Working on the FAQ right now everyone, expect a new version out by Friday. Also, I'm working on Coliseum concepts.
Consider this an open thread.
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Keeping track of all news and events revolving around the pursuit of a new ballpark for the Oakland Athletics.
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Update 12/22 09:00 - David Pollak has a wrtiten an article on the complexity of the soccer-baseball relationship. Ever the ballpark advocat...
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When certain San Jose supporters privately told me several months ago about a possible November ballot measure for an A's ballpark, I wa...
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In the last few weeks, I've gotten several requests to add a particular Oakland site for review on the blog. The site in question is a v...
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Over the weekend, DC area architect Roger K. Lewis wrote a column for the Washington Post that serves as a primer for the ballpark construc...
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Fremont Councilman Steve Cho is keeping up his call for a ballot measure to decide the ballpark village. The other council members and the ...
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True to form, Mayor Dellums' office is talking up Howard Terminal as a ballpark site. Only they're not. Sorta kinda. A KRON report ...
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UPDATE: Trib columnist Art Spander fired off an angry column this morning in response to the news. Out of today's Tribune comes the fol...
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Merc sports columnist Mark Purdy has always been an unabashed San Jose partisan, and his column in Sunday's edition will start many mor...
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Tonight was the first Opening Night I've missed since college, going back 15 years. Instead, I was with family and friends across the pl...
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Opposition has to come from somewhere, and its most consistent form appears to be former Fremont mayor Gus Morrison, who wrote a letter to t...
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Which team is LA-bound?
Previous Polls
5/25 - The SJ Giants should...
Stay in SJ - 16 (17%)
Be reborn as the SJ A's - 7 (7%)
Move to North/East Bay - 27 (29%)
Move to Salinas/South Co. - 25 (27%)
Move elsewhere in CA - 16 (17%)
4/5 - At a game I usually eat...
Stadium fare - 81 (64%)
Food I got from another establishment - 11 (8%)
Tailgate grub - 8 (6%)
Something I brought from home - 19 (15%)
Nothing - 6 (4%)
3/15 - Projected '09 Attendance
17,500 per game - 37 (31%)
20,000 - 33 (28%)
22,500 - 25 (21%)
25,000 - 10 (8%)
27,500 - 3 (2%)
30,000 - 9 (7%)
3/8 - Ideal Ballpark Capacity?
30,000 - 13 (5%)
35,000 - 83 (33%)
40,000 - 114 (46%)
45,000 - 28 (11%)
50,000 - 8 (3%)
3/1 - The A's will end up in:
Oakland - 90 (32%)
San Jose - 153 (55%)
Sacramento - 17 (6%)
Elsewhere - 15 (5%)
Stay in SJ - 16 (17%)
Be reborn as the SJ A's - 7 (7%)
Move to North/East Bay - 27 (29%)
Move to Salinas/South Co. - 25 (27%)
Move elsewhere in CA - 16 (17%)
4/5 - At a game I usually eat...
Stadium fare - 81 (64%)
Food I got from another establishment - 11 (8%)
Tailgate grub - 8 (6%)
Something I brought from home - 19 (15%)
Nothing - 6 (4%)
3/15 - Projected '09 Attendance
17,500 per game - 37 (31%)
20,000 - 33 (28%)
22,500 - 25 (21%)
25,000 - 10 (8%)
27,500 - 3 (2%)
30,000 - 9 (7%)
3/8 - Ideal Ballpark Capacity?
30,000 - 13 (5%)
35,000 - 83 (33%)
40,000 - 114 (46%)
45,000 - 28 (11%)
50,000 - 8 (3%)
3/1 - The A's will end up in:
Oakland - 90 (32%)
San Jose - 153 (55%)
Sacramento - 17 (6%)
Elsewhere - 15 (5%)
Selected posts
- Tuesday with Lew
- The post-Fremont strategy
- A's move to KTRB
- CSN California it is!
- Updated Ballpark Transit Comparison
- Lucky? San Jose
- Don't want San Jose info? ...
- KTVU: Selig letter surfaces
- A Territorial Rights Primer
- Finally, Oakland responds
- Fall 2008 Progress Report
- Reconstructing the Coliseum
- Oakland: Let's try Plan B
- Deconstruction the Coliseum Part I
- Deconstructing the Coliseum Part II
- Hope for Sacramento?
- What about Sacramento?
- More Market-Related Food for Thought
- Expect to go over budget
Site Overviews
Links
- FAQ (2/28/09)
- Fremont FAQ (old)
- SJ Redevelopment Ballpark Page
- Athletics Nation
- in Oakland blog (SFGate)
- Oakland A's Fan Coalition
- Let's Go Oakland
- Baseball San Jose blog
- Free Kraut!
- scout.com A's Msg Board
- Oakball message boards
- Ballpark Digest
- Ballparks.com
- CapeFish's Marlins Ballpark Newspage
- 511 - Bay Area Transit links
- Field of Schemes
- The Biz of Baseball
- The late Doug Pappas's BoB site
- Team Marketing Report
Attendance Watch '09
- Last game: 16,591
- 2009 avg. (81 gms): 17,392
- 2008 avg. (78 gms): 19,938
- Difference: -2,530 per game
- Median (2008): 19,287
- 2009 total (81 gms): 1,408,783
- 2008 total (78 gms): 1,555,192
- 2008 total (w. Japan): 1,663,262
- 2009 Std Dev: 6,718
- 2008 Std Dev: 7,094
Recent comments
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- ▼ 2009 (193)
- ► 2008 (111)
- ► 2007 (123)
- ► 2006 (175)
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23 comments:
Is Sacramento even a remote consideration at this point? Raley Field is pretty new, has land available around it, and was originally designed in a way that it could be expanded.
no
Paaaaleeeease...
Read this article...
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_11786663
San Jose is ready to go....Ask Lew. Chuck Reed and a safe majority of the city council are on board already.
Keep up the good work, ML. you rock!!!!!
I think many posters are missing the point. ML himself has already stated that the biggest lie Wolfe told was that there "was no plan B". Lew didn't make the money he has by not having contingency plans. If one believes there is opportunity to be had in an economic downturn, (which I'm certain Lew does), then this makes absolute sense. Wolfe didn't drag the Fremont experiment out. He jumped off as soon as the Fremont community gave him an excuse. Isn't it the least bit curious that he made no attempt to sway the WS residents? Or that he gave in so quickly to the big box retailers in PC? Wolfe always preferred SJ over Fremont. At the time, Fremont was the best available in compromise. It would seem to me that something has changed between now and then. What that something is exactly, well, only Selig and 29 other owners know....for the moment.
I hope one of the FAQs will address this idea that Raley is built to be easily made MLB-ready. Marine Layer has addressed that many times, yet it still comes up like clockwork.
Anon 5:38
For the most part I agree with what you're saying. I'm not so sure Wolff quickly gave in to the big box stores. My undertanding is that they had been negotiating for months, with no progress.
What puzzles me is if San Jose was always their ultimate goal, why did they even bothered to introduce Warm Springs into the equation? Was Warm Springs introduced just so that they could stay on good terms with the city?
I just posted on this over at the lightly-visited OSC website:
http://obc.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/515605187/m/64110049
(with an obligatory hat tip to this site, of course)
Sacramento is a pipe dream. You might as well speculate about Monterrey while you're at it.
-TCL
For the "Warm Springs conspiracy," ML had a very good write-up back in December. Without Warm Springs, there is not enough local resistance for the Wolffs to "jump out of Fremont" [so quickly].
If the San JosA's really become prosperous, the city of San Jose should really thank the effort put up by this blog, Tri-City Beat, and Fremont Citizens Network.
NoAsWS-
Hummm--Wolff spent $80M, $24M which is unrecoverable, as part of this grand conspiracy to get to San Jose. What a joke!! Wolff had the best of intentions at PC--but 3 years and $80M later there was still no shovel in the ground--
Remember that WS was promoted by the city of Fremont and supported by environmentalists and transportation agencies--so yes--another grand conspiracy by Wolff--he had inside information that said an mis-informed angry mob would protest and allow you to go on to your preferred option in San Jose-
At the end of the day, as ML had in one of his posts in December, the perfect storm occured from a San Jose perspective and not one that Wolff or anyone else could have planned...nor which would have made any difference if dirt was already moving at PC-
I agree that ML does a great job as does Tri-City---both of which offer unbiased factual information---to put the Fremont NIMBY group in this category is an insult to ML and Tri-City Beat-
This is an awesome site, but I often wonder how many submitted posts actually get put up here?
It seems that for a few days the discussions get heated and then dead silence.
This is really a perfect storm for the Wolffs. And they welcome it.
The issues raised by Fremont Citizens Network will affect the city of Fremont (not just NIMBY issues). Otherwise, we will still support a good plan for Pacific Commons site. Many key members of FCN are living in all parts of Fremont and have been raised the concerns for two years.
You have to admit the residents peaceful protests are the catalyst (with media attention) for the Wolffs to pull off from Fremont.
The money they lost in this "investment" is also due to the housing market crash. Considering the size of the financial deal the Wolffs involve, they probably have 10x more loss elsewhere (real estate, stock market).
Activity is driven by news cycles. In the stadium game there are serious dry periods followed by huge amounts of activity. Occasionally I'll put out a topic which I think might drive discussion. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
If the question is about comments, in the last week I've deleted 3 comments, 2 because they were duplicates and 1 because it was a foul-mouthed rant.
Hey there : )
Love the blog, and don't forget to visit the BaseballSanJose.blogspot.com blog as well.
Time to get organized and make this happen everyone, there just is no other place for the A's to go but to San Jose.
Anybody heard from the A's when season tickets are projected to be mailed?
Thanks
It's fairly obvious that the Fremont plans didn't pencil out anymore after the bottom fell out of the residential and commercial real estate markets. Fremont is a "fringe" community that may never recover the desirability that it was moving towards at the height of the run-up.
Wolff is gamely extracting himself and doing a good job of looking like he gave it a shot. The fact is simply that Fremont as a business model no longer penciled out.
Expect Wolff to now make one last pitch with MLB (who should be satisfied with his Fremont effort), to get San Jose. If he can get their blessing and San Jose is onboard he will make a go of it. This will have to happen within a short time frame. If there is no action on either MLB's side or San Jose's side he'll move away from the A's as an owner.
The end result of nothing happening in SJ, which is at least 60% likely in my opinion, is two things:
1. Oakland gets another shot. There are two potential sites in Oakland, the Coliseum and the Broadway Auto row site.
2. The A's are sold with the intent to move.
As the only viable market with any semblance of Stadium plan is Portland, OR, I would expect them to move there if they were to leave the Bay Area. There was a major effort when the Expos were being shopped and PDX was #2. There was a state of Oregon plan passed by the govt. to assist in a funding scheme, it's on the books. The market is stronger than it appears on the immediate surface and it is growing. There are no territorial claims as Seattle's revenue streams are strong. One major advantage for Portland is a lack of competition as there are only the NBA Trailblazers in town. College sports in PDX are minimal and the Oregon Ducks, while popular, are based 80 miles away.
At this juncture I think it's most likely that the A's end up staying in Oakland, say 45% probability. Then there would be a 35% probability of them moving to San Jose and a 20% probability of a move to Portland.
Anon 5:36
You underestimate Lew's desire to stay in the Bay Area. Two of his children with their spouses and ALL of his grandchildren (South Bay) live here. He will see this through. Be patient.
BTW Oakland is out for all sorts of reasons
San Jose is trying to pull the A's in it seems.
San Jose Makes First Pitch to Draw A's South
Mayor Johnson drops the 'A's' word -- as in Sacramento A's
Sacramento wants the A's... or more like-they want a Pro Franchise period if the Kings leave.
Again, to reiterate... the A's will NOT move to Portland (or Vegas or Sacramento). As a volunteer and huge MLB2PDX supporter, I'm telling you there is no way. Portland is highly focused on getting MLS and getting the AAA baseball team into a suitable facility.
The A's are NOT leaving the Bay Area
the ball is rolling
http://www.mercurynews.com/sports/ci_11795274
The point made is that Lew will MOVE AWAY FROM OWNERSHIP of the A's if he can't make SJ happen. The team will be sold and the new ownership will be the ones moving the team. This may take 5 years if it happens at all. In my post I gave that a 20% chance.
Nothing is certain in this process and time and circumstances change everything.
Right now, the team is available probably in this order:
1. San Jose
2. Oakland
3. Portland
4. Sacramento
Sacramento only becomes viable if the Kings leave town. The A's could largely keep their East Bay audience (and would lobby to keep those counties in their territory) whilst gaining the entire Central valley and Nevada.
Portland is not making any effort to get an MLB team but 5 years from now if a new owner is looking for somewhere to move the team Portland will be the first place he calls. It is simply the best sports market in the country that doesn't already have a baseball team.
Oakland becomes more viable if the Raiders/Niners agree to build a joint stadium which I believe is becoming more likely by the second. The likelihood of the Raiders returning to LA (Industry stadium plan) is low because the common wisdom is that the San Diego Chargers have "first dibs" on the SoCal market and will move to LA first.
If the A's have Oakland to themselves they will build a NEW park in the Coliseum lot rather than renovate the existing facility. A downtown option would be possible only if the new ownership is willing to pay for it. That is not entirely unlikely if the city can provide a really great site such as the Broadway Auto Row site.
San Jose is trying, yes. They have done this before. They will keep trying. But just because they want it doesn't mean it's going to happen. The Fremont plan looked might good 3 years ago, didn't it? And now where is that plan? Take San Jose with the same grain of salt.
The biggest problem with San Jose is that it DOES ruin the existing fan base. Fremont was withing the same market as Oakland in a way SJ is not. Do not underestimate this factor. Ownership surely will not.
I will reiterate that Lew Wolff will not be a part of any effort to move the A's out of the Bay Area but he will not be a part of the team anymore if he can't get a deal done in the South Bay. That will have to happen within one year or it won't happen at all.
Anon 2:01---SJ ruins the existing fan base...what existing fan base? You think Lew is planning for the 10,000 or so season ticket holders--not all of which live in the east bay...doubt it--
Build in the Colisium parking lot---wow--thats an exciting proposal--another drive by stadium that has little to no benefit for the city and does nothing to increase the A's exposure to Fortune 500/1000 companies that are all in Silicon Valley-
Any SF/Oakland joint stadium decision will be well after the SJ effort is underway--if territorial rights are resolved---and lets just assume for a moment that they are--than you have got to admit that San Jose is Lew's first and only choice and you would be hard pressed to find any other owner, unless they had strong community ties to Oakland and were willing to take one for the team, to decide to build another stadium in Oakland---it makes absolutely no business sense--especially to drop another ballpark in the Colisieum parking lot which is one of the worst neighborhoods in Oakland--
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