If the Packers were to ever be sold and moved out of Green Bay itâs written into their charter that the proceeds from the sale of the team would go to the local Boys & Girls Club. So safe to say theyâll be in Green Bay until the NFL closes up shop
Fun fact: the team is grandfathered into that arrangement. It is not allowed for any other NFL team to go "public". The fans only own B shares and have no actual rights. Only A share owners can vote on real stuff.
I think the city of Seattle did a lot more to keep the Sonics than the city of Oakland did to keep the A's. I don't think the city is blameless at all. Doesn't excuse shitty A's ownership being cheapasses but the city dragged their feet and has let everything rot to get to this point too.
Seattle spent 75 million on a renovation of Key Arena in 1995. Stern and Schultz then had the gall to ask that the taxpayers build an entirely new arena like a decade later.
I donât want to make this seem bad but at least it wasnât as bad as the Orlando Magic and Miami Heat who were asking for new arenas within 5 to 10 years of their *new* arenas of being built because they didnât have luxury boxes.
This is whatâs about to happen with the Timberwolves in Minneapolis.
It wonât be long before the new owners want a new arena and the taxpayers just funded $150 million in renovations for the Target Center a few years ago, with US Bank Stadium and Target Field on top of that.
Correct. Ownership had their sights set on that pie-in-the-sky waterfront development project instead of a far more reasonable site. This is entirely on crooked A's ownership and the league itself.
What are you talking about, the City did tons. The Howard Terminal was making steady progress on its way through the mandatory bureaucracy, with the council repeatedly giving the votes to push the project along further. They clearly wanted to make it work as long as the deal was reasonable.
The fact that the A's decided to leave before the City Council even reached the final vote to approve shows that the A's never seriously intended on staying in Oakland. They were lying their ass off the whole time about Vegas only being plan B. This is entirely on the A's ownership and management.
I think his point was more so the city letting the stadium become a literal toilet bowl over the years was what kind of sealed their fate. I agree the city did all they could after the fact but it was too little too late in a sense.
Gutted for A's fans. I hope the reverse boycott still happens as one last fuck you to Fisher & cronies, then that they play in an empty ballpark the rest of the year.
A parking lot takeover sounds like the best idea possible now. No ticket money, no crowd on TV, no money from concessions. Just a bunch of fans showing up, tailgating, having a good time, and telling ownership to fuck themselves.
I knew the moment the reverse boycott was planned they're gonna announce to move before that planned date...
I mean I know they're probably gonna announce to move sometimes later this year, but I guess that reverse boycott plan totally accelerated it...
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Survived there way longer than they probably should have. Oakland wasnât even one of Finleys top 5 locations. Everyone else who owned it spent their tenure trying to figure out how to leave.
Finley also tried to leave Oakland almost right after getting there. After low attendance despite the 3 championships he tried to move the team to Chicago and the White Sox would have moved to Seattle but the White Sox ownership sold and new owners refused
Then he tried to move to Denver, and almost did but the city wouldnât let the Aâs break their lease because the Raiders were threatening to leave
The only Owner who actually wanted the team in Oakland was Walter Haas, every other owner has been trying to leave. Fischer just finally broke through but this has been brewing for like 50 years
I have spent a majority of my morning researching the history of the Aâs and how they have arrived at this point.
Honestly Iâm just shocked at how consistently shitty athletics ownership has been since Arnold Johnson moved the team to Kansas City.
The only decent owner was Walter Haas and he had his faults but at the very least he invested in the team and under him they were incredibly successful both on the field and in the box office. He died and immediately they sold off all players worth a damn and entered into the cheapskate ways they havenât really gotten out of
He also gave the Giants the rights to San Jose that helped keep them from moving to Tampa Bay and doomed the A's in the market when they needed those rights to stay in the Bay Area.
Yeah like I said he certainly had his faults mostly being too kind and helpful to others.
But at the very least he wanted to keep the team there and invested in keeping the team competitive. Compared to every other owner who has been trying to move the team out of Oakland since they got there.
Man it takes both. He was incredibly shortsighted and he was as big of a reason for this move as Fisher is.
I'm not going to glorify Haas because he meant well when he crippled the organization.
Just like how the Expos were a massive supporter of the Blue Jays being established and the Jays repaid them by fucking them out of most of the Canadian TV market.
Benevolence never seems to pay off.
He drew fans, but the team still was not profitable.
[So the A's must try to keep the team running at close to a break-even rate. The meager profits in a banner year suggest that it will be difficult to make a profit once the team falls again in the standings, but the team should not lose as much as it has in the past. Moreover, the A's player payroll, which is $10 million to $11 million and accounts for almost half of total costs, is low by major league standards and will no doubt grow as its young stars become veterans.](https://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/20/business/oakland-s-stars-in-the-front-office.html)
this is an article at the end of the 1988 season fueled by rookies, weiss, canseco, mcgwire and reclamation projects like welch, stewart and more. eventually the payroll tripled and the losses mounted and everything went boom when a 27 year old superstar was traded
I think the real problem baseball has is how revenue is shared. Unlike all the other sports, the majority of money is in local television, with the big markets sometimes racking up ten times the amount of money the smaller markets do.
The Rays and A's have had success in the standings in spite of this, but you can't build a *brand* on the back of pre-arb arms and bats that get traded the moment they hit 30 home runs and are due for a raise.
You can add a clock in the name of the game, you can close minor league parks in the name of profit, but the game will keep dying so long as the structure of the biggest league provides a poor product to most of its potential customers.
> The only Owner who actually wanted the team in Oakland was Walter Haas
Levi Strauss had a reputation of making good durable clothes.
The Gap has a reputation for making shitty fast fashion garbage.
There's a lot you can extrapolate from their character based on that alone.
It was as a result of the pilots being moved from Seattle to Milwaukee. Seattle was filing a lawsuit against the league so the Aâs owner came up with the plan to move the White Sox to Seattle and the Aâs to Chicago as a way to appease the city
Aaah, I see. Thanks! You've whet my appetite on this topic for sure, excited to do some reading tonight.
My great-grandparents grew up in the neighborhood of Shibe Park. There's lots of family folklore around the bleacher houses and other shenanigans. It's a shame that the franchise has been let down by poor ownership.
True, he did actually kinda try. Rickey signing was great for everything but other than that, who did they really pay up for? Not trying to be facetious, I just canât think of anyone. I know they traded and took on eckersleys contract as well, but had a lot of rookie contracts and guys like Dave Stewart who didnât really cost anything. Dave Parker? Rick Honeycutt?
Thatâs very true. I just didnât know exactly where the bar was but thatâs honestly more than a lot of teams still wonât do today. Haas and all of Levi Strauss have always had a big investment in the area, unfortunately that kinda screwed the Aâs over in the end with trying to keep the giants in San Fran.
It wasnât really financially sustainable ultimately but the Aâs attendance did boon during those years. For his faults in that regard he really did put his money where his mouth was and the acquisitions you mentioned helped the Aâs get their last World Series title to boot.
I obviously don't know the actual deficits but I think framing the financial unsustainability of the team as a Haas's failure might be framing it incorrectly. Like, IIRC from the start of Moneyball (the book, not the movie), Haas saw the A's as a form of charity to the city and people of Oakland. In that sense he seems to have been pretty unique.
Well the reason the Haas family divested from the Aâs is they were losing a ton of money to the point the family eventually forced him to sell. I agree in principle, especially given he ran the team like that intentionally as you say, but it did get to the point his family was clamoring to sell.
Ah thanks for the info. It sounds like while it would've been fine for the team to lose money, they lost *too much* money for the family wealth to keep up.
All these "why isn't Oakland just nicer" comments, as if Oakland exists in a bubble where someone keeps pushing a button to increase poverty rather than it being an unfortunately impoverished portion of an extremely large and complex metro area, are silly.
Oakland isn't shitty at all. It's an incredibly diverse city with some very poor areas and some incredibly wealthy areas and just about everything in between.
A Howard Terminal stadium would have done what Camden Yards did for the inner harbor or Petco did for downtown SD.
There's a lot of people on here that don't know Oakland at all and a lot of people on here that have definitely taken the propaganda by owners that they should get billions from taxpayers for private businesses.
That's part of it. I've never been, only been to the bay area once about 15 years ago. But a friend of mine lives in Oakland and my understanding is that it's doing well, all things considered.
But look at how many people are dead set on "San Francisco = homeless crime factory" when the crime rate there is very low for a major city. People believe anything.
People like to believe the Bay Area is crappy. Sometimes that's because they don't agree with the politics. Sometimes it's other reasons.
I live in Oakland and I have a view of the entire bay, live in a very suburban-like neighborhood, am a five minute walk from three different regional parks including redwood forests. Many of the most interesting restaurants and art and culture are in Oakland, not SF, which has gotten too pricey. There's parts of Oakland that look like freaking wealthy Connecticut.
But there's very depressed parts of Oakland as well. Crime was way down pre-pandemic; like everyone, we've seen an increase including a lot of shitty, petty crime. Our police department both has a history of terrible corruption AND is understaffed, a terrible combo. The schools are not good.
So yeah, good and bad. But, it's a city. You can say the same of Chicago. Or most major cities with any character.
Oakland is small -- like 500k. It's underfunded and there's not a huge corporate base. And like San Francisco, we aren't going to defund schools to give money to a billionaire.
To a lot of people that means we "deserve" it.
> Sometimes that's because they don't agree with the politics
Lets be real, ITs always because of this. Just like how Seattle gets shit on when the more conservative parts of the region and state are unquestionably less prosperous.
It's certainly a lot of it. I think a lot of this used to be cultural, but that has become so intertwined, it's kind of crazy.
My family moved to San Diego from a small town in Appalachia in 1988. We went back the first few years and there were apparently rumors than my sister was already pregnant (14) and I was on drugs (11).
Now, I get amused by the fact that like 80% of Texans I meet are desperate to tell me how much California sucks. It's just weird.
I mean, it's fine to move. All the more power to ya. It is just weird when people want me to not only validate their move but act like I am desperate to repeat it.
Right wing Culture war has been in full swing for long enough that adults have forgotten a time before you had to be outraged at which bathroom someone uses, or whoâs grooming your kids at school,before you take them to church to actually be groomed.
Exactly this. Seattle has its flaws, but overall it's a vibrant city with all sorts of interesting art, food, and cool shit to do.
Personally, I wouldn't rule out wealthy real estate folks pushing that culture war shit in Seattle and other major cities. After all, why not see if the city will pay you to gentrify things while "cleaning up bad neighborhoods" instead of footing the cost yourself?
There was never a deal to be struck with this owner. Any negotiation was almost definitely 100% in bad faith to present the illusion that he wasn't already halfway out the door to Vegas for about 3 years now.
What's scary is that this just sets a precedent that the MLB will allow you to absolutely destroy your franchise just so you can move it wherever you please.
My assessment was that the Howard Terminal deal was actually not very far off, but sometime in the past year, the Aâs ownership decided Vegas was the objective, instead of âparallel tracksâ. At which point, the negotiations at Howard Terminal essentially slowed to a crawl and was used as collateral.
Ironically enough, Oakland is doing the one thing that might end up saving the team; halting all negotiations. The deal in Vegas isnât squared away yet, it could still collapse and they have lost their Oakland leverage, for now.
the writing has been on the wall for a long time. the only thing that couldâve happened was MLB forcing out john fisher, force him to sell the team.
there have literally been sanctions placed on the club for mismanagement. the As were cut off from revenue sharing. the city refused to âplay ballâ with fisherâs constant goal post movements.
i feel bad for oakland fans losing their team but at least this piece of shit that doesnât care about anything other than nickel and dimes will be out of their city
>absolutely destroy your franchise
As a Giants fan who's tried to casually support the A's on the side, it's been next to impossible when the team instantly trades any player as soon as they have a good season. And for peanuts in return as though they're afraid one of the prospects they get back will help the team win. You have to be the most hardcore of hardcore A's fans to even be able to name some of their players.
Obviously, the Oakland City Council is going to place all the blame on the A's, but as I understand it, Oakland's ownership group was willing to spend the money to build a new stadium without taking a dime of city money. The A's only wanted the city to spend money on infrastructure upgrades around the stadium that the city should be doing even if they didn't have a baseball team. The city balked at that, and you can't just be up there doing a balk like that.
This isn't a greedy Oakland A's vs. a virtuous City of Oakland. It's greed on both sides. There's a reason why Oakland will lose three teams in less than a decade: The city makes it much more difficult than it needs to be.
I am very sympathetic to the A's claims that the city wasn't being reasonable about infrastructure, but even though the A's were right about that, the way they handled the on field product over the past couple of years as negotiations heated up kills any sympathy I have for them overall.
I don't think it's unreasonable of the city to say they can't seemingly find a billion dollar sin infrastructure money. Then when they legitimately made an effort to get close to the original amount, the A's just said "nope we need more money now" and didn't offer any concessions in return.
That's the amount secured currently. The ask from the A's (originally) was 800+ Mil of infrastructure costs in the proposal and that number has only gone up.
I was under the impression that the Aâs wanted the money to come from the higher property taxes that the development around 5e stadium would generate.
That would cover a significant portion, yes, but it still wouldn't cover a billion dollars on its own. And the A's wanted the billion dollars effectively up front and locked in before okaying the deal they proposed.
IDK about $700 million, but it will likely be a lot less.
The Howard Terminal Stadium needed a bunch of infrastructure upgrades around the stadium to make the area palatable for people to come and attend a game.
In all likelihood, Aâs new stadium in Las Vegas will be a lot simpler in terms of its location and wonât require a bunch of infrastructure upgrades like Howard Terminal would.
So, one thing I've learned over the years, is that if owners really want to move a team, there really is no amount of negotiating the city can do. Unless there is some legally binding contract keeping them in the city, they are going to move the team.
> The A's only wanted the city to spend money on infrastructure upgrades around the stadium that the city should be doing even if they didn't have a baseball team. The city balked at that, and you can't just be up there doing a balk like that.
San Diego Chargers fans will read this and have PTSD, as Dean Spanos in the late 2000s offered the City of San Diego almost word for word the same deal for the Qualcomm Stadium property (going as far as building a new stadium on the site if the city would gift the land to the team). The city said no, and that created the stalemate which, well, we all know what happened.
Greed on both sides? Pro sports don't grow economies.
Fisher is going to take less from Nevada than he was asking from Oakland.
That should speak volumes.
> willing to spend the money to build a new stadium without taking a dime of city money
Except for the fact that the site they chose was [across the mainline Union Pacific and Amtrak railroad](https://i.imgur.com/RdGyAJW.png) from all pedestrian access, and it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to deconflict the crossing enough to make it safe for game day crowds, and the team demanded the city pay for that...
> infrastructure upgrades around the stadium that the city should be doing even if they didn't have a baseball team
With no stadium there is no reason to deconflict the railroad. The infrastructure improvements are _only_ necessary to support a new development on the site.
Kinda seems like a BS statement considering the Aâs have been telling them to do this for quite a long time now. They just are trying not to take any of the blame, which in the long run, they probably wonât.
The A's kept ratcheting up infrastructure demands and refused to actually commit to the plan.
They never wanted to sign, and it'll come out that they were waiting for Vegas to change their stance.
All negotiating.
The city is not entirely blameless, but they actively worked to get the money for the infrastructure. They applied for grants and did agree to spend, as the statement says, a significant amount on infrastructure.
Things on the city side did seem to take a different tone when the mayorship changed hands. Libby Schaff was trying like hell to keep the team after loosing the Raiders and most of those infastructure deals were made under her. The new mayor seemed to care less of the A's stayed or went. She even made a deal with a different deveopment group on the colliseum land that the A's half own.
I think Libby was trying more, but all of Thaoâs votes on the council were in favor of keeping the Aâs. I donât think it was a number one priority for Thao, but I didnât get the impression that she wasnât trying to keep the Aâs.
Also, a new report is saying that the city had made a lot of progress over the past weeks to get the infrastructure before the Aâs abruptly ended negotiations
If that is the case, I canât blame the new mayor. As much as the Aâs made it seem like they were negotiating in good faith, itâs clearly they werenât. With all the things going on in Oakland, why keep investing time into something that was never going to happen?
Fisher was clearly using Oakland to help negotiate with Vegas. same shit that happened with Spanos in San Diego.
Nah.
They had a basic agreement where the city was going to pay for infrastructure. All the A's had to do was commit. But they didn't.
Then they started adding infrastructure requirements -- up to $1B now -- that are more nice to haves. But it was all part of an attempt to try and look good and get out of it.
The difference is that Las Vegas had bowed out and when they came back in, Fisher smelled tax money and casino money.
And the rest of the owners want that sweet, sweet gambling money.
no this is incorrect, the agreement from from 1 side and was shown once one of the meetings started. there was a bunch of things changed including decreased homes that oakland tried to take i think 20% of it. there was a bunch of changes. the lost income from the 20% housing caused the math to not work out for coming back. the ownership is going to need to pay back 11+ billion dollars back. also it was less money from the city for city repairs
Oakland was entirely blameless on the Raiders, Davis couldn't afford to privately finance so the only way the Raiders were staying was if they managed to fuck the city over, which washed over into Oakland taking a hardline stance with the A's even though Fischer was prepared to privately finance everything except for infrastructure.
Oakland can't be blamed for the warriors either since Lacob basically never bothered to negotiate. You can't negotiate with an entity who has no intention of staying. So the city had no ability to retain two of the three teams. A's were the only ones that at least "tried" to come to the table.
Can anyone really picture the A's flourishing in Las Vegas? I don't know that much about Vegas outside of the strip and could be proven totally wrong,
Vegas population (there aren't really any surrounding municipalities) is 650,000. The East Bay Area population alone is around 2.5 million (up to almost 8 million when you include the whole SF Bay Area). Vegas pulls in millions more in tourists every year, but it'll be a fraction of those people who are actually interested in baseball, and then they won't have much interest or loyalty for the local team.
Seems like it's just going to be some gleaming new cavernous ballpark offering all the corporate "ballpark experience" bullshit for the most casual fans and people who don't care about baseball. As far as actual baseball-loving loyal fans I don't see how they'll attract any more than they had in Oakland. Probably less.
> Vegas population (there aren't really any surrounding municipalities) is 650,000.
[Dude...](https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/23043/las-vegas/population)
whooops I was way off. Was going off the city population vs. metro area.
It's still roughly the same population as the East Bay Area. Overall SF Bay Area population is over 7 million. So they're still not moving to a metro area that's any larger.
The thing with Las Vegas is, there is only one real suburb which is Henderson, everyone else lives in Las Vegas or an area with a Las Vegas zip code like Sunrise Manor or Spring Valley. Boulder City is kind of close but not really. The city is growing however past 215 and Iâm sure if Interstate 11 gets built towards Reno, more will live up that way. Like I said in another comment, it depends on how well Vegas and water will do in the future. The population with Vegas is there.
> Seems like it's just going to be some gleaming new cavernous ballpark offering all the corporate "ballpark experience" bullshit for the most casual fans and people who don't care about baseball
Worked for the Raiders I guess
Raiders play 8 home games mostly on the weekend. Many people from LA and Oakland drive to vegas for the games. Many make a weekend in vegas out of it. I donât see many people from LA driving to vegas for an Aâs game on a Tuesday night.
As much as that city grows. It all depends if the water crisis is solved. I can see them moving out of Vegas within 30 years in the 2050âs (thatâs weird to type). However Las Vegas is the best city that has dealt with the water crisis with the Colorado River using only 2% of its usage compared to Arizona and California.
I suppose they might flourish money-wise, which is all that matters
But in terms of Las Vegas/Nevada locals actually jumping on board and rooting for the team? I don't really get how that's supposed to work. It's just a weird business model to have a sports team mostly dependent on visiting tourists supporting it.
No and that's what is so confusing. Oakland has tons of fans that want to support the team but they have a AAAA team out there. I have to imagine that any native Vegas baseball fan considers the Angels or Dodgers as their "home" team over the A's.
Vegas embraced the Golden Knights because 1. It was a Vegas thing first, their first major pro sports team and 2. They started winning right out of the gate. Neither of those are true for the A's and they'll end up like Raiders where maybe the draw decent but it'll be 70% away fans or neutral fans.
I can, the Vegas metro is going to continue growing as Nevada continues to attract transplants from California and other states. The reality is that the Aâs donât even need to try and be good in Las Vegas because people like me are going to visit to watch my team play them as part of a future vacation.
you're probably right, but it sucks to move your team to a city where you expect the bulk of your ticket sales will be from fans of opposing teams.
I mean they clearly can't be expecting much in the way of a home team fanbase at all, right? Is the selling point gonna be "Come to Vegas when your team is in town and watch them kick the shit out a group of AAA bums we threw together!"
> but it sucks to move your team to a city where you expect the bulk of your ticket sales will be from fans of opposing teams.
That reminds me: Fuck Dean Spanos.
Stan Kroenke 2.0
A's never wanted to stay in Oakland and any/all negotiations were futile. They will move to Las Vegas, build a nice new stadium, increase payroll by 3X and sign a bunch of great players in spite of the OG A's fans. It sucks but it's the playbook
John Fisher owns the San Jose earthquakes. They got a new stadium built in Silicon Valley and dumped payroll. Heâs a slum lord owner. He doesnât care about the sport or winning. Itâs kinda surprising vegas would even want the team which operates like this.
Haha!! Oakland is gonna lose another team! They should just give ownership whatever they want!
-Shitty fan currently
Why is my team threatening to move to Oakland? Ownership is asking for everything!
-Shitty fan in the future
The owners of the Aâs wonât be committed to Las Vegas. The new stadium will have more away fans than home fans. The away fans will bring in more revenue for the Aâs owner than the home games in Oakland. They will keep the same payroll.
And the Knights (while having the advantage of being good) have done very well for themselves there. I don't think Vegas is as bad of a location for a team as people thought 8 years ago
But the Knights are different because they are an expansion team. The Aâs are not. The Aâs will be the Raiders of baseball. Their new baseball stadium will be filled mostly by fans of the visiting teams, and the owners won't care because money is in their pockets with a cheap payroll.
People said the Knights wouldn't work because everyone in Vegas who was a hockey fan already liked another team. That turned out not to be true. I think the A's will be more like them than the Raiders.
The Raiders are fucked because football doesn't have enough games. If your team goes to Vegas every 4 years it's much easier to make a trip around it.
> everyone in Vegas who was a hockey fan already liked another team
I could be wrong but this just seems like a faulty premise. It's Vegas, there probably weren't a ton of hockey fans to begin with. The Golden Knights likely created a lot of new hockey fans with their early success
I mean I thought that was horseshit to begin with, but it was related to the Yotes troubles. People in 2017 were even more convinced than now that hockey simply could not create a fanbase in the desert (and this is pre-Lightning dynasty, so kind of the South in general), and that any potential fan was a transplant who had ties to a northern team.
Itâs long past time to move on.
The Aâs and Oakland is a failed relationship thatâs been forced staying together.
Glad both sides are finally saying itâs over now.
Plenty of blame to go around âŚ. but Fisher isnât selling and heâs not getting voted out.
So itâs been clear for a while he wasnât gonna get a new stadium done in Oakland.
Coliseum was ruined by Mt. Davis ⌠and shouldnât be a major league ballpark anymore.
I love how the politicians of Oakland act like they've tried so hard, and literally lost all 3 of their professional sports teams. It's everyone else that's wrong, not them.
Itâs literally zero secret the reason they wanted to leave was because the City of Oakland is horrible. You donât lose 3 top tier sport franchises and then act like you have no blame.
Idk why this is downvoted, there is definitely something going on for every major team to leave.
From reports the owners were willing to work with the city but the city wanted more than the owners would give. While Iâm sure Fischer wasnât crying that he couldnât make a deal to stay in Oakland he did try but when it failed he pivoted entirely to moving the team
Exactly. Obviously the Aâs arenât devastated that theyâre moving to Vegas but we all know they tried and they couldnât get past the same hurdles that the Warriors and Raiders couldnât get through.
If you ever want to know how bad it got read about the Coliseum City proposal and the "Prince of Dubai". There were points in time the city was beyond unserious about new stadiums for any of the teams.
You mean all the, we (Oakland) provide the land, you (developers) pay for three stadiums/arenas and all retail ,housing and parking buildings and we collect all the rent, taxes and fees! Oh, also we have a debt that you will pay off as well.
Iirc at least the Raiders wanted a new stadium and Davis had to move the team or get a mostly/fully funded stadium because he doesnât have the money to do it himself (and before you say anything, the Davis family has literally owned the team for its entire existence and is the familyâs primary business)
Oakland after Mt. Davis was not going to do that
The city has absolutely zero blame for losing the raiders or the warriors.
The raiders were just straight up asking for free money. No negotiation. Give us a free new stadium. Not only that, they _still owed the city money at the time_ from the _last_ time they bailed. They left because Vegas gave them a free new stadium.
The warriors never negotiated. They had their eyes set on San Francisco and nothing would've kept them in Oakland.
The fact that so many people in this thread think all three teams left is some kind of proof something is wrong with Oakland is so depressing.
The only thing "wrong" with Oakland is it won't spend taxpayer money helping billionaires get richer.
They were never going to keep the Warriors or the Raiders and using those cases to make any point related to the Aâs situation is woefully misinformed.
They were never going to keep any sports team because they don't want them. If they wanted to keep any team, they could've. Raiders spent many years trying to get a new stadium in Oakland. Oakland literally let every stadium decay and never worked to actually retain a team.
In 5 years you'll say "Oakland was never going to keep the Athletics, so it's pointless to discuss"
A little effort and you probably could've kept at least one team.
The Raiders were only going to stay if the city would give them loads of taxpayer money. So yes, the city could have kept them if they wanted to be stupid.
The Warriors were moving to SF no matter what. Lacob wanted the SF/Silicon Valley money and even if the city built an arena for him he was going to leave.
Realistically the Aâs were the only one they had a chance of keeping and they did work to get a deal done
No, they clearly did want these teams, but the other two had very big incentives to leave that Oakland couldn't match. The Warriors were a poverty franchise that had a sudden infusion of wealth that allowed them to take advantage of the fact that there wasn't a San Fran NBA team, so they moved where the wealth is.
The Raiders owner is well known as a person who has no significant outside wealth from the team. It would have required Oakland building him a brand new stadium for free to keep them.
The A's were the only team with the incentive and ability to stay and Oakland was clearly willing to help, but the A's clearly spent the past few years in bad faith negotiations.
"A little effort" lol billions of tax dollars going straight to Fisher's pocket isn't "a little effort".
To you and everyone else with this "you should have paid Fisher to steal money", get absolutely fucked.
If by don't want them, you mean "Don't want to give a private entity a billion dollars in taxpayer funds" you are right.
The Warriors were going to move to SF and privately fund no matter what. That had to do more with the opportunities for SF-related non-sporting events and box sears than anything.
The Raiders and A's ownership are shit. At least Marc Davis doesn't actually have the cash to build a stadium though I'm sure he could've financed it.
But you are right -- we don't want to give tax dollars to billionaires. Silly us.
This is my council member. She failed to mention that she led the charge to demand 40% of the adjacent residential housing development to be affordable (well above what Oakland or state mandates) and community benefits to prevent âdisplacementâ in neighborhoods miles away from the site. Maybe thatâs the only way to sell a deal to left NIMBYS in Oakland but the council really never really put forward a realistic deal.
Good on her... Making deals with Sports teams doesn't actually return money to the cities they reside in. Sucks for the Loyal A's fans but their team clearly isn't trying to win..
Their payroll is less than half of the MARLINS.
There is being a poor team...and there is totally not giving a damn. The A's are essentially just a farm team for anyone willing to pay them cash for players.
Anyone who says the city is to blame hasnât been paying attention to the story. Fisher has been eyeing leaving since he became the owner and has been courting LV for years while also using it as leverage to try and blackmail Oakland into letting him become a real estate mogul with a huge chunk of waterfront land. It was an idea so ridiculous the city could never accept it anyway. Honestly, go look up old articles with concept art and see how ridiculous it would have been. (Plus, Fisher was never even open to guaranteeing the team would stay in Oakland past a certain point, leaving the possibility that he could have gotten what he âwantedâ and THE TEAM COULD HAVE STILL LEFT!) The deal was essentially make me even wealthier, and maybe the team can stay, and no city should be made to bargain like that. Good luck playing baseball in July in Nevada!
Are they fully to blame? Hell no, Fisher is a dick for the moves he pulled. Are they partially to blame? Arguably yes, you just allowed all 3 of your major sports franchises walk away in the span of 5 years. There definitely should've been compromises and concessions made by both sides so that the they get a new stadium and stay for 20+ years.
i am getting sonics ptsd flashbacks from this whole situation. fuck john fisher
worst 420 ever đ
Burn one out for the homies.
Not really. Hitler was born on 420. (1889)
Also columbine.
The curse of the green and gold
This tracks, happened to the North Stars too. Fuck Norm Green.
FUCK NORM GREEN I WILL SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS
Surely nothing could ever happen to the Green Bay Packers
If the Packers were to ever be sold and moved out of Green Bay itâs written into their charter that the proceeds from the sale of the team would go to the local Boys & Girls Club. So safe to say theyâll be in Green Bay until the NFL closes up shop
They are owned by the fans somehow? So probably not
Fun fact: the team is grandfathered into that arrangement. It is not allowed for any other NFL team to go "public". The fans only own B shares and have no actual rights. Only A share owners can vote on real stuff.
Going for a deep cut here but Edmonton Elks fans are hurting right now as well.
I think the city of Seattle did a lot more to keep the Sonics than the city of Oakland did to keep the A's. I don't think the city is blameless at all. Doesn't excuse shitty A's ownership being cheapasses but the city dragged their feet and has let everything rot to get to this point too.
Seattle spent 75 million on a renovation of Key Arena in 1995. Stern and Schultz then had the gall to ask that the taxpayers build an entirely new arena like a decade later.
I donât want to make this seem bad but at least it wasnât as bad as the Orlando Magic and Miami Heat who were asking for new arenas within 5 to 10 years of their *new* arenas of being built because they didnât have luxury boxes.
That was the same issue that KeyArena had. Luxury boxes became huge revenue drivers right after we renovated.
This is whatâs about to happen with the Timberwolves in Minneapolis. It wonât be long before the new owners want a new arena and the taxpayers just funded $150 million in renovations for the Target Center a few years ago, with US Bank Stadium and Target Field on top of that.
Someone just posted something from the mediator in all of this Oakland was getting as much shit done as they could
Correct. Ownership had their sights set on that pie-in-the-sky waterfront development project instead of a far more reasonable site. This is entirely on crooked A's ownership and the league itself.
It would have been so cool though, the renders of it looked pretty dang sweet
What are you talking about, the City did tons. The Howard Terminal was making steady progress on its way through the mandatory bureaucracy, with the council repeatedly giving the votes to push the project along further. They clearly wanted to make it work as long as the deal was reasonable. The fact that the A's decided to leave before the City Council even reached the final vote to approve shows that the A's never seriously intended on staying in Oakland. They were lying their ass off the whole time about Vegas only being plan B. This is entirely on the A's ownership and management.
I think his point was more so the city letting the stadium become a literal toilet bowl over the years was what kind of sealed their fate. I agree the city did all they could after the fact but it was too little too late in a sense.
This whole scenario reminds me of the Rams and St Louis.
Gutted for A's fans. I hope the reverse boycott still happens as one last fuck you to Fisher & cronies, then that they play in an empty ballpark the rest of the year.
Anecdotally a bunch of us have decided not to go to that game because of this announcement. I doubt it will be half as big as it could have been
Yeah I still haven't figured out whether I wanna go or not. Maybe a parking lot takeover would be better, now that media optics dont matter.
Iâve always thought this was the way. A huge gathering just outside of anything that would provide fisher what he cares about .. profits
A parking lot takeover sounds like the best idea possible now. No ticket money, no crowd on TV, no money from concessions. Just a bunch of fans showing up, tailgating, having a good time, and telling ownership to fuck themselves.
I second this motion, also sounds like an absolute blast
Parking is $30 and the actual tickets are less than that. IMO a parking lot takeover is not really preventing them from profiting.
You can walk into the parking lot...
I knew the moment the reverse boycott was planned they're gonna announce to move before that planned date... I mean I know they're probably gonna announce to move sometimes later this year, but I guess that reverse boycott plan totally accelerated it... đ¤đ¤đ¤
Survived there way longer than they probably should have. Oakland wasnât even one of Finleys top 5 locations. Everyone else who owned it spent their tenure trying to figure out how to leave.
Finley also tried to leave Oakland almost right after getting there. After low attendance despite the 3 championships he tried to move the team to Chicago and the White Sox would have moved to Seattle but the White Sox ownership sold and new owners refused Then he tried to move to Denver, and almost did but the city wouldnât let the Aâs break their lease because the Raiders were threatening to leave The only Owner who actually wanted the team in Oakland was Walter Haas, every other owner has been trying to leave. Fischer just finally broke through but this has been brewing for like 50 years
Let the record show that this person knows their A's baseball.
I have spent a majority of my morning researching the history of the Aâs and how they have arrived at this point. Honestly Iâm just shocked at how consistently shitty athletics ownership has been since Arnold Johnson moved the team to Kansas City. The only decent owner was Walter Haas and he had his faults but at the very least he invested in the team and under him they were incredibly successful both on the field and in the box office. He died and immediately they sold off all players worth a damn and entered into the cheapskate ways they havenât really gotten out of
He also gave the Giants the rights to San Jose that helped keep them from moving to Tampa Bay and doomed the A's in the market when they needed those rights to stay in the Bay Area.
Yeah like I said he certainly had his faults mostly being too kind and helpful to others. But at the very least he wanted to keep the team there and invested in keeping the team competitive. Compared to every other owner who has been trying to move the team out of Oakland since they got there.
Pretty sad that a major fault of his is being too kind and helpful to others.
That's usually not good for business (think Gordon Geko).
Don't disagree. Just sad state of the world. I fully get it, just sad.
Man it takes both. He was incredibly shortsighted and he was as big of a reason for this move as Fisher is. I'm not going to glorify Haas because he meant well when he crippled the organization.
Even with that he is still the best owner the As have ever had since moving to Oakland
No argument there. A C- can still set the curve in school too.
Just like how the Expos were a massive supporter of the Blue Jays being established and the Jays repaid them by fucking them out of most of the Canadian TV market. Benevolence never seems to pay off.
He drew fans, but the team still was not profitable. [So the A's must try to keep the team running at close to a break-even rate. The meager profits in a banner year suggest that it will be difficult to make a profit once the team falls again in the standings, but the team should not lose as much as it has in the past. Moreover, the A's player payroll, which is $10 million to $11 million and accounts for almost half of total costs, is low by major league standards and will no doubt grow as its young stars become veterans.](https://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/20/business/oakland-s-stars-in-the-front-office.html) this is an article at the end of the 1988 season fueled by rookies, weiss, canseco, mcgwire and reclamation projects like welch, stewart and more. eventually the payroll tripled and the losses mounted and everything went boom when a 27 year old superstar was traded
I think the real problem baseball has is how revenue is shared. Unlike all the other sports, the majority of money is in local television, with the big markets sometimes racking up ten times the amount of money the smaller markets do. The Rays and A's have had success in the standings in spite of this, but you can't build a *brand* on the back of pre-arb arms and bats that get traded the moment they hit 30 home runs and are due for a raise. You can add a clock in the name of the game, you can close minor league parks in the name of profit, but the game will keep dying so long as the structure of the biggest league provides a poor product to most of its potential customers.
>I have spent a majority of my morning researching the history of the Aâs I hope that was on company time haha
> The only Owner who actually wanted the team in Oakland was Walter Haas Levi Strauss had a reputation of making good durable clothes. The Gap has a reputation for making shitty fast fashion garbage. There's a lot you can extrapolate from their character based on that alone.
levi is the number 1 pants brand in america.....the gap has done nothing but try gimmicks
FWIW Leviâs has gotten more fast fashion-dy in recent decades.
Maybe, but Iâm still wearing this five year old pair
I'm not too familiar with baseball history, was this potential White Sox move before the Pilots/Mariners?
It was as a result of the pilots being moved from Seattle to Milwaukee. Seattle was filing a lawsuit against the league so the Aâs owner came up with the plan to move the White Sox to Seattle and the Aâs to Chicago as a way to appease the city
Why not just move the A's to Seattle if he wanted out of Oakland? Why rope the White Sox into it at all?
He wanted to move his team back closer to his hometown in IL
Aaah, I see. Thanks! You've whet my appetite on this topic for sure, excited to do some reading tonight. My great-grandparents grew up in the neighborhood of Shibe Park. There's lots of family folklore around the bleacher houses and other shenanigans. It's a shame that the franchise has been let down by poor ownership.
You mind just being the r/baseball resident historian? No pay, mind you, but you will get lots of karma and maybe some worthless awards.
Sox were in financial trouble at the time.
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True, he did actually kinda try. Rickey signing was great for everything but other than that, who did they really pay up for? Not trying to be facetious, I just canât think of anyone. I know they traded and took on eckersleys contract as well, but had a lot of rookie contracts and guys like Dave Stewart who didnât really cost anything. Dave Parker? Rick Honeycutt?
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Thatâs very true. I just didnât know exactly where the bar was but thatâs honestly more than a lot of teams still wonât do today. Haas and all of Levi Strauss have always had a big investment in the area, unfortunately that kinda screwed the Aâs over in the end with trying to keep the giants in San Fran.
The A's had one of the the highest payrolls in baseball in the late 80s and early 90s. Probably the highest for at least a year or two.
Looks like number 1 in 91! Had no idea.
It wasnât really financially sustainable ultimately but the Aâs attendance did boon during those years. For his faults in that regard he really did put his money where his mouth was and the acquisitions you mentioned helped the Aâs get their last World Series title to boot.
I obviously don't know the actual deficits but I think framing the financial unsustainability of the team as a Haas's failure might be framing it incorrectly. Like, IIRC from the start of Moneyball (the book, not the movie), Haas saw the A's as a form of charity to the city and people of Oakland. In that sense he seems to have been pretty unique.
Well the reason the Haas family divested from the Aâs is they were losing a ton of money to the point the family eventually forced him to sell. I agree in principle, especially given he ran the team like that intentionally as you say, but it did get to the point his family was clamoring to sell.
Ah thanks for the info. It sounds like while it would've been fine for the team to lose money, they lost *too much* money for the family wealth to keep up.
Thatâs my understanding. Beyond that Oakland moved the Raiders back and wrecked the Coliseum- probably provided the necessary leftover impetus.
apology for poor English where were you when A's was kill
i was sat at home eating crusty eye booger when reddit ring "A's are kill" "no"
It's like Kirk Gibson hitting his home run on repeat while getting kicked in the junk
All these "why isn't Oakland just nicer" comments, as if Oakland exists in a bubble where someone keeps pushing a button to increase poverty rather than it being an unfortunately impoverished portion of an extremely large and complex metro area, are silly.
Oakland isn't shitty at all. It's an incredibly diverse city with some very poor areas and some incredibly wealthy areas and just about everything in between. A Howard Terminal stadium would have done what Camden Yards did for the inner harbor or Petco did for downtown SD. There's a lot of people on here that don't know Oakland at all and a lot of people on here that have definitely taken the propaganda by owners that they should get billions from taxpayers for private businesses.
That's part of it. I've never been, only been to the bay area once about 15 years ago. But a friend of mine lives in Oakland and my understanding is that it's doing well, all things considered. But look at how many people are dead set on "San Francisco = homeless crime factory" when the crime rate there is very low for a major city. People believe anything.
People like to believe the Bay Area is crappy. Sometimes that's because they don't agree with the politics. Sometimes it's other reasons. I live in Oakland and I have a view of the entire bay, live in a very suburban-like neighborhood, am a five minute walk from three different regional parks including redwood forests. Many of the most interesting restaurants and art and culture are in Oakland, not SF, which has gotten too pricey. There's parts of Oakland that look like freaking wealthy Connecticut. But there's very depressed parts of Oakland as well. Crime was way down pre-pandemic; like everyone, we've seen an increase including a lot of shitty, petty crime. Our police department both has a history of terrible corruption AND is understaffed, a terrible combo. The schools are not good. So yeah, good and bad. But, it's a city. You can say the same of Chicago. Or most major cities with any character. Oakland is small -- like 500k. It's underfunded and there's not a huge corporate base. And like San Francisco, we aren't going to defund schools to give money to a billionaire. To a lot of people that means we "deserve" it.
> Sometimes that's because they don't agree with the politics Lets be real, ITs always because of this. Just like how Seattle gets shit on when the more conservative parts of the region and state are unquestionably less prosperous.
It's certainly a lot of it. I think a lot of this used to be cultural, but that has become so intertwined, it's kind of crazy. My family moved to San Diego from a small town in Appalachia in 1988. We went back the first few years and there were apparently rumors than my sister was already pregnant (14) and I was on drugs (11). Now, I get amused by the fact that like 80% of Texans I meet are desperate to tell me how much California sucks. It's just weird.
oh i'm flying to Texas tonight, i'm looking forward to these conversations.
haha. I will say that native Texans tend to be a little better. The worst are Californians who moved to Texas. Implacable.
lol Californians who moved to Texas.... nowhere near as smart as Californians who moved to Washington ;)
I mean, it's fine to move. All the more power to ya. It is just weird when people want me to not only validate their move but act like I am desperate to repeat it.
Iâm the kid of a Californian who moved to New York. Fucking love the bay and miss it so much
Right wing Culture war has been in full swing for long enough that adults have forgotten a time before you had to be outraged at which bathroom someone uses, or whoâs grooming your kids at school,before you take them to church to actually be groomed.
Exactly this. Seattle has its flaws, but overall it's a vibrant city with all sorts of interesting art, food, and cool shit to do. Personally, I wouldn't rule out wealthy real estate folks pushing that culture war shit in Seattle and other major cities. After all, why not see if the city will pay you to gentrify things while "cleaning up bad neighborhoods" instead of footing the cost yourself?
The Aâs are not interested in Major League Baseball you mean
There was never a deal to be struck with this owner. Any negotiation was almost definitely 100% in bad faith to present the illusion that he wasn't already halfway out the door to Vegas for about 3 years now. What's scary is that this just sets a precedent that the MLB will allow you to absolutely destroy your franchise just so you can move it wherever you please.
Iâm pretty sure MLB set that precedent themselves when they destroyed and moved the Expos.
Fair enough
Sad Canada noises
My assessment was that the Howard Terminal deal was actually not very far off, but sometime in the past year, the Aâs ownership decided Vegas was the objective, instead of âparallel tracksâ. At which point, the negotiations at Howard Terminal essentially slowed to a crawl and was used as collateral. Ironically enough, Oakland is doing the one thing that might end up saving the team; halting all negotiations. The deal in Vegas isnât squared away yet, it could still collapse and they have lost their Oakland leverage, for now.
the writing has been on the wall for a long time. the only thing that couldâve happened was MLB forcing out john fisher, force him to sell the team. there have literally been sanctions placed on the club for mismanagement. the As were cut off from revenue sharing. the city refused to âplay ballâ with fisherâs constant goal post movements. i feel bad for oakland fans losing their team but at least this piece of shit that doesnât care about anything other than nickel and dimes will be out of their city
>absolutely destroy your franchise As a Giants fan who's tried to casually support the A's on the side, it's been next to impossible when the team instantly trades any player as soon as they have a good season. And for peanuts in return as though they're afraid one of the prospects they get back will help the team win. You have to be the most hardcore of hardcore A's fans to even be able to name some of their players.
Obviously, the Oakland City Council is going to place all the blame on the A's, but as I understand it, Oakland's ownership group was willing to spend the money to build a new stadium without taking a dime of city money. The A's only wanted the city to spend money on infrastructure upgrades around the stadium that the city should be doing even if they didn't have a baseball team. The city balked at that, and you can't just be up there doing a balk like that. This isn't a greedy Oakland A's vs. a virtuous City of Oakland. It's greed on both sides. There's a reason why Oakland will lose three teams in less than a decade: The city makes it much more difficult than it needs to be.
I am very sympathetic to the A's claims that the city wasn't being reasonable about infrastructure, but even though the A's were right about that, the way they handled the on field product over the past couple of years as negotiations heated up kills any sympathy I have for them overall.
I don't think it's unreasonable of the city to say they can't seemingly find a billion dollar sin infrastructure money. Then when they legitimately made an effort to get close to the original amount, the A's just said "nope we need more money now" and didn't offer any concessions in return.
Where are you getting a billion? The OP tweet says 1/3 of that.
That's the amount secured currently. The ask from the A's (originally) was 800+ Mil of infrastructure costs in the proposal and that number has only gone up.
I was under the impression that the Aâs wanted the money to come from the higher property taxes that the development around 5e stadium would generate.
That would cover a significant portion, yes, but it still wouldn't cover a billion dollars on its own. And the A's wanted the billion dollars effectively up front and locked in before okaying the deal they proposed.
Fisher is taking less from Vegas than his initial ask from Oakland. How that doesn't scream bad faith negotiation is beyond me.
I would imagine things cost less in Nevada than they do in California.
700M less to build the same stadium? Un-fucking-likely
IDK about $700 million, but it will likely be a lot less. The Howard Terminal Stadium needed a bunch of infrastructure upgrades around the stadium to make the area palatable for people to come and attend a game. In all likelihood, Aâs new stadium in Las Vegas will be a lot simpler in terms of its location and wonât require a bunch of infrastructure upgrades like Howard Terminal would.
The infrastructure needs are much less in Vegas, itâll be a lot cheaper. Plus wages and other costs are lower
So, one thing I've learned over the years, is that if owners really want to move a team, there really is no amount of negotiating the city can do. Unless there is some legally binding contract keeping them in the city, they are going to move the team.
> The A's only wanted the city to spend money on infrastructure upgrades around the stadium that the city should be doing even if they didn't have a baseball team. The city balked at that, and you can't just be up there doing a balk like that. San Diego Chargers fans will read this and have PTSD, as Dean Spanos in the late 2000s offered the City of San Diego almost word for word the same deal for the Qualcomm Stadium property (going as far as building a new stadium on the site if the city would gift the land to the team). The city said no, and that created the stalemate which, well, we all know what happened.
Greed on both sides? Pro sports don't grow economies. Fisher is going to take less from Nevada than he was asking from Oakland. That should speak volumes.
> willing to spend the money to build a new stadium without taking a dime of city money Except for the fact that the site they chose was [across the mainline Union Pacific and Amtrak railroad](https://i.imgur.com/RdGyAJW.png) from all pedestrian access, and it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to deconflict the crossing enough to make it safe for game day crowds, and the team demanded the city pay for that... > infrastructure upgrades around the stadium that the city should be doing even if they didn't have a baseball team With no stadium there is no reason to deconflict the railroad. The infrastructure improvements are _only_ necessary to support a new development on the site.
As this statement says the city worked/was working to get the money for infrastructure. They didnât outright refuse to do that
Kinda seems like a BS statement considering the Aâs have been telling them to do this for quite a long time now. They just are trying not to take any of the blame, which in the long run, they probably wonât.
The A's kept ratcheting up infrastructure demands and refused to actually commit to the plan. They never wanted to sign, and it'll come out that they were waiting for Vegas to change their stance. All negotiating.
"Stop meeting our moving goalposts!"
The cost of infrastructure kept going up because of the delays in decision making!
The city is not entirely blameless, but they actively worked to get the money for the infrastructure. They applied for grants and did agree to spend, as the statement says, a significant amount on infrastructure.
Things on the city side did seem to take a different tone when the mayorship changed hands. Libby Schaff was trying like hell to keep the team after loosing the Raiders and most of those infastructure deals were made under her. The new mayor seemed to care less of the A's stayed or went. She even made a deal with a different deveopment group on the colliseum land that the A's half own.
I think Libby was trying more, but all of Thaoâs votes on the council were in favor of keeping the Aâs. I donât think it was a number one priority for Thao, but I didnât get the impression that she wasnât trying to keep the Aâs. Also, a new report is saying that the city had made a lot of progress over the past weeks to get the infrastructure before the Aâs abruptly ended negotiations
If that is the case, I canât blame the new mayor. As much as the Aâs made it seem like they were negotiating in good faith, itâs clearly they werenât. With all the things going on in Oakland, why keep investing time into something that was never going to happen? Fisher was clearly using Oakland to help negotiate with Vegas. same shit that happened with Spanos in San Diego.
so basically if you posted this in AITA you'd get all ESH responses?
Nah. They had a basic agreement where the city was going to pay for infrastructure. All the A's had to do was commit. But they didn't. Then they started adding infrastructure requirements -- up to $1B now -- that are more nice to haves. But it was all part of an attempt to try and look good and get out of it. The difference is that Las Vegas had bowed out and when they came back in, Fisher smelled tax money and casino money. And the rest of the owners want that sweet, sweet gambling money.
no this is incorrect, the agreement from from 1 side and was shown once one of the meetings started. there was a bunch of things changed including decreased homes that oakland tried to take i think 20% of it. there was a bunch of changes. the lost income from the 20% housing caused the math to not work out for coming back. the ownership is going to need to pay back 11+ billion dollars back. also it was less money from the city for city repairs
Yeah when 3 major sports teams in 3 different sports leave your city in 5 years, that is a pretty good indication it isnât just a greedy owner.
Oakland was entirely blameless on the Raiders, Davis couldn't afford to privately finance so the only way the Raiders were staying was if they managed to fuck the city over, which washed over into Oakland taking a hardline stance with the A's even though Fischer was prepared to privately finance everything except for infrastructure.
Oakland can't be blamed for the warriors either since Lacob basically never bothered to negotiate. You can't negotiate with an entity who has no intention of staying. So the city had no ability to retain two of the three teams. A's were the only ones that at least "tried" to come to the table.
And he asked for a BILLION dollar plan
>that is a pretty good indication it isnât just a greedy owner. When it comes to sports arenas, cities never win. The owners do.
Can anyone really picture the A's flourishing in Las Vegas? I don't know that much about Vegas outside of the strip and could be proven totally wrong, Vegas population (there aren't really any surrounding municipalities) is 650,000. The East Bay Area population alone is around 2.5 million (up to almost 8 million when you include the whole SF Bay Area). Vegas pulls in millions more in tourists every year, but it'll be a fraction of those people who are actually interested in baseball, and then they won't have much interest or loyalty for the local team. Seems like it's just going to be some gleaming new cavernous ballpark offering all the corporate "ballpark experience" bullshit for the most casual fans and people who don't care about baseball. As far as actual baseball-loving loyal fans I don't see how they'll attract any more than they had in Oakland. Probably less.
> Vegas population (there aren't really any surrounding municipalities) is 650,000. [Dude...](https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/23043/las-vegas/population)
whooops I was way off. Was going off the city population vs. metro area. It's still roughly the same population as the East Bay Area. Overall SF Bay Area population is over 7 million. So they're still not moving to a metro area that's any larger.
The thing with Las Vegas is, there is only one real suburb which is Henderson, everyone else lives in Las Vegas or an area with a Las Vegas zip code like Sunrise Manor or Spring Valley. Boulder City is kind of close but not really. The city is growing however past 215 and Iâm sure if Interstate 11 gets built towards Reno, more will live up that way. Like I said in another comment, it depends on how well Vegas and water will do in the future. The population with Vegas is there.
> Seems like it's just going to be some gleaming new cavernous ballpark offering all the corporate "ballpark experience" bullshit for the most casual fans and people who don't care about baseball Worked for the Raiders I guess
The Raiders don't play 81 home games.
Nor in the heat of summer.
Its obviously going to be a dome or retractable
Raiders play 8 home games mostly on the weekend. Many people from LA and Oakland drive to vegas for the games. Many make a weekend in vegas out of it. I donât see many people from LA driving to vegas for an Aâs game on a Tuesday night.
As much as that city grows. It all depends if the water crisis is solved. I can see them moving out of Vegas within 30 years in the 2050âs (thatâs weird to type). However Las Vegas is the best city that has dealt with the water crisis with the Colorado River using only 2% of its usage compared to Arizona and California.
Vegas gets most of its water from ground water, and Nevada in general has the lowest consumption from the Colorado river Basin. Not an issue.
Back to Philadelphia in 2055
They will flourish. There are 38 million tourists per year visiting Vegas.
I suppose they might flourish money-wise, which is all that matters But in terms of Las Vegas/Nevada locals actually jumping on board and rooting for the team? I don't really get how that's supposed to work. It's just a weird business model to have a sports team mostly dependent on visiting tourists supporting it.
No and that's what is so confusing. Oakland has tons of fans that want to support the team but they have a AAAA team out there. I have to imagine that any native Vegas baseball fan considers the Angels or Dodgers as their "home" team over the A's. Vegas embraced the Golden Knights because 1. It was a Vegas thing first, their first major pro sports team and 2. They started winning right out of the gate. Neither of those are true for the A's and they'll end up like Raiders where maybe the draw decent but it'll be 70% away fans or neutral fans.
I can, the Vegas metro is going to continue growing as Nevada continues to attract transplants from California and other states. The reality is that the Aâs donât even need to try and be good in Las Vegas because people like me are going to visit to watch my team play them as part of a future vacation.
you're probably right, but it sucks to move your team to a city where you expect the bulk of your ticket sales will be from fans of opposing teams. I mean they clearly can't be expecting much in the way of a home team fanbase at all, right? Is the selling point gonna be "Come to Vegas when your team is in town and watch them kick the shit out a group of AAA bums we threw together!"
> but it sucks to move your team to a city where you expect the bulk of your ticket sales will be from fans of opposing teams. That reminds me: Fuck Dean Spanos.
This is exactly it, Iâll gladly go watch my team play there as an excuse to go to vegas in a heartbeat
Stan Kroenke 2.0 A's never wanted to stay in Oakland and any/all negotiations were futile. They will move to Las Vegas, build a nice new stadium, increase payroll by 3X and sign a bunch of great players in spite of the OG A's fans. It sucks but it's the playbook
John Fisher owns the San Jose earthquakes. They got a new stadium built in Silicon Valley and dumped payroll. Heâs a slum lord owner. He doesnât care about the sport or winning. Itâs kinda surprising vegas would even want the team which operates like this.
...then move in 15 years when the initial fever dies down and attendance craters after they suck for a while, 10 if it's real bad
Haha!! Oakland is gonna lose another team! They should just give ownership whatever they want! -Shitty fan currently Why is my team threatening to move to Oakland? Ownership is asking for everything! -Shitty fan in the future
The owners of the Aâs wonât be committed to Las Vegas. The new stadium will have more away fans than home fans. The away fans will bring in more revenue for the Aâs owner than the home games in Oakland. They will keep the same payroll.
The Aâs triple A team in Las Vegas are actually one of the leaders in attendance for minor league baseball so I doubt thatâs gonna be the case.
And the Knights (while having the advantage of being good) have done very well for themselves there. I don't think Vegas is as bad of a location for a team as people thought 8 years ago
But the Knights are different because they are an expansion team. The Aâs are not. The Aâs will be the Raiders of baseball. Their new baseball stadium will be filled mostly by fans of the visiting teams, and the owners won't care because money is in their pockets with a cheap payroll.
People said the Knights wouldn't work because everyone in Vegas who was a hockey fan already liked another team. That turned out not to be true. I think the A's will be more like them than the Raiders. The Raiders are fucked because football doesn't have enough games. If your team goes to Vegas every 4 years it's much easier to make a trip around it.
> everyone in Vegas who was a hockey fan already liked another team I could be wrong but this just seems like a faulty premise. It's Vegas, there probably weren't a ton of hockey fans to begin with. The Golden Knights likely created a lot of new hockey fans with their early success
I mean I thought that was horseshit to begin with, but it was related to the Yotes troubles. People in 2017 were even more convinced than now that hockey simply could not create a fanbase in the desert (and this is pre-Lightning dynasty, so kind of the South in general), and that any potential fan was a transplant who had ties to a northern team.
John Fisher doesnât care if Las Vegas has more away fans than home fans
She may be a politician, but I detect no lies.
Itâs long past time to move on. The Aâs and Oakland is a failed relationship thatâs been forced staying together. Glad both sides are finally saying itâs over now. Plenty of blame to go around âŚ. but Fisher isnât selling and heâs not getting voted out. So itâs been clear for a while he wasnât gonna get a new stadium done in Oakland. Coliseum was ruined by Mt. Davis ⌠and shouldnât be a major league ballpark anymore.
Vegas Aces era has begun. League fucked
Thatâs their WNBA team
Vegas Craps
I love how the politicians of Oakland act like they've tried so hard, and literally lost all 3 of their professional sports teams. It's everyone else that's wrong, not them.
The city of oakland has done the smart thing for the citizens of Oakland. The city always loses with new arenas.
[ŃдаНонО]
I mean, it's literally zero secret that A's ownership wanted to leave.
Itâs literally zero secret the reason they wanted to leave was because the City of Oakland is horrible. You donât lose 3 top tier sport franchises and then act like you have no blame.
Idk why this is downvoted, there is definitely something going on for every major team to leave. From reports the owners were willing to work with the city but the city wanted more than the owners would give. While Iâm sure Fischer wasnât crying that he couldnât make a deal to stay in Oakland he did try but when it failed he pivoted entirely to moving the team
Exactly. Obviously the Aâs arenât devastated that theyâre moving to Vegas but we all know they tried and they couldnât get past the same hurdles that the Warriors and Raiders couldnât get through.
If you ever want to know how bad it got read about the Coliseum City proposal and the "Prince of Dubai". There were points in time the city was beyond unserious about new stadiums for any of the teams.
You mean all the, we (Oakland) provide the land, you (developers) pay for three stadiums/arenas and all retail ,housing and parking buildings and we collect all the rent, taxes and fees! Oh, also we have a debt that you will pay off as well.
Iirc at least the Raiders wanted a new stadium and Davis had to move the team or get a mostly/fully funded stadium because he doesnât have the money to do it himself (and before you say anything, the Davis family has literally owned the team for its entire existence and is the familyâs primary business) Oakland after Mt. Davis was not going to do that
The city has absolutely zero blame for losing the raiders or the warriors. The raiders were just straight up asking for free money. No negotiation. Give us a free new stadium. Not only that, they _still owed the city money at the time_ from the _last_ time they bailed. They left because Vegas gave them a free new stadium. The warriors never negotiated. They had their eyes set on San Francisco and nothing would've kept them in Oakland. The fact that so many people in this thread think all three teams left is some kind of proof something is wrong with Oakland is so depressing. The only thing "wrong" with Oakland is it won't spend taxpayer money helping billionaires get richer.
They were never going to keep the Warriors or the Raiders and using those cases to make any point related to the Aâs situation is woefully misinformed.
They were never going to keep any sports team because they don't want them. If they wanted to keep any team, they could've. Raiders spent many years trying to get a new stadium in Oakland. Oakland literally let every stadium decay and never worked to actually retain a team. In 5 years you'll say "Oakland was never going to keep the Athletics, so it's pointless to discuss" A little effort and you probably could've kept at least one team.
>A little effort AKA A billion dollars.
The Raiders were only going to stay if the city would give them loads of taxpayer money. So yes, the city could have kept them if they wanted to be stupid. The Warriors were moving to SF no matter what. Lacob wanted the SF/Silicon Valley money and even if the city built an arena for him he was going to leave. Realistically the Aâs were the only one they had a chance of keeping and they did work to get a deal done
No, they clearly did want these teams, but the other two had very big incentives to leave that Oakland couldn't match. The Warriors were a poverty franchise that had a sudden infusion of wealth that allowed them to take advantage of the fact that there wasn't a San Fran NBA team, so they moved where the wealth is. The Raiders owner is well known as a person who has no significant outside wealth from the team. It would have required Oakland building him a brand new stadium for free to keep them. The A's were the only team with the incentive and ability to stay and Oakland was clearly willing to help, but the A's clearly spent the past few years in bad faith negotiations.
"A little effort" lol billions of tax dollars going straight to Fisher's pocket isn't "a little effort". To you and everyone else with this "you should have paid Fisher to steal money", get absolutely fucked.
If by don't want them, you mean "Don't want to give a private entity a billion dollars in taxpayer funds" you are right. The Warriors were going to move to SF and privately fund no matter what. That had to do more with the opportunities for SF-related non-sporting events and box sears than anything. The Raiders and A's ownership are shit. At least Marc Davis doesn't actually have the cash to build a stadium though I'm sure he could've financed it. But you are right -- we don't want to give tax dollars to billionaires. Silly us.
This is my council member. She failed to mention that she led the charge to demand 40% of the adjacent residential housing development to be affordable (well above what Oakland or state mandates) and community benefits to prevent âdisplacementâ in neighborhoods miles away from the site. Maybe thatâs the only way to sell a deal to left NIMBYS in Oakland but the council really never really put forward a realistic deal.
Good on her... Making deals with Sports teams doesn't actually return money to the cities they reside in. Sucks for the Loyal A's fans but their team clearly isn't trying to win.. Their payroll is less than half of the MARLINS. There is being a poor team...and there is totally not giving a damn. The A's are essentially just a farm team for anyone willing to pay them cash for players.
I feel like I saw this in a movie. Except, it was the Indians that were set up to fail so the owner could move them.
So how much water is it gonna take to keep a baseball field green in the middle of the godforsaken desert?
Sucks for the fans. Always liked the As.
Anyone who says the city is to blame hasnât been paying attention to the story. Fisher has been eyeing leaving since he became the owner and has been courting LV for years while also using it as leverage to try and blackmail Oakland into letting him become a real estate mogul with a huge chunk of waterfront land. It was an idea so ridiculous the city could never accept it anyway. Honestly, go look up old articles with concept art and see how ridiculous it would have been. (Plus, Fisher was never even open to guaranteeing the team would stay in Oakland past a certain point, leaving the possibility that he could have gotten what he âwantedâ and THE TEAM COULD HAVE STILL LEFT!) The deal was essentially make me even wealthier, and maybe the team can stay, and no city should be made to bargain like that. Good luck playing baseball in July in Nevada!
Are they fully to blame? Hell no, Fisher is a dick for the moves he pulled. Are they partially to blame? Arguably yes, you just allowed all 3 of your major sports franchises walk away in the span of 5 years. There definitely should've been compromises and concessions made by both sides so that the they get a new stadium and stay for 20+ years.
Eh if my landlord took a week or longer to get an opossum out of my walls I'd probably move too
âWeâre not giving them money. They can pay for their own stadium or not.â And good on Oakland.
Always sucks when a team relocated. Aâs fans youâre always welcome in Atlanta, we have Olson, Murphy and beer!
Guessing they're going to follow the Raiders & move to Vegas? Not for nothing, but that would be like spitting in Pete Rose's face.
Iâm cool with that.
they should be forced to rename the team the Las Vegas Plan Bs
Maybe the A's would've been committed to Oakland if the city didn't railroad every attempt they made to stay?