander for votes for her senate run, Meanwhile Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao is out here cutting photops at the Reverse Boycott to show she cares when in reality she hasn’t don’t anything since she was elected. Atleast former mayor Libby Schaaf went to the negotiation table with the A’s. All Sheng did was claim she was “blindsided” by the Las Vegas move when the A’s have been in negotiations with Las Vegas for the last 2 years. Hello, they’ve been making routine site scouting trips out there! The sad part is judging by the replies on Twitter, there’s a lot of suckers buying into these politicians acts.

 

This take is so wrong it's almost comical.

 

The Oakland mayor was legitimately blindsided by the Las Vegas announcement in April because the negotiations on the Howard Terminal stadium were near completion.   By walking away from the negotiations after the A's pulled their double-crossing move, the mayor behaved shrewdly by not allowing the A's to use the nearly-done Howard Terminal plan as a pressuring device in their rushed presentations to the Nevada state legislature. 

 

Either way this works out, her move was the right one. If A's cannot fool enough of the Nevada legislators, then they have nowhere to go.  While the mayor has confirmed that she would take a call from Fisher or Kaval to resume the negotiations, it's hard to imagine their doing that in such a weakened posure. More likely, if the Nevada legislature does its job, then the sale that all of yesterday's reverse-boycotters are demanding would likely occur, and the negotiations would resume with the new ownership.  Indeed, the mayor has confirmed that a new ownership group could just step right in and bring the thing over the finish line.

 

But if the A's snow job prevails and the legislature agrees to flush money down the toilet in a state whose education system is rated near the very bottom in the country, then the Oakland mayor retains her dignity.  And Howard Terminal still gets improvments from federal money, even if there's no ballpark.

 

 

6 hours ago, NYCdog said:

Also, the SF Giants. Their territorial rights claim on San Jose is literally robbing sports fans throughout the entire Bay Area (Oakland included) from having a second baseball team in the region. That’s why we’re here today, with A’s moving to Vegas.  Otherwise the A’s would’ve been in SJ a decade ago.

 

Again, utterly wrong.

 

Even if you want to denounce the Giants for holding the territorial rights to San Jose (that the A's granted them), the A's moving to San Jose is not a good outcome for Oakland.  We should be glad that that never happened.  (If we care about history, which too many people on this board adamantly do not.)

 

 

An A's move from Oakland would leave me heartbroken.  The 1972 A's are instrumental in setting for all time my aesthetic standards, a fact to which my excellent mustache attests.  I can remember in 1978 when they were all but gone to Denver after Marvin Davis agreed to buy the team from Finley.  I was about to cry.  The only reason they didn't go is that they couldn't get out of the Collisseum lease.

 

Still, if that terrible scenario comes to pass this time, the Oakland government — under both the current mayor and the previous one — can hold their heads high with dignity and can be secure in the knowledge that they did the right thing throughout, first by leveraging the team's stadium demands into an agreement to also build affordable housing for city residents, and eventually by refusing to be a pawn in a huckster's dishonest game.

 

[habsfan1]

2 hours ago, Sykotyk said:

But once a team moves and keeps the name, the name travels with the team no matter how long it plants itself in its current city.

  

It's too bad if Oakland ever gets a team back, they won't be able to be called the Athletics, if the franchise belongs to Vegas, even though they were the Oakland Athletics since 1968. That's 50+ years of tradition.

[Sykotyk]

11 minutes ago, habsfan1 said:

  

It's too bad if Oakland ever gets a team back, they won't be able to be called the Athletics, if the franchise belongs to Vegas, even though they were the Oakland Athletics since 1968.

But they did it, too. This is like someone stealing your car, and they're really sorry they stole it, but they need to drive to work so they're going to keep it. But totally feel bad for taking it.

[Ridleylash]

19 minutes ago, Sykotyk said:

But they did it, too. This is like someone stealing your car, and they're really sorry they stole it, but they need to drive to work so they're going to keep it. But totally feel bad for taking it.

There's kind of a difference considering that I imagine very few people alive today remember the A's being anywhere but Oakland outside of the historical angle. For all intents and purposes, the A's brand is tied to Oakland at this point, especially since both Philly and KC have their own clubs with plenty of history in their own right.

 

And like...if someone else has your car for 50+ years, it's not really your car anymore, now is it?

[habsfan1]

  

28 minutes ago, Sykotyk said:

But they did it, too. This is like someone stealing your car, and they're really sorry they stole it, but they need to drive to work so they're going to keep it. But totally feel bad for taking it.

A lot of teams got traded amongst other cities, back in those days. Most of those trends were from decades ago. There could be a variety of reasons as to why it was more advantagious to just keep the same team/look in a new city. Technology wasn't the same, compared to today.

 

The ones I remember mostly are the moves from the 90s and the 2000s. All of the NHL teams fully rebranded. The OKC Thunder spared the Sonics their identity and New Orleans got their own brand, after Charlotte got their original team back. Aside from a few odd exceptions, my expectations are full rebrands for new franchises.

 

[VampyrRabbit]

5 hours ago, kimball said:

With that said, Vegas should put a spin on the A's identity, either with a flamingo mascot or different color scheme. Something just a little different.

If the A's move to Vegas and Fisher and Kaval continue to be cheap f***s, playing in their new taxpayer funded stadium that isn't filled anywhere near capacity, the White Elephant will be more than fitting.

[Sec19Row53]

28 minutes ago, Ridleylash said:

There's kind of a difference considering that I imagine very few people alive today remember the A's being anywhere but Oakland outside of the historical angle. For all intents and purposes, the A's brand is tied to Oakland at this point, especially since both Philly and KC have their own clubs with plenty of history in their own right.

 

And like...if someone else has your car for 50+ years, it's not really your car anymore, now is it?

Yeah - cause everyone over the age of 65 is dead these days.

[/sarcasmjustincaseyoucouldn'ttell]

[SCMODS]

Fisher also owns the Earthquakes. Yikes. 

[Sykotyk]

8 minutes ago, habsfan1 said:

  

A lot of teams got traded amongst other cities, back in those days. Most of those trends were from decades ago. There could be a variety of reasons as to why it was more advantagious to just keep the same team/look in a new city. Technology wasn't the same, compared to today.

 

The ones I remember mostly are the moves from the 90s and the 2000s. All of the NHL teams fully rebranded. The OKC Thunder spared the Sonics their identity and New Orleans got their own brand, after Charlotte got their original team back. Aside from a few odd exceptions, my expectations are full rebrands for new franchises.

 

Really, it was the 90s that saw the pushback. That 90s building boom of stadiums and arenas saw fans start to revolt. Browns and Sonics especially. Houston tried, but in a city that big with a team that had been on a downward spiral but couldn't live out to see Fisher do anything with them, couldn't get the groundswell support.

 

Ohio even passed a law about moving teams. Which is why the Crew got saved.

 

But in the 80s you saw relocations like the Colts, Cardinals, Flames, Rockies, Clippers, and Kings.

 

Only the Rockies changed names, and that was primarily because the New Jersey Rockies would've only worked if they played near Philly. The rest just kept their name. Some were ambiguious names, like Kings or Cardinals. Some had a regional tie like Clippers but worked for their relocated city. Flames kinda works with Calgary but could've been something else.

 

The 90s saw things like the North Stars move to Dallas, and then around the same time or after the Browns every team got a new name. Avalanche was an obvious as Nordiques wasn't going to translate well to Colorado. But Whalers and Jets both got rebranded. NBA didn't have any late 90s relocations, but a few in the early 00s. Vancouver still is a headscratcher that they didn't get a new name but there was apathy about a Canadian team given the economy at the time. After what happened you saw the Sonics get a new name, it seemed such a shocker that the Hornets took their name to New Orleans. Which had a huge backlash. They righted it after the Bobcats fiasco, but that was still such a bad reading of the room. It took the Sonics AFTER the Hornets to finally get the NBA to basically force it through. One of the few times a team changed their name for reasons OTHER than weaponry or bigotry.

 

Browns, obviously, got a new name and was one of the first 'modern' teams to get their team back with the same name (this happened much more often previous especially in baseball with things like the Senators barely missing a beat).

 

After the Hornets, the only real team(s) that moved without changing their name has been the Nets, Chargers, Rams, and Raiders. Two returned to a city they had already been to. Raiders moved to their third city in their third relocation after stopping at one stop twice. And the Nets have bounced around all over the NYC metro area under various location names (NY Nets, NJ Nets, Brooklyn Nets). Yeah, the NJ based fans might have an issue, but it's not like they moved to Kansas City. Hard to call that a huge issue. This is much more "Baltimore Bullets move to DC"

[NYCdog]

1 hour ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

This take is so wrong it's almost comical.

 

The Oakland mayor was legitimately blindsided by the Las Vegas announcement in April because the negotiations on the Howard Terminal stadium were near completion.   By walking away from the negotiations after the A's pulled their double-crossing move, the mayor behaved shrewdly by not allowing the A's to use the nearly-done Howard Terminal plan as a pressuring device in their rushed presentations to the Nevada state legislature. 

 

Either way this works out, her move was the right one. If A's cannot fool enough of the Nevada legislators, then they have nowhere to go.  While the mayor has confirmed that she would take a call from Fisher or Kaval to resume the negotiations, it's hard to imagine their doing that in such a weakened posure. More likely, if the Nevada legislature does its job, then the sale that all of yesterday's reverse-boycotters are demanding would likely occur, and the negotiations would resume with the new ownership.  Indeed, the mayor has confirmed that a new ownership group could just step right in and bring the thing over the finish line.

 

But if the A's snow job prevails and the legislature agrees to flush money down the toilet in a state whose education system is rated near the very bottom in the country, then the Oakland mayor retains her dignity.  And Howard Terminal still gets improvments from federal money, even if there's no ballpark.

 

 

 

Again, utterly wrong.

 

Even if you want to denounce the Giants for holding the territorial rights to San Jose (that the A's granted them), the A's moving to San Jose is not a good outcome for Oakland.  We should be glad that that never happened.  (If we care about history, which too many people on this board adamantly do not.)

 

 

An A's move from Oakland would leave me heartbroken.  The 1972 A's are instrumental in setting for all time my aesthetic standards, a fact to which my excellent mustache attests.  I can remember in 1978 when they were all but gone to Denver after Marvin Davis agreed to buy the team from Finley.  I was about to cry.  The only reason they didn't go is that they couldn't get out of the Collisseum lease.

 

Still, if that terrible scenario comes to pass this time, the Oakland government — under both the current mayor and the previous one — can hold their heads high with dignity and can be secure in the knowledge that they did the right thing throughout, first by leveraging the team's stadium demands into an agreement to also build affordable housing for city residents, and eventually by refusing to be a pawn in a huckster's dishonest game.

 

Why would the A’s go into a deal with Oakland on a term sheet the city created  that they weren’t involved and thus the A’s never agreed too? And then Oakland wanted to dictate the development too with low income housing requirements that would obviously impact the return on investment. If I’m a business owner, I tell Oakland “get lost” and that’s exactly what the A’s did. I don’t blame them one bit. 
 

And now allow the heartbreak to commence. San Jose would’ve been a better outcome for all baseball fans throughout the Bay Area. Now all you have is the Giants. 
 

 

[NYCdog]

5 minutes ago, SCMODS said:

Fisher also owns the Earthquakes. Yikes. 

 
Fisher took over for Lew Wolff, who got Quakes 2 up and running after AEG moved Quakes 1 to Houston to become the Dynamo. Speaking of, who exactly do you think saved soccer in the Bay Area by leading the effort to build PayPal Park in San Jose. 
 

DAVE KAVAL. (Let’s vilify him too lol) 

 

It’s literally the reason why the A’s hired him. To help negotiate a deal to save the A’s in Oakland. This game has literally been on going since HOK study in Uptown Oakland in 2002. Every other professional sports owner would’ve relocated 5 years tops. Fisher remained, extending leases at a dilapidated Coliseum for 18 YEARS. And it got him nothing from Oakland in the end: 

[SCMODS]

5 minutes ago, NYCdog said:

 
Fisher took over for Lew Wolff, who got Quakes 2 up and running after AEG moved Quakes 1 to Houston to become the Dynamo. Speaking of, who exactly do you think saved soccer in the Bay Area by leading the effort to build PayPal Park in San Jose. 
 

DAVE KAVAL. (Let’s vilify him too lol) 

 

It’s literally the reason why the A’s hired him. To help negotiate a deal to save the A’s in Oakland. This game has literally been on going since HOK study in Uptown Oakland in 2002. Every other professional sports owner would’ve relocated 5 years tops. Fisher remained, extending leases at a dilapidated Coliseum for 18 YEARS. And it got him nothing from Oakland in the end: 

 

Hey Dog, it's the Bay Area. Taxpayers are not going to fork over money for stadiums. 

[tp49]

Bill passed the Nevada Assembly.

[NYCdog]

23 minutes ago, SCMODS said:

 

Hey Dog, it's the Bay Area. Taxpayers are not going to fork over money for stadiums. 

[tp49]

3 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

This take is so wrong it's almost comical.

 

The Oakland mayor was legitimately blindsided by the Las Vegas announcement in April because the negotiations on the Howard Terminal stadium were near completion.   By walking away from the negotiations after the A's pulled their double-crossing move, the mayor behaved shrewdly by not allowing the A's to use the nearly-done Howard Terminal plan as a pressuring device in their rushed presentations to the Nevada state legislature. 

 

Either way this works out, her move was the right one. If A's cannot fool enough of the Nevada legislators, then they have nowhere to go.  While the mayor has confirmed that she would take a call from Fisher or Kaval to resume the negotiations, it's hard to imagine their doing that in such a weakened posure. More likely, if the Nevada legislature does its job, then the sale that all of yesterday's reverse-boycotters are demanding would likely occur, and the negotiations would resume with the new ownership.  Indeed, the mayor has confirmed that a new ownership group could just step right in and bring the thing over the finish line.

 

But if the A's snow job prevails and the legislature agrees to flush money down the toilet in a state whose education system is rated near the very bottom in the country, then the Oakland mayor retains her dignity.  And Howard Terminal still gets improvments from federal money, even if there's no ballpark.

 

Still, if that terrible scenario comes to pass this time, the Oakland government — under both the current mayor and the previous one — can hold their heads high with dignity and can be secure in the knowledge that they did the right thing throughout, first by leveraging the team's stadium demands into an agreement to also build affordable housing for city residents, and eventually by refusing to be a pawn in a huckster's dishonest game.

 

Are you serious?

 

I might buy that take if Mayor Thao assumed office with no experience in Oakland government.  Fact is she's been on the City Council since 2018.  She knew or should have known what was happening regarding negotiations with the A's.  Even if she was blindsided by the A's announcement, when negotiating deals, the worst-case scenario is always in your mind and a strong possibility until the contract is signed and you always, always have a contingency plan.

 

The A's have been trying to get a stadium deal done in some form since at least when Jerry Brown was mayor covering the administrations of Brown, Dellums, Quan, Schaff and now Thao.  While there's fault on ownership's side there's plenty of fault to go around on the side of the City of Oakland and now more like when they leave with the Nevada legislature passing the funding bill, the Oakland government shoulders blame too.  We can debate the degree but they do have blame. 

[GDAWG]

They have one more year left on their lease. so are they going to break that at the end of this season?

[Sykotyk]

22 minutes ago, GDAWG said:

They have one more year left on their lease. so are they going to break that at the end of this season?

Raiders waited out their lease.  Or, rather, waited for their new stadium to be built. The main argument seemed to be they didn't want to unveil themselves in Las Vegas at Sam Boyd Stadium for a few years, and there was really nowhere else to go.

 

Chargers went to StubHub Center since staying in San Diego was basically impossible. And they were limited where they could play (not at the Coliseum, the Rose Bowl has restrictions on dates, and neither baseball stadium could/would even be considered as viable).

 

Plus, there's the 'aura' of the Raiders that their fans would follow them to Las Vegas, even if via television. So, sticking out two unproductive years in Oakland wasn't exactly a negative like it would've been for the Chargers.

 

The A's though... we saw how bad the support will be when they just THOUGHT they weren't going to play in Oakland. If they sign a deal and construction starts in Vegas... they could count attendance with three digits at some games. The fans would simply shun them. Baseball relies much more on the ticket buyer than other sports. Part of having 81 home games. They'd fare better playing at LV Ballpark for a year or two at exorbitant MLB adjusted rates in the 10k stadium than to even consider playing in Oakland another year. As for the lease having a year left. There's got to be a financial out clause, and I have to imagine they'd pay whatever fee was necessary and recoup the money in Vegas at the small stadium for two years.

[bosrs1]

3 hours ago, SCMODS said:

Fisher also owns the Earthquakes. Yikes. 

 

Why yikes? Earthquakes got their new stadium in San Jose, unlike the A’s. If the A’s had been able to make Cisco Field happen they’d have stayed in the Bay Area at least if not Oakland.