Talks beginning to move A's to San Jose

[southsider2k5]

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/Basebal...ft-picks-111911

 

Finally, there is movement toward solving one of baseball’s most vexing problems.

 

Baseball is trying to accelerate a decision on whether to allow the Oakland Athletics to relocate to San Jose, according to major league sources.

 

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Commissioner Bud Selig met with top A’s officials earlier this month and plans to meet with San Francisco Giants executives within two weeks, sources say.

 

The meetings represent the biggest step toward a resolution of the Athletics’ quest to relocate since Selig appointed a three-member committee to study the franchise’s’ situation in March 2009.

 

The Giants, who draw a significant part of their fan and corporate bases from the counties south of San Francisco, remain adamantly opposed to relinquishing their territorial rights to San Jose and the South Bay region.

 

San Jose, about 45 miles south of San Francisco, is the largest city in the South Bay — and the entire Bay Area.

 

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The Athletics, independent of the Giants’ opposition, are “checking off boxes” to ensure that baseball is satisfied with their plan to relocate, sources say.

 

The team, according to one source, has agreed to expand the capacity of Cisco Field, its proposed 32,000-seat ballpark, as one of the conditions for a move.

 

The Giants’ approval — the final and biggest stumbling block to the Athletics’ relocation – will not be easy to secure.

 

Selig, sources say, warned Athletics owner Lew Wolff that he could not plan on moving to the South Bay when Wolff’s group purchased the team for a depressed price of $180 million in 2005.

 

Wolff, however, says that Oakland no longer is a viable market for the Athletics; the team ranked last in the majors in home attendance last season, averaging just 18,232 fans per game.

 

Wolff’s critics, meanwhile, contend he never wanted to stay in Oakland and effectively alienated the city and the team’s fans in his effort to get the A’s to San Jose.

 

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One solution, if the Giants refuse to yield their territorial rights, would be for baseball to purchase the A’s from Wolff, secure a stadium deal in Oakland, then resell the club, sources say.

 

There is precedent for such a strategy, assuming that baseball views Oakland as a better market than the A’s do.

 

Baseball purchased the Montreal Expos for $120 million in 2002, then sold the team for $450 million four years later to a group that relocated the franchise to Washington, DC, and renamed it the Nationals.

 

To make that move work, Selig had to satisfy the Baltimore Orioles’ concerns over the arrival of a team that would play less than 40 miles south of their own ballpark.

 

The resulting deal included shared ownership of a regional sports network by the Orioles and Nationals — the terms of which heavily favored the Orioles — and a guarantee from baseball that the Orioles would be sold for at least $365 million.

 

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The parallel to the situation involving the Giants and Athletics is not exact. Washington DC was not covered by the Orioles’ territorial rights. Also, Orioles owner Peter Angelos was willing to be compensated for potential losses in revenue.

 

The Giants have maintained that their territorial rights to the South Bay are nonnegotiable. Larry Baer, the team’s new “control person,” has long said the relocation of the A’s to San Jose would destabilize the San Francisco franchise.

 

The Giants, projecting a payroll of about $130 million next season, will need to draw at least 3.2 million to break even, one source said. The team, which drew nearly 3.4 million last season coming off its first World Series title, cannot afford much slippage.

 

The question for Selig is how to balance the Giants’ interests with the best interests of the game. If he agrees with the Athletics — that Oakland is a lost cause and San Jose a sleeping giant — he will need to figure out how to protect the Giants in the long term.

 

Selig recently persuaded the Houston Astros to move from the National League to the American League as a condition of their sale. He has no such leverage over the Giants, but the Athletics have no obvious place to move outside the Bay Area.

[Milkman delivers]

San Jose A's has a ring to it.

[southsider2k5]

http://www.mercurynews.com/athletics/ci_20095318

 

PEORIA, Ariz. -- A's owner Lew Wolff dismissed a report that the A's likely will be denied permission to pursue a move to San Jose.

 

The New York Daily News' Bill Madden wrote Saturday that Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig is likely to uphold the Giants' territorial rights to San Jose, ending the A's drive to build a new ballpark in that city.

 

"I spoke to Bud today on another matter, he didn't bring it up," Wolff told this newspaper Saturday night. "I think he would have told me if that's the case. We talked about something else. I think he would have alerted me or the Giants if he had made a decision."

 

The New York Daily News story did not cite sources with direct knowledge of Selig's plans. But it does quote a lawyer who predicts that other owners would not vote to overturn the Giants' rights to San Jose, for fear that doing so could open the gates to their own teams' losing territorial rights in the future.

 

Wolff said he wasn't aware of the story, as did A's general manager Billy Beane, who declined to comment.

 

The A's have been waiting nearly three years for Major League Baseball to rule whether they can build a new ballpark in downtown San Jose, which the Giants vehemently oppose.

 

A "no" vote would be devastating to the A's, given that so much of their decision-making has revolved around a potential move to the South Bay.

 

Beane traded three All-Star pitchers over the winter in exchange for a stockpile

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of young prospects -- which he hopes will form the core of a team ready to flourish if and when a new stadium is built in San Jose.

 

The A's maintain that they can't realistically compete while playing in the outdated O.co Coliseum. They finished last in home attendance in 2011. The Giants contend that much of their fan base and corporate sponsorship is based in the South Bay and is key to their revenue.

[ewokpelts]

Just have the A's take zito back. that's close to $50 million savings for the giants!

 

in all seriosuness, this same issue happend with washington/baltimore. bud allowed the orioles to start up MASN, thier own tv network. And MASN airs Nationals games at a station friendly rate. Also of note is that it's a not a50/50 venture, the orioles own 80% of the RSN. So they will make money off the nationals tv audience.

[Steve9347]

Wolff, however, says that Oakland no longer is a viable market for the Athletics; the team ranked last in the majors in home attendance last season, averaging just 18,232 fans per game.

 

That there is some bulls***. Perhaps if they stopped purging every bit of talent acquired, fans would show up.

[ewokpelts]

Wolff, however, says that Oakland no longer is a viable market for the Athletics; the team ranked last in the majors in home attendance last season, averaging just 18,232 fans per game.

 

That there is some bulls***. Perhaps if they stopped purging every bit of talent acquired, fans would show up.

kick the raiders out, and tear down mt davis while filling in the foul territory.

[southsider2k5]

Buster Olney ‏ @Buster_ESPN

This is 1,078th day since MLB committee began studying Athletics/San Jose sit., or 776 days longer than Warren Commission study/report.

 

Ultimately, the biggest hammer to be swung in the Athletics/San Jose situation might be this: If San Jose sues MLB for antitrust violation.

[HuskyCaucasian]

blah. Just contract the As and Rays or Royals.

[Cali]

If they move from Oakland and drop it from their name, it's the easiest nickname ever: The San Jose's

[Harry Chappas]

or go with California A's.....that would get really confusing when compared to the LAAA

[southsider2k5]

Eric Fisher ‏@EricFisherSBJ

 

I asked Selig re A's/San Jose, as usual. "I'd be disappointed if you didn't ask," he said. "You're not going to get a f#%**%} answer."

[Swingandalongonetoleft]

If they move from Oakland and drop it from their name, it's the easiest nickname ever: The San Jose's

 

 

There was concept art floating around a while ago for a proposed ballpark in Oakland. I thought it looked great. If they insist on leaving Oakland, I hope they take those plans with them to San Jose.

 

 

 

 

[chw42]

They should be named the Silicon Valley A's.

[Texsox]

No other cities? How about the San Antonio A's? Vegas A's? Perhaps a second major league team in Chicago.

[southsider2k5]

John Shea ‏@JohnSheaHey 1h

 

#sfchronicle EXCLUSIVE: San Jose suing MLB, challenging baseball’s powers and #sfgiants territorial rights Bud Selig named as defendant.

[cabiness42]

When the A's tell everybody that their ballpark is s***ty, they aren't kidding:

 

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-leag...-065912101.html

[Ross]

Okay, so I saw this on Baseball Tonight and want to make sure I got it right. The A's gave the rights to San Jose awhile ago to the Giants so that they (the Giants) had a stronger case to stay in SF and not leave for Tampa Bay. Now that the Giants are obviously still in SF, and one of the best franchises in the league, they won't give the rights to San Jose back to the A's? I hate the Giants.