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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Thursday, May 10, 2007
This year...Village of the Damned.
Oakland Athletics owner Lew Wolff, Cisco and ProLogis announced today that they have signed land agreements enabling the Cisco Field ballpark process to move forward. The A’s now have completed the land transaction and control 226-acres of land in the City of Fremont where the new Cisco Field ballpark and the urban village will be built. In addition, the A’s will continue to work with the City staff on the steps necessary to commence the public application process.
Repoz
Posted: May 10, 2007 at 05:30 PM | 22 comment(s)
Related News: General, Oakland
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Building a baseball stadium at this particular location is asinine
it's Oakland: C'mon, havne't you seen Romeo must Die?
What strikes me as a bad idea is to build such a small ballpark -- they are talking about having as few as 30,000 seats (no more than 35,000). I can understand wanting to attract 30,000 people on a regular basis. However, when the Yankees or Red Sox or Giants are playing, the demand will be enough to sell 50-60,000 seats. I think MLB should step in and require a minimum of 40,000 seats, so that some of the excess demand can be satisfied. It's not as if the people who cannot get in when Boston is in town will instead buy tickets to see the Royals.
I realize, of course, that Wolff and his partners disagree with me, here. They must have studied this and decided that the construction and operating costs for another 5-10,000 seats won't pay for themselves over time. It's their money after all. But, without having seen any studies, my instinct is to think that 40,000 is a far more sensible number than 30,000. Why is it, for example, that every other new park built or renovated* or proposed** in the last 10 years has at least 40,000 seats, save Pittsburgh, which is close?
Angel Stadium (1998) 45,050
AT&T;* (2004) 41,503
Busch III (2006) 46,861
Comerica* (2005) 40,950
Chase (1998) 48,569
Citizens Bank (2004) 43,000
Miller (2001) 43,000
Minute Maid (2000) 40,950
Petco (2004) 46,000
PNC (2001) 38,365
Safeco (1999) 46,621
Turner (1997) 49,831
US Cellular* (2005) 40,615
Mets** 45,000
Twins** 40,000
Nationals** 41,000
Red Sox** 44,130
Yankees** 51,800
Hello!
They're betting an awful lot on the San Jose market, and I'm not sure it will pay off. Most people in San Jose at this point are third generation Giants fans and if the Giants are reasonably competent most people's loyalties will stay with them. The park is so small they can't even really do the "bring out the family angle" either.
Santa Clara County is nearing 2 million in population, and it's one of the richest counties in the country. It's also full of tech, venture capital, and law firms--and it seems the A's are very much trying to cater to them with their high-tech plans for the park. Add that to southern San Mateo County and Alameda County, and it may be the next best option to San Jose.
I tend to think this is also the case, but how does it devalue the franchise? I can't imagine the A's can be worth much less than they already are now, and if Wolff has his way, and his whole stadium village/residential area thing goes as planned, even if he sells, the team ought to be in a pretty comfortable position, with a new stadium and an attractive surrounding area. Or am I missing something?
Small nitpick... Wolff and Selig weren't roommates at Wisconsin - they were in the same frat.
Selig's roomate was Bucks owner and Wisconsin-Senator-for-life Herb Kohl (D), of Kohl's Department Stores and grocery stores...
Selig's roomate was Bucks owner and Wisconsin-Senator-for-life Herb Kohl (D), of Kohl's Department Stores and grocery stores...
AKA "The Dairy Queen" - which, btw, is probably the most awesome nickname for a gay senator from Wisconsin as possible. <3 Herb Kohl.
Baseball has to find a way to change its culture or marketing so that a few teams don't command a disproportionate share of interest; it seems to have become a far worse problem over the past 10 to 15 years. Otherwise, it's going to reach the point where networks won't sign long-term contracts unless there's European soccer-style realignment so they can set up a "super division" comprised exclusively of the high-profile franchises (Yankees, Mets, Red Sox, Cubs, Dodgers and a few others) that are guaranteed draws, so that they won't have to bother televising teams they have no interest in.
Where am I?
In the Urban Village.
What do you want?
Sabremetric Information.
Whose side are you on?
That would be Selig. We want On-Base Percentage. Slugging Average. Strikeout-to-walk ratio.
You won't get it.
By Bay Area socialistic practices, we will.
Who are you?
The same old Number Two team in town.
Who is Number One?
You are the Number Six starter.
I am not a Earned Run Average - I am a free agent!
I'm not sure that there's anything that baseball can do to address this. It's largely an outgrowth of the fact that the last couple of decades has seen a huge internal population migration from the northeast (Yankees, Mets, and Red Sox fans) to other places in the country, especially California and the Sun Belt. And the trend doesn't seem to be showing any signs of abating in the near future.
Very nice!
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