Angels next team to move?

[LMU]

Next Move Could Be Up to Moreno:

Angel owner, increasingly frustrated by his year-old legal battle with Anaheim, says relocating the team is a possibility if the case reaches appeals court.

By Bill Shaikin, Times Staff Writer

TEMPE, Ariz. ? He might pay more to his lawyers than to his relief pitchers this year. Under a lease at issue in a lawsuit between the Angels and the city of Anaheim, he has paid more to refurbish Angel Stadium than the city has.

So, with the legal battle approaching the one-year mark and threatening to overshadow back-to-back division championships, Angel owner Arte Moreno is increasingly frustrated with city officials.

"They're trying to run me out of town," he said.

The city claims the Angels broke their stadium lease by billing themselves as a Los Angeles team. The trial is set to start Jan. 9. The losing side could appeal, a lengthy process that Moreno said could prompt him to consider moving the team.

"If this gets put into appeals court, somewhere along the line you have to think about whether you're gone," he said.

Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle dismissed the notion that the City Council wants to chase Moreno out.

"Of course we want to have the team in town," Pringle said. "This council and previous councils have bent over backward to build that relationship. We're not bending over backward now, but we're just trying to uphold the bargain we made with the team.

"We view it as a tremendous asset. That's why we put so much money into the deal."

The city contributed $20 million to the Walt Disney Co.'s 1996 stadium renovation, contingent upon the team calling itself the Anaheim Angels. Moreno bought the team from Disney in 2003 and changed the name to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim last January.

The Angels say they have satisfied the lease provision that requires the team name to "include the name Anaheim therein." The city says that name violates the spirit of the lease, depriving Anaheim of prominent media exposure that could be worth tens ? or hundreds ? of millions.

The Angels have made several settlement offers, Moreno said, but he insists on keeping the Los Angeles name and the city insists he remove it.

"The issue always comes back to the name," Moreno said.

Moreno and Pringle each declined to provide details of the settlement offers.

According to sources familiar with the discussions, the Angels offered to guarantee an annual share of ticket revenue and to address the alleged loss of media exposure by promoting the city in ads and broadcasts, but the team did not offer to repay the $20 million, or even a prorated part.

The lease requires the Angels to pay the city $2 for every ticket sold over 2.6 million. The Angels sold 3 million for the first time in 2003 and increased attendance since then, thus paying almost $5 million to the city.

In addition, Moreno has spent $34 million on repairs and maintenance at the city-owned stadium, spokesman Tim Mead said. Under the lease, the Angels run the stadium and assume any operating losses.

"Not only are we giving a check to the city, we're putting money into that stadium every year," Moreno said.

Aside from his legal skirmish, Moreno said he sees progress on and off the field.

For the first time, the Angels have won consecutive division championships, with television ratings pulling even with the Dodgers'. Although FSN has offered a cable contract on par with the Dodgers', Moreno said he has not ruled out launching a cable channel.

From 2002 to '05, he said, annual revenues jumped from $102 million to $175 million and season-ticket sales from 12,000 to 28,000. The latter figure reflects a marketing campaign across Southern California, he said, with 38% of season seats this year sold to fans outside Orange County.

[NJTank]

This guy wnats to move them to LA wow would that heat up the war with the Dodgers.

[Audiodrama]

Wow. The guy who renamed the team the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim wants to move the team to Los Angeles. Big surprise.

[Brian in Boston]

The Angels aren't moving anywhere... least of all, Los Angeles. It's all posturing on Moreno's part because the City of Anaheim has had the will to follow through on legal action versus the team in the wake of the club's move to the ridiculous "Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim brand".

For starters, where the hell is the team going to play in LA? The Dodgers aren't going to let them use Dodgers Stadium. The City of Los Angeles isn't going to build them a new facility. As for pulling a page out of the team's past and playing at the Coliseum, that's not at all likely. The Coliseum Commission's focus is on wooing the NFL.

Arte's "panties are in a bunch" because the City of Anaheim had the nerve to take him to court... and now he's worried that the suit might make it all the way to an appellate bench.

[VitaminD]

WTF?

Moreno made his bed in this situation, and now he doesn't seem to want to lie in it.

He's the one who sought to rebrand his Orange County team as a Los Angeles team to try and snag some of the Dodgers' market. The good folks in Anaheim objected and took him to court over it.

Had he not taken this ill-conceived tack and at least seared his bridges (doesn't seem like he's burned them yet) in Anaheim, he could have had a solid partnership with Anaheim. Now he's boxing himself in - LA has no room for him, and he's alienating Anaheim further with this recent raft of quotes.

[CS85]

This is a lose-lose situation for Angels management. If they keep fighting, they'll likely get turned down anyway, and management will look bad to the already pissed fans and the league. If they get shut down in court, he'll look like a moron and the fans will hate him.