Parsing the AN interview: Television

Let's get started.

First, on the television situation. The possible move to Comcast SportsNet West is definitely positive, but not without its downsides. The main issues here are the number of games and on which tier CSNW will be carried in the Bay Area. To illustrate the first issue, I've dragged out the table from the May post on RSN's:

The obvious inequity is that CSNW is carried on the extended basic tier in the Central Valley, while it's on the digital channel 400 in the Bay Area. It really comes down to the number of televisions that can view the channel. Not every household uses the digital converter box offered by Comcast, and for those that do, not every television will be mated to a box. So if you want to watch a game while working on a car in the garage (where there's likely no box), you won't catch the game. Or if you're a kid that wants to watch the game in his/her room but your parents don't feel you need a box, you'll have to watch elsewhere in the house. For some it will be inconvenient. For some it won't.

Then there's the matter of CSNW being on 400. 400 has always been a placeholder as there's little content to put onto the channel at this point other than second-tier college sports. However, there's a unique feature to 400 that many aren't aware of: it's not encrypted. That means even though it's digital, a converter box isn't needed as long as you have a digital TV. The rate of adoption isn't high and there's a level of frustration regarding digital TV tuners, but at least for now the box isn't needed for a digital TV. That said, once the A's are on CSNW could easily become encrypted. The bottom line is that CSNW could be encrypted or not, or it could be moved around the channel lineup.

With the MLB Network launching next year, one fewer channel slot will be available on the analog tier. The Hallmark Channel is typically one of the first to get bumped to digital. In your area this may have already occurred. There are also a number of shopping-oriented channels. QVC is considered untouchable. Jewelry Television, which is typically on Comcast systems on a leased basis, is probably the next candidate. This channel is usually on channel 410 (CSNBA+) when a game isn't being broadcast. Complicating matters are a number of community access stations on a given city's analog tier, which could vary from city to city. Comcast could even end up competing against itself, as it has equity stakes in several other channels, such as Versus and The Golf Channel. (If you want to get an idea how inconsistent the systems are in the channel lineups, go to this Comcast form and put in some valid addresses around the Bay Area. You might be surprised.)

In the end, I think Comcast will figure out a way to put CSNW on the analog tier. They might have to put it high up, say in the upper-70's along with Versus and Golf. It's not in the "sports pocket" with the ESPN's and CSNBA, but at least it would be available. The motivating factor is Comcast's stake. They want to make as much from the network as possible, and that would be an order of magnitude more difficult to do from a digital-only slot.

Two other factors have real impact. A switch like this usually carries with it a massive schedule change. The Giants inked a deal with NBC 11 to broadcast 20 games, whereas 140 went to CSNBA. It's likely a similar split would happen with the A's on CSNW. They might even go to the extreme like the Florida Marlins, eschewing over-the-air broadcasts completely. High definition also will become paramount in the coming years. KICU doesn't do HD broadcasts. I'm pretty sure the other affiliates don't either. Blame that on either the A's or the affliates, it's still pretty costly. By moving over to CSNW, broadcasting expenses become more of a sunk cost as the partners become more interested in promoting the brand. There will be some figuring of what digital space is available to carry CSNW-HD, but that's only an issue in the Bay Area and can be easily accomplished with compression techniques and additional channel movement from analog to digital.

Behind the scenes, there will be an issue of talent and staffing. CSNBA hired a bunch more people and embarked on building a local studio. Would personnel and facilities be shared among the teams despite the split?

Who loses? Well, if this were five years ago, I'd say over-the-air-only viewers. Unfortunately for them, the digital switch is already going to make their experience difficult. Many people in the Bay Area will come out of the switch getting only 6-8 channels, and KICU probably won't be one of them.

5:16 p.m.: A couple more thoughts. There shouldn't be more than a handful of scheduling conflicts each year between the A's and the Kings because the MLB and NBA regular seasons only overlap during the first two weeks of April. That translates to 6-7 possible date conflicts per year. Those games could be easily accommodated by either team's affiliate networks. Also, weekday afternoon games should be available once the deal goes through. I'm guessing that the existing broadcast deal with CSNBA, which runs through the end of the decade, would be torn up and replaced by a long term deal. The Giants supposedly were paid $100 million over 25 years in addition to their equity stake in the channel.

Later today, I'll talk about the ballpark situation.

Wolff/AN Part III - Funding matter debunked?

Part III is the meaty part of the interview, with a lot more insight into the process than had been previously available anywhere. Read it.

One of the items covered is a question about the credit crunch and whether or not it affects financing of the ballpark:

Blez: I've read where people have said that this project is becoming a bit more of a nightmare because of the downturn in the real estate market. Because so much of this project was dependent on the real estate built around it, and I know that you were planning on having commercial and residential around it to fund things. Is that an accurate statement to make?

Wolff: No, for a couple of reasons. We are not foolish enough to go into any long-term project with only one option in terms of how we finance it. Somebody thinks we are, then they're wrong. So the housing element was critical and interesting, and we don't know that if by the time we get going again that it won't be booming again. We've got some other options which I'd prefer not to discuss but they're logical business options. And we have our own resources. So we're not without capital if we need to do something. Listen 3,000 townhomes don't sell in 20 minutes even in a good market. So it's a matter of how you flow funds. The best part about us is that we can say if it takes an extra five years to sell these homes, we'll bridge it now and you can take us out when that happens. You know, things like that.

I can't tell you how happy I am to be wrong on this point. It's something that I opined about many moons ago, followed by the mainstream press picking it up. It's easy to get caught up in looking at the market as a problem since frequent doom-and-gloom coverage makes it convenient to do so.

There's plenty of additional grist in the interview, whether you want to talk about the A's leaving, territorial rights, why it didn't work in Oakland, etc. Comment away.

Fantastic work, Blez.

Part 2 of Wolff-AN Interview

Wolff addressed the generally underreported fact that in building AT&T Park, the Giants moved closer to the A's and into a more accessible location.

Blez: I’m going to get to the tarp and the Coliseum a little later, but how do you sell a team that is in rebuilding mode to a market that at times can be ambivalent? The Coliseum wasn’t even selling out when the A’s were the class of the AL a few seasons back. Does it take a World Series victory or even two to motivate these fans again? Or is this just a dead market?

Wolff: I do think that the proximity between us and the Giants hurts. They’ve actually moved closer to us. The six years prior to the year 2000, the Giants outdrew us by around a half a million on average per year. In 2000 they opened the new ballpark and the attendance has jumped and pretty much has stayed there. The difference is now about a million and a half although I haven’t checked it this year. That (the new venue) has something to do with it. Maybe not 100 percent.

There's more in the interview. It's pretty clear that the Giants have been successfully siphoning away A's fans from all over the Bay Area since their new digs opened. They've also made it possible for say, a Giant fan who moved from SF to the East Bay, to maintain his allegiance without making it difficult to attend games. Had the Giants stayed at the 'Stick, that fan may have either stayed home more often or chosen the A's as a local alternative. Now there's less reason to do so.

Now the A's are looking to an area that's less accessible for most of the Bay Area. I'm still curious as to what the transportation and parking will look like, given that they still feel that 15-20% of the fanbase will arrive via ways other than driving.

Wolff interview on AN, possible new TV deal?

Blez posted the first part of a lengthy interview with Lew Wolff on AN today. Check it out. Nothing on the baseball village itself. Wolff said the team is working on an improved TV deal that could be done in the next six months.

p.s. Thanks for the rep, Blez!

p.p.s. Thanks to Zonis for finding the Bizjournal article about the A's talks with Comcast. The A's may be looking moving to Comcast Sportsnet West, which is currently home to the Kings. In doing so, the A's could pick up an equity share of the channel, just as the Giants have with CSN Bay Area. If the idea has some vague familiarity to frequent readers of this blog, it should since I wrote about it in May. The circumstances are slightly different, but they're still quite favorable to the A's.

p.p.p.s. I'm not an architect, though I play one on TV.

Mayor Dellums sounds like a nice man

I am not an Oakland resident. I also don't claim to have any real inside knowledge of Oakland politics, so I'll leave criticism of the Dellums mayoral tenure to other corners of the interwebs. That said, Dellums' comments regarding his hope to keep the A's in Oakland read like typical rhetoric from someone who has spent way too long in Washington.

"With a deal that is as big as the deal is in Fremont, anything could go wrong," Dellums said, adding, "I want to continue to keep the door open so that we can keep the A's. The best-case scenario would be that they stay in Oakland. I would like to try to help them stay in Oakland."

That's a lot of well, nothing. Not that I blame him. Every city is playing the waiting game as the EIR and financial markets shake themselves out. Dellums is keen to keep some visibility on Oakland even if his comments are entirely non-committal.

What's not being told is that by the time the Fremont plan enters its crucial stage, Dellums will be entering big-time lame duck territory. I can only imagine what that would mean, given the cruise control nature of his first nearly two years at the helm.

The council hasn't exactly stepped up either, not even Ignacio de la Fuente. Given Oakland's difficult state, is any kind of stadium talk - whether A's or Raiders - the local political third rail?

A new twist in Miami

From the 11th hour department:

The owner of the now-defunct Miami Arena, Glenn Straub, has proposed a land swap in which he would exchange his downtown Arena site for the Orange Bowl site in Little Havana. The Marlins would then build a ballpark on the Arena site and Straub could start planning for other development. The land exchange would not be a straight swap due to the sizes and relative values of the parcels. To kick up the intrigue, Straub has said he and his partners would build the ballpark and finance it themselves. There is a question as to who would own the stadium in the end, probably the city.

According to both MLB COO/President Bob DuPuy, such a solution would be impractical for numerous reasons:

"It is our view that the careful negotiations for the stadium were the product of literally years of work, among Baseball, Dade County and the City of Miami," DuPuy said. "We looked very hard at that [arena] site when we were looking at downtown sites. More land would have to be acquired. The general obligation bond of $50 million wouldn't be available, so even if the costs were exactly the same, we'd be short $50 million.

"There's difficulty there with utility buildings and power lines that would have to be relocated. There's a railroad line cutting through there that would also have to be relocated. And finally, the community is committed to developing Little Havana and the Orange Bowl site, and we want to be part of that development."

While it's true that additional land would have to be acquired, it's not a significant amount. An active railroad right-of-way runs through the block and sits immediately to the south of the arena. It would have to be rerouted around the resized ballpark site. A street that runs through the site would also have to be rerouted as well.

The big advantage of the site is that unlike the Orange Bowl, the site is right next to Miami's Metrorail service, which is like a limited version of BART. Since not much is known about the financial scope of this, it's impossible to say if it passes the smell test. Still, should Norman Braman's lawsuit against the city/county result in striking down the OB plan (via referendum), this is certainly a Plan B worth considering.

Wolff: I still think it's going to happen

The Merc's Lisa Fernandez got some clarity from Lew Wolff today.

Wolff is troubled about the length of time it's taking to satisfy major property owners near the proposed 32,000-seat Cisco Field and to complete an environmental review.

"I still think it's going to happen," Wolff, a major South Bay developer, said today from his office in Los Angeles. "Otherwise I wouldn't be doing this."

Still on the EIR. Okay...

Fremont Mayor Bob Wasserman said Wolff asked him at Tuesday's A's game to talk to nearby property owners ProLogis and Pacific Commons to appease them about various concerns. Wasserman wasn't clear on the details. But he thought the obstacles concerned ownership of some land and parking. Pacific Commons operates a large retail shopping center next to the proposed A's ballpark site.

Three of the larger Pacific Commons retailers have expressed concerns with the A's parking plan, team co-owner Keith Wolff said. Although the retailers can't block the project, the team wants to make sure they're satisfied. They want clarification and mitigation, Wolff said. One possible solution, he added, is a pedestrian bridge over Auto Mall Parkway that would link the ballpark to the largest parking lot.

The first big retailers are an easy guess: Costco and Lowe's. The third is probably Kohl's. They are the closest big box stores to the village site and have vast parking lots that could be easily poached by stadium goers (*cough* Coliseum BART *cough*) if an effective parking plan were not implemented.

ProLogis, the owners of the Pacific Commons site (and sellers of the village site) have been trying to broker a deal that protects the stores' parking during games and other events. Apparently, these talks haven't been going that well. A big box store's business model is heavily dependent on free, abundant, adjacent parking. That allows shoppers to stay in the stores for lengthy periods without worrying about inconveniences such as validation or time limits. IKEA, for instance, has taken this to the extreme by purchasing their own sites and in many cases, building parking garages.

If you're a big box store, your stance is simple: Don't make me have to change anything. That probably rules out validation. Time limits probably couldn't be imposed because they have to be enforced, which costs money. Either solution may be a deterrent to shoppers, and that won't wash with the retailers. You're also not likely to run into a situation in which ballpark goers combine a game with a trip to Costco on gamedays. It's simply incompatible.

On the other hand, there are plenty of smaller businesses, such as area restaurants, that are positively interested in their proximity to the ballpark. The big box retailers, however, have the big sway. They are major sales tax providers to the city, and as such deserve to be accommodated.

What would be the best way to allay the retailers' fears? The A's may have to consider not charging for parking at all. The way the parking plan is coming together, the non-preferred lots are further away from the ballpark than the big box stores. If the A's force fans to pay to walk a greater distance, it will invite parking poachers to Pacific Commons. There still may be poachers because of those lots' proximity, but at least there won't be a monetary reason to do it. This would hurt the A's because they wouldn't be able to rake in some $12-16 million in annual parking revenues. That loss could be offset somewhat by a potentially larger number of visitors to the area. Of course, that policy could be a double-edged sword. If the place becomes too popular (Valley Fair/Santana Row), patrons could - that's right - poach Pacific Commons parking if the village parking isn't plentiful enough. That's not a likely scenario since ballpark parking at other times could serve as overflow, but you never know. Even implementing completely free parking requires patrons to be on the honor system to prevent poaching. Free parking would also not go over so well with environmentalists, as they might see it as tacit approval of driving over transit.

Moreover, the fact is that some of the ballpark parking is somewhat remote and will create pedestrian traffic. That's an intended effect, as the A's want people milling around the area before and after the game. However, there is one major intersection in the area that, if not planned properly, will cause ingress/egress delays due to massive amounts of pedestrian traffic going through there. I wrote about this last year:

Second, since Joe Fan won't get to park that close to the park, he may be forced to use the lot across Auto Mall from Pacific Commons (the uppermost "P" above). It would behoove the A's to build a pedestrian overpass over Auto Mall Parkway. A full lot there would equate to over 5,000 fans walking from the lot. Not putting in an overpass would be borderline irresponsible, as Auto Mall Parkway is 9 lanes wide in this area and only one side has a usable crosswalk. The best thing to do would be to build the overpass and stick some flexible electronic signage on it. The signage can direct traffic on event days. It can also show advertising on other days/hours.

Is this deal complex? You bet it is.

Wolff says project "in flux"

Thanks to longtime reader/commenter Anthony Dominguez, who found an important ballpark blurb buried in the bottom of today's gamewrap (Rick Hurd/Contra Costa Times):

A new venue supposedly would alleviate (attendance) issues, but Wolff acknowledged that such a prospect is closer to limbo than it is reality. Wolff said the team continues to wait for the environmental impact reports to be finished, and that the need to satisfy several constituencies has slowed the progress.

"It is now in flux," Wolff said. "All I can say is we're working hard every day, because our options if we fail, we really haven't thought about those options."

Wolff admitted that the process has frustrated him at times, but that it's been the price of trying to construct something in California. He also said any reports that intimate the team is seeking public money are misrepresented.

"We haven't asked for any money," he said. "And I'm tired of people assuming we are."

From parsing the quotes, it appears that Wolff is pointing the finger at the EIR process. We've gone over how lengthy the process is ad nauseum. There are whispers about the impact of the shuttle service the city/A's may deploy, with city officials concerned that evening drivetime could be especially difficult. I devoted a post to the difficulty of getting a shuttle working when the specific plan was released. In some of the public sessions there was a mention of a similar split of driving vs. transit/walking fans to the current situation at the Coliseum. I expressed doubts about this as I suspect that the number of fans walking from within and near the baseball village will be lower than expected. It's impossible to scrutinize at this point because the transportation study is not yet published.

Of course, it's easy to hide behind the EIR when that's expected. What I think is really hurting Wolff/Fisher right now are the real estate and greater financial markets. Not in terms of their wallets, but their ability to cobble together the village's financing plan. We all know that the Bay Area real estate market has shrunk in many locales - especially the East Bay. Not even the recently signed mortgage bailout bill is expected to completely stem the tide:

U.S. home prices continued their plunge in May, including a 23 percent drop in the Bay Area. Continued declines make banks even less willing to lend, further pressuring home prices, Tyson said, threatening even prime mortgages and credit card debt.

The biggest issue at this point is that no one knows when the economy will bottom out. How bad will it be? How long will the "official recession" last? Fear caused by current economic uncertainty slows everything down from consumer spending to housing starts. And it's those housing starts that are the linchpin to the whole deal. The financial market that Wolff/Fisher are asking to provide money for the village don't want to hear about the ballpark paying for itself. It won't, that's been proven time and time again. They want something more stable to foot the bill. Until the real estate market collapse, that was housing. Without that in place and for a reasonable interest rate, the deal is sunk.

Now it's a matter of when the turnaround occurs. At some point the Bay Area will see a very low inventory of new housing. Market forces will kick in, causing new housing to be built. The question is, when will that happen? And how much will Fremont lag behind the more resilient parts of the Bay Area (SF, Peninsula, Silicon Valley)? East Bay real estate experts I've spoken to have said the area is already turning around. But it's hard to pick out a few data points in the rest of the noise.

Dodger Stadium shuttle service begins

After years of not having public transit service the Dodgers' home in Chavez Ravine, the team and city of Los Angeles launched a shuttle bus service that takes fans from Union Station to Dodger Stadium.

"Dodger Trolley," which reportedly had 500-600 riders (1% of a capacity crowd) on its inaugural night, is free and runs every 10 minutes, starting at 90 minutes before first pitch until one hour after a game ends. The trip is 2.2 miles each direction (map). That's less than half the distance from Fremont BART to Pacific Commons, but nearly twice the distance of future shuttles to either the Warm Springs BART station or the planned Pacific Commons Amtrak/ACE station.

It's a great alternative to the hilly gridlock normally experienced at Dodger Stadium, where no other transit mode is expected to build an extension in the near or distant future. It should also serve as a harbinger for Chavez Ravine's future, in which the area surrounding the stadium will be largely developed.

Around the league, Dog Days edition

Major intrigue surrounds the Marlins' stadium situation, as opponent and former Philadelphia Eagles owner Norman Braman's lawsuit enters its second week. This followed an unsuccessful mediation period. Braman argues, among other thing, that the use of redevelopment money for the ballpark is illegal without a referendum. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel's Sarah Talalay has a great running tab on the case.

On Friday, case judge Jeri Beth Cohen struck down numerous smaller claims made by Braman, but not the core issue:

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jeri Beth Cohen said she believes it does, but is "torn" because a Florida Supreme Court ruling, which states property tax money pledged to finance bonds for more than a year for major projects are subject to a referendum, is being reconsidered and is unclear how it should be applied until it is final. In that case, Gregory Strand sued Escambia County over spending property tax money without a referendum.

"The way I read Strand, it applies to this funding scheme. However, I'm torn because of the way the court issued the opinion on how to apply it," Cohen said.

Braman contends the public has a right to vote on the financing for $3 billion in Miami projects, including a $515 million ballpark. He calls it a "shell game" for relying on property tax dollars meant for impoverished neighborhoods to pay off debt on the performing arts center to free up hotel bed taxes for the ballpark.

Braman has said throughout that he'd drop the case if Miami/Miami-Dade officials would simply put the whole development plan, which is far more extensive than just a ballpark, to a vote. If he wins the matter will undoubtedly go to appeal, where Braman has shown the willingness to keep fighting. Fish Stripes notes that a recent Miami Herald poll shows that 57% of respondents believe the ballpark is a bad investment.

Braman also talked out of school when discussing the Marlins' financial situation:

Braman attorney Bob Martinez said the document shows the team was $150 million in debt and had no equity. Braman later slipped in that he turned down the team’s request to invest because “I could not invest in a company that had $163 million…” but he was again cut off.

The issue with the Marlins has always been Loria/Samson. Ownership groups are expected to meet a certain bar in order to operate properly. $163 million in debt? That's Selig's fault. I guess Loria had Selig over a legal barrel when Expos were "contracted."

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In New York the Yankees are in a battle to secure $350 million that they feel is needed to complete the new Stadium. Here's the scoop, courtesy of Newsday:

YANKEES NEED MORE STADIUM CASH

February 2008: Planned upgrades to the scoreboard, concession stands and luxury suites spark the Yankees to seek an additional $350 million in tax-exempt borrowing via the city's EDC. The problem lies in potential revision of an Internal Revenue Service regulation - a revision proposed shortly after the Yankees and Mets got IRS approval for their tax-exempt financing in 2006.

STRICTER IRS REGULATION OF PILOTS COULD NIX MORE YANKEES' BORROWING

The proposed regulation under review by the U.S. Treasury Department and IRS would impose stricter interpretation of rules governing PILOTs. The proposed regulation would require PILOTs to be closely tied to "applicable taxes" such as a real estate tax, rather than a fixed payment - in the Yankees' case, a PILOT equal to the debt service on the bonds. The change could disqualify the Yankees from benefiting from further tax-exempt government financing via PILOTs. The Yankees are trying to persuade Treasury and IRS officials to drop the proposed regulation.

Should the feds rule that PILOTs are to be restricted to specific (non-stadium) uses, it's likely that PILOTs could never be used as a financing instrument ever again. That would affect all three New York area venue projects: New Yankee Stadium, CitiField, and Barclays Center. It could also affect plans to renovate Madison Square Garden. Since it's the feds pressing the case, the restrictions would apply throughout the nation, not that many projects were looking to use PILOTs (most publicly-funded venues use sales or hotel/car rental taxes).

Bobb is back! - sort of

Say what you will about former Oakland City Administrator Robert Bobb, but he sure knows how to keep himself busy. Bobb was hired back by Oakland on a three-month consulting gig. The task? To identify where Bobb's successor, now ex-City Admin Deborah Edgerly, fudged the budget. Bobb and the consulting firm he represents will get a cool $150k for the effort.

Bobb also officially wears another hat, that of President of the DC Board of Education. It's a good way to keep his profile in the District high without burdening him with a ton of responsibility.

Now for the good/bad news. Bobb has yet one more job, one that could shape his political and financial future. He's now turned into a developer - of ballparks, no less! Could this mean a ballpark in Oakland? Not quite. He's focused his attention on a different former stomping ground, Richmond, VA (not CA). Sounds like he's literally turning his success with the Nationals Park deal into capital. That's not all. The article notes that he may have designs on Richmond's mayoral job, after longtime friend Douglas Wilder (who had a stint as Virginia governor) retires.

A little background on Richmond is in order. Richmond has been the longtime home of the Braves' AAA squad since 1966, which places the team in the city longer than the A's have been in Oakland. Last year the Braves decided to move the team closer to home in Gwinnett County, GA, so they could have easier access to those prospects (the A's moved their AAA team to Sacramento in a similar move). A large factor in the decision was also the futility in which the Braves and Richmond have tried to get a new ballpark deal in place.

Bobb's development group, Robert Bobb Group LLC, is one of several firms competing for the development deal. Bobb's plan looks like this:

The group would build in its place a multi-pronged sports and retail complex, called “The Arthur Ashe Learning and Sports Megaplex,” which includes:

• A 200,000-square-foot Arthur Ashe Center featuring a 200-meter indoor track, an indoor soccer field, a 50-meter swimming pool and a 30-foot climbing wall, among other amenities.

• An 8,000-seat minor-league ballpark and adjacent 19,000-square-foot baseball training facility.

• A 6,500-seat basketball arena that would become the new home of Virginia Union University’s basketball team.

• A 60,000-square-foot tennis center for Virginia Commonwealth University, along with several outdoor courts and a 10,000-square-foot sports medicine center.

In addition to the sports facilities, Bobb’s group also proposes building a 200-bed hotel and retail shops totaling 373,700 square feet. In his proposal to the city, Bobb also claims to have a “letter of interest” from a big box retailer for a 200,000-square-foot store on the site.

The still-TBD new baseball tenant would likely be a AA club, as there are no AAA teams looking to move at this time (except perhaps Nashville, whose future stadium situation is uncertain).

Bobb appears to be building, in essence, a sports village. It's not known how much public assistance will be required for the project, but rest assured Bobb wouldn't be involved unless there were some sizable public funds at stake. That's his specialty.

As for Oakland? Well, I suppose that Bobb could, in his peek into Oakland's broken finances, throw in a well-timed quip about how all of the city's fiscal waste could've helped pay for a ballpark. Would he take over the city's temporarily-filled head bureaucrat position? Who knows? I think he sees his political future in Richmond, not Oakland. Still, this three-month gig definitely allows him to dip a toe in the local waters again.

Nats Park, the Sequel

A ride on the Metro took 25 minutes from the Rosslyn Station to Navy Yard, including a transfer at L'Enfant Plaza. Before boarding the train, I took what is purported to be the third-longest escalator in the world.

The escalator ride itself took over two minutes.

The first game's start was delayed thanks to rain that impacted me as I drove from NYC to DC. The second game's delay waited until the middle of the game.

Overall, three of the six games I attended were hit by rain delays.

This next picture shows the press box above the lower section of the upper deck. Why did I include this? The upper deck of Cisco Field will have a similar look (minus the red).


Again, the concourses are spacious and well-planned. On the other hand, the gray beams could use a splash of color.


The Presidents Club seats have been sparsely filled at most home games this season. I suppose that makes Washington powerbrokers the most fairweather of fans.

My original assessment of Nationals Park stands: serviceable but uninspiring. I take away from the DC portion of the trip one particular observation. It's going to take a long time, perhaps decades, to make DC a baseball town again. It's not just the omnipresent Redskins that make the place a football town. When baseball left our nation's capital for the seemingly the last time in 1971, the institution that is attending baseball games - that is fandom - also left. As a result, lots of Nats attendees don't have a good sense of what it is to be a die-hard fan (not helped by the Nats' constant crappiness). The relative proximity of Baltimore only made it worse, as fans from say, Northern Virginia, had to deal with lengthy drive. If you have a family of four and you leave at 5:30 to attend a 7:05 game, you probably have to leave well before 10 if you want to get home at a decent hour. For most of that Friday night's fans the mass exodus occurred in the 6th inning.

Coincidentally, the distance from B'more to DC is approximately the same length as my drive from San Jose to Oakland. I can see this type of situation playing out in Fremont among the South Bay fans, who have been conditioned to this way of attending games for decades. When a ballpark is only 15-20 minutes away, many will have to learn to attend games the proper way (apologies to families with small children, who tend to dictate this on their own). Conversely, those further north will have to get used to allotting more drive time for games they attend. It sucks, of course it sucks. When it comes to building stadia these days, beggars can't be choosers.

ESPN SportsTravel visits the Coliseum

ESPN writer Anna Katherine Clemmons has a good write up on McAfee Coliseum today. She includes the history of the place with renovations, plus a smattering of opinions on the move. There is both praise and criticism of both the fans and the venue. Worthwhile read.

About the Oakland factor:

The stadium lies off of I-880, a quick jaunt from either San Francisco (assuming Bay Bridge traffic is light, which is almost never, despite the $4 toll) or San Jose.

But since San Francisco Bay Area's namesake city of hills, hippies and sourdough already has the Giants and 49ers, this home to the A's and the NFL's Raiders tends to attract suburban fans from a smattering of outlining towns.

So much so, that at this 6:05 p.m. game between the A's and the Rangers, I couldn't find an Oakland native. I searched diligently, talking to at least 30 fans inside the stadium before finally stumbling upon a city resident sitting in the center field section eating chicken tenders and French fries 10 minutes before the national anthem.

Pro-Oakland types often say that ownership has in effect spit on them and driven them away. Some non-Oaklanders have concluded that the fandom really hasn't been there in the first place. Honestly, I think it has more to do with numbers: Oakland's population is only 1/6th of the East Bay, even less of the Bay Area's 7 million. One thing I've pondered is how many former Oakland residents attend ballgames. As the Oakland Hills has taken in transplants from San Francisco and the rest of the country, certainly many longtime Oakland residents were displaced. Some have left the flats for opportunities elsewhere, especially with the erosion of the manufacturing sector. It's likely a combination of the above factors, which is rather inconvenient for partisans looking for an easy scapegoat.

I'll be in the stands tonight, with a slightly different perspective on the Coliseum since concluding the East Coast trip.

Fenway Park

The greatest thing about Fenway Park is its lack of pretense. It wasn't designed in a way that drew attention to itself. It can't afford to be set back in its tiny block of Boston. It doesn't have artfully designed gates and entrances. Nor does it have an very distinctive exterior. It's red brick and green painted steel, of course, but that brick isn't a façade. Along the first base grandstand, it is that brick that keeps standing spectators from falling to the sidewalk below. Fenway was built in sections, expanded over time, and has evolved to become the institution it is today. Never during its 96-year history has there been the luxury of extra space.

Still, the reputation of Fenway as a tight, cramped space is a bit overblown. Several years ago the City of Boston granted the Red Sox the right to use Yawkey Way as a concourse on gamedays, a la Eutaw Street at Camden Yards. On the first base side the main concourse has a decent amount of room but no place to view the game, unless you're referring to the catwalk-like area behind the grandstand along Van Ness St. Everywhere on the concourse it appears that it's busy and hectic. Yet when you walk into the seating bowl it appears that every seat is filled. What gives? It seems magical.

Speaking of magical, there's nothing quite like sitting in one of the wooden grandstand seats towards the rear of the seating bowl. They're comfortable and well-worn, albeit not spacious. The issue with grandstand seats isn't so much the seats themselves as it is the row/riser width. Leg room is severely limited.

Then there's the Green Monster. It's amazing how much affinity for a place can translate into tangible monetary value. Only in Fenway would outfield seats 37 feet above the playing field be priced $160 apiece. I can't say I'm a big fan. I loved the Monster's lack of clutter prior to the Monster seats and the 2003 All Star Game. I liked the home run net and how sluggers tried to get their blasts over it. That said, little of the Monster's character has changed. Out-of-town scores still have to be changed by hand on the outside of the scoreboard. There's still a resounding clank when a ball bounds off the upper part of the Monster.

The suites and premium/club areas are all above the main seating area, giving a concourses a communal feel. This works from an aesthetic standpoint because many of those patrons, who tend to pay less attention to the game anyway, aren't in high-visibility seating areas where their lack of fan participation would look bad.

Fenway isn't without faults. No matter how much the purists debate the matter, columns suck. If you happened to be in Section 2 just 20 feet down the row from my seat, this is what your view would look like:

Thankfully, new methods of engineering cantilevers has made columns unnecessary, while allowing for more aggressive overhangs with each new ballpark.

I also noticed the rather ironic framed SI cover while walking through the suite level:

And as hardcore as Red Sox Nation appears to be, they're not immune to their own brand of shameful idiocy. Witness the video I captured:

Yankee Stadium

It's hard to accept change. Especially if you're a Yankee fan. I attended Saturday's Reds-Yanks tilt with a die-hard Yankee fan, and he's not alone in his reticence about the stadium situation. This is the last year of the House that Ruth Built, and while the current incarnation bears little resemblance to previous versions, there's still something magical about this place. It may sound irrational, but fans are right in wondering whether the Yanks' unprecedented success here will move to a new place - even if it is within spitting distance of the old one.

The Yankees have been selling out nearly every game and it shows in the price of scalped tickets. We had bleacher tickets, but we heard a storm was coming so we looked to upgrade to something under a roof. We ended up paying $70 per seat extra ($20 premium), but it was worth every penny.

We don't deal with rain delays much in California, which made this particular one quite entertaining. Gale force winds and sideways rain made tarping the infield a bit of an adventure. Worst of all, we were told by people we met after the game that were sitting in the bleachers that during the rain delay, security staff prevented people from getting onto the concourse for safety reasons. Oh yeah, and they don't allow alcohol in the bleachers, so we were able to get our overpriced drink on in the main reserve area as well.

My buddy's house is somewhat upstate and west of the Hudson River. Because of the alcohol factor, we decided to take the train in. Trains west of the Hudson run parallel with Manhattan and terminate at Penn Station (Madison Square Garden). From there we took the B uptown, which dropped us off at the Stadium. No sweat, and by far the best transit situation in baseball (yes, better than the Giants due to frequency of service).

There's nothing wrong with the seating bowl, save for the lack of suites and club areas. The seats are wide and spacious. The place holds 57,000 but actually has some intimacy because the decks are stacked on top of each other with good overhangs. It's once you get out of the seating bowl that the deficiencies show. Concourses and ramps are terribly cramped. Available space limits the number and types of concession stands.

That won't be the case at the New Yankee Stadium, which will be replete with a true façade. Upper deck seats will be further away, and prices will be completely ridiculous. One nice thing that will come out of it: MTA is building a new Metro North train station for fans coming from the Hudson River Valley and Connecticut.

Citizens Bank Park

Going into this trip, I was the most wary of the visit to Citizens Bank Park. The 43,000 seat park, which replaced the old Vet in South Philly, has been derided as a Johnny-come-lately bandbox. As another HOK project, I had fairly low expectations of the place. At the end of the night, I found myself pleasantly surprised by the experience.

Set in the massive South Philly Sports Complex, Citizens Bank Park is not a downtown ballpark. Yes, it has mass transit (light rail) servicing it, but it's quite clear that the vast majority of its fans arrive by car. And if you came from across the river in Jersey as I did, your choices are limited. Like the Coliseum, CBP is set amongst a vast sea of parking. Yet once come off the Walt Whitman Bridge and descend onto surface streets, there is abundant on-street parking that is predictably free.

I entered through the third base gate (pictured above). The gate's immense nature is only a hint at how large and spacious the place is. HOK and local architectural firm Ewing Cole Cherry Brott took advantage of available space. Friday's game against the visiting Angels was a packed sellout, but I didn't feel a crush of fans typical of a sellout.

Unlike most other new ballparks, the suite level is hung directly above the field level. The suite level is exclusive but not closed off from the rest of the stadium. This allows for an incredibly high ceiling along the field level concourse. The club level is above the suites and has its own sealed concourse.

Like the plan for Cisco Field, the upper deck is split into two smaller decks. Doing this provides views of the field from the upper concourse, which is quite good despite the distance from the field. Standing areas with drink rails are all over the place. There's plentiful wheelchair-accessible seating. I'm not sure if HOK came up with the open upper concourse idea, but it's prevalent in their latest designs and they deserve a ton of credit for implementing it.

This picture was taken from one of the staircases that leads from the upper concourse to the upper tier. It's a lot of steps to get from the concourse to the upper deck, though not more than from the old upper concourse to the view level of the Coliseum. The execution on a whole is similar to the rebuilt Stanford Stadium.

I had a seat on the second row of the upper tier (section 421). It felt a good deal higher than a similar seat in Oakland. The view was still good. One quirk in the design is the straight, not rounded, backstop. It's little more than an affectation and it makes the place seem that much more boxy and angular. The horizontal line you see cutting through the photo is the top of a plexiglas retaining wall, a line that is actually transparent in live viewing. Notice how for the lower tier of the upper deck, the first row has a stronger metal rail.

I'm not a big fan of the pricing structure at CBP. As part of an ugly trend occurring all over MLB, the Phillies are pricing any kind of field level seat as a fairly expensive premium. In older ballparks, it was generally accepted that seats in foul territory would have a premium whereas fair territory seats - typically bleachers - were cheapies. Nowadays, bleachers are something of a relic. Perhaps Cisco Field can buck this trend to some degree, but I'm not counting on it.

Speaking of the outfield, I had to visit Ashburn Alley before I left the venue. As mentioned in the last post about Camden Yards, Ashburn Alley is CBP's answer to Eutaw Street. There's an entry gate directly behind it in centerfield. There's a great deal of standing room areas. Restaurants and concessions line the alley, including a Tony Luke's cheesesteak stand (I skipped it and went to the actual Tony Luke's only a few blocks away after the game). It even has a second tier for more standing room and concessions. Despite the high level of activity, it all felt a bit too manufactured, and not terribly authentic. It's the same worry I have about Cisco Field, whose architects (360/Gensler) have their work cut out for them in this regard.

Despite the manufactured air, one feature of Ashburn Alley made it well worth visiting. Behind the batter's eye in center is a monument to Philadelphia baseball. Not just the Phillies, mind you. Both the Philadelphia A's and Negro League players and teams get nods. The exhibit is set up in two large timelines, the top being the Phillies, the middle for the A's, and the bottom for the Negro Leagues.



If you ever visit CBP, this is a must see. With that, I think it's time for me to mention that Lew Wolff brought up the idea of a baseball museum in his initial presentation for the Coliseum North plan, and we haven't heard anything about it since.

Lastly, what visit to a Phillies game would be complete without a mention of the Phanatic? During a break, both male and female Phanatics showed up on the field to enact Philly soul legend Billy Paul's classic "Me and Mrs. Jones." The show included some humorous albeit suggestive belly thrusting on the male Phanatic's part. At the climax, the male took a running start, leaping over the table at which the female was sitting, tackling her in the process.

Also, Philly's always had the best between-inning music selections of any ballpark, bar none. Overall, a pretty darned good place to see a game.

Next post: my final visit to Yankee Stadium.

Camden Yards

I first visited Camden Yards over a decade ago, when the joint was still new and jumping and the O's were perennial contenders in the AL East. In the intervening years, the team has taken a nosedive and the novelty of having a great downtown ballpark has worn off. This season, the O's have averaged only 27,532 fans per game. After the Nats ballpark tour yesterday, I journeyed up to Baltimore to catch a game and see what other changes were made.

When Oriole Park opened, it put another HOK-designed project, New Comiskey Park, to complete shame. It had open concourses, easy circulation, and that oh-so-retro look. Nowadays, it suffers a bit compared to the newest parks but for the most part still holds it own. That's reflected in the fanbase, much of which is young and comes mostly to hang out.

The picture above was taken at 7:36 p.m., over a half hour into the O's-Stros duel. It took me another 20 minutes to get a ticket. By the time I got inside the north Eutaw St gate, it was the middle of the third. The kids in line with me didn't appear to care much for the action on the field, although half the crowd adorned Nick Markakis jersey shirts. The final announced crowd was 31,480, nearly 10,000 more than average. Some of that boost may have been attributable to the team's recent success. The O's were on the verge of a three-game sweep going into Thursday night.

This picture pretty much sums Camden Yards. At the bottom is the field level concourse. Unlike most new ballparks, the tunnels/vomitories from the concourse empty into the middle of the field level seating. You can see the back of the upper section cantilevered over the concourse. The net effect is that fans on the concourse are cut off from the action. It's odd that only baseball really emphasizes the idea of the open concourse, the other three major sports all sport venues with concourses separate from the action. Yet the open concourse really enhances fan experience, that's why even upper decks are getting the treatment.

Now compare the Camden Yards concourse, above, to Nats Park's lower concourse.

Massive difference in ambient light, right? This tends to make the concourse feel a bit claustrophobic, especially when there's a lot of foot traffic. At Camden Yards, not so much. There's always an available refuge area at the outer edge of the concourse, which happens to be at street level. Is one really that much better than the other? I can't say. Both have readily apparent pros and cons. PETCO Park tried to have it both ways by having concourses split so that they're open on both sides with a block of services in between. I find it a bit confusing.

Also, take a look at the structural work. At Camden Yards, the steel beams are smaller but in greater quantity. At Nationals Park they use massive beams and trusses that are set further apart. Is the newer treatment more practical, or more for effect? It gets a big shrug from me. To the same end, Nats Park has huge concrete columns supporting the truss system.

The thing I appreciate the most about Camden Yards is its use of materials. All stadium have mixtures of precast concrete and steel, along with some kind of external treatment. While HOK has really emphasized steel in its most recent parks, Camden Yards is different in that it gives equal treatment to both materials, as well as the brick façade.

The ramp landing above shows this philosophy. The brick isn't a thin layer as it is at AT&T Park, it's either one or two full bricks deep. It even wraps around so that it's exposed to fans using the ramp. Not to be forgotten, there's a steel form there to remind everyone what's really carrying the load. It's that sense of shared purpose that makes Camden Yards so good, so unique. Sometimes I wonder what's happened to HOK's parks since then. It can't just be a budgetary issue, can it?

Eutaw Street is the element that every ballpark since then (that has had available space) has tried to copy. It's perfect in terms of execution. Perhaps it's too good. The green canopy in the middle left is the oft-mentioned Boog's BBQ stand. The line for it stretched almost completely to the gate at the far left. Chances are if you were in the line you were waiting for 30 minutes just to order. I'm sure it's good, but really what are they doing? Par-cooking then heating up the food? Is that what they're waiting for?

I've been working with a small smoker recently, and much of the time there is no comparison between merely grilled food and truly barbecued (via smokehouse/smoker) food.

Tonight I'm off to Citizens Bank Park, home to the Phillies' answer to Eutaw Street, Ashburn Alley.

Nationals Park: Cute from afar, far from cute

A while back I expressed my disappointment at the use of lackluster materials in the Nationals Park façade. Since my flight came into Dulles a little after midnight, I had a chance to quickly drive over to the ballpark in the morning after catching half a wink. It's worse than I thought.

What you're seeing here the wall next to a vehicle service entrance. It has alternating concrete and aggregate. This pattern repeats itself throughout the exterior and provides contrast. No problem if you're looking at it from a distance. Up close, not so great. It doesn't look like it's going to wear or weather well. And unfortunately, there is one place where actual stone is used...

...the tunnel to the dark, swanky, and very exclusive Lexus Club.

Years from now Nationals Park will be looked upon as a serviceable, bland venue from the outside. Thankfully, fans will pay a lot more attention to what happens on the inside. Inside, it looks alright. They're still tying up some loose ends, as evidenced by an engineering crew maintaining an office within the stadium.

It's not fair to dismiss HOK and Joe Spear for the firm's ubiquitous ballpark design, but they have patterns just like a bad poker player. The fact that they've built so many of these things only magnifies the criticism.

Nationals Park shares much with Cincinnati's Great American Ballpark, from the seemingly overbuilt structural steel to the split/uneven upper deck distribution. It certainly pushes the "neighborhood" concept that many (including the A's) are trying to capture. Unfortunately, I think neighborhoods have to come about organically. They can't be forced.

Sight lines are good from just about everywhere. Opposing team broadcasters have set about whining their entire stays in DC. To that I can only say that the same thing happened at PNC Park when it opened, and you don't hear that much about the problem anymore - though Nats Park's press box is much higher.

The Mitsubishi scoreboard looks good. In a puzzling bit of advertising wizardry, Amtrak is the sponsor on all in-house displays. Now I'm not sure if that's only when there isn't a game on. If that's the case it's a curious way to get eyeballs.

The field level concourse is enormous and easy to navigate. They've used the space well to spread out food and entertainment offerings, right down to a large, multi-attraction children's area in RF.

I will be returning to Nationals Park on the 27th and 28th for games against the Orioles. I'll look at transportation and parking, along with understanding how the design elements work practically in service of the fans. FWIW it took 40 minutes to take the Metrorail's Green Line train between the Navy Yard station (1/2 block from Nationals Park) and the Greenbelt station, which is in Maryland beyond the Beltway and College Park, the home of the University of Maryland. It also took 3 minutes from L'Enfant Plaza.

Tomorrow, I'll write the nightcap from the 19th: a visit to a game at Camden Yards.

49ers Santa Clara vote may slip to 2009

Ah, process.

Santa Clara's city council is considering pushing the stadium financing plan's deadline back seven months, which would make a November vote impossible. The next likely election is a special election in mid-to-late 2009, in which a much lower turnout would be expected than the upcoming general election. Usually this is good for stadium proponents as they can expect and gear up a greater percentage of turnout from their supporters than their opponents.

Even with that there's still the EIR that has to be completed. While far less complicated than the Cisco Field/baseball village EIR, there's still a year's worth of work there. Proponents still claim that a 2012 opening is still possible, but they're cutting it really close.

One potentially troubling item comes from councilmember and stadium skeptic Jamie Mcleod, who states:

...the 49ers have pledged only to cover cost overruns for one year after the team's 2012 completion target.

No big deal if they get it done on time and do some value engineering in the process. Because they might value engineer the first time around, they might use up a lot of that annual stadium improvement fund quickly, lest the 49ers stadium turn into Edward Jones Dome.

Election recap

San Francisco voters passed Proposition G while nixing Proposition F. Prop G asked for voter approval of Lennar's vast Hunters Point development. Prop F would have added that half of the new housing to be built had to be affordable housing. As part of the development plan, Lennar has set aside a site for a new 49ers stadium to replace the 'Stick, while also ponying up $100 million towards construction.

Meanwhile, competing statewide anti-eminent domain Propositions 98 and 99 were also on the ballot. Prop 98 lost, while Prop 99 won. The upshot is that the state now has a real, though limited, set of restrictions against eminent domain. Homeowners will be protected against property seizures intended for use by private parties (developers). However, this really only brings us back to the original purpose of eminent domain: seizure of property for public use (roads, etc.). A city or county could continue to seize property to build, say, a stadium, and as long as the final product were publicly owned it would still pass muster. Whoop-de-do!

Upcoming ballpark trip

Circumstances have allowed me to move my planned trip to Nationals Park from August to June. Along with DC, I'll be traveling north to take in games at Baltimore's Camden Yards, Philadelphia's Citizens Bank Park, Yankee Stadium, and Fenway Park. If time allows, I'll be heading with some friends to Cooperstown as well. The trip is planned for June 19-29.

Here's the tentative schedule I've planned:

• June 19: Nationals Park tour; Pirates vs. Orioles @ Camden Yards
• June 20: Angels vs. Phillies @ Citizens Bank Park
• June 22: Reds vs. Yankees @ Yankee Stadium
• June 23: Baseball Hall of Fame
• June 25: Diamondbacks vs. Red Sox @ Fenway Park + tour
• June 27: Orioles vs. Nationals @ Nationals Park

I've been to all of the cities before and all of the ballparks except for DC and Philly, but not in a quasi-academic capacity. If possible, I'll try to get inside looks at both the new Yankee Stadium and CitiField. I'm not taking in a game at Shea, I figure once is enough.

Any suggestions for other baseball/sports-related places or events? FWIW I'm trying to cram in the NBA Draft (June 26) into the trip. I went to the 2003 (Lebron James) draft, and it was great pageantry. I'd love to do the NFL draft at some point too.

Tampa Bay Rays Stadium Review Session

Wow, was that frustrating. Consider this: the Tampa Bay Rays are trying to do much the same thing the A's are doing except for the following:

• Over half of the stadium will be publicly financed
• The public part is largely dependent on valuations and revenue streams that are not even close to guaranteed
• There are contributions from both St. Petersburg and Pinellas County, thus requiring approvals from both parties
• The Rays are trying to cram the whole approval process into 6-8 months
• There is a referendum in November
  

I have to say I appreciate the Rays' positioning of several public sources of revenue (sale of land and development rights, parking revenues) as not public. It's cagey and if the St. Petersburg City Council were born yesterday, they may have bought it. Instead, they're chock full of questions for city staff and team officials that alas, couldn't be answered.

The key part of the deal at this point is the shuffling of parking revenue from some 4,000 parking spaces in and around the downtown St. Pete area, within 3/4 mile of the ballpark site. Follow me on this. The Rays prepay a long-term lease on 2,000+ spaces downtown. The city takes that money and contributes that towards ballpark construction, around $35 million. There are also suggestions that a $1 parking fee be charged during games to create another $20 million for the project. Out of this discussion came concerns that there weren't enough spaces to handle this revenue model, and that the city would be liable if there were a parking revenue shortfall.

I don't understand why this thing is being rushed through like this. I'd like to give Rays' owner Stuart Sternberg the benefit of the doubt, but too often important details are missed when the process is rushed like this. Fremont and the A's are devoting the better part of two years to their project, this one merits a timeframe approaching that.

At least I got one thing out of the three-hour session, courtesy of councilmember Jeff Danner:

A lot of what I hear is "All you have to do is put out the referendum and let the people decide." But that's gonna be two questions, fifty words, and I've got a stack a foot high of what we're deciding. We're expected to do a lot more than that.

I've never heard a more effective argument against ballot box planning.

San Jose approves soccer stadium plan

Last night the San Jose City Council approved the first part of the Earthquakes' stadium development plan. The stadium/hotel/office/retail project will be built on the old FMC property west of Mineta San Jose International Airport, along Coleman Avenue. Financing the stadium is still tied to the second part of the project, a residential development at the iStar property in San Jose. There's an interesting admission by one SJ official:

Paul Krutko, the city's economic development director, said the hotel, retail and office project would go through regardless of whether a stadium gets built.

I'm off to the businessperson's special.

Neukom confirms territorial rights

Ann Killion's latest column on the demise of Peter Magowan has a little info on his successor, William Neukom. Not surprisingly, Neukom maintained the status quo:

Neukom was also adamant that nothing will change with the Giants' position on territorial rights, so the notion that Magowan's departure will hasten the A's move to Santa Clara County is a false one. He said that it's a significant part of the rights package that makes up the value of the franchise.

I don't think it's a stretch to say that the Giants would have to be major financial straits for territorial rights to become an issue. Will that happen? I doubt it.

Revisiting San Jose

In November 2005, Gwen Knapp wrote what many called a tongue-in-cheek article about the A's trading Barry Zito to the Giants for the territorial rights to San Jose. How ironic it must be now that the Giants, facing dwindling attendance and sizable debt loads (one of which is Zito), may very well entertain such a concept. Mark Purdy is back drumming up San Jose again. We'll see if it goes any further from there.

Before I get into the transaction, it's important to set the table. According to Cot's, Zito is owed $101.5 million on his contract after this season, which includes the $7 million buyout for the 2014 season. If for whatever reason he's kept on the team, his salary is $14 million, bumping the remainder to $108.5 million. The Giants also supposedly have a mortgage payment of $20 million per year until 2017, with no way to pay it off early.

That doesn't mean the Giants are taking on water. Thanks to tax rules they can write off Zito's contract. They can write off the stadium in a similar manner. And they have the "actual stadium expenses" deduction as part of revenue sharing to soften the blow there too. That isn't to say it's a dollar-for-dollar write-off, it's more like 40-50 cents on the dollar. For argument's sake let's say that it's on the higher side. That puts the combined Zito-ballpark hurt at $19 million.

The Giants are also down 4,500 per game in paid attendance. Project that dropoff over the course of the season, and they're down $11 million in revenue ($35 x 4,500 x 81 games). From the looks of the TV broadcasts, it's far worse with what appear to be at least another 5,000 no-shows per game. That translates to another $5 million or so in lost concessions revenue through the end of the season. Revenue-wise that puts the Giants $16 million off from last year.

To compensate for the revenue drop, the Giants dropped payroll from $90.2 million last season to $76.6 million this season, a drop of $13.6 million. That doesn't quite make up for the shortfall, but it's close. In other words, they planned for this drop-off reasonably well. According to Forbes they made almost $20 million in profit last season. It's hard to say how much that will drop due to the switch from KTVU to KNTV, or Bonds' departure for that matter. The new 30% stake in CSNBA allows for the Giants to potentially hide some revenue from revenue sharing. For this season, they should be fine. Multiple years of under .500 teams will not look kindly on the Giants' ledgers, and their profits should drop significantly.

How to ease the burden? In my last post, I noted that the Bay Area is the only two-team market that is split, not shared. It's also the only market in which one team is a net payer into the revenue sharing system (Giants), while the other is a net payee/receiver (A's). It's been reported that the A's received anywhere from $12-20 million each year for the past several years, amounts that have allowed them to be profitable while escalating salaries. It can be argued that the Giants are directly paying the A's their revenue sharing receipt. Ted Robinson noted on his MSNBC blog that neither Giants nor the traditionally big market teams are happy about the baseball welfare state.

The simple solution, then, would be for the A's to give some of their revenue sharing receipt to the Giants. It could start at a minimum, around $15 million. Any amount above that could either go to the A's or be split between the two teams. $15 million would go a long way towards easing Giants ownership's concerns about the "unfair" aspects of revenue sharing, while also largely taking care of the ongoing, long-term debt burden. This adjunct to the revenue sharing agreement would continue until the A's completed construction of their new baseball stadium in San Jose, probably in 2012 or later due to the land acquisition costs at the Diridon South site and negotiations that need to be done with PG&E to move the substation there. If you're wondering, part of the site has already been cleared. Once all of the land has been acquired (not through eminent domain - that's been ruled out), the A's could conceivably start building thanks to the already certified EIR (some changes would have to be made to accommodate the smaller ballpark size). Surprisingly, even after the stadium's built, there's a decent possibility that the A's would continue to get revenue sharing if their TV contract situation doesn't improve. That smaller check could also go to the Giants until 2017. Total revenue sharing rebate for the Giants: $90 million over ten years($15 million per year from 2008-11, $5 million per year from 2012-17).

The A's would, of course, take a major hit to their revenue. However, the way the revenue sharing is conducted, with payments and receipts occurring well after the season ends, the A's see less benefit than if they had the money up front. Receipts are meant to be reinvested in the club, but as we have seen with the Marlins and Twins in recent years, that isn't always the case. To compensate for the drop in revenue, the A's would have to keep payroll low as long as they remained at the Coliseum. It could even drop well below the current $48 million level depending on which players the Billy Beane decides to retain. The $30 million drop in payroll this season, combined with the major drop in attendance, could translate into a $20 million revenue sharing check.

Beyond the day-to-day operations of the club, there still remain several questions:

• What about Fremont? This is where it gets dicey. Although the area columnists like to say that nothing's a done deal until the A's break ground, it's a lot more complex than that. The A's have invested in nearly $200 million worth of land that, if the ballpark isn't built there, will remain industrially zoned. They could move forward with plans to build up to 4 million square feet of office originally intended for Pacific Commons. They could also go with an alternative that could be mapped out in the EIR: the lifestyle center in Fremont, but surrounded by office/industrial instead of residential. The residential portion of the lifestyle center could stay or go. Fremont gets the lifestyle center but without the ballpark. Pros for Fremont: little infrastructure cost, less environmental and political opposition. Cons: No name recognition, less bang-for-buck appeal, the appearance of having been used as a stepping stone for San Jose. As for the A's, the problem with this is simple: they can't use this plan to finance the ballpark, at least not much of it.
• Is San Jose ready? No, not even close. They have a certified EIR, which is a big step. But they stopped with land acquisition proceedings and the prices are only going to go up. San Jose would have to sell the portion they've already acquired to the A's, which is good for the city's budget. The A's would be on their own to do the rest. The city's issue would be the renewed political squabbling that an impending deal would cause, especially neighborhood outcry. A lawsuit would seem possible if not altogether likely. The city could also buy the remaining land and lease it to the A's for cheap, similar to what S.F. has done with China Basin for the Giants. That would be harder to accomplish because of limited resources and budget constraints.
  
• How much would it cost? Fortunately for the A's, there are a dozen landowners instead of dozens. Still, it'll cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 million unless they are leased the land. Added onto that would be cost of the ballpark construction, currently $450 million and rising thanks to inflation and materials costs.
• How would it be financed? The only thing I can think of right away is development of the eight acres immediately in between the ballpark and the arena. The Sharks have already shown their opposition to a ballpark because it could reduce available parking, especially on nights when both venues are in operation. The A's could combine multi-level parking facilities with residential development there. In the past I projected that they could only get 900 units out of the land because of height restrictions. That land already has a light rail tunnel running underneath it and a future planned BART tunnel, limiting the amount of available below-ground development. Perhaps they could funnel some of the revenues from the scaled down Fremont development if that's approved, but I don't see how the numbers would add up. There may be the possibility of the iStar development, which the A's are using to finance the Quakes' stadium, but I don't know if taking a portion of that will make a big dent either.
  

It's for those financial reasons immediately above that I still say San Jose's a difficult proposition. In the end, these plans have to pencil out. In Fremont, it's pretty straightforward. My money's still on Fremont to be the future home of the A's, though if that doesn't pan out, it's not hard to see what Plan B could be.

A Territorial Rights Primer

Today I was looking through my 539 blog posts for something offered a proper treatment of the territorial rights issue. Alas, there was no real explanation. So I'll try to put it in fairly simple terms.

A team's territory can also be considered its sales region. Most national companies that have local branches or a remote sales staff follow a similar construct: they sell and advertise to customers within a defined area or region.

Two types of territorial rights exist, those for siting a stadium and those for broadcasting. The dynamics couldn't be more different. Site placement tends to be determined by placing a stadium in the center of a large, dense population base. Historical matters come into play, as do peripheral factors such as transportation and civic redevelopment plans.

Attendance of a team's games is active, as opposed to broadcasts, which are passive. Regular attendance is primarily limited to those within a fairly tight radius, 18-20 miles from the stadium. However, a team's territory isn't defined by this radius. Instead, it's often defined by specific counties within a team's market.

A team's broadcast territory is usually much larger due to the nature of over-the-air broadcasting. A VHF TV signal can cover at least a 50-mile radius around it. High power, clear channel AM stations (like KNBR) can reach numerous states and hundreds of miles at night. The definition has evolved to include coverage of regional sports networks, which are carried by local cable franchises and direct broadcast satellite.

Most large cities are well separated from other large cities, allowing teams to set up virtual monopolies within their markets. The notable exceptions to this are the two team markets: New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington-Baltimore, and the Bay Area. Check out the circa-1999 rules noted by the late Doug Pappas:

• The Orioles' territory includes Anne Arundel, Howard, Carroll and Harford Counties in Maryland
• The Marlins' major league territory includes Palm Beach County
• The Dodgers' and Angels' territory includes Orange, Ventura and Los Angeles Counties
• The Yankees' and Mets' territory includes New York City, plus Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester and Rockland Counties in New York; Fairfield County south of I-84 and west of SR 58 in Connecticut; and Bergen, Hudson, Essex and Union Counties in New Jersey
• The Athletics' territory includes Alameda and Contra Costa Counties
• The Phillies' territory includes Gloucester, Camden and Burlington Counties in New Jersey
• The Giants' territory includes San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Monterey and Marin Counties, plus Santa Clara County with respect to another major league team

The rules have changed to reflect the Expos' move to DC. Other than that, they haven't changed at all. Yet one oddity remains in that the A's and Giants have the only market that is split, not shared.

So by that count that gives the Giants seven counties (4.5 million population), while the A's have two (2.5 million population). The most widely circulated explanation for this is the Giants, when they pursued a stadium in Santa Clara or San Jose in the late 80's/early 90's, had no outright claim to Santa Clara County, which was effectively up for grabs. Then owner Bob Lurie asked A's owner Wally Haas for the rights to Santa Clara County. The change was granted by Haas, the commish, and the other owners. Subsequently, both stadium initiatives in the South Bay failed. Lurie held onto Santa Clara County's territorial rights even as he moved his attention to St. Petersburg. The A's were in the midst of a great run of on-field success and record attendance. Santa Clara County's rights couldn't have been further from Wally Haas's mind. The rest is well-chronicled history.

The A's, always the scruffy, overlooked team, have a decidedly adverse stadium and financial situation compared to many of their brethren. Who knew the Silicon Valley, fresh off recession and the closure of numerous defense contractors, would explode the way it did during the dot-com boom? That even after the bust, its economy would stay robust due to the continuing strength of tech stalwarts and the culling of the internet company herd? That it would become this desirable?

Territorial rights typically aren't challenged, well, because there's no need. Since most of the teams are already resident within exclusive markets, there's no competition. Only NYC has the capability to hold another team, and while some teams have considered moving there, such a move has never been a serious threat. When it comes to television, it's been more of a struggle. Potential moves to Portland, San Antonio, and the Carolinas all face challenges due to pre-existing broadcast territories. The explanation for why territorial rights haven't been challenged is quite simple. Challenges haven't been needed. That's the rub. Since they haven't been challenged whether on an individual team basis or on principle, owners haven't wanted to set that precedent. Neither has any commissioner. It strikes at one of the core tenets of baseball's antitrust exemption. It's that kind of thinking that has MLB backing the largest set of lobbyists in pro sports.

In the next post, I'll propose a clean, simple way for the Giants to give Santa Clara County to the A's. Clean and simple? Really? Yes.

Then I'll explain why it probably won't happen.