Stadium/Arena Saga Omnibus

[habsfan1]

I wish they'd finally build that baseball stadium, so MTL can finally welcome the Expos back. Still to this day, a large quantity of fans miss "Nos z'Amours".

[SFGiants58]

5 minutes ago, GDAWG said:

I find it interesting that for a decade Tampa wanted an MLB team and when they finally get one, people don't care.

 

It's much, much more complicated than that. I'll try to keep this short (LOL):

 

- The stadium in St. Petersburg, Florida Suncoast Dome/Tropicana Field/The Thunderdome, was built in a relatively inaccessible part of the market. It was constructed on top of a former gas plant in a neighborhood of downtown St. Pete that was "blighted" (dogwhistle used by city planners). It was too far from the large population centers in Pinellas and Hillsborough Counties, and as @See Red explained:

 

19 hours ago, See Red said:

Tampa itself is a bit of a mess with its sprawl and is considered a pretty miserable city for commuters to start with.  The stadium isn't near the population centers and it isn't near the wealth.  As far as I know, there isn't much in the way of public transportation to get from Tampa to the stadium in St. Pete and commuting there requires crossing one of two bridges and one of them, I-275, is one of the most congested roads in the country.

15 hours ago, See Red said:

They could be the 1927 Yankees and I'm still not crossing the Howard Frankland Bridge into St. Pete during rush hour to watch them play the freakin' Baltimore Orioles in a Costco. 

 

- The Trop is in such a poor location and is such a relatively-awful stadium (basically a warehouse with a baseball field), and the Rays have had such low lows over the years, it's easy to see why locals won't go to it.

 

- Despite the location being an issue, St. Pete city officials committed to building on the site in 1982 to "one up" Tampa in terms of getting a sports team and transforming the image of St. Pete away from that of a "retirement community." People in Tampa proper had a plan for a privately-funded stadium next to where the Bucs play (a far better location), but some money issues and the Trop's impending construction made that impossible.

 

- Jerry Reinsdorf's plan to blackmail the Illinois state legislature into building him a new stadium involved baiting St. Pete with a proposal to move the White Sox to The Trop when it was completed. T-shirts were even made, which I recreated.

 

 

- Jerry's interest sped up work on completing the Trop by 1989/90, which was for naught when the Illinois state legislature cleared public money for the White Sox.

 

 

- The hastened work on The Trop proved to be a problem for Morsani's group, which had failed to procure a team. They tried to acquire a majority interest in the Twins to move them, but that failed. They even tried with the A's and Rangers (maybe the Pirates too), both of which went awry. After The Trop's completing, plans for a Tampa stadium fell apart and Morsani committed to St. Pete's domed venue.

 

- When the 1991 expansion came around, both Morsani's group and a group led by St. Petersburg Cardinals owners/cousins Steve Porter and Joel Schur (outsiders, mind you) both led expansion groups. Morsani named the prospective team the Florida Panthers (after the failure, he sold the name to Huizenga for the NHL club), while Porter and Schur would've gone with the Florida or Tampa Bay Whitecaps.

 

 

- Morsani's group didn't make the initial cut of teams, while Porter and Schur's group got annihilated by money problems at the last minute. I go into more detail in my Defunct Saga posts:

 

 

- After this, Tampa Bay city officials, along with interested local businessmen like Vince Naimoli set their sights on teams with shaky stadium situations. The first was the Mariners, who were spared relocation by the (then-controversial) purchase of the team by Nintendo.

 

 

- The emerging ownership group, led by Naimoli, then pounced on the Giants. The Giants had recently failed to secure public funding for stadiums in San Francisco, Santa Clara County, and a big one in San José. It's such a long story, I'm just going to quote post all of what I wrote there:

 

On 1/8/2019 at 4:32 AM, SFGiants58 said:

TAMPA BAY GIANTS – A giant misstep averted

 

Tampa Bay Sweepstakes Introduction

 

This Tampa Bay Sweepstakes entry is a doozy. It’ll be a little different from previous entries, as we have prototypes and a more complex story. Also, as a Giants fan, I have a bit more to say. Prepare for the longest post yet in this thread, with oodles of information!

 

After the San José failure in June 1992, Giants owner Bob Lurie put the team up for sale, announcing that he would consider both local and outside offers. Also, Commissioner Fay Vincent cleared the team to explore “relocation options” (but not to relocate). When no local bids immediately came, Lurie sent out team vice president Corey Busch to investigate relocation cities. Busch, of course, encountered Rick Dodge and Jack Critchfield.¹

 

Both Dodge and Critchfield were ready for Lurie. They had assembled an ownership group, led by Vince Naimoli, Vincent Piazza (father of Mike Piazza), and Vincent Tirendi. After impressing Busch in early July 1992, Lurie opened negotiations. On August 6, the Naimoli group flew to San Francisco to make a deal. They reached an agreement in principle to buy the team for $115 million (with a $10 million loan from Lurie). With a jubilant press conference in St. Petersburg the following day and several months of promoting the market, it seemed like Tampa Bay would finally have its team.²

 

 

(Dodge & co.’s joy contrasted with future San Francisco Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford’s dismay.³)

 

Meanwhile, San Francisco mayor Frank Jordan was trying to stop relocation. He had contacted Walter Shorenstein in June to form a group of investors to buy the team. They had several lead investors, the most notable being Charlotte Hornets owner George Shinn, who arrived in August 1992. However, Shinn didn’t have enough capital to present a credible bid. After ejecting Shinn, the group recovered by upping various stakes and including a $10 million loan from Lurie, the same one he gave to the St. Petersburg bid.⁴

 

The timing worked well in San Francisco’s favor. The baseball owners ousted Commissioner Vincent in August, delaying discussions and leaving National League President Bill White (a former Giant) as the majors’ leader. On September 9, White gave the San Francisco investors an October 12 deadline to put together their bid. Naimoli protested that Lurie couldn’t consider a new deal until the St. Petersburg bid was off the table. White’s response was that it was the majors, not Lurie, considering the bid. Lurie’s loan did complicate things, but White’s reasoning was sound.⁵

 

With Safeway chairman Peter Magowan now leading the San Francisco group, the local investors presented a $95 million (later $100 million) offer on October 11. Now, the NL owners felt confident enough in the local investors to strike down the St. Petersburg group’s bid by a 9-4 vote. Despite the $15 million difference, the clubs decided that keeping the Giants in San Francisco was the right move.⁶

 

So, why did White give the San Francisco investors leeway and why did the owners decline a larger offer? Here are several reasons:

• MLB’s TV contract with CBS was in a tenuous position. Falling ratings saw CBS wanting to renegotiate their contract for a lower price. Moving a team from San Francisco (the 5^th-largest market) to Tampa Bay (the 13^th-largest market), would have turned the $1.06 billion CBS contract into a $500 million deal. Each team stood to lose $5 - $10 million. High-ranking CBS employee Larry Baer’s presence in the San Francisco group lends credence to this hypothesis.⁷
• Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley publicly opposed Tampa Bay’s bid. One can assume that it was both out of a sense of history (i.e., preserve the rivalry) and for financial reasons (e.g., travel costs and EST games – which is also why the Rockies and Padres’ ownership opposed the move). Like with Stoneham trying to move to Minneapolis, an O’Malley intervened to keep the Giants from being idiots.⁸
• Stadium for Rent argues that Wayne Huizenga and his Florida Marlins wanted to have some exclusivity in the state. Huizenga opposed the Mariners move, while also arguing for a “transfer fee” to compensate his club.⁹ Even though he ultimately voted in favor of the Naimoli bid (along with the Cubs, Cardinals, and Phillies), Huizenga’s opposition was notable.¹⁰ The book also suggests that the racism Bill White faced in St. Petersburg while playing motivated him to stop the move. That’s a bit dubious.¹¹

 

TL;DR: The dude in my avatar as Frank Jordan/the San Francisco investors/Bill White and his lady opponent as the Naimoli group.

 

 

This move would have been disastrous for baseball, from both a financial and historical perspective. A smaller TV deal have been a problem for small-market teams. The move also would have killed one of the greatest rivalries in baseball and condemned a legacy franchise to play in deeper obscurity. Maybe my biases are leading me to exaggerate the consequences of the move, I’m not sure. But the point stands – the Tampa Bay Giants should never have happened.

 

 

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), 330; Robert F. Garratt, Home Team: The Turbulent History of the San Francisco Giants (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2017), 155–56.

² Andelman and Parsells, Stadium For Rent, 331–41, 366–68; Garratt, Home Team, 158–59.

³ Andelman and Parsells, Stadium For Rent, 343; Gabe Zaldivar, “Giants’ Brandon Crawford 5-Year Old Self Featured in Coolest World Series Story,” Bleacher Report, October 26, 2012, https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1386320-giants-brandon-crawford-5-year-old-self-featured-in-coolest-world-series-story; Ann Killion, “Brandon Crawford: Living the Dream - SFGate,” SFGate, October 8, 2012, https://www.sfgate.com/giants/article/Brandon-Crawford-living-the-dream-3930508.php.

⁴ Garratt, Home Team, 156–67.

⁵ Andelman and Parsells, Stadium For Rent, 370–71, 374–75; Garratt, Home Team, 165–66.

⁶ Garratt, Home Team, 167–69.

⁷ Andelman and Parsells, Stadium For Rent, 387–89.

⁸ Andelman and Parsells, 375–76, 385; Garratt, Home Team, 169.

⁹ Andelman and Parsells, Stadium For Rent, 389–91.

¹⁰ Garratt, Home Team, 169.

¹¹ Andelman and Parsells, Stadium For Rent, xv.

¹² Andelman and Parsells, 377; “FIELD OF DREAMS; SAINT PETERSBURG, FLORIDA, SEEKS BASEBALL TEAM BUT IS SHUT OUT,” accessed November 18, 2018, https://advance-lexis-com.ezproxy.lib.uwm.edu/document/?pdmfid=1516831&crid=7789a833-5ce1-4b6f-8909-a6c0aee3ca68&pddocfullpath=%2Fshared%2Fdocument%2Fnews%2Furn%3AcontentItem%3A3SJK-KVY0-009C-B4RR-00000-00&pddocid=urn%3AcontentItem%3A3SJK-KVY0-009C-B4RR-00000-00&pdcontentcomponentid=166768&pdteaserkey=sr1&pditab=allpods&ecomp=5ynk&earg=sr1&prid=4d68ebef-a86a-43f8-bba3-8c5808eabf59.

 

 

- After that fell through, Naimoli issued a $3.5 billion lawsuit against baseball’s antitrust exemption proved to be enough of a credible threat to get expansion rolling in 1995. Tampa Bay would finally have a team, with Naimoli at the helm. One of his original naming plans was Sting Rays, but he wouldn’t pay $100,000 to a Hawaiian league team for the rights. This, of course, led to the Devil Rays name (with the "Manta Rays" phone poll), which in turn prompted the “ray of light” rebranding.

 

- Naimoli's cheapness continued, with a lack of a team e-mail, refusal to let outside food in, and constant tantrums about media coverage. The Rays being mierda for the first ten seasons was not helping matters.

 

 

- Naimoli eventually sold the team to Stu, who assembled a powerful front office and let them run their business largely uninterrupted. However, Stu's cheapness with players led to the now-successful Rays losing key players regularly and constant anxiety over the stadium situation. 

 

- Stu and company have floated numerous proposals over the years, each one using mostly public money. Each one has been pretty scuttled. These include:

 

• Al Lang Field site, scuttled 2008

 

• Carillion, scuttled 2012

 

• Ybor City, scuttled 2018 but revived this year

 

- In 2019, in the midst of continued stadium woes and heavily-romaticized Expos nostalgia reaching a peak, Stu announced the split-season plan between two new ballparks in the Tampa Bay Area and Montréal. This was a very stupid plan and mocked thoroughly. This is not exactly a way to increase fan interest, either.

 

 

- Now, Stu wants to revive Ybor for the split-season, while Stephen Bronfman (the prospective Montréal owner) wants to get public money from Quebec to build a stadium (dude, are you for real?)

 

- Meanwhile, Stu is being sued by the other Rays owners for negotiating secretly with Bronfman, which could cost Stu his ownership stake.

 

 

So, that's where we stand with Tampa Bay baseball. It's a big mess as to why fans "don't care" about it. The stadium, ownership, and a bit of the history dissuade them from caring.

[who do you think]

On 5/27/2021 at 1:53 AM, neo_prankster said:

There's gotta be a way to keep the T-Wolves in Minnesota.

 

If the NBA expands to Seattle and Vegas as rumored, where would the Wolves even go? No other city makes sense over just keeping them where they are.

If anything moving Minnesota to the east and hoping some Great Lakes rivalries spring up would seem to be the play.

[Ridleylash]

6 minutes ago, who do you think said:

If the NBA expands to Seattle and Vegas as rumored, where would the Wolves even go? No other city makes sense over just keeping them where they are.

If anything moving Minnesota to the east and hoping some Great Lakes rivalries spring up would seem to be the play.

Silver seems to think Vancouver should get a second shot, and having SEA-VAN-PTL all in one division seems like the obvious play. If not Vegas, I think Vancouver makes sense as a landing spot for the T-Wolves.

[who do you think]

12 minutes ago, Ridleylash said:

Silver seems to think Vancouver should get a second shot, and having SEA-VAN-PTL all in one division seems like the obvious play. If not Vegas, I think Vancouver makes sense as a landing spot for the T-Wolves.

 

Vancouver lasted six seasons the first time around, has about two-thirds the population of Minneapolis-St. Paul, and you're still gonna be second fiddle to the NHL. I don't see it.

[Walk-Off]

Yesterday, an anchor of the morning newscast on the Bay Area's Fox station interviewed Dave Kaval:

 

https://www.ktvu.com/video/938385

 

Kaval talked up the Las Vegas option so much in that interview that I have come away with the impression that Kaval, A's principal owner John Fisher, et al. are now to MLB, Oakland, and Las Vegas what Anthony Precourt was to Major League Soccer, Columbus, and Austin, respectively -- people who are eager to try to move a big-league pro sports team from a fairly large city that seems to be too boring for their tastes to an area that has noticeably fewer residents but also a considerably more exciting image (be it the hip, socioculturally cool, "weird" reputation of Austin or the hedonistic glitz of Las Vegas).

[Walk-Off]

20 hours ago, Crabcake said:

As @Walk-Off said in the A’s thread, with how much discussion we’ve had recently about Tampa (both in the past, and the present), at this point it deserves its own thread. So here we go!

 

I am quite sure that I made that suggestion in the 2021 MLB season thread, but I appreciate the shout-out just the same.

 

Anyway, Josh Solomon, a St. Petersburg city hall reporter for the Tampa Bay Times, has made a detailed thread of tweets recapping this past week's developments in the Rays' stadium saga:

 

https://twitter.com/ByJoshSolomon/status/1398399480874086404

 

Also, Charlie Frago, a co-worker of Solomon's who covers Tampa city hall matters, has revealed what one Tampa City Council member claims to have heard recently from Rays officials with regard to one potential option for the team's future:

 

https://www.tampabay.com/news/tampa/2021/05/28/are-the-rays-listening-to-music-city-siren-songs/

[Red Comet]

At least Austin has a pretty bright future. The only way a team stays viable in Vegas is if Vegas maintains  its relative monopoly on high-end gambling/entertainment. Forget the potential future water issues, what do you think is going to happen the more states legalize sports gambling and/or decide to host their own palatial casinos? 

[SFGiants58]

It becomes the Atlantic City of the west, minus all the failed Trump business ventures. That’s not political, that’s just a fact.

 

It also doesn’t have the boardwalk or the reputation for filth that AC has.

[DEAD!]

1 hour ago, SFGiants58 said:

It becomes the Atlantic City of the west, minus all the failed Trump business ventures. That’s not political, that’s just a fact.

 

It also doesn’t have the boardwalk or the reputation for filth that AC has.

I would like to think Laughlin as the Atlantic City of the west. 

[ManillaToad]

hearing rumors of the A's moving to Branson, Missouri

[BBTV]

My friends and I go to a lot of baseball games after work, but I don't think we would if we couldn't (2 of us) take the subway straight down, (1 of us) walk an easy 2-mile walk), (1 of us) take the subway with a connection but still get from the NoLibs to stadiums in 20 mins.  If I had to drive at all, even if it was relatively convenient, I'd go to far fewer games (if any at all), because I don't like having even one weak-ass beer and driving, let alone dealing with traffic.  If it was a PiTA, there's no way I'd go to a game - probably even a WS game.  I think the stadium location and logistical issues are certainly completely valid points to be made about why it's failed, but there's not any evidence that shows that investing in a new park would pay dividends.  In conclusion, get rid of your cars.

[neo_prankster]

9 hours ago, ManillaToad said:

hearing rumors of the A's moving to Branson, Missouri

Are you sure they're not going to Bronson, Missouri?

[Sec19Row53]

2 hours ago, BBTV said:

[snip]  In conclusion, get rid of your cars.

Or, get out of the corridor in which you live and see that there are other ways to look at it.

[DG_YouKnowWhatThatMeans]

1 minute ago, Sec19Row53 said:

Or, get out of the corridor in which you live and see that there are other ways to look at it.

 

No, he's right. Our world is too dependent on automobiles at the detriment of our health.

 

I have a car and I chose the home I live that requires it; I just wish it weren't necessary. We waste a lot of time building highways and parking structures instead of more efficient transit. Especially to baseball and football stadiums.

[DEAD!]

That is probably why I am grateful the Blue Jays play where they are.

You can get there by subway (if you coming from the west end, I would recommend transferring to a streetcar at Spadina) . You get there by train from the west and east suburbs (lakeshore though) . Coming in from the northern suburbs might still be a P.i.t.A. 

I also liked going to the Giants game I went to because it was near the Cal Trans station (coming in from San Mateo)?

 

I have driven to downtown on game nights ( not to watch a game,  but for other errands). While it can be manageable to drive to and from the area during times when the Jays are not doing good, I had a not as fun experience in driving out after the 2016 wild card game.

 

The greater point is that, any planned sporting facility should have location and a mass transit component factored in the planning . 

[Sec19Row53]

8 hours ago, DEAD! said:

That is probably why I am grateful the Blue Jays play where they are.

You can get there by subway (if you coming from the west end, I would recommend transferring to a streetcar at Spadina) . You get there by train from the west and east suburbs (lakeshore though) . Coming in from the northern suburbs might still be a P.i.t.A. 

I also liked going to the Giants game I went to because it was near the Cal Trans station (coming in from San Mateo)?

 

I have driven to downtown on game nights ( not to watch a game,  but for other errands). While it can be manageable to drive to and from the area during times when the Jays are not doing good, I had a not as fun experience in driving out after the 2016 wild card game.

 

The greater point is that, any planned sporting facility should have location and a mass transit component factored in the planning . 

So where those things don't already exist, who pays for them? And why?

 

Four stadia in Wisconsin come to mind for this discussion. Lambeau Field, Camp Randall, American Family Filed, and Fiserv Forum. I *guess* I could drive to a park and ride a half mile from AmFam to catch a bus. But if I've driven that far, why not go the next half mile? I don't believe there's anything for Lambeau. If there is, how am I going to bring my grill and cooler to tailgate?

[sky1324]

If American cities weren't so aggressively anti-pedestrian this wouldn't be an issue. Stadia should be located in downtown locations, and if not, the teams should be on the hook for connecting them to public transportation. Car culture has made things so unnecessarily difficult to traverse without taking on the burden of owning a car.

 

Teams having public transportation connected to their stadiums makes it easier for people to go and also reduces the pollution created by the massive amount of cars traveling to the arena. Public transportation is always a worthwhile investment.

[DG_YouKnowWhatThatMeans]

11 minutes ago, QCS said:

If American cities weren't so aggressively anti-pedestrian this wouldn't be an issue. Stadia should be located in downtown locations, and if not, the teams should be on the hook for connecting them to public transportation. Car culture has made things so unnecessarily difficult to traverse without taking on the burden of owning a car.

 

Teams having public transportation connected to their stadiums makes it easier for people to go and also reduces the pollution created by the massive amount of cars traveling to the arena. Public transportation is always a worthwhile investment.

 

Right. It's always easy to find money for highways, but been forbid we want to move more people in less space.

 

I've driven to stadiums and taken shuttles or trains. I have never, ever regretted someone else having to figure out parking and getting me to the door.

 

And there are some contexts where mass transit works, and others where it doesn't. In Green Bay, you probably don't want to build a train to a stadium in low-rise area used ten times a year.

 

In Tampa, I don't know. The die is kind of cast for that metro area and nothing is really central. Maybe a monorail?

[DEAD!]

46 minutes ago, Sec19Row53 said:

So where those things don't already exist, who pays for them? And why?

 

Four stadia in Wisconsin come to mind for this discussion. Lambeau Field, Camp Randall, American Family Filed, and Fiserv Forum. I *guess* I could drive to a park and ride a half mile from AmFam to catch a bus. But if I've driven that far, why not go the next half mile? I don't believe there's anything for Lambeau. If there is, how am I going to bring my grill and cooler to tailgate?

 

Obviously, each situation is different. I don't expect a Green Bay to build a light rail system for Lambeau like I would for, say, New York.  It would be impractical for the other 300+ days of the year. I think what I was alluding to is the location of sports facilities should take into account how they can be best accessed from all areas of a metropolitan region. For me anyways, having some form of mass transit, even if you to drive to a station, makes a difference over if the ONLY option is a car. 

I can speak only for Toronto, but I have also been to other cities, like Boston, Washington, New York, Los Angeles,  and passed by areas where stadiums and arenas are located downtown and I happen to like the close proximity to mass transit at some those places.