MLB Stadium Saga: Oakland/Tampa Bay/Southside

[DukeofChutney]

2 hours ago, NormMacdonald said:

Idk what in sports history would be weirder than the Medicine Hat A's

haha yeah true. That probably would be the definitive 'weirdest move in history' - which is why I'd love to see it.. (I know it won't happen).

 

There are plenty of moves that have happened in the past that probably would have seen as unlikely at the time. (Dodgers leaving Brooklyn, let alone the Giants joining them out West). Plus I'm sure there are dozens of relocations that nearly happened but didn't (ie. Giants to Tampa or Predators to Hamilton).

 

Of course, I appriciate that there's a lot of practical reasons that stop these wild moves these days. (money being the main one).

[MJWalker45]

52 minutes ago, Joke Insurance said:

 

Between San Antonio and Austin, which city do you feel would be better suited?

 

And why 'not really' for Sacramento? Just curious.

San Antonio would be better for more ready made baseball fans, but space wise Austin is probably in a better position. Especially since they just had to do a bunch of survey work on multiple sides for the soccer team. 

[LMU]

9 hours ago, Wings said:

Personally I think Fisher will end up selling the A's to Warriors owner Joe Lacob and a bunch of his rich buddies. They'll build a new ballpark at the Coliseum site and try to revitalize the area around it. A soccer specific stadium for the Oakland Roots might be included in a revitalized complex. 

MLB itself as stated that the Coliseum site is a non-starter.  It's Howard Terminal or bust, regardless of who's writing the checks.

[Wings]

10 minutes ago, LMU said:

MLB itself as stated that the Coliseum site is a non-starter.  It's Howard Terminal or bust, regardless of who's writing the checks.

 

Money can change minds. 

[neo_prankster]

Could the A's just share Oracle Park with the Giants?

[MJWalker45]

4 minutes ago, neo_prankster said:

Could the A's just share Oracle Park with the Giants?

Maybe short term is a possibility, but if San Francisco is willing to do that, why not just give up claims to San Jose? 

[neo_prankster]

Just now, MJWalker45 said:

Maybe short term is a possibility, but if San Francisco is willing to do that, why not just give up claims to San Jose? 

But if the A's do regain the rights to San Jose, could they build a park next door to the Tank?

[FiddySicks]

1 hour ago, neo_prankster said:

Could the A's just share Oracle Park with the Giants?

So, I mentioned a few pages ago how I agreed with the Giants right to claim San Jose. And I very much do. Also, from a legal sense, they have a very strong case. But lets not fool ourselves here, though. In a not so subtle way, the Giants are trying to starve the A’s out of the market completely. They don’t want the competition. They see the market in San Jose and have found a very successful way to tap into that, and don’t want to have to share. From a business standpoint, I understand that. It’s valuable territory and support has already been somewhat fragile. I don’t really think there’s ever been a time where both teams have drawn really well simultaneously, and if there was a time, it was short lived. The Bay Area on the surface seems like it should be able to support multiple teams, but historically it just hasn’t.

 

So, tl;dr, there’s no way the Giants are going to share their park with their main competition, even temporarily, when they’re both trying to wrestle control of an area 25-50 miles south from where either of them play. It would take the league forcing them (which I don’t think they can) or an act of absolutely reckless charity (similar to the A’s giving up the rights in the first place) for that to ever happen. 

[McCall]

1 hour ago, neo_prankster said:

But if the A's do regain the rights to San Jose, could they build a park next door to the Tank?

The A’s never had the rights to San Jose. They were given to the Giants as a condition of the A’s being allowed to move to Oakland. So, no. Because the Giants have no interest in giving up those territorial rights.

[Dilbert]

This got me thinking. Is the Bay Area really big enough to support two teams? They've had the Giants and A's since 1968. They had the 49ers and Raiders from 1960-81 and 1995-19. Sure large metros like New York and LA can handle it but can the Bay Area?

[Walk-Off]

On 5/14/2021 at 3:16 AM, Wings said:

Personally I think Fisher will end up selling the A's to Warriors owner Joe Lacob and a bunch of his rich buddies. They'll build a new ballpark at the Coliseum site and try to revitalize the area around it. A soccer specific stadium for the Oakland Roots might be included in a revitalized complex. 

 

Under the ownership of Joe Lacob and some rich buddies of his, the Golden State Warriors moved out of an arena within the Coliseum campus in Oakland and into a new venue in San Francisco.  So, the idea that Lacob -- whether by himself, with his fellow co-owners of the Warriors, or with a different set of investment partners -- would buy the A's and keep them at the Coliseum site (even with a new stadium inside that property) makes no sense to me at all.

[Alex Houston]

Considering the Bay Area is just under 8 million, in the last population estimates, a second team would totally be plausible. Probable? As the old saying goes, winning fixes everything. 

Though that does beg the question. What would it take for the A's to start becoming the sexy, trendy option compared to the baseball giants across the bridge? With us here in Chicago, geography is a huge part obviously, but I'm not sure if Easy Bay really hates San Fran that much. Maybe Californians are too busy enjoying great weather and a bunch of other amenities, I don't know. You'd think as a Sharks fan, I'd have more of a lead on this, but, eh. 

[The_Admiral]

10 minutes ago, Alex Houston said:

What would it take for the A's to start becoming the sexy, trendy option compared to the baseball giants across the bridge?

 

New park, be good. The A's were the trendy team for a while in the '80s and '90s while the Giants were the loser team in the concrete hellhole.

[tp49]

6 hours ago, Joke Insurance said:

And why 'not really' for Sacramento? Just curious.

No corporate base to draw from, no stadium site, no political will to build a stadium suitable for an MLB team, and murderous summer temperatures just to name a few reason why not.

[McCall]

28 minutes ago, Alex Houston said:

Considering the Bay Area is just under 8 million, in the last population estimates, a second team would totally be plausible. Probable? As the old saying goes, winning fixes everything. 

Though that does beg the question. What would it take for the A's to start becoming the sexy, trendy option compared to the baseball giants across the bridge? With us here in Chicago, geography is a huge part obviously, but I'm not sure if Easy Bay really hates San Fran that much. Maybe Californians are too busy enjoying great weather and a bunch of other amenities, I don't know. You'd think as a Sharks fan, I'd have more of a lead on this, but, eh. 

It will always be big brother (SF)/little brother (Other), but I believe it can work. It just seems that, now, San Jose is the ideal second city to San Francisco. So while it's very possible, it's just not probable given circumstances that are business-related and not necessarily market viability-related.

[MJWalker45]

29 minutes ago, Alex Houston said:

Considering the Bay Area is just under 8 million, in the last population estimates, a second team would totally be plausible. Probable? As the old saying goes, winning fixes everything. 

Though that does beg the question. What would it take for the A's to start becoming the sexy, trendy option compared to the baseball giants across the bridge? With us here in Chicago, geography is a huge part obviously, but I'm not sure if Easy Bay really hates San Fran that much. Maybe Californians are too busy enjoying great weather and a bunch of other amenities, I don't know. You'd think as a Sharks fan, I'd have more of a lead on this, but, eh. 

Winning, and a stadium that isn't falling apart while you're winning. There's a reason they only hosted one All Start Game since 1987 and Cleveland's hosted two. 

[The_Admiral]

The Oakland Coliseum was probably significantly nicer than Candlestick in 1987.

[BBTV]

I've only spent limited time in SF, but I can't really imagine tons of people from the west side of the bridge trying to drive to Alameda county to see the A's.  It would be one thing if there was good mass transit to get there, but I suspect that the geography of the bay kinda naturally creates two markets within one.

[-kj]

East Bay has some of that "Oakland vs everybody" thing going on, especially San Francisco.

[FiddySicks]

9 hours ago, Dilbert said:

This got me thinking. Is the Bay Area really big enough to support two teams? They've had the Giants and A's since 1968. They had the 49ers and Raiders from 1960-81 and 1995-19. Sure large metros like New York and LA can handle it but can the Bay Area?

The Bay Area absolutely has the population to support a second team, but it’s lacking one major thing. The land. The main issue is that you have two metro areas right next to each other, less than 15 miles apart, but they’re separated by a giant body of water with somewhat limited access points in between. If you cut out the bridges, BART, and ferries and went around the bay, it’s nearly 100 miles from Oakland to San Francisco. That in itself creates a bit of an interesting culture separation that I haven’t really seen in other areas. 

 

And pretty much everything around the bay is pretty crammed in with things that would be difficult and expensive to modify. San Francisco itself is only 49 square miles and there really isn’t an inch left to build on. It’s a lot of the same in the East Bay and South Bay, and any of the land left is pretty much in a semi desert climate. If they ever did consider going to go that far out east, they might as well just move to Sacramento at that point.