MLB Stadium Saga: Oakland/Tampa Bay/Southside

[MilSox]

1 hour ago, flasah said:

 

Yeah I don't think any city under 2 million could support an MLB team. Currently only Milwaukee is under that.

Even that's misleading because for whatever reason, only Milwaukee County and three counties that surround it are counted in the metro population.  But if you include all 9 counties in Southeast Wisconsin, the population is over 2 million.  Granted, half of those people live in Milwaukee County itself, which is why a market like Milwaukee can work.  Baseball needs a strong centralized population because few fans are willing to go on a significant commute to attend a weeknight game, which I would think goes to your point.  Lots of western metros have massive populations.  But if that population is spread out, which tends to be the case with sunbelt cities, it won't translate into attendance.

[FiddySicks]

I’m not really sure why people are giving a strong yes to Portland if they’re going to give a no to hard no to Sacramento. The metro population is almost neck and neck, yet Portland is even more isolated. At least Sacramento is close to the Bay Area and the central valley to draw from. 

 

And that’s not to say that Sacramento is a worthy MLB market (It isn’t. No later how much I’ve hoped for it in the past). But neither is Portland, really

[Walk-Off]

3 hours ago, FiddySicks said:

I’m not really sure why people are giving a strong yes to Portland if they’re going to give a no to hard no to Sacramento. The metro population is almost neck and neck, yet Portland is even more isolated. At least Sacramento is close to the Bay Area and the central valley to draw from.

 

The top answer can be shortened to three words: Portland is richer.

 

Specifically, Portland enjoys a lower unemployment rate and a higher rate of projected future job growth than does Sacramento.  More importantly, Portland's per capita, median household, and median family incomes are all above the US average.  Meanwhile, Sacramento is below the US average in all three of those income categories.  Finally, as best as I can tell, Portland has more businesses that can afford to pay for premium seats at and season tickets to a MLB team's games than does Sacramento.

 

Also, in a way, Portland may be helped by being geographically more isolated than Sacramento.  If nothing else, part of the desire for a Portland team in MLB and particularly in the American League is to create a geographically close rival to the Seattle Mariners, who are decidedly the most remote MLB club at the moment.

[Crabcake]

Seeing the Rays mentioned has reminded me yet again that I would love a 30 for 30 about Tampa Bay’s relocation madness. Seems to me (albeit I have done little to no research on the matter) that they were constantly brought up as a city for the MLB to move to and seemed to be kind of the #1 option when teams were pursuing relocation/#1 bargaining chip when owners wanted to hold cities hostage for new stadiums. They even had a deal to get the Giants at one point. Yet when baseball finally did get to Tampa it flopped, and flopped hard. 

[FiddySicks]

4 hours ago, Walk-Off said:

 

The top answer can be shortened to three words: Portland is richer.

 

Specifically, Portland enjoys a lower unemployment rate and a higher rate of projected future job growth than does Sacramento.  More importantly, Portland's per capita, median household, and median family incomes are all above the US average.  Meanwhile, Sacramento is below the US average in all three of those income categories.  Finally, as best as I can tell, Portland has more businesses that can afford to pay for premium seats at and season tickets to a MLB team's games than does Sacramento.

 

Also, in a way, Portland may be helped by being geographically more isolated than Sacramento.  If nothing else, part of the desire for a Portland team in MLB and particularly in the American League is to create a geographically close rival to the Seattle Mariners, who are decidedly the most remote MLB club at the moment.

That actually makes a lot of sense. I’ve traveled and lived all over the west coast, but Portland has always been somewhat of a blind spot for me. I’ve only been there twice and it was only a total of maybe three days. I figured that corporate support probably had something to do with it (It’s absolutely abysmal here), and so the overall increase in wealth would make sense as well. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Nike is now an MLB partner and Portland is Nike town. That's enough to make Portland conjecture feel real enough to care about at this point.

[GDAWG]

So who has the territorial rights to San Antonio and Austin?

[sky1324]

16 minutes ago, GDAWG said:

So who has the territorial rights to San Antonio and Austin?

I would assume it's shared between Texas and Houston.

[Walk-Off]

@GDAWG, if, by territorial rights, you mean regional television (and maybe also radio) rights, I am under the impression that the whole state of Texas is part of a TV territory shared by the Houston Astros and the Texas Rangers.  Unless I am mistaken, Astros games are on regional cable even in the Dallas-Fort Worth market, and Rangers games are on regional cable even in the Houston market.

 

As I understand it, the MLB commissioner's office ordered a full overlap of those two teams' TV territories back when the second AL Washington Senators were seeking to move to North Texas.  This decision was made in order to preserve the Astros' freedom to syndicate their game telecasts to any willing local TV station in the DFW area and thus encourage the 'Stros to let the Metroplex have its own MLB club; an unwillingness by the Astros' ownership to sacrifice regional TV coverage in North Texas was a key reason why the DFW region was turned down for one of the 1969 MLB expansion franchises.

[Wings]

The Rays only exist because MLB didn't want to be sued for denying the Giants relocation to St. Pete. They basically said here's an expansion team, now shut the hell up. 

 

 

[GDAWG]

24 minutes ago, Walk-Off said:

@GDAWG, if, by territorial rights, you mean regional television (and maybe also radio) rights, I am under the impression that the whole state of Texas is part of a TV territory shared by the Houston Astros and the Texas Rangers.  Unless I am mistaken, Astros games are on regional cable even in the Dallas-Fort Worth market, and Rangers games are on regional cable even in the Houston market.

 

As I understand it, the MLB commissioner's office ordered a full overlap of those two teams' TV territories back when the second AL Washington Senators were seeking to move to North Texas.  This decision was made in order to preserve the Astros' freedom to syndicate their game telecasts to any willing local TV station in the DFW area and thus encourage the 'Stros to let the Metroplex have its own MLB club; an unwillingness by the Astros' ownership to sacrifice regional TV coverage in North Texas was a key reason why the DFW region was turned down for one of the 1969 MLB expansion franchises.

 

That's what I thought.  Texas Rangers games are seen in Houston on Bally Sports Southwest (formerly Fox Sports Southwest) and Astros games in DFW via AT&T SportsNet Southwest.  Not sure either team wants to split that even further with the A's.

[Walk-Off]

1 hour ago, GDAWG said:

Texas Rangers games are seen in Houston on Bally Sports Southwest (formerly Fox Sports Southwest) and Astros games in DFW via AT&T SportsNet Southwest.  Not sure either team wants to split that even further with the A's.

 

I could understand the Astros and the Rangers having a full overlap of regional television coverage back when those clubs played in separate major leagues; fans in both the Dallas-Fort Worth market and the Houston market could have frequent audiovisual access to the full spectrum of MLB teams, stadia, and styles of play without having to wait for national telecasts of games in whichever was the "other" league locally.  However, to this day, I have thought that such an arrangement has made far less sense ever since then-Commissioner Bud Selig forced the 'Stros to play in the same league (and especially the same division) as the Rangers.

 

A relocation of the Athletics to either Austin or San Antonio is almost sure to be the death knell for the Astros' and Rangers' 100% Texas-wide presences on traditional linear TV services.  While MLB has required the A's and the Giants to locate their ballparks in different sections of the Bay Area for as long as those teams have shared that region, they have understandably had complete overlap in their regional TV territories throughout their coexistence by the Bay.  Thus, I think that no one should be surprised by an Austin Athletics or San Antonio Athletics franchise wanting regional TV exclusivity in at least their new Nielsen-defined market, even if it precludes opportunities for regional TV coverage in Big D, Cowtown, or H-Town.

 

Finally, I think that a move to anywhere in Texas by the A's will put an unusually high level of pressure on MLB to realign across league lines.  The prospect of the A's becoming a third American League team in a Lone Star State without a National League franchise may irk at least some owners of NL clubs enough to call for a return of the Astros and/or even a shifting of the Rangers to the NL.

[Bmac]

One thing I've never really gotten a good sense of - is Oakland even a good MLB market to begin with?

 

I don't doubt that the Bay Area in general is capable of hosting two teams, but I get the vibe that Oakland is kind of just an extension of San Francisco in a way. I didn't pay too much attention when I was there, but going from SF to Oakland seemed like going to a suburb of SF. That's not to say Oakland isn't it's own city, but it felt more like how the Rays play in St Pete as opposed to Tampa proper because that's where the stadium is.

 

There seems to be a good deal of civic pride in Oakland (or at least territorial pride of some sort), but is the city of Oakland itself a worthy MLB market? Is it distinct from the rest of the Bay Area? If the Athletics had been in San Jose all this time would that satisfy the Bay Area market? And if the team leaves the Bay Area completely, will the market feel the need for another team? I don't ask these questions so much out of reality (I know they're not moving to SJ), but more out of curiosity about the market. Like, has it been worth trying to keep the team there this long in the first place?

[Chromatic]

2 hours ago, Bmac said:

One thing I've never really gotten a good sense of - is Oakland even a good MLB market to begin with?

 

I obviously know nothing about the Bay Area so I'm talking out of my rear here, but I got the sense that Oakland is a lot like Buffalo. A formerly prominent city that attracted teams out of the prospect of future growth that never quite materialized like it was envisioned. 

[See Red]

12 hours ago, Crabcake said:

Seeing the Rays mentioned has reminded me yet again that I would love a 30 for 30 about Tampa Bay’s relocation madness. Seems to me (albeit I have done little to no research on the matter) that they were constantly brought up as a city for the MLB to move to and seemed to be kind of the #1 option when teams were pursuing relocation/#1 bargaining chip when owners wanted to hold cities hostage for new stadiums. They even had a deal to get the Giants at one point. Yet when baseball finally did get to Tampa it flopped, and flopped hard. 

 

They are probably not the only hurdles the Rays face, but they have a combination of bad ownership, a bad stadium, and bad stadium location.  On top of that, while it's impressive what they've managed to do on the field despite their budget, regularly trading off your best players for prospects doesn't do much to build loyalty.  They have a generational talent that will likely be debuting this year in Wander Franco and it's difficult to get too excited because you know five or six years from now he'll be shipped off for prospects.  The presence of the Yankees in Tampa doesn't help.  One of the local sports radio stations plays coverage of Yankees games at night (or did as of two years ago).

 

If they were owned by Vinick (Lightning owner) and had a more accessible stadium that actually added to the experience of attending a baseball game, they would be a lot more successful.  I don't think it's a guarantee they'd be successful enough, though.

[Chromatic]

2 minutes ago, See Red said:

 

 a bad stadium, and bad stadium location.

These factors seem a lot more important in baseball than in any other sport too. Football, it doesn't matter if its -30 in a concrete block, you're there to watch your team brutally slug it out with their opponent. Stadiums a half hour away? No problem, you're tailgating anyway.

 

In baseball though it seems like the stadium experience is first and the game second. Thats not to say there aren't diehard fans who desperately want their team to win, but going to a baseball game seems like the priority is more about hanging out on a warm summer evening. Drink some beers, try the wacky stadium food etc. If the park is a dump and inconvenient to get to, there are lots of other ways to spend your time. Its a lot harder to attract fans with a bad stadium experience in baseball than in other sports.

 

 

[gosioux76]

15 hours ago, Walk-Off said:

 

The top answer can be shortened to three words: Portland is richer.

 

Specifically, Portland enjoys a lower unemployment rate and a higher rate of projected future job growth than does Sacramento.  More importantly, Portland's per capita, median household, and median family incomes are all above the US average.  Meanwhile, Sacramento is below the US average in all three of those income categories.  Finally, as best as I can tell, Portland has more businesses that can afford to pay for premium seats at and season tickets to a MLB team's games than does Sacramento.

 

Also, in a way, Portland may be helped by being geographically more isolated than Sacramento.  If nothing else, part of the desire for a Portland team in MLB and particularly in the American League is to create a geographically close rival to the Seattle Mariners, who are decidedly the most remote MLB club at the moment.

 

I lived in Portland for 10 years as a business journalist. I can't disagree with most of this analysis, but I have always had serious doubts about the veracity of the corporate support in the city. The biggest corporations there do very little in the way of local branding: Nike doesn't sponsor anything because they don't feel they need to. Their logo is all over the sport without having to send a nickel on marketing. Outside of local health care players, there isn't a deep well of companies waiting to place their brand on sports franchises. 

 

I can't speak toward an appetite for season tickets. I suppose there's enough law firms and banks and accounting firms and consulting firms of a certain size — all industries in which networking is key — to buy up a few luxury suites. But Portland isn't a city like Seattle, which is littered with billion-dollar companies. It's a mid-sized and small business town, with a few notable exceptions. 

[FiddySicks]

3 hours ago, Bmac said:

One thing I've never really gotten a good sense of - is Oakland even a good MLB market to begin with?

 

I don't doubt that the Bay Area in general is capable of hosting two teams, but I get the vibe that Oakland is kind of just an extension of San Francisco in a way. I didn't pay too much attention when I was there, but going from SF to Oakland seemed like going to a suburb of SF. That's not to say Oakland isn't it's own city, but it felt more like how the Rays play in St Pete as opposed to Tampa proper because that's where the stadium is.

 

There seems to be a good deal of civic pride in Oakland (or at least territorial pride of some sort), but is the city of Oakland itself a worthy MLB market? Is it distinct from the rest of the Bay Area? If the Athletics had been in San Jose all this time would that satisfy the Bay Area market? And if the team leaves the Bay Area completely, will the market feel the need for another team? I don't ask these questions so much out of reality (I know they're not moving to SJ), but more out of curiosity about the market. Like, has it been worth trying to keep the team there this long in the first place?

Oakland has its issues currently, but there was a point when it absolutely could hold its own. There was a time there where the Oakland port was one of, if not the very busiest shipping hubs in the entire country (I think it’s still like 5th) There are several factors and a good handful of missteps that led to its somewhat recent decline, but there was a point not that long ago where Oakland may have been the most important city in the Bay Area. 
 

A’s for the A’s, there were many years where they outdrew the Giants so significantly that the Giants were ready to abandon the market entirely (that’s kind of the other side of these stadium issues). The A’s drew so well at one point that they were the first team in the market to host 2,000,000 fans in a season. Oakland has definitely seen better days and those days where quite a long time ago, but comparing it to cities like, say, Buffalo (which I saw above) doesn’t quite feel right. Oakland has ALWAYS had a much larger profile than any of those rust belt cities. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

1 hour ago, gosioux76 said:

 

I lived in Portland for 10 years as a business journalist. I can't disagree with most of this analysis, but I have always had serious doubts about the veracity of the corporate support in the city. The biggest corporations there do very little in the way of local branding: Nike doesn't sponsor anything because they don't feel they need to. Their logo is all over the sport without having to send a nickel on marketing. Outside of local health care players, there isn't a deep well of companies waiting to place their brand on sports franchises.

 

Point of order: these were pretty sweet:

[LMU]

With the Coliseum, most games require you to take I-880 at rush hour, which is a parking lot and doesn't really have another option other than taking I-580 and taking surface streets.

 

But even though there's BART access, there's still this narrow pedestrian bridge to cross that has a choke point in the middle with a metal post that bootleg t-shirt sellers usually clog up.

 

 

And that's not addressing the stadium itself, with the sewer issues, the leaks (I went to a game with a paper soda cup duct taped to the ceiling) and it being just a giant lifeless aging concrete monstrosity.