49ers Draft EIR released

The Merc's Mike Swift has a brief summary of the report, just released by the City of Santa Clara. Matier and Ross add a bit of snark. I'm going to spend the weekend poring over the details, so don't expect much until Monday. Links to the report and related appendices can be found at the City's DEIR page.

A note about discussing the EIR: Please refrain from commenting on the press reports, which are very limited right now. Start by reading the Summary section of the report, which runs 20 pages. From there you can tackle specific topics however you please.

Trains and baseball in the 'burbs

Over at Inhabitat, there are fresh images from HOK and Parsons Brinkerhoff showing what a new multimodal rail station at Anaheim would look like. The planned site is about halfway between Angel Stadium (in the background) and Honda Center (off screen and to the right).

It wouldn't be a bad idea for the Diridon Station design team and the A's ballpark design team to swap images, as it would help the public visualize the possibilities within the area. In Anaheim, they aren't reusing an existing historic station as would happen in San Jose. Instead, a new, modern structure that looks like a huge blimp hangar would be used. It's all part of a plan to do a great deal of infill development in the "Platinum Triangle" area of Anaheim.

Speaking of planning, San Jose's third Good Neighbor committee session started a couple of hours ago. I haven't attended any of the sessions, though I plan to be at one of the last two, which will be held on the following dates:

Good Neighbor 
Committee Meeting #4
Thurs., August 13 at 6 p.m.
City Hall Wing
200 E Santa Clara St

Good Neighbor Committee Meeting #5
Thurs., August 27 at 6 p.m.
City Hall Wing
200 E Santa Clara St

In addition, a Diridon site walking tour is planned for August 19, also at 6 p.m.

If you haven't checked out the San Jose Redevelopment Agency's ballpark website, it has a few items worth viewing. Of chief interest is the planning study handout, which shows just how extensive the broader development area is.

There's also a depiction of the new Autumn Parkway layout, if you're interested.

Trouble at the Trop

If you happened to catch the A's taking a surprising two out of three on the road against the Rays last weekend, you got more than a passing glimpse of Tropicana Field. While the Rays and A's may be on opposite ends of the team development spectrum, their stadium situations are much more similar. The Trop has in the past been accused of being rather library like, allowing The Happy Heckler to hold court in full clarity. (Incidentally, the Happy Heckler may not be so happy anymore due to the real estate downturn.)

While Stuart Sternberg has put some new paint, spit and polish on the Trop, it's still not an ideal venue. He's wanted to move anywhere but the orange dome despite the team being locked into a lease until 2026 (2016 with more favorable buyout terms). Last summer, the focus was on Al Lang Field/Progress Energy Park, a downtown waterfront site. The concept was shelved as the financial specifics couldn't be worked out, especially as the economy started to go into the crapper.

This summer numerous options are being explored by ABC, a group consisting of local business and civic leaders. Multiple sites in St. Petersburg are being considered, and the site search has expanded to include Tampa. An online survey indicates that the leading site is in Downtown Tampa, followed by the Carillon business park site in St. Pete. Within the site study is a breakdown of ticket sales by county. While over half of season ticket sales come from Pinellas County (St. Pete), roughly equivalent numbers (29%) of single game ticket sales originate from both Pinellas and Hillsborough (Tampa) counties.

Local media has largely picked up the financing situation, which is problematic. The outstanding debt ($108 million over the next 17 years) at the Trop is an extra burden that must be carried by St. Pete, the Rays, or both even if a new ballpark is constructed. While dry, the financing presentation provides a good comparison between the financing structure at the Trop and other ballparks and major Florida sports venues. I'll give you a hint: almost all public.

Last, and definitely not least, is a study commissioned by ABC and undertaken by Populous (formerly HOK). The beautiful, 47-page treatise goes into great detail as to what it would take to renovate Tropicana Field to modern standards. To do the job right, which would include building a retractable roof, the cost would be a mind boggling $470 million. One of the appendix documents goes line-by-line into the requirements, which vary greatly in scope. The renovation doesn't need to include all of the prescribed changes, but most would be required. Here's a sobering breakdown:

• Circulation/Concourses: $52.7 million. Similar to the small-scale renovations I wrote about in March for the Coliseum, these improvements would come from ripping out several rows of seats to create more open concourses. The estimate here is twice as much as I projected for the Coliseum work, though this is more extensive.
• Seating Size: $9.5 million. Expansion of row treads from 32 to 33 inches in most cases, from 18 (!) to 33 inches in others.
• Club Lounges: $35.4 million. Construction of three new club areas, at field level behind the plate and along the first and third base mezzanine.
• Press Box relocation: $13.8 million. Following an ongoing trend, the chattering class would be moved from the mezzanine to the back of the upper deck, behind the plate.
• Suites: $21.6 million. Larger (500 s.f.) suites, including 2 levels along the baselines and 3 levels behind the plate.
  
• Natural Light: $99.8 million. No, not kegs of the yellow liquid masquerading as beer at every seat. This would cover improvements to the roof system that would improve light transmission through the roof, along with clerestory windows and other methods to bring in daylight.
  
• Operable Roof: $121.6 million. Your garden variety retractable roof at a newer ballpark (Minute Maid, Safeco, Marlins ballpark), in addition to the "Natural Light" improvements.
  
• Site Amenities: $8.4 million. Redone gates and entry plazas.
  
• Technology: $20.4 million. Sound, networking, closed-circuit video, surveillance. Includes en suite IPTV.
  
• Interior fit-out/Renovation: $17 million. Carpet, floors, finishes.
  
• Concessions Equipment: $13.4 million.
• Signage/Scoreboards/Video: $23.3 million.
• Mechanical/Electrical/Plumbing: $33.6 million.
  

So what would it look like?

Looks a lot like Nationals Park.

The best part of the report? In the introduction is a little background about the circumstances that led to the building of the stadium. But while Populous is perfectly fine pointing out all of the modern ballparks it has penned, it in no way acknowledges the simple fact that they designed Tropicana Field!!!!! Yes, it was spec'ed and built before the modern ballpark era. Yes, it was meant to be multi-purpose. Still, no acknowledgement at all? Come on, now.

The upshot indicates that $470 million spent would still yield a somewhat inferior facility. The conclusion:

Tropicana Field would undoubtedly be a better facility, both in its ability to entertain fans and generate revenue, with an approximately $350-470 million (depending on whether a retractable roof is included) renovation. However, the multipurpose seating bowl geometry, overly narrow seating treads, compromised seating sections, and poor distribution of lower and upper level seats would still yield a ballpark with substantial flaws.

I suspect that a Coliseum renovation appraisal (save for the need for a roof) would be strikingly similar.

NUMMI implications

There's a cloud over south Fremont, and its name is Toyota. With GM and the Pontiac Vibe out of the picture at NUMMI, Toyota had been silent about the plant's future until last weekend. That's when the #1 automaker in the world, which up to this point has never closed a plant, announced that the plant may indeed shut down for good. The leading question from that outcome, within the narrow scope of this blog, is of course, Does that open up a ballpark site in Fremont?

Before I answer that, a little history is in order. NUMMI arose from the remains of a plant that built various incarnations of the Pontiac GTO, among other vehicles. The GM-only plant shut down in 1982, then returned in 1984 as a joint venture between GM and Toyota. The mission was to employ Japanese production methods at an American plant. Since the (re)opening of the plant, it has built millions of vehicles, mostly the popular bedrock Tacoma pickup and Corolla sedan. GM offerings included the ill-fated 80's-era Chevy Nova, the Corolla-twin Geo Prism, and the Vibe. The problem with NUMMI really boils down to this:

Nummi, the only large auto-assembly plant on North America’s West Coast, has the capacity to make 420,000 cars and pickups each year. It only made money in 1992, the result of California’s taxes and labor and pollution rules, as well as the plant’s UAW contracts, according to an estimate by Tokyo-based Credit Suisse Group AG analyst Koji Endo.

Now before you start blaming the UAW for this, let's keep the labor costs in perspective. NUMMI team members make $29 an hour. Their counterparts at non-union Toyota plant in Kentucky make $25-27 an hour, in Texas it's $21-25 an hour. That difference can be chalked up to cost-of-living as much as anything else. Cost-of-living for Toyota at NUMMI can't be denied. Taxes are high, prohibitively so for many companies who choose to leave California. If Toyota is truly serious about shutting the plant down, over 5,000 jobs will be lost.

Last year, Toyota put the kibosh on reports that it was in talks to build the hybrid Prius model at NUMMI. This came as plans emerged for a new factory in Mississippi - those plans are now stalled, with the Prius production going somewhere else. It would appear that the door is open for the Prius, which is equally revered and detested as the darling of Bay Area freeways. Unfortunately, Toyota's writing may have been on the wall when it came out with lower-than-expected pricing so that the car could better compete with Honda's newly released Insight hybrid.

From an outsider's standpoint, the only thing that could save NUMMI is - that's right - massive federal money. The Department of Energy handed out 1/3 of its $25 billion in advanced technology loans last month, including $460 million for Tesla. Tesla has already committed to building its Model S sedan in SoCal, but it plans to build its battery and drivetrain factory somewhere in the Bay Area. The factory would employ less than 500. Ford got a whopping $5.9 billion to better improve fuel economy of its entire line, while Nissan got $1.6 billion to retrofit a plant in Tennessee in anticipation of one or more electric cars. Toyota received nothing (not to say that they didn't apply). Toyota may be up for one of the next two rounds, and if that's the case, a major infusion of cash to get NUMMI up to Prius production standards may be in order. Knowing what hangs in the balance, I can only imagine that locals and union officials are lobbying Congressman Pete Stark and Senators Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein to get the ball rolling. Couple that with state tax breaks authorized by Governor Schwarzenegger and the state legislature (um...), and suddenly the climate becomes much more hospitable for doing business in south Fremont. Like the initial closure of the GM plant and reopening as NUMMI, the process could take some time to hash out. There's zero chance you'll see Priuses rolling off the assembly line this fall.

Got that? Okay, now for the doomsday scenario. Let's assume, God forbid, that the plant does close for good. Suddenly there are now 400 acres to develop in Fremont. The Alameda County Assessor's office pegs the assessed value of the land and plant at $1 billion. The plant has plenty of historical value, which means it's not getting demolished anytime soon. Toyota, which as mentioned before has no experience closing down a plant, would have to deal with messy, ugly divestment of the various assets at NUMMI. As the NUMMI legal arrangement is dissolved, the land will be divvied up and sold. The ripest fruit would be at the northern and southern ends, which are undeveloped. The 107-acre northern section has been considered as part of a large area where a ballpark and/or parking could be built. It's also the parcel that NUMMI considered for a parts warehousing operation, if it wanted to run things the non-Lean, old-GM way. Since any debate of the impact of placing a ballpark there would be rendered moot, it's suddenly a prime site. Just sell the land and bring the piledrivers, right?

Not so fast, my friends. It's unlikely that any parcels will be designated for new development on their own without a larger development plan. Before the City of Fremont even gets to that point, they'll probably exhaust every effort to keep some kind of manufacturing in place at the site. The last thing they'd want to do in the near term is approve incompatible development that could jeopardize that. Let's say that Tesla becomes a major financial success and becomes a standard bearer for electric car manufacturers worldwide. Last summer they'd shown interest in a from-scratch plant in San Jose, before they caught wind of incentives that come with reusing brownfield sites. Perhaps they'd want a piece of the old plant. Who's to say they won't have the same concerns that NUMMI had? Given the generally low wage jobs that come with a ballpark, I'd expect the City to move very slowly on this.

The future of NUMMI, even in death, lies with Toyota. Toyota may very well close the plant, while showing no interest in selling any land. They have every right to reopen the plant at a later date when the economy rebounds. They can also dictate the pace and style of development there. Toyota has some difficult decisions to make here, and closing the plant is only the first. Should the plant close, the aftermath will not be swift, and it will be difficult.

Selig says... nothing

The Chronicle's John Shea has some "news" from the commish courtesy of the All Star Break BBWA meeting.

"Territorial rights are always sacred," Selig said at a Baseball Writers Association of America meeting.

Selig refused to comment on whether baseball would approve an A's move to San Jose, a city that's in the Giants' territory but is luring A's owner Lew Wolff. The A's, whose attendance has fallen five straight years, claim a move from the Coliseum to a new venue would ensure higher revenue and a greater chance to be competitive.

Selig warned, "We're living in an economy where it's tough to talk about new stadiums."

Yes, I did say that the panel's report should have been out by now. What's the hold up? Who knows? It could be that, knowing the state of the economy, there's simply no rush. No one's breaking ground anytime soon. It could be that additional possibilities are being explored by the panel to ensure that every avenue has been exhausted. That's probably not what Lew Wolff wants, but at this point there's no harm in being thorough.

Update: Jesse, a regular participant in the comments section, had a question for Selig during yesterday's online town hall at MLB.com. Here's the Q&A:

Vince Micucci: The next question from Jessie in Oakland: The A's are my lifelong passion, but I am afraid they are going to move. When will the stadium committee that MLB sent to Oakland be ready to deliver a review?

Commissioner Selig: They are close. Mr. Dupuy will meet with them shortly. It's a difficult situation and I understand his concerns. But the Oakland A's need a new ballpark -- there's no question about that -- to be competitive.

The Giants have built themselves a wonderful, wonderful ballpark, and the A's need to do the same thing. So this committee has been very thorough, has examined all of the different possibilities, which they should do, all of the different places that they may be able to go and everything else.

So I'm confident in the end that we will make a very meaningful and rational decision.

Great work, Jesse. Before you readers start parsing the response, I'll advise you - don't. You'll be taking gigantic leaps if you do.

Neukom reaffirms territorial rights

Giants managing partner Bill Neukom headed down to a Los Altos Rotary Club event today, where he attempted to clear up some supposed misconceptions about territorial rights. From the Merc's Mike Swift:

Neukom said "there is a misunderstanding about the facts" relating to baseball's territorial rights, adding that the Giants established their formal claim of rights to the five counties from Marin to Monterey, with Santa Clara County at the center of that territory, as long ago as 1994.

"We asked for those counties because those are the natural counties for our fan base," Neukom said. "And those are the counties that we intend to continue to engage as Giants fans. Nobody else asked for any of those counties. Oakland asked for Alameda and Contra Costa counties, and got them."

That's news. Silly me, I thought Santa Clara County was granted so that the Giants could move there.

What's missing from the story? No threats. No mention of reprisals. It wouldn't sound so strange if it wasn't the same guy who legally reorganized the Giants ownership group as "San Francisco Baseball Associates L.P." Good lord, how much more legalese can it get than that?

Historically, the head Giant owner has deigned to grace the South Bay with his presence once or twice a year, but usually in a place like Los Altos or Palo Alto. Not that I expect Neukom and his bowtie to show up at the intersection of Tully and King, but why not hang out in San Jose for a lunch and talk to interested parties here? Nah, I suspect that as long as this continues Santa Clara County as a whole will be treated like a satellite, worthy of token outreach at best. Don't let the recent investment in the SJ Giants fool you. That's the baseball equivalent of setting up Vichy France. Vive le résistance!

SB 43: Legislative flea flicker

A mini scandal is brewing in Santa Clara, where the 49ers stadium plan is getting help from State Senator Elaine Alquist (D - Santa Clara). She gutted an active, rather innocuous bill, SB 43, and replaced it with completely unrelated language geared specifically towards Santa Clara and how it should work the bidding process for the stadium.

The original bill was drafted to help the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD) determine which health care fields could benefit from greater diversity, linguistic and cultural knowledge. It's a bill that could be beneficial for my brother, who is a rare male in a female-dominated sector. SB 43 was moving swimmingly through committee when, on June 30, all language was replaced with rules that govern that the design-build process for the stadium only. It doesn't establish rules for any other joint powers agencies that may undertake other stadium building projects throughout the state. The bill has gone back into committee.

So what we have is effectively a legislative trick play. Masquerading as a simple interior run, the QB (Alquist) gets the pitchback and heaves a bomb to the WR running down the sideline (49ers), all while the OL (stadium proponents) and DL (opponents) are completely unaware. In a real flea flicker the OL is usually aware, but apparently not this time.

There are all sorts of questions about how this all came about. Let's tackle them from the start.

Why the bill language change? The deadline for introducing new legislation passed at the end of February, so the only way to get these rules passed was to rub out an existing active bill.

Why didn't they just introduce the bill early in the year? My guess is that the Niners felt it would've opened the project up to greater scrutiny before they were ready to unveil the revised plan (remember how I questioned the short evaluation period before the City Council vote?). The 2007 handout made no mention of the bidding process.

Did Sen. Alquist receive a campaign contribution from the 49ers? Alquist's office also revealed late that it received a $1000 campaign contribution from the 49ers.

What's so controversial about this "no bid" change? Stadium opponents are already getting their pitchforks and torches ready now that "no bid" has entered the discussion. The city charter requires a public bidding process for projects like this, in order to get the lowest high quality bid for the allocated budget. In industry parlance it's called "design-bid-build." In this case, they're going with "design-build" which changes the process by identifying a specific lead contractor early and working hand-in-hand from the start. Design-build can yield cost reductions if done right because it can prevent expensive project changes, which cost as much in terms of development time as anything else. There are few firms that have the experience necessary to do this work. What probably happened is that the 49ers and HNTB already had feelers out with construction firms and labor groups to lock in rates and costs as well as they can, which is a good idea - the A's/Quakes have been trying to do something similar. The problem is that we're dealing with public money, for which there is already a defined process. Did the Niners jump the gun? We'll soon find out.

From the City's perspective, this is an endaround the city charter, though a charter committee will be convened to rule on the bidding process. If Santa Clara is figuring out a way to deal with this, then why is state legislation involved? This is one of those cases where a bill is unnecessary and potentially wasteful. Not in the "I want my legislators working full time on the budget" sense, more the "let local issues be handled at the local level" sense.

So why are they doing this? It sounds like the decision to go with design-build was not arrived at hastily, and it may have been baked into the project from the onset. Wouldn't it have made more sense to educate the public about the matter during, oh, the last two years? Now stadium proponents have to be careful that this issue doesn't get too hot, despite the process being a peripheral detail.

And what of the original SB 43? I doubt anyone's going to get hurt by it disappearing, and it can easily be reintroduced in the next legislative year. Though I have to wonder - was the original SB 43 just a placeholder for the existing bill?

Oakland enforces Coliseum parking tax

In a textbook case of robbing Peter to pay Paul, the City of Oakland has chosen to enforce a long dormant 18.5% parking tax for all Coliseum events. Starting with the next A's homestand, parking will go up $2. Prepaid parking will not be affected.

East Bay Express scribe Robert Gammon points out that per the lease terms, the A's can deduct the tax from the team's lease payment. The payment gets split between the City and County evenly, which means that the County takes the hit. That has caused Alameda County to sue Oakland to prevent the tax collection.

In the grand scheme of things, this is really pushing pennies around. The A's only pay $750k this year and next, and around $1 million the following two years. $2 isn't exactly 18.5% percent, so the A's will be "covering" the remainder. Oakland's budget deficit had been estimated to be around $60 million for this fiscal year until massive cuts were made last week. Let's take a look at the numbers:

• 42 games x 5,000 parking spaces x $2 = $420,000
• $750,000 lease payment - $420,000 tax deduction = $330,000 new lease payment
• Normal terms are $750,000 / 2 = $375,000 to City, $375,000 to County
  
• $330,000 / 2 = $165,000 to City, $165,000 to County
• City's final take is $420,000 + $165,000 = $585,000 (additional $210,000 revenue)
• County's final take = $165,000 (loss of $210,000 in revenue)
  

Depending on how long the legal battle is, accrued fees could total $100,000 or more, cutting into revenue even further. And keep in mind that this money doesn't go directly into public services, it's there to service the combined $22 million in debt service and operating costs on the stadium. Since the tax is a perfectly legal part of the agreement, the City is perfectly within its rights to levy it. It can't make for a better working relationship among the three parties, however.

As far as the A's are concerned, it's roughly the same money going out. The tax will probably push some percentage of fans to either the BART lot or to use BART instead. Happy times, people!

Purdy pleads with Selig

The Merc's Mark Purdy, who happens to be the only Bay Area sports columnist truly in favor of a move to San Jose, just made Sunday's paper a little more interesting. Purdy implores Bud Selig to wrap up the three-person commission (the term "blue ribbon" was coined by the media and not by MLB) and decide once and for all whether the A's should be allowed to officially head to San Jose.

Before offering his solution, he gives the most up-to-date take on the panel's work:

• One day last month, the "Blue Ribbon Panel" met for two hours with Selig at his office in Milwaukee.
• During the meeting, panel members discussed information they had gathered from East Bay figures and A's executives over the past three months about why things had gone so sour in Oakland and Fremont. The Blue Ribbonites also offered analysis about whether any other possibilities existed for an A's ballpark in Alameda or Contra Costa counties.
• Selig has been digesting the information and contemplating his next step. But he has not yet asked the panel members to speak with anyone in San Jose. Selig also has not set a time frame for when he would like the Blue Ribbonites to file a written report on their findings.Selig has been digesting the for when he would like the Blue Ribbonites to file a written report on their findings.

Purdy's getting a bit ahead of himself here. The commission's only charge is to evaluate the East Bay situation. If Selig wanted them to open up discussions with San Jose, he'd have given them the green light immediately. This process, whether it's legitimate or a dog-and-pony show, is designed to go through one excruciating step at a time. That goes for rules changes, economics, PED's, you name it. Rare is the swift action or recourse, which is natural for a consensus builder like Selig. The only pressure to which Selig seems to bow is the congressional kind, and even that only goes so far.

The columnist also alleges some dirty pool in the matter:

My further concern: The longer Selig dithers, the more likely it is that the Giants' misleading lobbying effort to trash San Jose will gain traction. Recently, Wolff received an e-mail from a fellow owner. This owner was unsure whether to support a possible A's ballpark in San Jose because he questioned whether the team should "be able to move right next door" to the Giants.

Wolff quickly returned the owner's message and set him straight about the geography: San Jose is definitely not "next door" to San Francisco. In fact, San Jose's proposed downtown ballpark site is 48 miles from AT&T Park, where the Giants play. By comparison, Angel Stadium in Anaheim is 30 miles from Dodger Stadium.

Obviously, this mistaken owner had been caught in the spin control of Giants owner Bill Neukom, who has almost comically stated that San Jose is located "in the heart of Giants territory." What a crock.

It'd be interesting to be a fly on the wall at the midseason owners meetings to hear these arguments get hashed out. I'm a bit skeptical as to the effectiveness of the Giants' lobbying efforts. It shouldn't take much effort to dispel any notions of Santa Clara County being next door to San Francisco. It's a much more complicated sales pitch to convince the owners that changing T-rights is in their best interest.

For some reason, Purdy stops short of exposing the real issue here. Assuming that the commission rules against further exploration of the East Bay, the A's future in the Bay Area comes down to two possibilities: San Jose or bust. As stated earlier in the week, San Jose and A's ownership are already on the same page regarding this. If the panel rules out the East Bay due to economics and the South Bay due to rules, there really isn't anywhere else left to build, is there? MLB won't indefinitely lame duck the A's in Oakland, they'll use the panel's judgment to justify a move out of state, as awful as that sounds. And with that, a certain "Montrealization" conspiracy theory set will have been proven right.

Then again, how realistic is that? San Jose has basically been given the rules of engagement since the Baseball San Jose group was put together. The relative inactivity in 2007-08 didn't change this, and the City has continued its process in spite of the odds during that period. That's not to say that San Jose deserves a shot more because of adherence to protocol. It's just that it's lot of work by several parties and at least one of them (you can guess who) has probably been keeping Selig abreast of everything. If Selig wanted it to stop, he would've given an unequivocal cease-and-desist to all involved years ago. In the end, what makes more sense: to leave a potentially lucrative opportunity open, or to use the opportunity as a ruse to vacate for a lesser opportunity elsewhere (a completely unnecessary move BTW)? Given the economic climate, the choice is quite obvious, no matter how conspiratorial your mindset is. Speaking of which, does one sound like a significantly greater conspiracy than the other?

All we know for certain is that the committee's report should be out soon, along with the City's dual EIR's. A vote can't happen until March at the earliest, next June at the latest. If there's some serious urgency to make a decision, it's not borne out of the schedule. The funny thing is that Purdy may get exactly what he's proposing to Selig in short order. It won't happen because certain SJ denizens are getting anxious.

Overextended Rangers get $15 mil bailout from MLB

Bud Selig probably has a combination of Cerberus and sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads guarding MLB's Central Fund. Still, that hasn't stopped him from giving to someone in need. This time, it's Rangers owner Tom Hicks, whose team has been rumored to have trouble keeping up with payroll. A $15 million cash infusion from the fund should keep the team afloat, at least until a new owner/partner is found.

Before Hicks Holdings' current troubles, the company went on an acquisition tear, buying the Rangers, Dallas Stars, and the Liverpool FC premiership soccer club. This is despite rumblings of Hicks not having enough cake to be a big time player in MLB. In April, the sports subdivision had to sell a local rodeo at a probable loss. It was reported that Hicks stopped making interest payments on both the Rangers and Stars while trying to restructure the debt. Hicks and the Rangers are leveraged to the hilt even though they have zero stadium debt. While the Rangers have an excellent TV contract, slumping attendance has caused the team to sit in the lower half of the revenue pool. According to Forbes, Texas pulled in $176 million net of revenue sharing. Compare that to the A's, who pulled in $160 million.

Dallas media speculates that the team's fiscal malaise will keep them from pursuing any midseason rentals, it may even hamper their ability to sign high draftees. Without some kind of angel investor group, it's hard to see how they pull out of it.

Deadspin takes on the Coli + ESPN team rankings

Tommy Craggs revisits the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum in yesterday's installment of his weekly series, "Why Your Stadium Sucks." While his observations are at its pithy peak, even he can't surpass the reader-submitted testimonials to the old joint.

ESPN's, which is always looking for filler during the summer months, put together its seventh annual Ultimate Standings survey, which compares every team in all four major North American sports. The A's finished #101 out of 122 teams, plummeting from #85 last year. This year's review was done by Brian Kamenetsky, one half of the solid blogging duo covering the Lakers for the L.A. Times. More rankings:

• Title Track: 55
• Ownership: 119
• Coaching: 110
• Players: 73
• Fan Relations: 89
• Affordability: 17
• Stadium Experience: 121
• Bang for the Buck: 84

Team performance seems to have some bearing on the overall ranking. The Marlins went from #99 to #77 by virtue of the fish sitting at the top of the NL East. The Giants also jumped 20 places, from #104 to #84.

Chuck Reed on Chronicle Live

Chuck Reed was interviewed by Greg Papa on Monday night's edition of Chronicle Live. I haven't had a chance to watch the full hour, but I did catch several clips of the interview that were made available on the show's website.

It's no secret that Reed and Lew Wolff have been meeting on a fairly regular basis for some time. Nothing wrong with this, as there has been real business to discuss on the Quakes front. A few extra words on the A's situation sprinkled here and there have made it so that the two are effectively on the same page, with Reed working from one column, Wolff the other.

When Papa asked Reed if there were communications between local pols and the Giants and/or MLB, Reed insisted that any changes in territorial rights were "inside baseball" and had to be done within the realm of MLB. Ever the poker face, Reed has never said anything to indicate that he's either fearful or overconfident about the chances for such a change.

T-rights was also linked to rationale, as Reed noted that the biggest reasons for the A's to move south were financial, with the potential to move the team from a net drag to a net positive for MLB.

So many fans and readers have been wondering what the next steps were and why it has been taking so long to get moving. Stadium building isn't like watching a telenovela. Much of the work is done behind the scenes and most of the product isn't consumed by most people. Honestly, are you going to read the entire environmental impact report when it's released this Thursday? Or even the shorter economic impact report? The release of those two documents will start a small flurry of activity which will culminate with additional proclamations by pols and the MLB panel's report. While we still don't have the date for the report, we have a new key date in the process: August 4. That's when the SJ City Council is expected to act on staff recommendations, notes gathered during the Good Neighbor meetings, and the MLB panel report. It promises to be a pretty active month.

Rickey speaks out

CoCoTimes columnist Cam Inman had a lengthy interview with Rickey Henderson prior to last night's game and the 1989 team reunion. I found this excerpt interesting:

ON THE A'S POSSIBLY MOVING OUT OF OAKLAND

It's hard. I'm a native. You think about the Bay Area. This is where I grew up. This is where I played. This is where I accomplished stuff. So to me, it's heartbreaking. What I would say is do like the Yankees did, do like the Mets did. You've got a big parking lot. Build it in the parking lot and tear the other one down later. You don't have to go anywhere. Build it like it was. That's what I see. We say they're trying to find a place, that they have to go way out there. We want a product here. You want a new field? Build it. But we still need a product here. Let's have a product here. They go on with 'small market' and fans can't come. I played here. We packed the house all the time. We had fun here. Bring em out if they're promoting it right. The Haas family was the best because of all of them, because they got out into the community. So the community respected us and they'd come out to see us play and he put a product there. Instead of saying, 'we're in this situation.' Let's look to see how we can build it. If it had never happened before, then I can understand. But it has happened before. So I would say parking lot.

Keep the debate clean, everyone. You've been warned.

San Jose public vote pushed back to 2010

When certain San Jose supporters privately told me several months ago about a possible November ballot measure for an A's ballpark, I was nearly incredulous. It seemed to be a rapid ramp-up period following a potentially hasty vetting process. Thankfully, cooler heads have prevailed as the City of San Jose is pushing back any public vote until March 2010 at the earliest. At this point a spring special election has to be a given, as neither the mayor nor city council members up for reelection in 2010 want any part of a ballpark vote distracting voters in November. There's talk of a special election that might be underwritten by the A's in March. Why not just use the upcoming primary election instead?

The vote will probably share the same buzz space as the 49ers' stadium vote in Santa Clara, though the vote will be restricted only to Santa Clara citizens and San Jose citizens for the A's ballpark vote. Despite this separation, there will be some measure of comparison between the two comparisons. And although Councilman Kevin Moore got a sneaky shot in at San Jose for "giving away land, something that Santa Clara doesn't do" during the marathon session on June 2, the two populaces are sophisticated enough to know that appraisal of both deals comes down to a lot more than placing a dollar value on some property.

Denis C. Theriault's article reveals that both the revised environmental impact report and economic impact report will be released on July 2. (Happy reading on the Fourth of July weekend, everyone!)

While it may seem that I am painting the situation as competitive, clearly there are many of the same supporters for both plans, including prominent county pols and SVLG. Even Wolff/Fisher have stated their support in hopes of working out a deal to make a new 49ers stadium the Quakes' new "large" venue. These numerous forces are in league, even though the two plans aren't exactly joined at the hip.

Coyotes sale struck down, pro leagues can exhale now

A bankruptcy judge in in Phoenix has struck down the sale of the financially desperate Phoenix Coyotes to Blackberry co-founder and wannabe NHL team owner Jim Balsillie. The reason had little to do with principle, as Judge Redfield T. Baum explained that Balsillie's deadline of June 29 to wrap up the deal was to quick to resolve the myriad issues complicating the future of the Coyotes. (Text of ruling here [PDF].)

Balsillie has tried to acquire and move an NHL team to the Hamilton, Ontario area three times. Initially, he wanted to move the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2006, as there appeared to be no replacement for antiquated Mellon Arena (The Igloo) on the horizon. His bid was rejected, and eventually an investment group fronted by Mario Lemieux bought the team. A new Pittsburgh arena is under construction. Balsillie then moved on to Nashville, where the Predators haven't been setting league attendance records. The league instead preferred Preds ownership to keep the team in town, and an ownership group headed by San Jose financier William "Boots" Del Biaggio was chosen instead. If that name sounds familiar, it's because Del Biaggio recently pled guilty to securities fraud. Apparently, Boots was running a Ponzi scheme to finance his high-rolling lifestyle and to provide capital for his failed purchase of the Preds. After being rebuffed twice, Balsillie turned his attention to the Phoenix franchise, whose team name should be changed to the Phoenix Wile E. Coyotes.

In the last few weeks, a handful of speculative articles have surfaced with the thinking that should the sale be allowed, it would send shockwaves throughout the four major North American pro sports leagues, as there would be precedent to take on various antitrust protections and/or league ownership covenants. Even though the time issue was the major concern, Baum definitely sided with pro sports leagues in his opinion:

"This court can not find that antitrust law, as applicable nonbankruptcy law, permits the sale free and clear of the relocation rights of the NHL," Baum wrote.

He added, “It is not an antitrust violation for professional sports leagues to have terms and conditions on relocations of its members.”

Judge Baum also felt the incredibly bizarre case was unprecedented:

“The legal issues trigger not only bankruptcy law, but antitrust law and commercial law in the context of a professional sports team, as a Chapter 11 debtor, which team has for years incurred, and is continuing to incur, very serious financial losses and problems,” Baum wrote. “No cases have been found that precisely or even closely fit this scenario.”

I'm not going to rehash all of the sordid details of this Coyotes mess, you're better off going to Five for Howling and then read from there.

The four major commissioners can sleep well. It's not that there would be some mass exodus of teams in the coming months, the economy simply isn't ripe for it. Still, the NHL asked the other three leagues to pen a brief on its behalf. But leave it to someone to try to draw the A's situation into it, and this time it's not a Bay Area sports writer - it's LA Times baseball writer Bill Shaikin. Over the weekend, Shaikin mused that a decision one way or the other could spur either the A's or Giants to act. If Balsillie won, the floodgates could be thrown open and the A's could have better footing to fight T-rights. Then again, that same outcome could cause the Giants to sue to protect their territory, a battle which could be waged for several costly years. Either would be done with the thought that the MLB Constitution was somehow weakened by the decision.

For now it's all moot. MLB's antitrust provision remains unthreatened, and territorial rights stay as is. It hasn't stopped the media from revisiting the issue yet again, as Friday's Chronicle Live and a followup by John Shea indicates. The last word comes from Judge Baum, who had two sentences in the 21-page ruling that I felt was even somewhat relatable:

There are a (sic) some reported decisions allowing franchises to be relocated short distances within the area of their existing business without the consent or over the objection of the franchisor; excising such restriction from the contract.

and...

As noted above, antitrust claims are inherently factually driven cases and it is not an antitrust violation for professional sports leagues to have terms and conditions on relocations of member teams.

In other words: status quo.

Oakland City Council proposes 10% ticket surcharge

Desperate to get out of an $80+ million budget hole, Oakland's City Council is proposing several cost-cutting and revenue-generating proposals which will certainly affect different parts of the populace. This includes eliminating discretionary accounts for the Mayor and City Council, getting contract concessions from OFD, and one major item affecting sports fans: a 10% ticket surcharge on all tickets at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum and Oracle Arena.

The surcharge would have to be approved by the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority, with revenues being split between Alameda County and Oakland, officials said. The city's take would be $9 million a year, according to council members' estimates, though some say that is a sunny projection given that a number of tickets for events taking place in the next year have already been sold.

Debt service on the Coliseum alone is $22 million a year, split between the City and County. While the tax wouldn't cover all of the debt service, it would take a big chunk out of it. Unfortunately, that "sunny projection" matter comes into play. Season tickets and a number of packages have already been sold, so a retroactive tax couldn't be enacted on those purchases. New packages after whatever the enactment date is could be taxed, and gameday tickets would be hit as well. Let's throw this into a quick model:

• Tax is effective halfway through the season (Game 42), leaving 41 games to get the surcharge
  
• According to TMR's Fan Cost Index, the average ticket price is $24.31
• If there's a 10% surcharge, the resulting average surcharge would be $2.40
  
• With the A's averaging 17,000+ per game, put aside 10,000 seats as presold seats, with 7,000 remaining as new or gameday purchases
• 41 games x 7,000 seats x $2.40 = $688,800 in potential revenue.
• Next year, assuming attendance patterns hold, $1.67 million for 41 games could be raised (41 games x 17,000 seats x $2.40)
  

$3 million is what an equitable share would be for the A's considering they are one of three teams at the complex. The combined figures fall over $3.6 million short of projections (assuming the total take is $18 million for both City and County, split among the three teams equally). If the surcharge is going to hurt one team more than the others, it's the Warriors. Their season just ended and they've only started to get season ticket renewals. The Raiders have had the better part of six months to sell its packages. With all three teams struggling between the lines, it's difficult to see any of them being terribly excited about a tax that could further hamper sales efforts.

Now for the painful part. How would a 10% ticket tax affect ticket prices? (Note: two prices are shown, first for regular prices and second for premium games)

• MVP: $48/$55 becomes $52.80/57.50
• Field Infield: $35/$40 becomes $38.50/44
• Lower Box: $30/$35 becomes $33/$38.50
• Field Level: $26 becomes $28.60
• Plaza Club: $40/$45 becomes $44/$49.50
• Plaza Infield: $30/$35 becomes $33/$38.50
• Plaza Level: $24 becomes $26.40
• Plaza Outfield: $18 becomes $19.80
• Bleachers: $13 becomes $14.30
• Plaza Reserved: $9 becomes $9.90
  

The City's obviously in a really tough spot fiscally. They don't want to consider such measures since they will no doubt alienate the teams currently playing in Oakland. Honestly, I don't blame them. The Coliseum debt service matter has never been properly addressed by City and County, and for them to properly address it so that it minimizes impact on residents, something needed to be done. The irony is that in enacting a ticket surcharge, they may push away one or more of the three teams that call Oakland home, right as new stadium proposals are being considered.

SJ Neighborhood Committee meets

The Merc's John Woolfork reports on the first meeting of the 30-person committee put together to go over community issues for the Diridon South ballpark site and surrounding neighborhoods.

The City Council last month enthusiastically approved a set of principles meant to guide any future negotiations with the team, such as a pledge that any stadium be privately built and actually make money for the city in tax revenue.

The committee's 30 members include transit officials, neighborhood leaders, representatives from the group that runs the nearby HP Pavilion and nearby businesses such as Adobe Systems. Also on tap are town-hall meetings in all 10 council districts in September and October.

Reed told the committee he spoke with Wolff earlier in the day and that the team owner was "still optimistic" about San Jose's prospects for working out the territorial issue. Reed said he hopes to have a decision from baseball authorities by the end of the summer to meet the city's deadline for putting a ballpark on the ballot. But he said he wants the city to be prepared if baseball gives the green light by working out concerns and showing support for the project.

While it's clear that the Diridon/Arena area will get a facelift should the ballpark and HSR move in, the fate of the Delmas Park neighborhood to the immediate east is less certain. One of the chief requests I heard from Delmas Park residents in the past was to close down Park Avenue to traffic on gameday. The closure would benefit the residents by discouraging outsiders from parking in the area, while also creating a much wider pedestrian thoroughfare between Downtown proper and the ballpark. Park Avenue is also somewhat blighted, with several properties on the street and on Delmas Avenue boarded up. There's also a lack of uniformity with yard setbacks intermingled with commercial properties that should be addressed. It's a stark contrast from the other side of Hwy 87, where Park Avenue is a truncated boulevard with palm trees in the median. It's a shame that something like a ballpark or HSR would have to be an impetus for a major change, but that's often what happens in redevelopment.

Sticker Shock - The SBL dilemma

I've been puzzling over the Santa Clara Stadium Authority matter for a couple of weeks now. While I picked up a few tidbits of useful information about the 49ers stadium project, it took a look at an otherwise innocuous Newsday item for the whole thing to click. In the blog post, the NY Giants admit their once impressive, 60,000-name waiting list has been exhausted in the team's PSL sales efforts. That means they've gone through the existing season ticket roll plus the waiting list - probably 130,000 subscribers - and they still haven't sold them all. While the Giants and Jets express confidence that they'll eventually sell out (they have another year to do it), the pickings start to get slim once they get past the diehard types.

$330 million translates into $24.75 million per year for 40 years of annual debt service. However, I don't expect a massive Stadium Authority loan for the entire amount. It makes more sense to use as much upfront money as possible. For the SA, that upfront money will be in the form of PSL's. How much? It's impossible to say at this point, even for the Niners. It stands to reason that a large portion, perhaps half of the $330 million, will be signed over to PSL's, whose revenue comes as the stadium opens. This is virgin territory for the Niners, who haven't subjected their fanbase to any significant premium seating charges yet.

In the wake of the Giants' very elastic demand for PSL's, the Niners have to formulate their Stadium Builders License sales strategy very carefully. I'm sure they have several Ivy League grads pumping out different models right now for the Yorks and Andy Dolich to pore over. It gets more complicated once taken within the context of the Stadium Authority's $330 million funding responsibility. Let's refresh the funding mix again before we get into the details.

* Principal refunded if Raiders move in permanently

Tim Kawakami first broached the subject of PSL's for both the 49ers and Raiders in February. Alas, the issue didn't get much traction for various reasons. Teams usually don't want to talk about PSL's until it's time to start selling them. In the case of the NY teams, info was sent out around this time last year, just over 2 years removed from the planned opening of the still unnamed Meadowlands stadium. With the 49ers planning to start construction sometime in early 2012 and opening in time for the 2014 season, it's possible that they wouldn't start talking SBL's until the summer of 2012. In Santa Clara's case, the mix of variables that will form the Stadium Authority's share make the whole funding picture a bit murky. It'd be great to know what the SA's funding mix will be come next spring's election, but all of the variables make it incredibly difficult to confidently predict how it will go. It's a strange dilemma for sure, as it would be in the stadium proponents' best interest to release as much information to the public as possible, yet the team doesn't want to scare fans three years early with talk of specific SBL pricing.

Since we can't expect specific numbers from the team, let's put up two hypothetical scenarios that could show how it could work. Throughout the team's documentation, they have shown confidence that the different revenue streams could not only take care of the SA's share, they have to potential to provide an operating surplus for the City. Naturally, it makes sense to be skeptical of such claims, though from running the numbers, there are instances where it could happen - at least in terms of paying off whatever debt service is due for the SA share.

For the sake of argument, let's assume that the goal is to get at least half of the $330 million from SBL sales. If successful, the required debt service would drop to $12.4 million per year at 7%. That's a fairly manageable figure. From the table above, here's how the flows would be constructed (annual amounts):

• $12.4 million in debt service
• - $7 million for naming rights (40 years)
• - $2 million for ticket taxes ($2.50 per ticket for all events)
  
• - $2 million for soft drink pouring rights
  
• - $1 million for beer pouring rights
• - $1 million for concessions rights
  

That's $13 million in revenue against the debt service. Not bad, right? Of course, everything has to fall into place. Some company will have to pony up for those naming rights. In fact, even though Cisco already has a deal in place with the A's, I wouldn't put it past them to sign a deal for Santa Clara as well, especially if the Raiders move in (Cisco was recently named to replace GM in the Dow Jones Industrial Average). In addition, the team would have to sell out games and other events pretty consistently, and those other sponsorships are extremely important as well. As I mentioned in a previous post, what if companies don't pony up $7 million? What if they offer only $4 or $5 million (Cisco will pay $4 million/yr for Cisco Field)? Does the SA hold out until they get the deal they want? If they do, who takes care of that revenue source? The term sheet states that "The Stadium Authority will make a good faith effort to issue bonds or enter into other financing arrangements secured by and paid from Naming Rights Revenue." Can't issue bonds if there's no naming rights sponsor, can you?

Back to the SBL's. While the 49ers might have been able to spring the idea on fans during their 80's-90's salad days, today it seems almost preposterous. The team was dangerously close to having games blacked out last season, which when combined with the litany of Raiders blackouts, makes the Bay Area rather ignominious in terms of its football fandom. I doubt that the Niners could take the approach the Giants and Jets took, which was to tack a PSL fee to every single seat in the stadium. Nor could they assign insanely exhorbitant PSL fees like the Cowboys (50 yard line club = $150k per seat!). Instead, I put together a scenario in which the 49ers attach PSL's to about half of the new stadium seats, in only the prime locations (sideline & club for the most part).

This achieves the goal of cutting the $330 million share in half or more. The remainder would translate to $11 million/year in debt service, which is no small discount. Again, this assumes a sellout of available SBL's, which is no small feat. The market may be far less hospitable to the concept, and the SA/49ers Stadium Company should be prepared for the possibility that they won't sell out. If they sell 80% of available SBL's, the incoming revenue looks more like this:

That's over $30 million less than if SBL's were sold out. Required debt service on the remainder would be $13.3 million/year. Suddenly the SA is at risk of running deficits just for this portion, nevermind the regular operating costs of the stadium. And if the market responds by buying only 50% of available SBL's? It's Mt. Davis all over again, and not even the Raiders becoming roomies will help.

If the Niners and the City want to be completely upfront about the deal, at some point they need to provide realistic figures and projections for the $330 million SA share. It may be premature to do it now, but sometime before the end of the year is not unthinkable. There is a decent chance for the deal to work out well for the City if everything falls into place. To be intellectually honest with the citizens of Santa Clara, stadium proponents should explain what happens if everything doesn't fall into place. Caveat emptor, Santa Clara.

Some related questions to pose:

• Is the SA share sequenced last among the various funding mechanisms?
• At what point does the SA/49ers Stadium Company decide when to go for stadium bonds for this share?
• If the SA is completely responsible for this share, what protections will be in place for the City?
• If the SA share is constrained to actual "Construction Sources" (raised funds), what will be the first corrective steps if those sources fall short?
• How much can realistically be value engineered away to deal with the shortfall?
• What precludes the SA from going back to City in the future, as the Yankees did when they needed to get additional money to finish New Yankee Stadium?
  

Santa Clara Council approves plan 5-2

It's 11 PM, which means the Santa Clara City Council session is cutting into my Daily Show/Colbert Report time. Not cool.

Truth be told, I haven't been watching it for very long. It's been going long thanks to a very extended comments session. There'll be an update when something actually happens.

11:43 PM - All comments in. Mayor Patricia Mahan just called for a brief break. Video feed now has Celine Dion music. Kill me now...

1:30 AM - After more comments by the Council and City Manager, the plan was approved 5-2. In favor were Mayor Mahan and Councilmembers Dominic Caserta, Joe Kornder, Jamie Matthews, and Kevin Moore. The dissenters were Councilmembers Will Kennedy and Jamie McLeod. I didn't hear a word about the Stadium Authority's role from anyone on the Council. Am I missing something here? Even if it had been brought up earlier during the session's public comment period, it's seems remiss not to mention it. Your move, Santa Clara citizens.

Fireworks start early in Santa Clara

There's no shortage of different perspectives going into tonight's Santa Clara City Council vote. While the vote itself appears to be something of a formality (I don't expect more than 1-2 dissenting votes), all interested parties are positioning themselves for the nearly year long campaign ahead.

Noted Stanford sports economist Roger Noll weighed in with a similar tone to his appraisal of the Fremont plan. Remember that a couple of years ago, Noll proclaimed the Fremont plan more viable than Santa Clara. Now that Fremont has bitten the dust and it's a bit early to know what all the details of the A's-to-San Jose are, the 49ers' plan will avoid the direct comparison. Noll goes on to say that "you're still going to end up with a better deal than just about any other city has received." The public vote that will occur next spring is really a question of whether or not that's good enough for Santa Clara.

Field of Schemes' Neil de Mause also chimes in, properly raising the $330 million question about the stadium authority, which to me is the chief concern. Most of the other issues directly related to the stadium deal have been reasonably well addressed, especially concerns about cost overruns and revenue shortfalls outside the $330 million Authority portion.

I'd love to comment on the letter of support from Santa Clara Unified School District ($141 million in positive impact potential), but I honestly can't make heads or tails of the economic impact projections stemming from use of the RDA passthrough mechanism and state "Basic Aid" payments.

Mark Purdy, by far the biggest supporter of moving teams to the South Bay, has a few choice words for opponents of the stadium plan. He's not afraid to get himself a little dirty here. I wouldn't be surprised if he was waving an American flag while writing the piece.

SF Mayor Gavin Newsom may have misfired with his rather provincial sounding advice for Santa Clara. I have to wonder if his prime motivation is not so much the Niners as it is to keep developer Lennar going at Hunters Point.

A few hours ago, Ohio-based theme park operator Cedar Fair yelled out like an aggrieved ex-boyfriend crashing a wedding. They'd prefer that the Council vote take place after Cedar Fair talks Great America with the City and the 49ers a week from now. I thought the timing was strange when I looked at the Council schedule, and now I think it's pretty clear: the City won't allow Cedar Fair to be more than a detail in the deal.

I'll end this post with a little friendly advice for the anti-stadium crowd: Focus on the costs of the plan, not on what profits the team will make. The clearest, most rational way to go about this is to talk in terms of costs and benefits. There are some anti-corporate, anti-business sentiments creeping up, and making those a main thrust is a good way to turn off the voters. Stick with the facts.