Stadium/Arena Saga Omnibus

[Red Comet]

No, they should keep the Athletics name. Also, IIRC the only reason the Supersonics name didn't move to Oklahoma City with the team is because the City of Seattle made a similar agreement to what the City of Cleveland made with Art Modell except apparently the Thunder would hold all the history until the Sonics return to Seattle. Considering that Oakland didn't attempt to do that with Mark Davis vis a vis the Raiders, there is no way that Oakland would do that for the A's. 

[sky1324]

I'm split on keeping the name - on the one hand, it's a legacy team and the name is literally applicable to any city, but on the other hand, a Montreal baseball not named the Expos is heresy. I also generally prefer city-specific branding, but the A's, like the Raiders, are waaaaay past the point of changing the name being a consideration (with the exception of Montreal).

[BBTV]

31 minutes ago, QCS said:

I'm split on keeping the name - on the one hand, it's a legacy team and the name is literally applicable to any city, but on the other hand, a Montreal baseball not named the Expos is heresy. I also generally prefer city-specific branding, but the A's, like the Raiders, are waaaaay past the point of changing the name being a consideration (with the exception of Montreal).

 

The Expos didn't exactly have Browns-level of support prior to being sold to MLB and eventually moving.  I know there's a lot behind the eventual failure of the Expos that goes beyond fan support, but this doesn't strike me as one of those situations where it has to be the original name if a team comes back.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

On 5/19/2021 at 6:33 PM, habsfan1 said:

I wasn't aware about Philly & KC, until it was pointed out.

 

The A's have worn throwback uniforms of both their Philadelphia and Kansas City years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love seeing these throwbacks, and other similar ones both in baseball, such as the Nationals' Expos uniforms and the Orioles' Browns uniforms, and in other sports, such as the Clippers' Buffalo Braves uniforms, the Titans' Houston Oilers uniforms, and the Hurricanes' Hartford Whalers uniforms.  The most important thing about these sorts of throwbacks is the educational opportunity.  There are plenty of fans who find out about a team's history through these events.

[kolob]

Las Vegas Athletics sounds clumsy, but shorten it to what I’m sure locals will call them — Vegas A’s — and I’m on board.

[GDAWG]

Nice to see Las Vegas is continuing it's delusions of grandeur when it comes to pro sports.

[DnBronc]

1 hour ago, GDAWG said:

Nice to see Las Vegas is continuing it's delusions of grandeur when it comes to pro sports.

 

That hockey team probably won't get any support when it starts losing. We'll see how long it stays there.

[Ridleylash]

2 hours ago, DnBronc said:

That hockey team probably won't get any support when it starts losing. We'll see how long it stays there.

I'd be more concerned with the Raiders, honestly. The Golden Knights got to be the first child and happened to come in right at a very important time for locals, so the city has a stronger connection to them then the Raiders, who from what I've seen haven't had the locals enthusiastic at all. If any of the three potential teams is the least likely to move, it'd be the Knights.

 

The Raiders have a history of bouncing from city to city between Oakland and LA. Them bouncing to Vegas and then bouncing somewhere else isn't exactly unfathomable.

[Red Wolf]

6 hours ago, Ridleylash said:

I'd be more concerned with the Raiders, honestly. The Golden Knights got to be the first child and happened to come in right at a very important time for locals, so the city has a stronger connection to them then the Raiders, who from what I've seen haven't had the locals enthusiastic at all. If any of the three potential teams is the least likely to move, it'd be the Knights.

 

The Raiders have a history of bouncing from city to city between Oakland and LA. Them bouncing to Vegas and then bouncing somewhere else isn't exactly unfathomable.

 

The difference is that the Raiders moved the other times because of stadium issues. They were dissatisfied with the situation in Oakland, then the situation in Los Angeles, and then again in Oakland. In Las Vegas they've finally gotten their fancy new stadium. If they had moved there with the promise of a new stadium while stalling at Sam Boyd Stadium, then they would be a threat to move again.

[Red Comet]

We haven't even seen how Las Vegas will truly support the Raiders yet as the pandemic sabotaged their debut season there. 

 

Why the hell are people thinking that they can support the A's and now an NBA team?  

[tp49]

I wouldn't be concerned about the Raiders in Las Vegas at all.  Ever been on The Strip on a football Sunday?  Nearly everyone walking around is wearing some sort of NFL gear.  The NFL is more conducive to tourism than any of the other major sports and fanbases tend to travel well.  Eight to nine home games a year means that the games are more of an event or tourist attraction, and the nature of Las Vegas being what it is this is the only time it can honestly be said that a team can thrive without huge local support.  Further, the large group of Raider fans still living in the Los Angeles area, and traveled well to Oakland will probably travel to Las Vegas in a similar or greater fashion.  All of this is before we even start talking about locals.  The flashy new stadium walking distance from The Strip also doesn't hurt.

[Wings]

I bet a large chunk of Raiders season ticket holders still reside in California. 

[TBGKon]

This just got reported and I'm curious what it might end up doing, if anything.  The report states that Sternberg's alleged communication could violate the agreement with the City of St Petersburg.

 

Tampa Bay Rays minority owners say Sternberg secretly negotiated Montreal deal in new lawsuit

[Ridleylash]

13 minutes ago, TBGKon said:

This just got reported and I'm curious what it might end up doing, if anything.  The report states that Sternberg's alleged communication could violate the agreement with the City of St Petersburg.

 

Tampa Bay Rays minority owners say Sternberg secretly negotiated Montreal deal in new lawsuit

Stu Sternberg. Hope Vinik comes in and gets the Rays; he'd make them a far better franchise with how well the Lightning have done since he took over.

[SFGiants58]

37 minutes ago, TBGKon said:

This just got reported and I'm curious what it might end up doing, if anything.  The report states that Sternberg's alleged communication could violate the agreement with the City of St Petersburg.

 

Tampa Bay Rays minority owners say Sternberg secretly negotiated Montreal deal in new lawsuit

 

This really isn't a surprise, given that Bronfman was at a Rays playoff game in 2019, during talks to become a minority owner.

 

 

Also, this was known over a year ago:

 

The whole situation is scummy as all heck, and believe me, I've seen and researched many a scummy tactic with my series. Like the more blatant ones, this just feels like it'll end in a courtroom or a settlement, with only whatever fans the Rays have (or prospective neo-Expos fans) getting hurt.

 

Tampa Bay was a mistake of an expansion, created only to keep Vince Naimoli and company from threatening MLB's antitrust exemption after so many MLB clubs blue-balled that market to get new stadiums. History has proven George Steinbrenner right when he said, in reference to St. Petersburg trying to build a stadium, "Don't build it. They won't come."¹ While it was intentional disinformation on Steinbrenner's part to discredit stadium efforts for his own reasons, the way the expansion has transpired has demonstrated a genuine insight into the market.

 

¹ Bob Andelman and Lori Parsells, Stadium For Rent: Tampa Bay’s Quest for Major League Baseball, 2nd edition (St. Petersburg, FL: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015), xiv. 

[Ridleylash]

1 hour ago, SFGiants58 said:

Tampa Bay was a mistake of an expansion, created only to keep Vince Naimoli and company from threatening MLB's antitrust exemption after so many MLB clubs blue-balled that market to get new stadiums. History has proven George Steinbrenner right when he said, in reference to St. Petersburg trying to build a stadium, "Don't build it. They won't come."¹ While it was intentional disinformation on Steinbrenner's part to discredit stadium efforts for his own reasons, the way the expansion has transpired has demonstrated a genuine insight into the market.

Honestly, though, I feel like this whole thing does more to discredit the location for the Trop over the actual support the region has for baseball. The Rays do well for a smaller-market team locally when it comes to viewership, so I don't think it's the overall region that's the problem here, necessarily.

 

The biggest part of the problem for the Rays is that they're not the Lightning, they're the Loria Expos.

 

They don't have Jeff Vinik pushing them to great success by spending; they have Stu Sternberg, an owner that's willing to spend more effort plotting ways to move than he is to try and actually make an honest college try out of the Tampa Bay region.

They don't have a really nice centrally-located park to play out of that's easy for people to get to, they have a decrepit fossil that's a pain in the ass to travel to and from if you don't live in one specific part of the area.

 

Combine a cheapass owner everybody in the local area hates with a decrepit venue that's not fun to travel to or fun to be in and most franchises would struggle.

[Quillz]

So was last year's World Series berth more of a fluke, or do they really have something there that will keep them competitive?

[SFGiants58]

50 minutes ago, Ridleylash said:

Honestly, though, I feel like this whole thing does more to discredit the location for the Trop over the actual support the region has for baseball. The Rays do well for a smaller-market team locally when it comes to viewership, so I don't think it's the overall region that's the problem here, necessarily.

 

They don't have Jeff Vinik pushing them to great success by spending; they have Stu Sternberg, an owner that's willing to spend more effort plotting ways to move than he is to try and actually make an honest college try out of the Tampa Bay region.

They don't have a really nice centrally-located park to play out of that's easy for people to get to, they have a decrepit fossil that's a pain in the ass to travel to and from if you don't live in one specific part of the area.

 

Or, maybe the market is the problem. While viewership has apparently been high, it has never translated into ticket sales or any sustained presence in the region. At some point, it can't all be the stadium or the location or the owner. There has never been any string of attendance success with the Rays. During the '08 pennant run, the team had to give away playoff tickets.

 

Give. Away. Playoff. Tickets.

 

 

Even the worst days of Candles**t, the Giants never gave away playoff tickets. The A's have never given away playoff tickets. That's a new level of bad.

 

50 minutes ago, Ridleylash said:

Combine a cheapass owner everybody in the local area hates with a decrepit venue that's not fun to travel to or fun to be in and most franchises would struggle.

 

Fair, but even a good owner and a good stadium can't overcome the outright lack of interest the region shows in the Rays. It was a Jacksonville Jaguars/Atlanta Thrashers-level error. Two bad ownership groups crippled whatever miniscule chance the team had of being successful, but let's not pretend like regular season MLB was doing well in the Tampa Bay Area after over a decade of blue-balling by MLB. I want Tampa Bay baseball to work, I really do, but I just don't think it was ever going to work in the long or short term.

[Gothamite]

1 hour ago, Ridleylash said:

Honestly, though, I feel like this whole thing does more to discredit the location for the Trop over the actual support the region has for baseball. The Rays do well for a smaller-market team locally when it comes to viewership, so I don't think it's the overall region that's the problem here, necessarily.

 

The television ratings are helped by a disproportionate number of games against the Yankees and the Red Sox, the Tampa Bay area's two favorite teams.

[SFGiants58]

44 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

 

The television ratings are helped by a disproportionate number of games against the Yankees and the Red Sox, the Tampa Bay area's two favorite teams.

 

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm curious about the evidence of the ratings breakdown per team. I doubt the Rays or their network affiliate want to make it public. What would the 38 Yankees and Red Sox games draw in comparison to the other 124 games?

 

I hear the Yankees-Red Sox sound bite often enough that I want some evidentiary proof. Again, I'm not totally disputing it, I'm just wondering about the statistical validity.