Stadium/Arena Saga Omnibus

[VampyrRabbit]

41 minutes ago, ZapRowsdower8 said:

https://www.wweek.com/news/city/2024/09/23/portland-diamond-project-in-late-stage-talks-to-buy-zidell-yards/
 

The Portland Diamond Project appears close to buying some waterfront land for a stadium. We’ve been down this road before though, so I wouldn’t hold my breath. 

Looking at the maps, the site is next to I5 and cut off from Downtown with that really nasty looking interchange, though the site is reasonably near to a streetcar.

[Digby]

John Fisher really is something else. The degree of shamelessness to get that rich is, unfortunately, something I just can't fathom. "We tried" with a whole handful of proposals all in varying degrees of bad faith. Go to hell! (He kinda is, in a sense)

[FrutigerAero]

On 9/24/2024 at 5:43 PM, Digby said:

John Fisher really is something else. The degree of shamelessness to get that rich is, unfortunately, something I just can't fathom. "We tried" with a whole handful of proposals all in varying degrees of bad faith. Go to hell! (He kinda is, in a sense)

He didn't ever "get" that rich, he just inherited his parents' fortune from the Gap.

[BBTV]

Again, not sure if I can post other stadium / relo stuff here but I’ll stop if so. 
 

The Sixers EFFFFFED over the flyers. Royally. It’s become so petty, but man did they get them. 
 

1. They committed to play in the new place for a minimum of 30 years, so to 2061. It’s built 100% with their own money (debatable with PILOTs) so I’m not sure what happens after that, but that’s good. 
 

2. They had a provision that since they’re not using any public money, if ANY other team gets public money for their stadium/arena, then the city has to match it and write the Sixers a check for that amount. 
 

That was thought to be a poison pill, but PLOT TWIST - they dropped it for the Phillies and Eagles, and only included it for the Flyers / Comcast, essentially prohibiting them from getting public funding forever. 
 

Not sure how much it matters because everything the Flyers have done has always been private money, but the pettiness to explicitly block them from EVER getting public money is amazing. 

[gosioux76]

On 9/24/2024 at 12:23 AM, ZapRowsdower8 said:

https://www.wweek.com/news/city/2024/09/23/portland-diamond-project-in-late-stage-talks-to-buy-zidell-yards/
 

The Portland Diamond Project appears close to buying some waterfront land for a stadium. We’ve been down this road before though, so I wouldn’t hold my breath. 

 

Now seven years into its existence, the Portland Diamond Project has yet to say anything about how it intends to finance this land deal, a stadium development or acquisition of a team. And nobody there seems to be asking the question. It's maddening. 

[FrutigerAero]

I'm just now watching the final Athletics game in Oakland. I watched the Ranger's broadcast and they were not afraid to speak truth. Beautifully commentated the last few innings... man... getting some allergies

[GhostOfNormMacdonald]

And like that, 57 years of Oakland Athletics baseball died. Cause of death: John Fischer's greed

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

19 minutes ago, GhostOfNormMacdonald said:

And like that, 57 years of Oakland Athletics baseball died. Cause of death: John Fischer's greed

 

It's not even greed.  If Fisher had taken Joe Lacob up on his offer to buy the team, he would have made a profit of more than one billion dollars on his purchase price.

 

He then would have been a sure thing to get an expansion team for Las Vegas, for which he would not have the rushed timeline of getting a stadium built there by 2028.

 

Rather than demonstrating greed, this move of the A's reveals some absurd combination of obstinance and stupidity on Fisher's part. And it's a total failure on the part of Major League Baseball and the other owners to have allowed it.

[LMU]

As much as Fisher is rightfully getting panned, with the decades of failed proposals, the Giants' blocking of the San Jose market, and all of Oakland's bumbling with stadium maintenance/90s Raider groveling/overreliance of Federal grant money to turn Howard Terminal into the city's last hope out of dystopia/general incompetence, I would bet that this would have been the ultimate outcome if Fisher would have been replaced by 90% of similar rich guys.  The process may have been smoother and possibly without the vagabond step but this likely was the inevitable endgame.

[GhostOfNormMacdonald]

  The biggest takeaway from the Law in Sports class I had to take in undergrad is that we need to remove the anti-trust exemption from baseball and pro-sports in general. The idea that you can veto a move to a city you don't play inis :censored:ing ludicrous. Also, watch battered bastards of baseball 

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

9 minutes ago, LMU said:

I would bet that this would have been the ultimate outcome if Fisher would have been replaced by 90% of similar rich guys. 

 

I would bet that 90% of similar rich guys would take the more than one billion dollars of profit by selling the team, and would then be perfectly happy with an expansion team.

[FiddySicks]

Sigh. Well, that may be the final nail in the coffin for my baseball fandom. Baseball has made a LOT of choices over the last decade that I fully disagree with, and now they’ve ripped my first ever favorite sports team out of the Bay Area to move them to my least favorite city of all time. Combine that with my mom dying a few years ago (who was the driving force for why I even liked baseball so much), and I think my enthusiasm is just fully snuffed out at this point. 
 

 

Also, two things I want to point out based on posts above: 

 

The Giants are catching a LOT of the blame for “running the A’s out of town”, but that’s nonsense. The A’s made some amazingly poor decisions over the last four decades, and they basically asked the Giants to bail them out (they paid for the South Bay territory and want to be fairly compensated for that, which the cheap ass A’s said no to). That’s an absurd ask, and it’s INFURIATING that people are buying the lie. 
 

 

Removing the anti trust exemption from baseball would be a good thing, but the reason they have it is because baseball as an organization predates anti trust laws. I’m not sure there’s a way to really square that issue. 

[The_Admiral]

12 minutes ago, GhostOfNormMacdonald said:

  The biggest takeaway from the Law in Sports class I had to take in undergrad is that we need to remove the anti-trust exemption from baseball and pro-sports in general.

You need the antitrust exemption in order for the major leagues to exist. We just need to enforce it.

[CS85]

On 9/19/2024 at 11:36 AM, The_Admiral said:

The team has been headquartered in Ashburn for years, though. They've put down some roots there, a Virginia stadium has been the white whale of the team and the state for years, and if new ownership asks for minimal help in making it happen, they probably could. Sizable difference between an NFL stadium in America's ghastliest suburban sprawl and trying to shoehorn an arena into Alexandria by shuttle-busing people in from the airport lot.

 

Anyway, back to America's sweethearts, the White Sox, who put down an actual field at Roosevelt/Clark to prove they can at least afford that part:

 

 

They invited lawmakers to play catch on the field and then they didn't go.

 

But look! You can see b u i l d i n g s! Look, there's that one! And then the other one!

"But where are the cranes?"
- Kevin Warren

[GhostOfNormMacdonald]

The idea that anti-trust can't apply to MLB because it predates anti-trust is absurd and has no basis in reality. The main reason it still applies is that in the 1922 case, Federal Baseball Club vs National League, SCOTUS ruled that sports can't be considered interstate commerce and so the Federal government can't apply anti trust laws to it. The justices that ruled in that case had no idea how big of an industry baseball would get, nor were they of an era that saw it as anything more than entertainment.  the ruling is fundamentally flawed and is nonsensical in the 21st century.

Using a ruling made in 1922 by judges with a 19th century view of both what interstate commerce means and what sports are is not a tenable situation. The idea that professional sports isn't interstate commerce in this day and age is wrong and only benefits the über wealthy.

:censored: John Fischer. :censored: the Pohlads. :censored: the cartel of soulless, faceless businessmen that have taken sport, one of the most human things, and squeezed every last penny out of it.

Our politicians are goddamned cowards for letting this keep happening

[VampyrRabbit]

In other Southwestern Baseball news, Los Crótalos need serious renovations to the Hangar and want Maricopa County to foot at least a good chunk of the bill.

[GhostOfNormMacdonald]

I like Chase Field. It's not perfect, but I genuinely enjoyed it. I hope they stay in Phoenix, but I'm not gonna hold out hope

[GDAWG]

On 9/19/2024 at 11:36 AM, The_Admiral said:

The team has been headquartered in Ashburn for years, though. They've put down some roots there, a Virginia stadium has been the white whale of the team and the state for years, and if new ownership asks for minimal help in making it happen, they probably could. Sizable difference between an NFL stadium in America's ghastliest suburban sprawl and trying to shoehorn an arena into Alexandria by shuttle-busing people in from the airport lot.

 

Anyway, back to America's sweethearts, the White Sox, who put down an actual field at Roosevelt/Clark to prove they can at least afford that part:

 

 

They invited lawmakers to play catch on the field and then they didn't go.

 

But look! You can see b u i l d i n g s! Look, there's that one! And then the other one!

 

"Did they pray for this to happen?"- Kevin Warren

[LMU]

22 minutes ago, VampyrRabbit said:

In other Southwestern Baseball news, Los Crótalos need serious renovations to the Hangar and want Maricopa County to foot at least a good chunk of the bill.

Brodie Brazil did a video on it and pointed out that Maricopa County is trying to push for a 50 year lease, which is absolutely unheard of as the maximum that these leases go for is typically 30 years.  That and the lease doesn't have the renovations and upgrades factored in so it on its face doesn't seem appealing for the team to be locked in for half a century while volunteering to still assume all the upkeep.

[FrutigerAero]

The diamondbacks aren't leaving Arizona anytime soon IMO. This is just what negotiations look like, where you start out with a big ask and then whittle it down.

 

I am not defending the "public pays for stadiums" thing, but Chase Field's roof no longer works the way it originally did. They cannot move it during games anymore because it's too dangerous to open with people inside. So, they aren't just complaining about it being not-fancy.