MLB Stadium Saga: Oakland/Tampa Bay/Southside

[FiddySicks]

1 hour ago, spartacat_12 said:

 

The Las Vegas metro area population has doubled in the last 20 years, and is projected to hit 3 million in the next 5 years. It has been one of the world's major entertainment destinations for decades now, and if it weren't for professional sports' puritanical views on gambling, there would have been teams there a long time ago. Whether or not they land a MLB team, I think the NBA is an inevitability.

 

I'd like to see the A's find a solution that keeps them in the Bay Area, but I'm not sure why so many people have issues with Vegas getting professional sports. This isn't that different than LA getting 3 expansion teams & 2 relocated teams in less than 10 years during the late '50s/'60s.

Well, one issue is that, long term, they have no access to water. That’s probably going to be an enormous problem. They’re also centered in one of the most flat broke states in the country. 

[GDAWG]

1 hour ago, who do you think said:

Too early to speculate about an A's/Rays contraction after the 2027 season?

 

Players Association isn't going to allow it.

[SFGiants58]

2 hours ago, FiddySicks said:

Baseball would honestly be better off just contracting the A’s at this point

 

Honestly, it’s a miracle that the A’s didn’t do a Silver Seven during the ‘30s and fold. The post-29/30 Athletics in Philadelphia were an ugly sight, with Mack opting to cheap out and the team’s fortunes falling apart. This was also in the age before extensive TV deals and sponsorships, which made contraction (along with the St. Louis Browns) much more realistic.

 

There’s an amazing SABR article on the final fall of the Athletics in Philly. Robert D. Washington’s “ Departure Without Dignity: The Athletics Leave Philadelphia” is a must-read for any baseball fan.

[bosrs1]

26 minutes ago, GDAWG said:

 

Players Association isn't going to allow it.

 

Not to mention they're talking expansion right now. They're not going to contract and then expand back to back. If anything they'll forego expansion and just relocate both teams. 

[bosrs1]

3 hours ago, FiddySicks said:

Baseball would honestly be better off just contracting the A’s at this point

 

 

Yikes. I was at a USL soccer game last night that nearly topped that in attendance. I'd say, "poor A's" except they've done this to themselves. And it's likely intentional with their near daily reminders that they're looking at Las Vegas to move. And as I expected it's not driving Oakland to want to help them more, rather it's driving Oakland to say, "piss off and don't let the door hit your backside on the way out of town."

[SFGiants58]

4 minutes ago, bosrs1 said:

 

Not to mention they're talking expansion right now. They're not going to contract and then expand back to back. If anything they'll forego expansion and just relocate both teams. 

Indeed. Chivas USA was the exception, not the norm.

[MJWalker45]

On 6/16/2021 at 10:26 PM, GDAWG said:

Las Vegas if they get the A's: "We are going to make a call to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and MLS Commissioner Don Garber to ask them to give us teams so that we can have teams in all five major league sports, plus indoor football, WNBA and indoor lacrosse!  We are not longer a minor league city!  We are a major league city and we thank Golden Knights Owner Bill Foley and NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman for allowing us to have delusions of grandeur as a major league city!"

Arena football is arriving next year.

2 hours ago, who do you think said:

Too early to speculate about an A's/Rays contraction after the 2027 season?

 

25 minutes ago, GDAWG said:

 

Players Association isn't going to allow it.

The player's association is why the NL still doesn't have the DH. And if MLB tries to contract a team instead of moving it when they're actually doing better now than they were in 1994 they are going to get raked across the coals. 

2 hours ago, spartacat_12 said:

 

The Las Vegas metro area population has doubled in the last 20 years, and is projected to hit 3 million in the next 5 years. It has been one of the world's major entertainment destinations for decades now, and if it weren't for professional sports' puritanical views on gambling, there would have been teams there a long time ago. Whether or not they land a MLB team, I think the NBA is an inevitability.

 

I'd like to see the A's find a solution that keeps them in the Bay Area, but I'm not sure why so many people have issues with Vegas getting professional sports. This isn't that different than LA getting 3 expansion teams & 2 relocated teams in less than 10 years during the late '50s/'60s.

I think that's the one thing that rubs people raw more than anything else. Phoenix just seemed to pop up as the new city to get everything in the 1990's when the Cardinals and Diamondbacks took root there, even though the Suns had been there for a good bit. Las Vegas seems to be taking on that mantle now. I think if you can get people to show up for hockey, it's possible to get some bleed over into baseball fans as well, but they'll need a dome stadium to do it. I also want to see how well the Raiders do this year with fans finally being able to enter the stadium. 

[MJWalker45]

1 minute ago, SFGiants58 said:

Indeed. Chivas USA was the exception, not the norm.

How crap of an owner do you have to be that Don Garber will stop taking your money?

[bosrs1]

2 minutes ago, SFGiants58 said:

Indeed. Chivas USA was the exception, not the norm.

 

Chivas USA was also a mistake from the moment it was announced. One that was such a mistake that the LAFC ownership wanted nothing to do with being linked to it. The A's for all their issues, are still one of the most storied teams in MLB history with over 120 years of history that comes with them. 

[LMU]

35 minutes ago, SFGiants58 said:

Indeed. Chivas USA was the exception, not the norm.

 

32 minutes ago, bosrs1 said:

 

Chivas USA was also a mistake from the moment it was announced. One that was such a mistake that the LAFC ownership wanted nothing to do with being linked to it. The A's for all their issues, are still one of the most storied teams in MLB history with over 120 years of history that comes with them. 

Chivas USA was also dealing with the discrimination lawsuits stemming from ownership firing anyone who didn't speak Spanish.  That, and it's kind of hard to market to fans of a team known for only signing Mexican players by signing mostly non-Mexican players.

[bosrs1]

42 minutes ago, LMU said:

 

Chivas USA was also dealing with the discrimination lawsuits stemming from ownership firing anyone who didn't speak Spanish.  That, and it's kind of hard to market to fans of a team known for only signing Mexican players by signing mostly non-Mexican players.

 

Plus I mean it's not like MLS didn't eventually learn. They didn't do the same thing with Columbus/Austin and instead had Austin come in as an expansion team under Columbus' ownership and left Columbus in the league in the hands of new owners.  Then again, Columbus Crew had a brand (and history) worth saving. 

[MJWalker45]

1 minute ago, bosrs1 said:

 

Plus I mean it's not like MLS didn't eventually learn. They didn't do the same thing with Columbus/Austin and instead had Austin come in as an expansion team under Columbus' ownership and left Columbus in the league in the hands of new owners.  Then again, Columbus Crew had a brand (and history) worth saving. 

It took the fans of the Crew, and the other 25 teams to get the MLS to see that. 

[bosrs1]

29 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

It took the fans of the Crew, and the other 25 teams to get the MLS to see that. 

 

I mean it wasn't without precedent. They got halfway there with the Earthquakes/Dynamo fiasco when they at least had the foresight to leave the San Jose IP in San Jose and found an ownership group pretty quickly to pick it up  making Houston a de jure if not de facto expansion side. But again it was the fans that got them there. 

 

Point is, Chivas was such a :censored:show that no one wanted anything to do with it. I don't even know that they had many pure Chivas USA fans that were really all that upset they shut down. They had no owner. They had no stadium. Hell at the time they didn't even have their own identity as they had no ties to Chivas Guad when they shut down. 

[MJWalker45]

1 minute ago, bosrs1 said:

 

I mean it wasn't without precedent. They got halfway there with the Earthquakes/Dynamo fiasco when they at least had the foresight to leave the San Jose IP in San Jose and found an ownership group pretty quickly to pick it up  making Houston a de jure if not de facto expansion side. But again it was the fans that got them there. 

 

Point is, Chivas was such a :censored:show that no one wanted anything to do with it. I don't even know that they had many pure Chivas USA fans that were really all that upset they shut down. They had no owner. They had no stadium. Hell at the time they didn't even have their own identity as they had no ties to Chivas Guad when they shut down. 

Sharing a stadium with your rival doesn't help either, especially when you weren't winning. I think it helped chase off the idea of a FC Barcelona sponsored team as well, right? 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

This might sound like a smartass question, but it's not: how is NYCFC different than Chivas USA?

[bosrs1]

12 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

This might sound like a smartass question, but it's not: how is NYCFC different than Chivas USA?

 

They don't have race/national origin based hiring practices in place as a centerpiece of the team's culture? That and NYCFC don't really play up the City Football Group ownership much, where Chivas USA was operated as a subsidiary of Guadalajara and that was front and center in everything they did, particularly in the early years. In fact NYCFC seem to play up their minority owners, the Yankees, more than they do their City Football Group owners. And CFG isn't Man City itself, CFG just own all or part of Man City, Melbourne City FC, Montevideo City Torque, Lommel SK, NYCFC, Mumbai City FC, Girona FC, Sichuan Jiuniu FC, Yokohama F. Marinos and Troyes AC.  It's actually quite an impressive portfolio of teams. 

[spartacat_12]

2 hours ago, FiddySicks said:

Well, one issue is that, long term, they have no access to water. That’s probably going to be an enormous problem. They’re also centered in one of the most flat broke states in the country. 

 

Well cities like Phoenix & Miami will likely be uninhabitable by the end of this century, and that doesn't seem to be a concern for pro sports leagues. 

 

1 hour ago, MJWalker45 said:

I think if you can get people to show up for hockey, it's possible to get some bleed over into baseball fans as well, but they'll need a dome stadium to do it. I also want to see how well the Raiders do this year with fans finally being able to enter the stadium. 

 

I don't think the Raiders drawing fans is going to be a problem. Only 9 home games, with most of them happening on the weekend means there will be plenty of out of town fans planning trips there around the schedule. The only issue they might face is that the crowds might be skewed towards the visiting team.

[Brian in Boston]

40 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

This might sound like a smartass question, but it's not: how is NYCFC different than Chivas USA?

NYCFC have picked up as many regular season wins, one more playoff appearance, and one less "Wooden Spoon" in the six seasons and ten matches of their Major League Soccer play to date than Club Deportivo Chivas USA managed in the entirety of its 10-season  MLS existence. 

[bosrs1]

1 hour ago, spartacat_12 said:

 

Well cities like Phoenix & Miami will likely be uninhabitable by the end of this century, and that doesn't seem to be a concern for pro sports leagues. 

 

 

I don't think the Raiders drawing fans is going to be a problem. Only 9 home games, with most of them happening on the weekend means there will be plenty of out of town fans planning trips there around the schedule. The only issue they might face is that the crowds might be skewed towards the visiting team.

Plus the Raiders came with a built in fan base who seem more than willing to make the 8 times a year pilgrimage out to Vegas from SoCal to root for their team. What's 4 hours on the 15 when Las Vegas and it's dirt cheap hotel rooms and your favorite football team are on the other end of the drive. A form of visiting fan to be sure, but at least one that roots for the home team.

 

I think the Golden Knights are more indicative of the kind of support the A's will need to tap into than the Raiders. And it'll require a domed stadium without question, and likely some form of soft rebranding to make the team feel like Las Vegas' team in the same way the Golden Knights were and are Las Vegas's hockey team. An expansion baseball team would have been better, but beggars can't be choosers. But the worst thing I think a Las Vegas A's team could do would be to up and move to Vegas and keep the green and gold, the uniforms, the logos, etc... and all the same trappings of Oakland like the Raiders did. It won't hurt the Raiders much because their brand is uniquely borderless in that their fanbase has always been scattered due to it's odd "rebel" appeal. If anything moving to a more central, vacation oriented destination like Vegas closer to the bulk of their fan base in SoCal will likely have more upside than downside for the Raiders. The A's on the other hand don't have much of a fanbase outside of Oakland proper (and even that's the minority of local baseball fans in Oakland proper). The A's will be largely reliant on local fans like the Knights and will have to work hard to foster that. Which is doable, but it's going to require some big changes to the franchise and its branding. 

[SFGiants58]

I would've loved to see the Anchorage Raiders, just for the lolz. The brand does fit the city, because of how pretty much everybody in Anchorage is there because they're not welcome in their home town/state.