Organic local passion for a non-MLB affiliated team is an amazing development and I truly hope it’s more than a flash in the pan. Having “minor league” (really independent) teams that have true followings, meaningful titles to play for, etc, is so exciting. Here’s hoping the Ballers are the Battered Bastards of Baseball, second coming. Baseball should be bigger than MLB.
A’s have signed a binding agreement to purchase land for a future ballpark in Las Vegas.
- Thread starter soxhop411
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Indy league baseball can be a great fit in the right markets, especially after the great MiLB shakeup. This team will be in the Pioneer League, which looks more or less like a “new” version of the old Pioneer League that was Rookie League - and it had a pretty good following in the smaller cities of the mountain west region.
Denny’s isn’t a substitute for Ruth’s Chris either, but a hot meal at a lower price point still seems to attract hungry people…
Truth is, I feel like eventually Oakland will be a great location for a AAA or AA team…possibly San Francisco’s, but the success of the Sacramento team complicates that.
What Oakland is NOT is a MLB market, or more accurately the Bay Area isn’t a two-team MLB market any more than New England would be.
I don't really buy this, though. There is a simply wild amount of money in Northern California, very much including the East Bay. A single-purpose ballpark that wasn't basically tucked between 880 and the airport would absolutely draw amazingly, and it would not be rocket science to sell naming rights to the Robert Mondavi Outfield Overlook wine bar at the Genentech foodcourt on the Salesforce.com pavillion.
The Jack London Square/Ferry terminal site would have been absolutely magical for a 32k-seat park — with ferry commutes! — but Fisher demanded poison pills that the city and county rightly turned down. If Fisher had made an offer like the Giants did in SF (we'll pay for the park if you'll slightly reroute the T-Muni streetcar to our proposed site; in Oakland's case, the request would be for Alameda County to add a BART station between 12th st. and West Oakland), it would have been transformational in that area in a way that he could have very much taken advantage of in the same way the Ricketts have made a killing off of Wrigleyville real estate. But he was insisting the Port Authority just *give* him land to develop at the stadium site. YOU HAVE FOUR BILLION DOLLARS, BRO. Why not buy a couple hundred million worth of West Oakland real estate and then redevelop it concurrently with the project, and watch as the valuations balloon with arrival of the new BART station and the ballpark?
I think the real test in any two-team market is this; If you eliminate the secondary team (maybe another debate, but not a heated one; Mets, White Sox, Angels and A’s) but maintained the geographical rights, would that market be a legit candidate for expansion in competition with all interested markets.
Of all of those, I feel like only the Mets are a slam dunk (the actual ongoing discussion is could NYC metro merit a THIRD team?). The rest I could see eventual migration of those fans to the Cubs, Dodgers (and some Padres) and Giants.
Of all of those, I feel like only the Mets are a slam dunk (the actual ongoing discussion is could NYC metro merit a THIRD team?). The rest I could see eventual migration of those fans to the Cubs, Dodgers (and some Padres) and Giants.
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The A's are looking around for a temporary home for a few years after their current lease runs out while their new stadium in Las Vegas is being built. What a mess. This is from an Salt Lake Tribune article that linked to the RJ:
I don't think that I've ever seen this before. Vegas Mayor tells A's to stay in Oakland.
What an absolute disaster.
What an absolute disaster.
Doesn’t sound like thats what she’s saying. She’s saying that they could stay there but Vegas is a great place for sports. But that it’s sad for Oakland fans to lose their team.
I'm fascinated by this:
On the one hand, this makes it seem more likely the A's are just posturing. On the other hand, the Tropicana recently announced that they are closing on April 2, so SOMETHING is going to have to happen with that land.
I’m sure it’ll happen still. Just behind the scenes political negotiations going.
So, she’s saying there’s a chance…Mayor Goodman clarified:
EDIT: Sorry for the drive-by post. I appreciate her honesty and hold out a tiny bit of hope the A’s remain in Oakland under new ownership.
Yea, she didn't really say that, or mean that. It was more along the lines of in a perfect world the A's would stay in Oakland because that's right and proper but that isn't going to happen so we'd love to add their team to our city. Which is, true? It could have been said better and she's a politician and should know better than to drop those quotes and blah, blah, blah headlines for the average baseball fan.
T things are certain here:
1. There is a shit ton of behind the scenes going on in regards to greasing hands….errrrr, “political negotiations.”
2. She is a PR nightmare.
3. The A’s will eventually be in Vegas.
She literally said (in bold):
In fact, Goodman said the team's stadium plan "does not make sense" and that A's ownership should go back to the drawing board and pitch a new plan in the Bay Area.
"I personally think [the A's have] got to figure out a way to stay in Oakland to make their dream come true," Goodman told the Front Office Sports Today podcast, which was released Tuesday.
She walked back her initial comments later in the day, but I think that her true comments are what she said in that podcast. There's not a lot of support for the A's in Vegas. The Chamber of Commerce is meh about the whole thing and a vocal group of the town's citizens don't want it there, not to mention the Nevada teacher's union who just filed a law suit to stop using tax dollars to fund the stadium. A stadium whose schematics Fisher hasn't released yet despite saying that he would do so in December.
You have to admit that this is not SOP when a team announces that it's going to move to a new city. Usually the new city throws open the doors, lays out the red carpet and welcomes the team with open arms. For whatever reason, this isn't happening in Vegas and I think everyone, except for MLB and Fisher, understands this.
Do I think that the A's eventually end up in Vegas? Yes. But it's going to be an unmitigated disaster. It wouldn't surprise me if the A's move out of town the minute that their lease ends.
She's also pissed that where they want to build the stadium is on the Strip, which is under the jurisdiction of the county, and not in the city limits, which is where she would like the stadium.
From Field of Schemes:
From Field of Schemes:
The Strip is a nightmare, moreso when they do things like the race recently. Having to balance all of that is a total disaster already, having another team in there will only make the area worse.
I lived there for 15 years and the change from when I moved there to 2022 when I left is hard to describe.
Part of the deal for Fisher to move to Vegas was that he couldn't sell the team and make a fast buck without penalty.
Manfred wants you to know Oakland fans still have options.
View: https://twitter.com/Jake_Mintz/status/1758331177218326674?t=f7e1QM2PDNB5iMQfpK7CnA&s=19
View: https://twitter.com/Jake_Mintz/status/1758331177218326674?t=f7e1QM2PDNB5iMQfpK7CnA&s=19
Second of all, most A's fans, I would say, either hate the Giants or are ambivalent towards them. And, since they have the 49ers, Warriors and Sharks, the might just say f baseball. Just have to find something else to do during the summer when those teams aren't playing. Oh, San Jose Earthquakes.
Yes, Rob, the fans will surely switch allegiances to the nearby team they've hated for decades.
I think that most A's fans hate the Niners are pissed at the Warriors for going to SF and are ambivalent towards the Sharks. But I get your point, MLB is doing a bad job of growing the game in a place where there are deep roots in a community that loves(d) baseball. I get the reasons for it, but just because you can get paid gobs of money doesn't mean that it's a great idea for the betterment of the sport. Especially since MLB pays so much lip service to reaching out to the Black community and swears that it's trying to bring African Americans back to the game. Taking the A's out of Oakland, allowing the Braves to move to Cobb County are not ways of doing that.
I never thought that I'd dislike a commissioner more than Gary Betteman or Roger Goodell but here we are. Rob Manfred, each and every time, will listen to the dumbest of his contingent and fuck up the game just to make a couple extra dollars.
I never thought that I'd dislike a commissioner more than Gary Betteman or Roger Goodell but here we are. Rob Manfred, each and every time, will listen to the dumbest of his contingent and fuck up the game just to make a couple extra dollars.
The Mets set attendance records in their early years despite being god-awful, I bet in large part because there were huge numbers of former Brooklyn Dodgers and NY Giants fans who wouldn't root for the MFYs if you threatened to pull out all their finger and toenails if they didn't.
It's nice to know the league is run by a guy who has no idea of how fandom works.
When the White Sox leave Chicago, I'm sure their fans will just become Cubs fans by default, right?
The White Sox aren't going anywhere. Reinsdorf was bluffing, just like he did the last time.
Eventually, yes. It didn't take too long for A's fans to become Phillies or Royals fans in the past. Or Braves fans to become Red Sox and Brewers fans.
So Manfred is new to sports, let alone baseball?
I mean I understand there is a business side to this but it is not possible to have a Commisioner that is so clueless about baseball? I mean surely the owners would... yeah nevermind.
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Honestly, I think this is a different time than those eras. When those teams moved back then, baseball was THE THING. The National Pastime. And the only teams you could follow regularly live were your local teams over the radio, or by going to the game in person. Now, baseball is no longer the most popular sport in American, and, if you are a fan, you can watch basically any game at any time (blackouts still in effect where available!).
There's also way more non-baseball activities to do, at home or out and about, and this move, in particular, has been really, really nasty, both from an A's organization standpoint and from the commissioner's office. I am sure some of the fans will continue to follow the A's, and some may eventually become Giants fans, but it would not surprise me at all if a large portion of them just... move on to something else all together.
This isn't necessarily true. I work a lot with the Boston Braves Historical Association and while a few guys became Red Sox fans, they were Braves fans through-and-through. For a lot of them, the best thing that ever happened to them was in the late 70s/early 80s when TBS started airing Braves games. One guy told me that when he found them on cable, he "felt like a kid again". I also asked a few why they didn't become Sox fans and almost to a man they said something along the line of "The Braves are my team, I never liked the Red Sox and the American League game. I would never root for the Red Sox."
I can't tell you about Braves and Brewers fans, but it's not that cut-and-dry where Team A goes away and you become a fan of Team B.
Eventually, as in never. The vast majority of White Sox fans will root for 29 other teams before they ever root for the Cubs
Because she's still the Mayor of the town who has a lot of sway. When was the last time you heard an elected official ever show less than 1,000,000% of enthusiasm for a pro team coming to his/her city? When you add this to the completely underwhelmed reaction of the Chamber of Commerce, this doesn't signal greatness for the A's in Vegas. If they're not going to stay in Oakland, at least move them to a city that wants them like Salt Lake (which released their stadium renderings yesterday -- something that Fischer has yet to do).
new renderings of the stadium just released
View: https://twitter.com/howardstutz/status/1765108304152560111
this gives me Sydney Opera House vibes
View: https://twitter.com/howardstutz/status/1765108304152560111
this gives me Sydney Opera House vibes
Is this going to fit on the Tropicana footprint? It looked pretty small when I walked by it last year.
Personally, I don't see how. The rendering looks way too big to fit there.
And there's a potential wind tunnel effect that will kill any flyball to LF or CF. The shade is great, but not sure if it covers the bullpens or not. If not, that would be brutal in the summer.
That is clearly what they are suggesting given you can see New York New York in left field. I am skeptical too.
I'm expecting Bugs Bunny to fuck with Giovani Jones performance during the seventh inning stretch.
But huge congrats to Mike Moustakas for somehow still being in MLB at age 39, he really turned his career around.
The park is going to be completely enclosed, so it will be climate-controlled with no wind tunnel effect. That's a window in the LF/CF, not open air.
The article also addresses the parcel size.
"Footprint larger than Fenway" is damning with faint praise.The park is going to be completely enclosed, so it will be climate-controlled with no wind tunnel effect. That's a window in the LF/CF, not open air.
The article also addresses the parcel size.
In his newsletter today Craig Calcaterra pointed out a lot of what's wrong with this AI-generated stadium:
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Also, the right field foul pole is jutting out of the stands, which was the first thing that made me think that this was AI-created. It’s like how image generators mess up people’s hands. And yeah, if you zoom in to these renderings you can see they did that too.
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I'll believe anything from Fisher about 6 months after shovels go into the ground. I have not read the agreement or any attendant legislation, but given that it's Fisher, I'm going to go out on a limb and say there was some deadline by which "plans" (yes, I know, these are not plans) had to be submitted to unlock some cash. As billionaires go, Fisher is really bad at this grifting thing.
its also the same company that designed this gem of a stadium for the WSH football team
View: https://twitter.com/byajperez/status/1765255018792268025?s=46
FWIW, Fenway doesn't have On deck circles. But the rest of it is concerning. I expect the final result will look about 10% like this. Maybe the dimensions?
It also looks like it seats, maybe 20,000 fans? Looks like 10 rows in the lower deck in LF, same in the 2nd deck.
At least the empty bleachers in Right Center seem accurate, with 3 chairs that are empty and a whole mess of empty benches
It also looks like it seats, maybe 20,000 fans? Looks like 10 rows in the lower deck in LF, same in the 2nd deck.
At least the empty bleachers in Right Center seem accurate, with 3 chairs that are empty and a whole mess of empty benches