Really the only time the A's drew large crowds was when there were no Raiders and the Giants were in Candlestick. Once the Giants moved to ATT and the Raiders came back, the A's became the 4th and sometimes the 5th most important team in the Bay Area.

That's simply not true. There are 2.5M people in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, all of it is well connected by an excellent public transit system, and both are among the 100 highest income counties in the US. The East Bay alone is comparable to the Denver metro area, and larger/more affluent than places like Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and Pittsburgh, and Kansas City.

It's absolutely true if you actually delve into the real dynamics and not the most macro, top-down demographics. The A's draw the vast majority of their fanbase from the Richmond-Fremont corridor, the prominent cities being Richmond, Albany/Berkeley, Oakland, Hayward/San Leandro, and Fremont. None of those are wealthy cities (they all have nice areas, though every city in the world does), and are mostly lower middle class to middle class. Some of them are outright destitute (Richmond, lots of Oakland). And they're pretty small - Oakland is by far the biggest city in there at around 400,000 people, Fremont around 215,000, Richmond is 100,000. The A's split the little wealthy cities that "matter" in Contra Costa county along the BART corridor with the Giants and always have, and now that Pac Bell/AT&T is right on the BART line (i.e. the people who live there are now equidistant to the Oakland Coliseum and San Francisco), those small wealthy towns that always associated themselves with "The City" anyway now do even more so - they're big-time Giants country now. Many of the people living there were already commuting to SF and think of themselves as living in the suburbs of San Francisco, so they root Giants/49ers rather than A's/Raiders.

The Bay Area is a huge, incredibly wealthy area. But just saying that doesn't mean that all the teams there are drawing from a huge, wealthy fanbase. The way rooting lines have broken down the Giants, because of geography, their association with San Francisco, and the new ballpark, currently draw from the "best" demographics - San Francisco of course, Marin County, the Peninsula, San Jose, and for the cherry on top splitting the wealthy part Contra Costa county because of the BART line.

The Giants ownership spent some money to improve Candlestick after purchasing the team in 1993. They moved the left field bleachers closer to the field of play, replaced the jinky chain link outfield fence with a properly padded one, brought in new concessions, new scoreboard, etc.

And the A's have spent money too - on pretty much all those same things over the last 10-15 years. It wasn't meant to be a 100% literal statement - rather that the amount of money actually spent to really improve/retrofit both stadiums for baseball by both teams has been minimal - and why wouldn't it be? Both teams want/wanted out. The difference is that the Giants were awarded a sweet new site in 1996. The A's for all the reasons cited ad nauseum still have not.

Even for YR, that was ludicrous.

You're right, anyone extended even an invitation to come to NY should feel overwhelmed with joy and show deference to all the success of the locals, which was only earned through hard work and genius innovation. Is it the same thing in the water that makes your pizza and bagels the best the world has ever seen that also makes your people the best in the world too?

It is in the best interest of the league to maintain competitive balance and also to not have player salaries escalate due to bidding wars.

Of course -- it's always in the best interest of business to be able to fix prices and divide exclusive territories.

That's why the Sherman Antitrust Act was enacted 120 years ago.

It's simply amazing how many people have become mouthpieces and lackeys for predatory business. Is that some kind of badge of honor or something? Is it somehow displaying one's knowingness?

Or it is evil, because when it suits them the Wealthy would rather pretend they don't need the rest of the league to make such huge amounts of money.

Ask the Dodgers. They seem to be working pretty hard to avoid their revenue sharing obligations. Where is the outrage?

Nobody lives (lived?) in Downtown Detroit.

I lived downtown for several years during the 1990's, about a block from where Comerica Park now stands.

There were probably few thousand of us down there then, in renovated hotels, warehouse lofts, etc. It was fun and there was all kinds of nightlife going on, if you knew where to look. Cheap digs, great bars with great bands, Greektown or Lafayette Coney Island at 4am, Belle Isle in the summertime. And a quick bike ride down to Michigan and Trumbull for a few innings on a Tuesday night.

Ah, to be young again.

If that's true it is unlikely MLB leaves. TV is where the real money is and they've never really had a decent stadium experience.

Stadium revenue, tickets, etc is still larger for most teams than tv money. The NFL is way overweighted in media v ticket revenue, not MLB. Yet NFL teams have moved much more frequently than MLB clubs in the past 25 years. And we are talking mostly national media $ too for the NFL. It's amazing to think so many NFL teams moved over such relatively small amounts of money, mostly stadium rev, which is a tiny share of NFL team revenue.

MLB failed in Tampa, it is going to move that franchise sooner than later. It's time the NFL admit failure in Florida too (Jacksonville, Tampa). It failed. Usf v Florida state played in the Bucs stadium the same weekend as an NFL game. The college game sold out, the NFL game was 25% empty.

It embarrassing the NFL can't figure out how to get a team into LA.

I like how the Giants strategy of publicly trashing their stadium, doing everything they could to move to Florida, and then building a new privately funded park in a better location is far superior to the A's strategy of publicly trashing their stadium and then building a new privately funded park in a better location.

It's tough to call that a strategy on the Giant's part when there was an ownership change mid-stream, and the second ownership group was assembled specifically to prevent the team from moving, thereby negating the threat of carpetbagging.

It's absolutely true if you actually delve into the real dynamics and not the most macro, top-down demographics. The A's draw the vast majority of their fanbase from the Richmond-Fremont corridor, the prominent cities being Richmond, Albany/Berkeley, Oakland, Hayward/San Leandro, and Fremont. None of those are wealthy cities (they all have nice areas, though every city in the world does), and are mostly lower middle class to middle class.

The averages don't lie. Richmond and parts of Oakland are quite slummy--as are parts of the south bay--but there are enough affluent and middle class people in the area to raise the average income.

MLB failed in Tampa, it is going to move that franchise sooner than later. It's time the NFL admit failure in Florida too (Jacksonville, Tampa). It failed. Usf v Florida state played in the Bucs stadium the same weekend as an NFL game. The college game sold out, the NFL game was 25% empty.

It embarrassing the NFL can't figure out how to get a team into LA.

Unfortunately, MLB already has two teams in LA. Barring contraction or some kind of court ruling that completely negates territorial rights, I don't see the Florida teams going anywhere. There just aren't any viable markets.

Montreal has a bigger corporate base than any other non-MLB market (and bigger than several MLB markets). It's a bigger city, in fact. It's also not your typical Sun Belt city where half the residents come from somewhere else and root for their childhood team. Considering the struggles Sun Belt teams have across markets, unless they've been established before the recent wave of sports expansion, that is a major positive in Montreal's favor. It has an MLB-ready facility which no other aspiring market even comes close to having. It has a fairly strong economy, is located in a country which is projecting to match America economically well into the future. Canada and Quebec are in the middle of sports TV wars, so there is fertile ground to sow with television rights (which hurt the Expos badly).

There's no owner and no permanent stadium solution but nobody else has those either. It's difficult to see how Montreal doesn't lap the field on viability as an MLB market.

It has an MLB-ready facility which no other aspiring market even comes close to having.

The rest of #60 makes a good case for Montreal, but the only way I could see MLB going back into Olympic Stadium is if a disaster knocks down an existing ML ballpark, and I'm still not sure it would happen.

It's not a permanent solution but it can host MLB next week if you want it to.

Let's say that the Rays decided next week they were leaving, MLB approved it, they got out of the lease. Portland doesn't have a baseball stadium anymore. Vegas has Cashman Field, which seats 8,000 people and offers zero protection from those 104-degree Vegas summer nights. Charlotte could probably host games at their football stadium in a Miami-esque layout, but it would take months and tens of millions of dollars to blow up and rebuild the lower deck to retract to suit baseball. Unlike Miami, where Joe Robbie built the stadium to potentially host an MLB franchise, Bank of America Stadium was not built with any thought of hosting MLB. The Rangers are going to play some games in the Alamodome but the layout is not a serious baseball layout.

If a situation comes where it gets ugly, a team can move to Montreal and make money immediately in their new home instead of suffering gate losses through lame-duck status for years while a new park is built.

I think the NFL having mostly national revenues actually causes the stadium revenues to be magnified. There are no local television dollars and they only need to sell out 10 games a year. MLB needs a much larger population base than the NFL due to local TV contracts and 81 games to sell which leaves them with fewer viable locations.

That's the problem with moving the Rays. Where do they move? Is Tampa really worse long-term than Milwaukee or Cincinnati? Do they really want to abandon that TV market?

It's not a permanent solution but it can host MLB next week if you want it to.

Perhaps, but moving into Olympic Stadium without having a deal in place for a new stadium would eliminate any leverage the team had.

***

That's the problem with moving the Rays. Where do they move? Is Tampa really worse long-term than Milwaukee or Cincinnati? Do they really want to abandon that TV market?

This is a key issue that gets almost no attention, either on its own or when people talk about expansion. Ten years from now, there could be one or more Rust Belt cities unable to support an MLB team.

MLB failed in Tampa, it is going to move that franchise sooner than later. It's time the NFL admit failure in Florida too (Jacksonville, Tampa). It failed. Usf v Florida state played in the Bucs stadium the same weekend as an NFL game. The college game sold out, the NFL game was 25% empty.

It embarrassing the NFL can't figure out how to get a team into LA.

I agree with that last statement, but Jacksonville drew to 96.8% home capacity in 2012 in spite of winning only 2 games all year, and while Tampa's was only 83.9%, just 3 years ago it was at 96%. You know a lot more about football than I do, but it'd seem to me that those Florida teams' attendance problems (including Miami's, which is even worse) have more to do with their performance than the loyalty of their fan base.

Obviously LA would add more to the TV money than Jacksonville or Tampa, but that's something that the NFL might have thought about when the Rams departed to St. Louis.

And BTW in the Rams' last 5 years in LA, their attendance was 30% below the league average.

It's difficult to see how Montreal doesn't lap the field on viability as an MLB market.

Is there any local interest in bringing baseball back to Montreal beyond the usual die-hards? It's a great city, but it seems content to nurse its grievances rather than organize an effort to get a new team. When Washington, DC was abandoned by MLB, there were any number of failed bids and civic booster type campaigns for baseball in DC or northern Virginia. Perhaps it's below the radar in the States, but I'm not seeing anything indicating there are potential owners and stadium financing in Montreal.

I think the NFL having mostly national revenues actually causes the stadium revenues to be magnified. There are no local television dollars and they only need to sell out 10 games a year.

There are no local tv deals in the NFL?

There are no local tv deals in the NFL?

Just pre-season games and various non-game shows like the coaches show or week-in-review show that may pay a fee to use the team name. Local radio is is up for grabs, too.