MLB Stadium Saga: Oakland/Tampa Bay/Southside

[Walk-Off]

The Nevada Independent: Lombardo signs A’s baseball stadium funding bill; relocation hurdles remain

[SFGiants58]

10 hours ago, FiddySicks said:

Sigh, no. I’ve said it a million times here before and I’ll say it again. The A’s have absolutely nobody but themselves to blame for not having access to the South Bay. The South Bay territory was (foolishly) given to the Giants by the A’s, who then have OVER A DECADE to claim it back free of charge and just never bothered to file the paperwork. Then both teams were sold, and in the Giants case the rights to the South Bay were factored into the valuation of the team (the Giants owners had the foresight to see that the SB was going to explode, and the A’s just didn’t). The Giants have offered the South Bay back to the A’s, but considering they actually paid for those rights, they want fair compensation for it. The A’s balked at the idea, saying they shouldn’t have to pay a dime for them. It’d be like if someone gave you their underdeveloped back 40, it turned into a new downtown/entertainment district, and then they said “Hey! I want that back now that it’s actually valuable!” It would simply be bad business to gift that back to your in market rivals. It’s also yet another example of the A’s trying to cheap out and shift the financial burden for their operations to anyone else they can that isn’t themselves. 
 

 

 

I know it’s fun to hate on the Giants for this, but it’s ridiculous and off base. It’s some garbage nonsense put out by the A’s and I’m baffled that people are actually buying into it (why do people buy ANYTHING the A’s say at this point?). The A’s have spent the last four decades making dumb business decision after dumb business decision, and that’s probably their biggest single blunder. And now they’re asking the Giants to make an equally dumb business decision “in good faith” to make up for their own idiocy. Hell no, screw that.  Like I’ve said before, the A’s made their own bed, and now it’s time to lie in it. They can off to Vegas, Sacramento, Timbuktu, who cares. Good riddance. 

 

I wrote roughly 4000+ words of research (with extensive citations in Turabian style) on this very matter. I'd like to think it's a good starting point for research material - worth the non-insubstantial PACER check I incurred from downloading the articles.

 

Everybody who makes the "gave the territorial rights to the Giants in good faith and on the presumption of building a ballpark there" point fails to realize a bit of subtext to that dealing - Hass more than likely wanted the Giants out of the way, so that the A's would have more direct access to downtown San Francisco. It wouldn't have been an immediate turnover in fandom, but having a business competitor 40 miles away as opposed to ~15 is always better for business. Nothing is ever as pure as it seems.

 

Simultaneously, the location of Willy Mays Park (I still call it that) in relation to the freeways and the CalTrains depot (a major public transit option for the West and South Bay) reflects an attempt to accommodate that South Bay fanbase - one which already favored the Giants heavily over the A's since the '60s. If the A's moved to San Jose, how much of that potential fanbase would've been A's-first fans, especially with the way Fisher runs his franchises? At best, they'd be a distant second and alienated from much of their Oakland fanbase (distance and demographic-wise).

 

The Giants aren't blameless at all in this story, as everybody in the South Bay story sucks to different degrees. It's the A's for not doing their due diligence in trying to acquire the territory rights, the Giants for not giving it up without a fight (and setting up an astroturfing operation to waste several courts' time), and MLB for basically letting this all happen and not trying to create a New York/LA/Chicago-style split of the Bay Area market. If you want to get mad at the Giants, the whole astroturfing with the territory rights is a much more legitimate reason. Wasting the court system's time is a dick move.

 

On another note: in my research, I never found out how the A's acquired the territory rights for the South Bay. As originally drawn up in 1958, the Giants' territory only included San Francisco and San Mateo counties. Since the A's arrived 10 years after the Giants, I guess that's when they acquired them? Since the Chicago teams both play in the same county, the LA teams arrived within three years of each other (and played in the same county at the start), and the New York market is so large; I guess this is why their territorial splits haven't been as strange and acrimonious.

[FiddySicks]

6 hours ago, NYCdog said:

Sounds like I offended a triggered Giants fan haha. Take off those orange tinted shades, your bias is clearly showing. I don’t have a dog in this fight at all. 
 

Again - the rights were a favor from Walter Haas. They were contingent on a ballpark being built in Santa Clara County. That obviously never happened. Like you said, when Lurie sold, Peter Magowan bought Walter Haas’s “favor” from Lurie (not the A’s) as part of the sale of the franchise, even though Magowan never had any intention of building there. He had his eyes set his own vanity, legacy project in South China Basin (which Oracle Park).
 

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/giants/article/mlb-doc-south-bay-18087162.php

 

 

The Giants are culpable in this. They never built in Santa Clara County. That was the stipulation. They should’ve returned the favor to the A’s to see if they could negotiate a ballpark in South Bay or fail there too. The A’s never got that chance. 

Couple of bolded points if like to hit on here. 
 

First off, I grew up mostly split between the A’s and Giants (I was born in Alameda County, mom grew up and met my dad in the city), and actually leaned quite a bit further towards the A’s into my teens. My first ever favorite sports team was the A’s. The main reasons I stopped following the A’s is because they stopped carrying them on local TV, and they spent legit DECADES chipping away at any progress they ever made, and frankly I just got fed up with it. I’m not a Giants fan because I hate the A’s. I’m m a Giants fan because the A’s made it obvious they didn’t want me as a fan. 
 

You say the Giants are culpable in all of this, and I’ll even give you that some of it is probably in some bad faith. I still think it’s mostly just good business sense on their part, but I do understand the other side of it. But when it comes to a legal standpoint? They are absolutely not. If they were, the A’s would probably already be in the South Bay. The A’s knew they had no legal foothold when it came to that matter and it was shown to them several times. Even the league agreed with that point. 
 

 

And on the last point, I actually agree with you! It would be very generous of the Giants to return the same favor to the A’s. But this is the real world we’re living in. What business sense would it make for the Giants to give such a mulligan to a competing business entity who’s vying for control of the most populated area in the greater Bay Area? That was an incredibly magnanimous decision for the A’s owner to make when they gifted that territory to the Giants. It also turned out to be an incredibly stupid move when it came to the long term viability of the A’s in the Bay Area. 
 

Like, you say that you don’t have a dog in the fight, but I do. But my dog isn’t just go Giants haha the A’s. Mine stems from legit decades of mounting frustration with my very first favorite pro sports team. This has been going on since I was a young kid, and I’m nearly in my 40s now. It’s really hard to fully describe how much of a kick in the nuts it’s been to be an A’s fan. My very first ever baseball game was at the Coliseum in 1997 and the place was a MASSIVE dump. It was also the day they traded my first ever favorite baseball player, Mark McGwire for scraps. But don’t worry, they’ve got a plan to build a new stadium, and they’ll start keeping players around when that happens! They’re still playing in that stupid :censored:ing stadium and doing the same nonsense with their stars. 
 

 

Like I said, as someone who’s been fully invested in all of this as long as I’ve been a sports fan. the A’s. Good riddance. This has been a long time coming, and frankly I'm

just glad I can finally forget about them for good now. 

[bosrs1]

2 hours ago, Walk-Off said:

The Nevada Independent: Lombardo signs A’s baseball stadium funding bill; relocation hurdles remain

 

“Hurdles”

 

 

[BBTV]

23 hours ago, Sykotyk said:

Baseball relies much more on the ticket buyer than other sports.

 

I'd argue NHL is by far the sport that relies most on gate. Baseball rights fees can be astronomical depending on the market, so some teams are in the black before a single fan goes through the turnstile.  More than a few MLB teams have >$1B local broadcast deals and/or ownership of their RSN.  

[tp49]

1 hour ago, SFGiants58 said:

On another note: in my research, I never found out how the A's acquired the territory rights for the South Bay. As originally drawn up in 1958, the Giants' territory only included San Francisco and San Mateo counties. Since the A's arrived 10 years after the Giants, I guess that's when they acquired them? Since the Chicago teams both play in the same county, the LA teams arrived within three years of each other (and played in the same county at the start), and the New York market is so large; I guess this is why their territorial splits haven't been as strange and acrimonious.

Did your research uncover the alleged conditional rights agreement between the A's and Giants from 1990ish?  I use the term alleged because whether the transfer of rights to San Jose was conditional would have been at issue there.  I wonder since it was contested, whether it was an exhibit in any of the pleadings or other documents in either the federal or state case.  If so, is it contained with the files mentioned in the link in your post?

[ManillaToad]

Manfred should be sent to a gulag

[SFGiants58]

45 minutes ago, tp49 said:

Did your research uncover the alleged conditional rights agreement between the A's and Giants from 1990ish?  I use the term alleged because whether the transfer of rights to San Jose was conditional would have been at issue there.  I wonder since it was contested, whether it was an exhibit in any of the pleadings or other documents in either the federal or state case.  If so, is it contained with the files mentioned in the link in your post?

 

I did (it's document 01-main.pdf in the folder) and according to the document (filed by plaintiffs City of San Jose, the City of San Jose, as successor agency to the Redevelopment Agency of the City of San Jose; and the San Jose Diridon Development Authority), the proceedings went like this:

 

Quote

62. In 1990, in what was viewed as a final effort to keep the Giants in the Bay Area, Giants owner Bob Lurie pursued a new stadium in San José. However, the Giants faced territorial restrictions under MLB’s Constitution, which expressly limited the Giants to San Francisco and San Mateo Counties. Faced with this definitive hurdle, Mr. Lurie reached out to then-A’s owner Walter Haas. Over a handshake and without consideration, Mr. Haas consented to the Giants’ relocation to San José. Mr. Haas never granted the Giants an exclusive right to Santa Clara County, only his consent to pursue relocation of the Club to Santa Clara County in 1990. On June 14, 1990, MLB unanimously approved this expansion.

 

63. Commenting on this gentlemen’s agreement, Commissioner Selig said, “Walter Haas, the wonderful owner of the Oakland club, who did things in the best interest of baseball, granted permission . . . What got lost there is they didn’t feel it was permission in perpetuity.” Indeed, the MLB recorded minutes reflect that the San Francisco Giants were granted the Santa Clara County operating territory subject to their relocating to Santa Clara. See March 7, 2012 Oakland Athletics media release. Ultimately, like the voters in San Francisco and Santa Clara before them, the San José voters summarily rejected the Giants’ ballot measure to relocate the team to San José.

 

So it was conditional, according to the plaintiffs. Sadly, according to document 20, the plaintiffs failed to submit their exhibits in PDF form:

 

Quote

On June 18, 2013, counsel for Plaintiffs filed a complaint and exhibits 1-34 manually, on paper. This
case has been designated for electronic filing, pursuant to Local Rule 5-4 and General Order 45.

The above mentioned paper document has been filed and docketed. However, General Order 45 provides at Section III that cases assigned to judges who participate in the e-filing program “shall be presumptively designated” as e-filing cases. Therefore, counsel for plaintiffs should submit the complaint and exhibits , in PDF format within 10 days, as an attachment in an e-mail message directed to the judges chamber's "PDF" email box listed at http://ecf.cand.uscourts.gov. (Click on the Judges button and follow the procedure listed there). Do not e-file a document which has been previously filed on paper, as is the case with the above mentioned filing. All subsequent papers should be e-filed.

 

Since they were not digitized for PACER distribution, the public has no way of knowing what was in those exhibits. At no point does the conditionality of the agreement between Haas and Lurie appear in the exhibits listed in/attached to the complaint.

 

In no other documents does MLB dispute this or explain why the Santa Clara County rights remained with the Giants, but the Giants themselves disputed it. Per a press release from 2012:

 

Quote

The Giants territorial rights were not granted “subject to” moving to Santa Clara County. Indeed, the A’s fail to mention that MLB’s 1990 territorial rights designation has been explicitly re-affirmed by Major League Baseball on four separate occasions. Most significantly in 1994, Major League Baseball conducted a comprehensive review and re-definition of each club’s territories. These designations explicitly provide that the Giants territory include Santa Clara, San Francisco, San Mateo, Monterey, Santa Cruz and Marin Counties and the A’s territory included Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. The MLB owners unanimously approved those designated territories and memorialized them in the MLB Constitution. Since then, the MLB Constitution has been re-affirmed by the MLB owners – including by the A’s – on three different occasions (2000, 2005 and 2008), long after the Giants won approval to build AT&T Park. Mr. Wolff and Mr. Fisher agreed to these territorial designations and were fully aware of our territorial rights when they purchased the A’s for just $172 million in 2005.

 

So, if the Giants are right, then the A's had numerous opportunities to raise a stink and dispute territorial rights before ever considering moving to Santa Clara County. Their ownership at the time just failed to do so, even after it became clear that the conditions of the rights would not be met. Again, this is if the Giants' press release is correct. Both parties have good reasons to lie about the transfer of the rights, so it is safe to assume that the truth should lie somewhere in the middle.

Edited June 16, 2023 by SFGiants58
Added clarity to exhibits of court

[tp49]

3 hours ago, SFGiants58 said:

 

A really impressive, and knowing what PACER costs to use, expensive dive down the rabbit hole.  

First, I want to say you did a very impressive job with the research and grabbing the documents here.  I would point a couple of things out for purposes of context that are important regarding the territorial rights issue.

 

The biggest thing is that the issue over territorial rights was never considered because they did not survive the initial motion to dismiss by the defendants.  (See paragraph 31 of Defendants' Answer to Plaintiffs' Complaint, document 46 on the docket and 46.pdf in the folder, referencing the dismissal of the allegations pertaining to paragraphs  62 and 63 of Plaintiffs' Complaint).  Is anyone still awake after that?  Then just like nearly every federal district court I've ever dealt with likes to do, once the federal claims were gone, they declined jurisdiction over the state law claims and kicked it over to Santa Clara Superior Court.

 

That's your Civil Procedure lesson for the decade. 

 

But from what I gleaned from the Complaint is that the territorial rights agreement was never reduced to a writing and was a "gentleman's agreement".  Mind blown on that one.

 

Here is an article from the SF Chronicle detailing more of the territorial rights issues between the A's and Giants with some good legal analysis from the lead attorney for the A's in the above-mentioned case and other prominent Bay Area attorneys.  

 

Edited June 16, 2023 by tp49
To add link to SF Chronicle article.

[SFGiants58]

5 hours ago, tp49 said:

First, I want to say you did a very impressive job with the research and grabbing the documents here. 

 

Thanks!

 

5 hours ago, tp49 said:

 

But from what I gleaned from the Complaint is that the territorial rights agreement was never reduced to a writing and was a "gentleman's agreement".  Mind blown on that one.

 

Here is an article from the SF Chronicle detailing more of the territorial rights issues between the A's and Giants with some good legal analysis from the lead attorney for the A's in the above-mentioned case and other prominent Bay Area attorneys.  

 

That’s an excellent article and does contain a few very choice observations about the minutes from 1990:

 

Quote

“The resolution at the end gives San Francisco the right to relocate to Santa Clara subject to conditions,” said [John] Moore, who reviewed the minutes. “But the last part of the resolution is likely the key one. It changes the definition of San Francisco in the Constitution and the Major League Rules to include San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties and does not attach conditions to that, like the club actually moving to Santa Clara. Could such a condition have been implicit or intended?”

 

Quote

“Whether it was intentional or not, they did change the Constitution many years ago to give the Giants that area,” [Alan] Greenberg said. “It was not tied to them actually moving to Santa Clara or getting a stadium there. It should have been conditioned somehow on the Giants moving there or the rights would go away. Even if the intent of the A’s ownership at the time was more limited than what got translated into the Constitution, they didn’t raise that issue at the time and let the Giants keep that territory.”

 

So yeah, while the granting of rights was intended to be conditional, at no point did the A’s insist that agreement’s conditional nature be put into the MLB Constitution or anything beyond the 1990 minutes. You can’t do much legally over that if it’s not in an overtly-official document.
 

Also, if we bring the later revisions of the constitution into account (before the Santa Clara exploration the A’s made), the A’s could have disputed the conditions of the territory’s ownership and chose not to make any such claim. You can blame the Giants all you want, but the A’s share in the responsibility for not doing their due diligence with the constitutional revisions and with disputing the claim in between 1990 and ~2005, when they had ample opportunity to do so (and without their franchise’s venue at stake)

[The_Admiral]

MOD EDIT: You know better. Reel it in.

Edited June 16, 2023 by infrared41

[McCall]

1 hour ago, the admiral said:

 

MOD Redacted.

[SFGiants58]

MOD EDIT:  Not necessary. Stay on topic.

[GDAWG]

 

[bosrs1]

Well we knew Fisher had no shame. This is just more proof of it.

 

https://twitter.com/NBCSAthletics/status/1669880366797307905?s=20

 

A’s likely to play 2024 in Oakland.

[GDAWG]

21 minutes ago, bosrs1 said:

Well we knew Fisher had no shame. This is just more proof of it.

 

https://twitter.com/NBCSAthletics/status/1669880366797307905?s=20

 

A’s likely to play 2024 in Oakland.

 

Attendance at that point is likely to be zero......unless Fisher somehow screws up the Las Vegas deal, because there's still a long way to go before the stadium gets a groundbreaking ceremony, likely to be sometime late 2024.  

[McCall]

2 hours ago, bosrs1 said:

Well we knew Fisher had no shame. This is just more proof of it.

 

https://twitter.com/NBCSAthletics/status/1669880366797307905?s=20

 

A’s likely to play 2024 in Oakland.

They have a lease through 2024. He's simply not breaking that lease. If the city wants to kick them out before then, then that's on them. I fail to see how this is proof of "no shame" on his part.

[bosrs1]

10 hours ago, McCall said:

They have a lease through 2024. He's simply not breaking that lease. If the city wants to kick them out before then, then that's on them. I fail to see how this is proof of "no shame" on his part.

 

Have you seen their attendance this year? And that is pre announcement of the move. Post announcement we may get a new all time record for lowest average attendance. 

[McCall]

2 minutes ago, bosrs1 said:

 

Have you seen their attendance this year? And that is pre announcement of he move. Post announcement we may get a new all time record for lowest average attendance. 

What’s that got to do with him having “no shame” for not breaking the lease and leaving early?

[bosrs1]

18 minutes ago, McCall said:

What’s that got to do with him having “no shame” for not breaking the lease and leaving early?

 

If he had shame he wouldn’t drag his franchise through something so utterly and unprecedentedly embarrassing. I’m honestly shocked MLB would allow it when they don’t even consider the Coliseum a Major League facility and there are Major League equivalent facilities available as temporary options that they’re going to have to use in 2025-7 anyway. The whole thing is already a black eye for baseball, and it’s just going to get worse if they hang around unwanted.