I say put all the teams in New York. That'll stop George.

Personally, I suspect that three years from now this conversation will seem silly, because the Yanks have reigned it in.

3 things I don't get

1> 2 teams in Boston? (Why did the Braves leave?)

I don't get those three things either, h0mi. None of them makes any sense.

But a third team in NY is long, long overdue. Perhaps even a fourth would make sense.

How about a second team in Philly? Its the largest metropolitan area without two teams.

"I think San Jose has more corporate dollars than Oakland. Despite the dot com bust, Apple, HP, Oracle and a lot of other big companies are still headquartered there."

Apple's HQ is in Cupertino, which is a neighbor of San Jose. HP is in Palo Alto, which is up the peninsula almost half-way to San Francisco. Oracle is in Redwood City, even closer to San Francisco.

The major high-tech companies headquartered in San Jose are Cisco and Adobe. Intel is HQ'ed in neighboring Santa Clara, and Sun is in Mountain View, which is on the north side of the valley.

It is the case that there are more corporate $$ in the San Jose area than in Oakland, but Oakland and its Alameda/Contra Costa environs remains a large and affluent market. I have long said that moving the A's to San Jose, while it would likely benefit the A's franchise, would largely do so at the expense of the Giants, which would be of no net benefit to MLB. The best long-term site for the A's franchise is Sacramento.

"... are the residents, civic leaders, and business leaders of the south bay really clamoring for a new publicly financed stadium for the A's?"

Certainly not, especially not after having seen proposals voted down twice in the past 10 years, and especially not after having seen Pac Bell Park built with private financing in SF. The politics just don't add up on this one. Without a stadium, no one is coming to San Jose, and without private financing, I just don't see a stadium.

h0mi-

1. Why did the Braves leave? I'm guessing it was because (a) at the time, Boston was leaning toward the Red Sox, so the best they could pull was something like a 40% share of the baseball "market" in Boston, and (b) at the time, having 100% of Milwaukee was better than 40% (at best) of Boston. Same idea for the Dodgers, Giants, A's (Philly to KC), and Browns (St. Louis to Baltimore) - a fractional share of a big market wasn't as good as having a smaller market to yourself.

2. I think you're right. The state of Florida and its inhabitants are not the problem. They do have their problems, but I wouldn't say "refusal to pay to watch baseball suction" is one of them.

3. San Jose has the population and the median income to support a MLB team, or at least more so than Oakland on the latter point. It's also further removed from San Francisco (and thus further removed from the "Yo quiero Pac Bell" crowd). I don't know that it's much better suited than Oakland... but the A's could play home games in the Sharks' parking lot and it would still be better than the Al Davis Memorial Eyesore they're playing in now.

New York could take another team or two, and I think it would still be better for those teams than some of the proposed markets (other than DC). Heck, if every borough had its own team it might work out OK. But I don't think moving the Expos to NYC is a good solution, if only because they're in the NL. New York needs another AL team.

Unlike most, I think that Boston could support another team. There are each year countless people in Boston who say they're fed up with the Sox. (They usually say this in late August or early September...) Having a local alternative to the Sox might help. Put them in a retractable-roof stadium (April/September night games at 68 degrees) with modern seating (no obstructed views and plenty of legroom) and you'll see quite a good turnout. It won't be overnight, but I think they could do well.

Actually, there's a large number of people who use mass transit to commute into New York (believe me, I'm standing on those trains every day). I actually think the basketball/hockey arena in Newark could work, if they ever get their stuff together, but an MLB stadium is not realistic. Rosenthal seems to be talking about Jersey City or Hoboken, probably with ferry service from Manhattan. I don't know if there's a good site available in either city, though, and car access would be a big issue. Will New Yorkers come? Probably not as much as the owners would want. (Does anyone know how successful the ferry service to Shea is?)

If an MLB team did want to come to Jersey, I'd guess they'd wind up in the Meadowlands, which has OK (not great by any stretch) car access but lousy mass transit. Like the Jersey City idea, you probably wouldn't have really atrocious attendance, but it wouldn't be a great success.

I'd say the best move is to try and find a spot in the city for it (either the old West Side stadium idea that George was pushing, or somewhere in Brooklyn), but you're certainly not going to get much money from the government for a stadium right now.

I agree with Steve Treder that moving the A's to San Jose would just harm one team while helping the other so no real good would come from it. Glenn Dickey in the SF Chronicle predicted that with the Giants moving to PacBell all of the San Jose fans would just head up to Oakland rather than SF because of perceived difficulty getting to the park. That has not happened however and the fans simply take the train.

It seems to me that there was a thread about a year ago and someone showed that in the 80's the A's outdrew the Giants several years and that the Bay Area had several seasons where it outdrew the two NY and Chi teams. If the fans are not going to Oakland now why would they go to San Jose? Who says that there are a huge number of underserved A's fans in the South Bay.

I look at most of teams and for the most part they need smart, dedicated management rather than new lucrative cities to get parks and concessions from.

What about a team in Westchester? There's the whole Westchester/Putman/Dutchess market, and the Fairfield market to tap (2mm people in Westchester alone, and they're still rich, even after the financial market meltdown.) If they could find a site on one of the Metro North train lines, you'd have mass transit too. NOBODY likes going into the South Bronx for a ballgame.

Of course, it would REALLY damage the Yankees :))

"NOBODY likes going into the South Bronx for a ballgame."

I do. I live in Westchester and it's a 30 minute drive at most from most places in Westchester. Putting the stadium on one of the Metro North train lines doesn't help much because the 3 lines are all North-South without any East-West connecting line. If you're on one line and want to go to a stop on another line then you have to go down to 125th Street in, OHMIGOD, the Bronx.

Crap, you think people in LA show up late,, imagine how late people will show up to a 7:05 game in even the northernmost part of San Jose???

5,000 - 20,000 more cars, just what the 101 needs...

Really, though - the main reason for the thought to move to SJ is evident if you've ever been to Jacobs Field. It's all about the Luxury boxes. Sure, the demand won't be like it would have been 3 years ago - but there's still enough money in the area to support a new stadium with beaucoup luxury boxes.

As for a "public" stadium, who needs it??? Let the market work... On the happenstance that Bud should ever declare the Giants don't own the rights to SJ, then IF there's a business case for moving, THEN there SHOULD be someone willing to fund the stadium privately... If there ISN'T someone willing to build a stadium, then it's likely that there really isn't a sound business case for moving them there in the first place...

I'm sure that in this particular forum it's not vogue to suggest that market forces could be correct, but I have a hard time believing that you could make the case otherwise, that SJ would support a team - but the team HAS to have a publicly funded stadium...

<I>Posted 1:25 p.m., April 30, 2003 (#7) - GregQ

3. Chicago-Gary-Kenosha - 9.2 Mil (2 teams)

Why in God's name would anyone drive all the way down from Kenosha to see a game in Chicago when they can drive a few miles north to see quality major league baseball in...

"I'm sure that in this particular forum it's not vogue to suggest that market forces could be correct, but I have a hard time believing that you could make the case otherwise, that SJ would support a team - but the team HAS to have a publicly funded stadium..."

Well, that's the case that Steve Schott (and Bud Selig) have been making for about 15 years. It sure isn't a logical case, but there it is.

Of course a privately-financed stadium for the A's in San Jose could be a moneymaker; hell, I think baseball owners just about everywhere are passing up great long-term opportunities by insisting, as they do, on public financing. (It is explained, of course, by the fact that most ownerships don't give a rat's ass about the long-term.) But the issue is that, in reality, the A's have a fine deal going for them in Oakland; the major thing preventing them from doing better financially there is their own unwillingness/inability to market effectively. There is no compelling need for them to invest in building a stadium -- they should, it would be smart for them to do so, but they don't need to, and so they aren't.

The "more TV money" accounting is measuring all such monies, not just the national deals. Moving teams to NYC won't affect the national deals much, but replacing MON or TAM local deals with an angry Dolan and his Cablevision checkbook makes tiny bud very happy.

And of course, it was the Yankees at one point who were the forlorn newborn expansion team, struggling to make it as the third team in NYC. That was a hundred years ago. If the market was big enough to support three NYC teams then, it's pretty likely capable of supporting three teams now.

And no one suggests that a second AL franchise in NYC would immediately undermine the Yankees, only that given enough time, an intelligently run franchise would be the best method of ensuring that the Yankees' revenue doesn't inexorably, overwhelmingly outpace everyone else's.

Very well said, Mark.

"If you want to put a third team in New York for the sole purpose of diluting the Yankee and Met fan base, fine. But an NL team in Washington would make a lot more sense. There is no current vacuum to be filled in New York."

Why are these two choices mutually exclusive? Baseball should do both.

Pocket the money and ##### would be my vote- oh and make some noise about raising the payroll $1m or so.

Here is a thought from someone who is a big proponent of more teams in NY. The new owner would agree to finance a large portion of a new mallpark in New York City, preferably in Manhattan within walking distance of Penn Station. The league the team would play in will be decided by whichever current NY owner kicks in the most money to help pay for the park. That owner is then given a 50% ownership share in the new stadium and his team plays there as well. Essentially this is a bribe for the NY team to allow a new NY team into their league.

It would be a bit weird having two NL teams in the same ballpark, but I don't see any real reason that it couldn't work. Plus each team gets something like ten guaranteed sellouts (Yankees-Mets, 19 times a year). You would have economies of scale as well since vendors, grounds crew etc. would be working every day all summer.

There would be three clubhouses, and the teams would get one of the two dugouts as their own and the visitors would take the other. Think about the value of naming rights. Putting it in Manhattan you could open a satellite branch of the HOF there, so it is generating revenue year round.

The NFL has long had inter-conference play and the Jets and Giants do fine often playing common opponents.

If you want a 3rd NY team, thats fine. But if you want that 3rd NY team to be well run, DO NOT let Dolan be involved.

KRO - Sportsman's Park, owned by the Browns, played in by the Cardinals.

"Having a local alternative to the Sox might help. Put them in a retractable-roof stadium (April/September night games at 68 degrees) with modern seating (no obstructed views and plenty of legroom) and you'll see quite a good turnout. It won't be overnight, but I think they could do well."

And this will be for the Boston NL team? Boston's not getting a new stadium anytime soon and if they ever will, it's for the Red Sox. People say how irrational the save Fenway Park types are, but they've won. Fenway is here to stay and that's principally why John Henry wants to renovate it.

"Well, that's a pretty good question. The only thing I could really see working would be putting a team back in Brooklyn, as others above have suggested. Brooklynites (especially since the general gentrification of Brownstone Brooklyn over the last fifteen years) are still pretty fiercely loyal to their borough. I'd be willing to bet that of all the Brooklyn-Based Yank or Met fans I know, 95% would switch allegiance to a Brooklyn team the second it was annouced. Even an expansion club. Even if they stank. And played in the sewer. It's just like that around here."

I also believe a Brooks team would work. People still say Brooklyn is not the same post-Dodgers. Note the public joy at a Brooklyn minor league team, I think a Brooklyn MLB team would be immediately successful.

The Dodgers and Angels shared Dodger Stadium for a few years in the 1960s until the Big A opened.

The Angels were not a big success at Dodger Stadium and O'Malley treated them like a red-headed stepchild at a family reunion. (Although I suppose an O'Malley family reunion may have its share of redheads.)

In their last season in Chavez Ravine, 1965, the Angels drew 566,727.

"Has there been any other instances where two teams shared a park?"

Also, Philadelphia, from about 1940 thru 1954.

Dang, I find I have a lot of responses to people (and thanks for responding to my post) in this thread...

I think a team can thrive in Jersey but a new stadium would have to be built and it'd have to be accessable by NJ Transit and freeway of course- Giants' stadium won't cut it as a long term solution. I would think the marketing goal of this team isn't so much to draw New Yorkers as it is to draw Jerseyites who are generally Yankee fans, so maybe the transit issue isn't such a big deal, except to Jersey fans who commute to Manhattan who'd then go to the game after work.

I'd be worried that a 2nd team in Philly or Boston would hurt either team significantly, but <shrug>... I'd still like to see the west coast (Portland, Sacramento, LA) get another team or 2 while keeping the A's in the Bay area (in Oakland or San Jose). I know that's unlikely but it's more aesthetic to me than the current mismash of teams in the central/western divisions.