Stadium/Arena Saga Omnibus

[who do you think]

7 minutes ago, WestCoastBias said:

are the Magic the most forgettable team in sports?

 

They used to be pretty high profile, thanks in large part to having Shaq-Penny-T-Mac-Dwight Howard pretty much one right after the other. Magic jerseys were a common sight in the early 00s. But they imploded after the Howard era and have spent the last decade being Hornets south.

 

(I was gonna go on to say that they've been terrible drafters during that time, but after looking it up, eh not really. They just never bottomed out at the right time until the Banchero draft. But while looking this up I learned that they drafted Domantas Sabonis, then immediately traded him and Victor Oladipo for Serge Ibaka, then traded Ibaka at the following trade deadline for a box of Nutri-Grain bars.)

 

Anyway, the Nashville people have no actual money, and nobody in Portland is interested. Salt Lake might be decent, if they actually build that place, if the Sunday thing really isn't an issue like some people claim, and if the Miller group is still capable of being principal owners of a big-four team. If not then that's just another Nashville, i.e. just randos with a website.

[gosioux76]

13 hours ago, BBTV said:

 

I think this, like the Nashville Stars, is more of a name for the bid committee, not necessarily the name that the actual team would be called.  Like how Olympic bid committees have separate logos from what the host city's official Olympic logo ends up being.

 

I hope you're right about Orlando, but the people behind the Nashville campaign are very intent on naming an expansion team the Stars. This is from the FAQ on their website:

Quote

If awarded a franchise, the current plans are to name the new team the “Nashville Stars” in honor of several Negro Leagues baseball teams that played games in Nashville prior to the integration of Major League Baseball. We intend to honor that legacy. The name also recognizes that Nashville is home to numerous stars in music, entertainment and sports.

 

[BBTV]

1 minute ago, gosioux76 said:

 

I hope you're right about Orlando, but the people behind the Nashville campaign are very intent on naming an expansion team the Stars. This is from the FAQ on their website:

 

i’m cool with Stars based on that reasoning, but it does set them up for ridicule when the team has no stars and sucks. 
 

But Dreamers is still dumb. 

[WestCoastBias]

9 hours ago, who do you think said:

 

They used to be pretty high profile, thanks in large part to having Shaq-Penny-T-Mac-Dwight Howard pretty much one right after the other. Magic jerseys were a common sight in the early 00s. But they imploded after the Howard era and have spent the last decade being Hornets south.

 

(I was gonna go on to say that they've been terrible drafters during that time, but after looking it up, eh not really. They just never bottomed out at the right time until the Banchero draft. But while looking this up I learned that they drafted Domantas Sabonis, then immediately traded him and Victor Oladipo for Serge Ibaka, then traded Ibaka at the following trade deadline for a box of Nutri-Grain bars.)

 

Anyway, the Nashville people have no actual money, and nobody in Portland is interested. Salt Lake might be decent, if they actually build that place, if the Sunday thing really isn't an issue like some people claim, and if the Miller group is still capable of being principal owners of a big-four team. If not then that's just another Nashville, i.e. just randos with a website.

 

Ah yeah the Hornets are more forgettable. You know a team is the most forgettable when you forget about them when talking about what team is the most forgettable. 

 

The Nashville money thing could be a real issue, I doubt they get any public funding after the Titans stadium got approved. People in Portland are interested, it's just that they were the first to announce their intentions to secure an expansion team back in 2017 and since then interest has kind of waned due to no news on expansion and now other cities are getting all the publicity because they're announcing their plans when the topic is hot. 

[OnWis97]

That Orlando Dreamers identity would be perfect for an Iowa-based minor league team.

[ZapRowsdower8]

You see a ton of “MLB to PDX” bumper stickers driving around up here. The problem is that there aren’t any credible owners to be found. I’m sure one of our more business minded posters could explain why Phil Knight never got into owning a sports franchise. 

[See Red]

22 minutes ago, ZapRowsdower8 said:

You see a ton of “MLB to PDX” bumper stickers driving around up here. The problem is that there aren’t any credible owners to be found. I’m sure one of our more business minded posters could explain why Phil Knight never got into owning a sports franchise. 

 

Not sure. He made a bid for the Blazers, iirc. 

[BBTV]

4 hours ago, ZapRowsdower8 said:

why Phil Knight never got into owning a sports franchise

 

one could argue that he owns dozens of them.

[The_Admiral]

11 hours ago, OnWis97 said:

That Orlando Dreamers identity would be perfect for an Iowa-based minor league team.

[Walk-Off]

https://www.reviewjournal.com/sports/athletics/as-new-las-vegas-ballpark-plan-comes-with-a-strip-view-2775451

 

I thought that the A's organization's proposal for a ballpark with a major-league-level seating capacity (even if it is 35,000 at the most) and a retractable roof on only nine acres of land was already foolish.  Now comes word that those in charge of the A's want the field at their apparently current dream home at the Tropicana resort site, on the east side of the Las Vegas Strip, to face northwest so that, at least when any retractable roof is open, the Strip could be seen behind the outfield stands.  Unfortunately, another thing that could be seen beyond the outfield stands of a westward-facing baseball field during afternoon games and even the early innings of many night games -- again, at least when a retractable roof would be open -- is the sun ... an often 100-plus-degree-Fahrenheit sun in Southern Nevada ... thus putting way too many batters, catchers, home plate umpires, fans in what would be choice seats at most ballparks, and media personnel in the press box at way too much risk of eye damage.

 

Is creating the potential for a glitzy backdrop during the seventh-inning stretches of possibly just a handful of night games really worth giving a big-league ballpark such a discomfort-inducing layout?  If John Fisher and his minions have been yearning so much for a ballpark that would allow at least those behind home plate to see the skyline of the Strip, then they should have stuck with (and should have kept enduring the presumably higher costs of) the Wild Wild West site, from which a view of buildings along the Strip would be to the east ... and, therefore, would face away from the sun during afternoons and evenings.

[FiddySicks]

Yeah the more I hear about this A’s Vegas move, the more outlandish it sounds, and the more I think it’s just never going to happen. Which is par for the course for the A’s because they’ve had about a million ideas on where to move and none of them ended up being real. 

[The_Admiral]

4 hours ago, FiddySicks said:

Yeah the more I hear about this A’s Vegas move, the more outlandish it sounds, and the more I think it’s just never going to happen. Which is par for the course for the A’s because they’ve had about a million ideas on where to move and none of them ended up being real. 

I remember when Cisco Field was going to be the new home of "the Bay Area Athletics at Fremont." Gave us this:

 

 

[Walk-Off]

I agree that the Athletics' owners and executives have made some outlandish decisions in at least some of their attempts to get a new ballpark (regardless of location) since the start of this millennium.  However, between the aggressive actions being taken lately by the A's to try to get something done in the Las Vegas market and MLB's January 15, 2024 deadline for the A's to have a firm deal on a new ballpark in order to keep receiving shared revenues, I think that, whether or not any of us likes it, (a) John Fisher and his partners are currently well on their way to having the A's leave the Bay Area and (b) a sale of the A's, let alone to anyone who would keep the team in the Bay Area, seems to be both highly unlikely in general and something that Fisher and his consortium would conduct only as a financially motivated last resort in particular.

 

If the owners of the A's cannot get what they want in the Las Vegas area, then they might look toward Salt Lake City and possibly work with Gail Miller and her Big League Utah group.  If SLC ends up disappointing Fisher and his clique, then they might aim for Portland, Oregon and maybe join forces with the Portland Diamond Project.  Should Fisher and his lieutenants determine that Portland is not a viable option, but they still want to keep the A's west of the Central Time Zone, then Sacramento and/or Vancouver might come into play.

 

If none of those ideas pan out ... then what?  The Nashville Athletics (my admittedly biased preference should the A's be once again east of the Mountain Time Zone)?  Les Athlétiques de Montréal?  Los Atléticos de la Ciudad de México?  If this quest goes on for much longer, then it could get even wilder and weirder than it is already.

[The_Admiral]

I think the days of searching high and low for a place to move your team are over. The stakes are too high now. Again, I think Sacramento and the Maloofs are a good blueprint for the way things are: when you burn your home market and a market you're trying to move to, the league is going to step in and start guiding things back to the status quo before anyone can do any further damage to prospective markets. The Maloofs actually had three whacks at it -- Anaheim, Virginia Beach, and Seattle -- before the NBA intervened and just made sure the team stayed in place. 

 

I think Warriors ownership's table will be ready before Fisher can start sniffing around Portland or Salt Lake City.

[Sykotyk]

3 hours ago, the admiral said:

I think the days of searching high and low for a place to move your team are over. The stakes are too high now. Again, I think Sacramento and the Maloofs are a good blueprint for the way things are: when you burn your home market and a market you're trying to move to, the league is going to step in and start guiding things back to the status quo before anyone can do any further damage to prospective markets. The Maloofs actually had three whacks at it -- Anaheim, Virginia Beach, and Seattle -- before the NBA intervened and just made sure the team stayed in place. 

 

I think Warriors ownership's table will be ready before Fisher can start sniffing around Portland or Salt Lake City.

Especially baseball. It's no longer the 'low cost' sporting option. You need people with money to attend 81 games a year. You need to cultivate a fanbase that will make local television and merchandising to be profitable.

 

MLB doesn't have a lot of markets. if they want more teams they're going to have to cannibalize LA and NYC area. A team in NJ maybe? A team in Ontario/Riverside/San Bernardino? Where else can currently support an MLB team that isn't currently being crowded out by the other four leagues (yes, including MLS).

 

I just don't see it. Plus, MLB is not aimed at young people. It's not the young person's cheap game.

[Walk-Off]

I can think of many reasons why what John Fisher and his circle are trying to do with the A's might be different -- and might lead to a different aftermath -- from what the Maloof family attempted to do with the Sacramento Kings.  Here are a few of them:

• The late David Stern's criteria for markets worthy of keeping or gaining NBA franchises might have had some key differences from Rob Manfred's priorities regarding which areas are most deserving of retaining or earning MLB teams.
• By all appearances, MLB intends to add at least two teams if and when -- and only if and when -- both the A's and the Rays resolve their respective ballpark conundrums.  On the other hand, the NBA was in no hurry and in no mood to expand at all when the Maloofs were looking either to relocate the Kings themselves or to sell the Kings to someone who would then try to move the team.
• MLB has been subjecting the A's to a January 15, 2024 deadline for a concrete plan for a new ballpark in order for the team to keep receiving revenue sharing payments.  I do not recall the NBA requiring the Kings to meet any deadline for a plan for a new arena so as to maintain or gain any special financial privilege.
• I definitely do not recall the NBA offering a relocation fee waiver to the Kings, let alone for a move to any specific market.  By contrast, MLB is willing to forgo any relocation fee -- a payment of $500,000,000 under normal circumstances -- should the A's relocate to the Las Vegas area.  As far as I can tell, MLB is not offering this waiver for either a move by the A's to anyplace else or any relocation of the Rays.  If that is true, then I wonder if Rob Manfred and/or most of the current owners of MLB franchises (a) want an MLB club in the Las Vegas market as soon as possible, (b) want the A's to leave Oakland and the overall San Francisco Bay Area as soon as possible, and (c) want the Rays to stay in the Tampa-St. Petersburg market more -- maybe even much more -- than they wish for the A's to keep themselves ... ahem ... rooted in Oakland.
• As to why MLB would tolerate, let alone desire, a long-distance relocation of the A's more than it would accept such a move by the Rays and more than the NBA was willing to let the Kings depart from the Sacramento market, it may well be because certain people in high places within MLB believe that the presence of the A's in Oakland -- even during its fifty-sixth season -- is unusually expendable.  Oakland and the A's share a media market with San Francisco and its Giants, that market is currently the smallest one with two MLB clubs, and the A's are at least widely assumed to be (a) a poorer team than the Giants and (b) playing in a poorer-per-capita part of the region than the Giants' immediate backyard.  On the other hand, a move of the Rays to anywhere outside the Tampa-St. Petersburg market (even to Orlando, which shares a media market with some communities along Florida's Atlantic coast but not with any locale on or near the Gulf of Mexico) would leave that team's present home region without any MLB franchise, just as an exit of the Kings from Sacramento would have turned the NBA's presence in that market into an absence from said area.

[BBTV]

9 hours ago, Walk-Off said:

relocation fee -- a payment of $500,000,000 under normal circumstances

 

There is no circumstance in which either team would be asked to pay half a billion dollars as a relocation payment.  I've not found any source that any relocation fee (whether waived or not) has even been decided on.

 

 

[monkeypower]

18 hours ago, the admiral said:

I think Warriors ownership's table will be ready before Fisher can start sniffing around Portland or Salt Lake City.

 

Joe Lacob was pretty in on the Angels this offseason before Arte got cold feet. Sigh

 

Lacob did grow up in Anaheim and worked for the Angels and/or Angel Stadium in his youth, so we'll have to see if he wants a baseball team or just wanted the Angels.

[Ridleylash]

2 hours ago, monkeypower said:

 

Joe Lacob was pretty in on the Angels this offseason before Arte got cold feet. Sigh

 

Lacob did grow up in Anaheim and worked for the Angels and/or Angel Stadium in his youth, so we'll have to see if he wants a baseball team or just wanted the Angels.

Lacob's already expressed interest in the A's as far back as 2005, so I think he's perfectly happy with getting the A's.

[The_Admiral]

17 hours ago, Walk-Off said:

On the other hand, a move of the Rays to anywhere outside the Tampa-St. Petersburg market (even to Orlando, which shares a media market with some communities along Florida's Atlantic coast but not with any locale on or near the Gulf of Mexico) would leave that team's present home region without any MLB franchise, just as an exit of the Kings from Sacramento would have turned the NBA's presence in that market into an absence from said area.

 

In terms of television territories, the Kings more or less act as a second Northern California team. They share a channel with the A's and Sharks, they have mutual blackouts with San Francisco, but share the rest. They were as expendable to the NBA as the A's would be, but you can't have idiots running a taxpayer-handout traveling roadshow across the country or else lots of cities start getting mad at you.