MLB Stadium Saga: Oakland/Tampa Bay/Southside

[Walk-Off]

I think that this thread is overdue for these two links:

 

https://www.tampabay.com/news/st-petersburg/2021/06/04/the-rays-the-mayor-and-montreal-st-petersburgs-stadium-drama-explained/

 

https://www.tampabay.com/st-petersburg/i-say-let-them-go-st-petersburgs-black-community-is-indifferent-to-rays-fate-20190703/

[Gothamite]

 

On 6/1/2021 at 3:24 PM, SFGiants58 said:

Seriously, Inter Miami should suck it up and play there. MLS in general should remove the SSS requirement from the league. 

MLS does not have a SSS requirement.

 

It has a “control your stadium” requirement, to ensure that its teams aren’t tenants in somebody else’s park, without access to the revenue streams that a primary tenant controls even when someone else is using the stadium.

 

So when MLS teams share ownership with the primary tenant of a stadium (like in Seattle or New York City), MLS can write the contract guaranteeing the soccer club a measure of most-favored status in the stadium, they’re plenty happy to put its club in a non-SSS. 

[Gothamite]

On 6/1/2021 at 7:31 PM, Red Comet said:

NYCFC isn’t for lack of trying, though. Just a cursory look into the situation tells me I really need to look into that whole saga because it looks like one hell of a doozy. I don’t think NYCFC is in any danger of moving at all but it really is reminiscent of the DC United situation with RFK and that team’s near 2 decade long fight for a stadium site.

The difference is that MLS was so desperate for a New York team that they were willing to put the club in a stadium situation nobody liked. 
 

And also, don’t forget that MLS had previously spent several years trying to build a NYC stadium on their own.  They knew how hard it was, they knew what they were getting into, and the upside was still important enough to them that they went right ahead with it. 

[Gothamite]

On 6/1/2021 at 7:22 PM, waltere said:

I may be wrong, but isn't the case with MLS that their preferred option is an SSS, but they'll allow otherwise as long as there's ownership crossover between the team and the stadium, because it's about not having their teams be tenants of somebody else. Hence how Arthur Blank's Atlanta FC are allowed to share Megatron's butthole with the Falcons, NYCFC sharing with the Yankees, and I assume the Sounders must therefore share owners with the Seahawks.

You are absolutely correct.  
 

when the Sounders came into the league, they shared ownership with the Seahawks. 

[bosrs1]

14 hours ago, Gothamite said:

You are absolutely correct.  
 

when the Sounders came into the league, they shared ownership with the Seahawks. 

 

Didn't hurt that the Sounders can nearly fill their NFL venue on a weekly basis. 

[Gothamite]

9 minutes ago, bosrs1 said:

Didn't hurt that the Sounders can nearly fill their NFL venue on a weekly basis. 

 

They don't, actually.  They don't usually open the upper levels, unless it's a rivalry game or playoff.  Not that I'm knocking them at all for that; it's still very impressive. 

 

But nobody knew that at the time they were admitted into the league.  That's not why they were allowed to play in an NFL stadium.

 

[bosrs1]

52 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

 

They don't, actually.  They don't usually open the upper levels, unless it's a rivalry game or playoff.  Not that I'm knocking them at all for that; it's still very impressive. 

 

But nobody knew that at the time they were admitted into the league.  That's not why they were allowed to play in an NFL stadium.

 

 

No but I think it gave MLS the confidence to allow similar set ups going forward in ATL, NYCFC, Nashville, and even the move back to Chicago proper. 

 

 

[Gothamite]

1 hour ago, bosrs1 said:

No but I think it gave MLS the confidence to allow similar set ups going forward in ATL, NYCFC, Nashville, and even the move back to Chicago proper. 

 

It really didn't.   I can say that with absolute certainty for NYCFC. 

 

Nashville was admitted after they got their own stadium plan passed.  Atlanta got in under the rule that existed before Seattle was admitted.  If Seattle was that kind of game-changer, we'd see other expansion teams in NFL stadiums unrelated to their ownership groups.  Which we haven't.

 

And Chicago?   That's more desperation than anything.  But it's also not an expansion club.

[Walk-Off]

On 6/10/2021 at 1:22 PM, bosrs1 said:

Oakland has always been somewhat dysfunctional at the local governmental level, more so that even most California cities are accused of being even with getting those supportive measures that are palatable. You have multiple points of view that don't like to see eye to eye to get things done. And the Coliseum site and its teams were a prime example. You have not only Oakland but Alameda County as having been stake holders in that (so double the government double the problems, particularly since Oakland and AlCo don't work well together and never have).  AlCo in particular just wants out of the sport business. And Oakland has mixed feelings about where the A's want to build as it's prohibitively expensive (the whole project is $12 billion and they're still asking the city for the equivalent of $897 million in indirect subsidies, and half the city council can't understand why they just don't build and redevelop where the existing stadium is instead for far less.

 

Those tensions between the Oakland and Alameda County governments seemed to have added another chapter yesterday, as multiple members of the AlCo Board of Supervisors indicated that they (a) want a say when it comes to the Athletics' plan for Howard Terminal and (b) want to move at a noticeably slower pace on this matter than do their counterparts at Oakland's city hall.

 

https://newballpark.org/2021/06/15/6-15-alameda-county-board-of-supervisors-meeting-on-howard-terminal/

[GDAWG]

I read somewhere that A's management will be visiting Las Vegas again next week.

[LMU]

2 hours ago, Walk-Off said:

 

Those tensions between the Oakland and Alameda County governments seemed to have added another chapter yesterday, as multiple members of the AlCo Board of Supervisors indicated that they (a) want a say when it comes to the Athletics' plan for Howard Terminal and (b) want to move at a noticeably slower pace on this matter than do their counterparts at Oakland's city hall.

 

https://newballpark.org/2021/06/15/6-15-alameda-county-board-of-supervisors-meeting-on-howard-terminal/

This is the same reason that the LA Coliseum was such a clusterf*** before USC took over from the "Coliseum Commission." Too many politicians with no management/architecture/finance experience think that their grand vision trumps everyone else's grand vision.

[bosrs1]

4 hours ago, Walk-Off said:

 

Those tensions between the Oakland and Alameda County governments seemed to have added another chapter yesterday, as multiple members of the AlCo Board of Supervisors indicated that they (a) want a say when it comes to the Athletics' plan for Howard Terminal and (b) want to move at a noticeably slower pace on this matter than do their counterparts at Oakland's city hall.

 

https://newballpark.org/2021/06/15/6-15-alameda-county-board-of-supervisors-meeting-on-howard-terminal/

 

I mean what say do they think they're entitled to? It's not county land involved as I understand it or county tax revenues. Plus they expressed a desire to get out of the stadium game pretty definitively and now are having second thoughts? God I hate East Bay politics. 

 

One of the main reasons I became a stronger Padres fans after moving south than I otherwise would have been was I was long past tired of all of the off field bullcrap surrounding the A's, their stadium hunt, their continually cheapskate billionaire owners and indeed their dysfunctional city/county. 

[bosrs1]

2 hours ago, LMU said:

This is the same reason that the LA Coliseum was such a clusterf*** before USC took over from the "Coliseum Commission." Too many politicians with no management/architecture/finance experience think that their grand vision trumps everyone else's grand vision.

 

Microcosm of everything wrong with politics today. Everyone has seemingly forgotten politics is by definition a series of compromises. No one should get everything they want, everyone should have to give and get about half of what they're asking for. But I agree, Oakland/AlCo was on the right track disengaging AlCo from the stadium game. If AlCo wants back in, forget it. The County and City are at such loggerheads lately that I doubt anything would get done, and not in the timetable the A's want. 

 

And yes the A's are already planning a return trip to Vegas. 

 

https://www.8newsnow.com/sports/west-coast-sports/as-making-return-trip-to-las-vegas/

[Red Comet]

Politicians and billionaires are stubborn fools who see compromise in the same light as a 4 letter word that starts with the same letter. More news at 11.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Red Comet

[GDAWG]

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!"

[Walk-Off]

7 hours ago, bosrs1 said:

I mean what say do they think they're entitled to? It's not county land involved as I understand it or county tax revenues. Plus they expressed a desire to get out of the stadium game pretty definitively and now are having second thoughts?

 

7 hours ago, bosrs1 said:

Everyone has seemingly forgotten politics is by definition a series of compromises. No one should get everything they want, everyone should have to give and get about half of what they're asking for. But I agree, Oakland/AlCo was on the right track disengaging AlCo from the stadium game. If AlCo wants back in, forget it. The County and City are at such loggerheads lately that I doubt anything would get done, and not in the timetable the A's want.

 

https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2021/06/16/county-to-oakland-not-so-fast-on-that-waterfront-ballpark-tax-plan/

 

https://www.rickeyblog.com/2021/06/16/22-observations-from-the-as-new-stadium-meeting-with-alameda-county-oakland/

 

According to these two articles, the City of Oakland actually requested that the Alameda County Board of Supervisors sign off before the end of this month on a tax district that would help fund the infrastructure improvements needed to facilitate a ballpark and a neighboring mixed-use development at Howard Terminal.  Thus, the AlCo government might be quite justified in wanting the right to have formal input on the A's proposal for Howard Terminal and/or desiring that the process move more slowly.  In other words, Oakland's politicos are apparently dragging their AlCo peers into this issue, and the county's powers-that-be are giving their first obvious bit of pushback.

 

I apologize if I had implied that AlCo's supervisors had made an unprovoked, fully voluntary choice to involve themselves in this project.

Edited June 17, 2021 by Walk-Off
added a link to a second article

[FiddySicks]

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

 

[who do you think]

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

[spartacat_12]

On 6/16/2021 at 11:26 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!"

 

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.

[gosioux76]

35 minutes 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 actually find this all quite interesting. Most of us, I presume, weren't around to watch Los Angeles' rapid growth in the early 20th century. Most of the sentiment around the Dodgers seems rooted in Brooklyn's loss. But I wonder whether there wasn't also this sort of "Los Angeles doesn't deserve pro sports" attitude back then, too? 

 

It's easy to still envision Las Vegas as some sort of backwater novelty, particularly if you're only paying attention at surface level. But @spartacat_12's right: Vegas' rapid population growth, combined with the enormous amount of wealth that floods into that city, has given it a more than sufficient foundation to host multiple professional teams.  And its MSA is already larger than Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Kansas City,  Indianapolis, Cleveland, Nashville, Milwaukee and several other markets that already host more than one pro top-level team.