I still say the most likely scenario is [owner Lew] Wolff stays put in Oakland for the next few years, and hopes either the housing market recovers or a couple of million people unexpectedly move to Fresno in the interim.
That’s certainly the scenario that made the most sense, but apparently Wolff had other ideas. On Friday, after Oakland city officials expressed interest in opening stadium talks, the A’s owner shot them down with a letter stating that “we have fully exhausted our time and resources over the years with the City of Oakland,” and dissing the city for poor corporate and fan support. Wolff concluded: “Our goal and desire for the organization is to determine a way to keep the team in Northern California.”
This, needless to say, is pretty much unprecedented: It’s standard operating procedure for sports team owners to keep as many stadium offers in the air as possible, to create leverage for a better deal in their preferred location if nothing else. (It’s why, for instance, MLB kept on making pleasant noises about Norfolk, Virginia’s bid for the Expos a few years back, even after its backers turned out to have falsified their resumes.) And it’s doubly odd that when San Jose officials began organizing to lobby MLB for an A’s relocation, Wolff told them to can it as well — though he didn’t complain when San Jose later announced a more low-key baseball campaign.
This is getting into serious tea-leaf reading here, but one possible reason could be that Wolff is preparing for an all-out push to move to San Jose, where he has business interests and which has the largest untapped population center of anywhere in the region — but which, you’ll recall, is also officially San Francisco Giants territory, giving them veto power over any other team moving in. Given that Bud Selig has never violated that line in his time as commissioner (the Orioles never had territorial rights to D.C., only weaker TV rights), it may make sense for Wolff to try to keep everything hush-hush, while simultaneously salting the earth in Oakland so he can say to Selig, “It’s San Jose or the highway.”
Even if Wolff pulls off this behind-the-scenes maneuvering, he’d still be facing an uphill battle in San Jose, where opposition to sports subsidies runs deep, and which requires a voter referendum for him to even get so much as discounted land — meaning he’d be looking at the daunting task of funding the bulk of a stadium and paying off the Giants for his territorial incursion. Still, this could be the beginnings of only the second MLB relocation in 37 years — unless, of course, the Marlins stadium deal blows up this Thursday and they start ringing up San Antonio again.
Neil, you mention that San Jose is "officially San Francisco Giants territory," and I think I understand the rules and history behind that, but is it not also technically Oakland Athletics territory? Say the Marlins wanted to move to San Jose -- would only the Giants have veto rights? And if it's the case that the A's have veto rights too, doesn't that imply that the A's are already existing within that zone -- wouldn't they be able to move without the Giants' blessing (akin to the Mets or Yankees building a new stadium down the block without getting the other's approval, which is clearly different than what would happen if someone else wanted to move to northern NJ, e.g.)?
I think Wolff's "Northern California" reference is interesting. The A's have a successful minor league operation in Sacramento, and the transportation corridor between the East Bay Area and Sacramento is getting more efficient.
Any evidence that a move to Sacramento is being considered or would be viable?
It's not like NYC, where the Mets and Yankees share territory, no: The Giants have Santa Clara County and the west side of the Bay, the A's have the east side. (I feel like I've seen a map of this somewhere, but can't put my finger on it right now. And no, it's not this one — that's TV territories.)
I'm not sure anyone outside Fay Vincent's office knows exactly how the Giants got hold of these rights in the first place, though it certainly would have made sense for the A's to let the Giants have San Jose in the early '90s, since it would have cleared out San Francisco for the then-ascendant A's to draw from. Also not sure that it matters now, since the point is the 1) the Giants would sue if the A's tried to move in without paying, and 2) Selig isn't likely to force the issue regardless.
As for Sacramento, there are some problems: No stadium, no way to pay for one, smallish population center, isolated from all of the Bay Area except the extreme NE corner. Plus they have their hands full right now fighting over a new arena for the Kings. I'd consider this more likely, ironically, if Wolff hadn't given Oakland the brush-off — then I'd figure he was preparing to throw all the NoCal teams into an old-fashioned bidding war.
Semi-obvious compromise: the Giants allow the move to SJ in exchange for Wolff's commitment to co-funding a two-team local baseball cable network of which the Giants earn the lion's share of profits.
The "rights" were granted when the Giants were pushing a referendum to have a stadium built in San Jose-- one of 4 failed attempts for them to get public funds to build a new park before they finally surrendered and paid for it themselves. So at their core they are fraudulent-- awarded as part and parcel of a ballpark/relocation attempt that failed. While the new Giants managing partner is supposedly not willing to roll over and play dead, given wolff's closeness to selig (they were college roommates at Wisconsin), if he can get a deal done with San Jose/Santa Clara County MLB will figure out a way to pay the Giants off and change the rights. The South Bay-- with all that Silicon Valley money-- is an infinitely superior option for MLB than Sacramento (No ballpark), Portland (no ballpark), or the worst option, Las Vegas.
I really don't think Arte Moreno, to pick a name out of an AL West hat, is going to be too happy about MLB paying off the Giants with league money so that the A's can be more profitable.
I absolutely agree that Selig would be willing and eager to negotiate a deal to pay off the Giants. I'm just skeptical that there's enough profit to be made from a San Jose move for Wolff to pay for a stadium, land, and a Giants buyout.
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Neil, you mention that San Jose is "officially San Francisco Giants territory," and I think I understand the rules and history behind that, but is it not also technically Oakland Athletics territory? Say the Marlins wanted to move to San Jose -- would only the Giants have veto rights? And if it's the case that the A's have veto rights too, doesn't that imply that the A's are already existing within that zone -- wouldn't they be able to move without the Giants' blessing (akin to the Mets or Yankees building a new stadium down the block without getting the other's approval, which is clearly different than what would happen if someone else wanted to move to northern NJ, e.g.)?