This is all you need to know from this story: "The work to keep the A's had been a long haul, spanning several mayoral administrations and three A's ownership groups".

Somehow Vegas managed to get a deal done in a nanosecond.

Other than that, it's a remarkably poorly written story.

Somehow Vegas managed to get a deal done in a nanosecond.

I will be interested in finding out who gets the kickbacks and how much.

There's got to be some way to stop cities from giving money to sports teams.

Could a state pass a law prohibiting its cities from doing this? Or, maybe have all of the states that could plausibly support major league teams get together to pass similar laws, with a mechanism to send money from the states with teams to the states without as an incentive for the latter to go along with it. That would still cost the public money to keep their sports teams, but at least the money would stay in a public coffer somewhere, instead of ending up in the owners' pockets.

Minneapolis passed a charter amendment that prevented the city from spending more than $10M on a sports stadium. That didn't stop them from putting up $150M for the Vikings new home and $130M for the NBA arena. The Twins used Hennepin County to get around that limitation. If the city, county and state are against it they can always set up a special taxing district.

Why stop at sports teams? Way more billions is wasted giving lavish corporate subsidies to companies willing to cross state lines.

The A's were my boyhood AL team so I have a soft spot for them but I don't think I've ever wanted a team to fail more. I'd love to see this Vegas move go belly up. It won't -- it's really hard to lose money in MLB -- or only in the sense that the taxpayers of Vegas and Nevada will regret it.

#5:

It's always gross, but for some industries you might be able to make the case that the economic benefits make it worthwhile to the community. In the case of sports teams, that argument is obviously nonsense and has been known to be nonsense for years and years.

Nevada State Legislature - " So wait, your drawing of stadium in Vegas isn't really accurate. yYu aren't sure about the capacity that will be needed and the amount of land that is being proposed is the size of the Bellagio fountain area. Plus you can't even honestly answer how much the taxpayers are going to be on the hook for if you don't sell out every game? You look honest, here's your $380 Million."

I mean Fisher can't even get out of his own way with his BS. The stadium for the Earthquakes is only 8 years old and his response to why they haven't raised payroll is "The comparison between the A's and the Earthquakes is "apples to oranges. Kaval sidestepped the question, saying, "I'm a big believer in the revenue opportunity in Las Vegas." And, according to Fisher, the eight-year-old PayPal Stadium in San Jose is already outdated compared to newer MLS stadiums -- he mentions LAFC, St. Louis and Austin -- and lacks the capacity and premium seating that drives the kind of revenue needed to compete for championships.

So basically the 8 year old stadium he helped design, according to him, is already out of date. And yet MLB is supporting this clown.

The Athletics’ situation is a perfect microcosm. John Fisher’s functionaries appeared before the Nevada state legislature and lied, cajoled, and evaded. And they got called on it; their interlocutors did everything short of put the Athletics’ brass in a pillory and throw cabbages at them.

Then that same legislature voted to give the A’s $380 million anyway.

If 20 years of widely publicized research and real-world experience can’t convince local and state governments to stop stepping on this particular banana peel, I’m just banging my head against the wall. The word is out, and nobody can stop it.

Linky.

There's got to be some way to stop cities from giving money to sports teams.

Is BDC the only one deserving of state of the art climate controlled comfort while attending MLB games?

3. I don't understand the reaction to these subsidies. Thousands of businesses large and small get similar support. Companies that lave roads to people who build windmills to Boeing (we had/have an entire govt agency that was chartered to support Boeing!).

I suppose it's a bit different that the subsidies go more directly to an investor group but it's conceptually the same thing. The secondary argument is that they are "too" rich to get a subsidy. Where is that line drawn btw? Are you too rich to get Medicare/social security ? Probably - but you'd scream bloody murder if it got taken away. If I said, anyone who has a net worth of over $2 million shouldn't get that govt subsidy what would you say ? It's the same argument - too rich to get a benefit, but it would be your ox getting gored.

Or turn it around and say the Oakland As we're owned by a labor union (insert your favorite progressive organization here )that was using the profits to fund a pension plan. Would you object to them getting a handout.? Probably not because that's a person /group that you support.

So next time you drive your Tesla or fly on an airplane or go to a state park just remember it's your tax dollars that make that happen too.

I don't give a rats ass about sustainable energy. I think it's a massive waste of my tax dollars. But I like shiny new baseball stadiums. We all have our favorite form of government spending.

Thousands of businesses large and small get similar support.

And you'll find people saying that at least the large ones, and maybe the small ones too, shouldn't be getting such largesses of government money.

I suppose it's a bit different that the subsidies go more directly to an investor group

Getting so close to self-awareness here. Subsidies that support a broad range of people on a fairly equal level are better than subsidies that go directly to making a very small few incredibly wealthy people even more wealthy.

Seems like a win for Oakland.

If it pisses off a few people that they can't go to a shiny new stadium in their immediate vicinity, paid for mostly by others who get no benefit from it, well I'm ok with that too.

I fully expect Oakland to get the AAA team that is now located in Las Vegas.

Where would they play? They're not going to play in the Coliseum. Seems like Fresno getting back to AAA would be more likely.

From all descriptions, the A's were absolutely awful negotiating partners, even ignoring the issue of public money for private ballparks.

Don't think this won't affect future negotiations between cities and baseball teams.

"I can't really understand how they can say they were blindsided," Fisher says. "At the end of four years of negotiations, we were nowhere."

Ok, honest question: for how many of these four years was Oakland the leading candidate, with a specific stadium location and budget in mind? From the local media, it seemed like their real first plan was San Jose, which got scotched when the Giants wouldn't concede the territorial rights.

No idea was too grand; traffic would be a nightmare, with no public transportation and no existing thoroughfares, so the A's tossed around the idea of a gondola that would transport fans to the stadium over the freeway and railroad tracks from a downtown BART station.

Concepts like this are why I don't actually buy the A's arguments that they were arguing in good faith. The gondola idea, the idea that would have had pedestrians walking right by the train tracks of a busy container port... These were pie in the sky proposals, doodles on an architect's pad. If Fisher got attached to that idea, he's an idiot.

Oakland has been haunted by stadium problems for close to 30 years, since the Raiders packed up the first time and left for Los Angeles. The city commissioned a study on seven potential ballpark sites in 2001, and De La Fuente, the former councilmember, says, "The most difficult, undoable, f---ing expensive site was Howard Terminal. From the beginning I said that site was bulls---. Total bulls---."

For once, I agree with an Oakland city councilmember.

I have never quite believed the A's were serious about anything. The most laughable thing was when they announced they were going to build a stadium on the Laney College parking lot, without having either discussed that with the city or either Laney or the overseeing Peralta Community College District.

Good luck, Vegas fans!

Fisher also owns the San Jose Earthquakes of Major League Soccer. Kaval served as president of the team from 2010 to 2017, with a similar mission as the one in Oakland: build a stadium. Kaval made it happen in San Jose; PayPal Stadium, a $100 million facility, opened in 2015. There, the promise was the same: A new stadium will provide the team with the revenue stream to bolster the roster and compete for championships. That promise has not been kept. In a league where 18 of the 29 teams make the playoffs, the Earthquakes have not won a postseason game since 2012 and have qualified for the playoffs just twice since the stadium opened, losing in the first round both times. This season, the Earthquakes' payroll ranks 21st of 29 MLS teams.

I also do not understand trading the Bay Area for Las Vegas, even in principle.

10th largest market is underselling Oakland, because you've got San Francisco and Silicon Valley right there if things go well. Outside of Las Vegas there's what, Reno? Elko? Area 51?

Where would they play? They're not going to play in the Coliseum. Seems like Fresno getting back to AAA would be more likely.

In the short term, perhaps. In the long-term Oakland is too good of a AAA market to pass up entirely.

10th largest market is underselling Oakland, because you've got San Francisco and Silicon Valley right there if things go well.

I think you're double-counting there - Oakland only counts as 10th because that's already including San Francisco and San Jose.

I will be interested in finding out who gets the kickbacks and how much.

If you do avoid any invitation to drive out in the desert to see a hole they dug just for you;)

3. I don't understand the reaction to these subsidies. Thousands of businesses large and small get similar support. Companies that lave roads to people who build windmills to Boeing (we had/have an entire govt agency that was chartered to support Boeing!).

Because its almost always bad for the economy and a direct transfer of wealth from taxpayers to the recipients.

Windmills are subsidized because they reduce the pollution externalities of other energy production, but we'd be far better off with requiring polluters to purchase credits in a carbon market that no one could game.

Boeing gets subsidies because it pays a lot to lobby and elect people. We don't need a rocket that costs $4B per launch that doesn't offer any significant capabilities beyond a $150M commercial rocket. We don't need to subsidize the production of airliners, customers have them backordered for decades.

Freeways can always be built by private business as toll-roads (and its likely better for the economy and environment if they were) but your local roads pretty much need some government entity to build. And a lot more people complain about being stuck in traffic every day than have ever complained about the local stadium amenities being out of date.

Freeways can always be built by private business as toll-roads (and its likely better for the economy and environment if they were)

I'm mostly with you but hard disagree on this specific point.

Privatized toll roads aren't necessarily better maintained than public ones, and most of the revenues they generate are pocketed by a coterie of insiders. They're also more costly, use for use, to the motorist. I once wandered by mistake onto a Northern Virginia toll road in the dark and paid about $11 for two miles (outside of rush hour).

I think you're double-counting there - Oakland only counts as 10th because that's already including San Francisco and San Jose.

Those are listed as the Giants' territory though, right? I'm not up to date on how the ranking is done.

But with any ranking, the Bay Area's growth potential is going to lay waste to Las Vegas. There are just more people in California than Nevada.

Freeways can always be built by private business as toll-roads (and its likely better for the economy and environment if they were)

Here is 100% of my considered reaction to this warmed-over hogwash: ROFLMAO

Privatized toll roads aren't necessarily better maintained than public ones, and most of the revenues they generate are pocketed by a coterie of insiders. They're also more costly, use for use, to the motorist. I once wandered by mistake onto a Northern Virginia toll road in the dark and paid about $11 for two miles (outside of rush hour).

Sorry for your mistake but private roads aren’t clearly less expensive to build and maintain, just Google the Davis-Bacon act and “prevailing wages”. Government projects are always cheaper if funded locally, because few locales have pork barrel laws like that on the books.

In the Sept. 1 interview, Manfred also questioned why Thao never reached out to him after she won the election in November. Schaaf had a longstanding relationship with the commissioner’s office, having eight years to build it; in April, Thao was in her fourth month as mayor when the A’s pivoted to Las Vegas.

“I did not hear from (Thao). Not once,” Manfred said. “She’s big on everybody should be talking, all the stakeholders should be talking. She wasn’t talking to anybody, and she sure as hell wasn’t talking to me.”

Manfred was asked whether he ever took the initial step of contacting Thao.

“I didn’t,” he says now. “I didn’t know the woman, and I assumed that when she had something to say, she would call me. That’s always what happened with Mayor Schaaf,” noting that Schaaf had initiated their relationship.

However, the commissioner was aware of the communications gap at MLB’s winter meetings in December, when he claimed that he expected to talk to the newly elected mayor “in the near future.”

The mayor’s office also said that the A’s informed the mayor not to communicate with Manfred during negotiations. The Chronicle reported in April, attributing the city, that the A’s asked that any communication with the commissioner be coordinated through the team and “strongly encouraged” the city to not reach out to Manfred until there was something substantive to report on the deal.

“I’m told that’s not true,” Manfred said, without identifying a source. “I wasn’t in on those conversations, but I’m told that’s not true. The fact of the matter is, if you’re trying to keep a baseball team in Oakland, why would you agree not to talk to the commissioner of baseball?”

The A’s also now claim there was no expectation Thao was to speak exclusively with the team.

“The A’s did not prevent Mayor Thao or her staff from having conversations with MLB or the commissioner to advance the project,” an A’s spokesperson said in an email.

While the A’s could not “prevent” Thao from phoning Manfred, Hanson said the mayor was honoring Fisher’s direct request that she not do so, made during a face-to-face meeting with the mayor on Feb. 6, the same meeting in which it was agreed that political adviser Steve Kawa would be added to the mix as a third-party mediator.

“The mayor asked if it was appropriate to reach out to the commissioner, and John said it wouldn’t be appropriate until a deal was completed. We proceeded in good faith,” said Hanson, saying she was in the Thao-Fisher meeting along with A’s President Dave Kaval and the city’s Howard Terminal project manager, Molly Maybrun.

The Chronicle reached out to Maybrun and Kawa for this story. As mediator, Kawa signed a confidentiality agreement with both parties and, through a third party, declined to be interviewed. Maybrun, who resigned from her job with the city when the A’s announced their plans to move to Las Vegas, did not respond to requests for comment. The A’s declined to comment on that meeting.

In Seattle, Thao dropped off 31 copies of a book for Manfred and the 30 clubs explaining how close the deal was at Howard Terminal. Manfred told the Chronicle that he has reviewed the book and that the relocation committee has the authority to provide any relevant material to the clubs. He did not say whether each team received its book or commit to making sure that they did.

The book does not mention the issue of a Coliseum lease extension, expansion or keeping the A’s name. Thao did however claim in the books that the city was raising enough money for off-site infrastructure with more on the way, and that the sides were close before talks broke off — a $90 million gap at that time, according to the city.

“ ‘We were close to a deal.’ Honestly, if they were that close to a deal, why didn’t she throw the hundred million on the table?” Manfred asked, trying to emphasize that the sides weren’t close.

Hanson responded, “The city of Oakland was facing a historical deficit of $360 million and simply does not have $100 million sitting in couch cushions, like Mr. Fisher.”

24. These arguments don't make sense to me.

We don't live in such a world that you sketch out.

Most big things don't get done without some form of government support. Saying they can be done without that support is a fantasy land argument. They don't and won't.

On windmills you make my point. If the subsidy supports some policy you like then theres 100 reasons why a subsidy makes sense to you. You think it's an environmentally forward idea and I think that's rubbish. I (and all the cities that do offer subsidies ) think ML sports teams are an important part of a cities selling point to businesses and individuals. I'm sure lots of people think that's rubbish.

Most people here want govt to spend money on their pet projects/political causes. They don't want lower taxes (less money for govts to spend ). They want the subsidies redirected to projects that are important to them. But no one is honest about it - it just defaults to "billionaires are bad"

The day any of the armchair warriors here are advocating for their social security and Medicare to be eliminated is the day I'll start taking the "the billionaires are bad" argument seriously.

The day any of the armchair warriors here are advocating for their social security and Medicare to be eliminated is the day I'll start taking the "the billionaires are bad" argument seriously.

Having full access to my earned benefits as a senior citizen is vastly more important to me than John Angelos getting a new playground on my dime, but I realize I'm an extreme outlier in that regard. Carry on.

I fully expect Oakland to get the AAA team that is now located in Las Vegas.

But nobody would go the gam...ohhhhh.

Is-there-conflict-of-interest-when-same-person-runs-both-public-entities?

The Las Vegas public board charged with overseeing the Las Vegas Raiders and planned Athletics stadiums looks to enlist the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) to conduct its meetings, review stadium plans and perform analysis.

The Las Vegas Stadium Authority’s hiring of Las Vegas’ publicly-funded tourism agency at no more than $600,000 per year through 2026 may not seem as routine as it looks.

That’s because Steve Hill is both the CEO of the LVCVA and chairman of the stadium authority board, setting up circumstances for a potential conflict of interest. The stadium board’s previous support staff — Applied Analysis — dropped out recently for the same reason because an Applied Analysis owner, Jeremy Aguero, is also working as a consultant for the Athletics.

it's really hard to lose money in MLB

"Sure, you can move to another state. But, per a recently-passed law, meet your new majority shareholder - business genius who has definitely never bankrupted a casino Donald Trump!"

I don't know why cities can't just follow LA's lead.

Rams: "Pay us tribute, or we'll leave!"

LA: "Ok, whatever."

Rams: "We mean it! Throw public money at us or we're out of here!"

LA: "Knock yourselves out. Have fun in St. Louis."

Rams: "But... but... we're an NFL team! You owe us!"

LA: "Ah, we'll survive. Bon voyage."

And LA survived just fine. When the drama repeated itself again with the Raiders a few years later, Los Angeles similarly shrugged it off, and kept right on ticking.

And the NFL eventually begged to come back. So St. Louis found out that all those subsidies didn't mean squat anyway.

21. Zach Posted: September 22, 2023 at 04:10 PM (#6142046)
I also do not understand trading the Bay Area for Las Vegas, even in principle.

10th largest market is underselling Oakland, because you've got San Francisco and Silicon Valley right there if things go well. Outside of Las Vegas there's what, Reno? Elko? Area 51?

- dude you are not thinking about the power of the aliens fanSHIP (hahaha see what i done there)

And the NFL eventually begged to come back. So St. Louis found out that all those subsidies didn't mean squat anyway.

I think what's important to remember is that St. Louis was an NFL city for 21 years! And for 14 of the last 15 years there, they were a losing team. I don't think anyone can argue that that wasn't a fantastic use of hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars for a city with a 20% poverty rate.

i mean if you didn't spend it on a stupid crappy football team that was for Nice Rich White people why then you couldn't POSSIBLY mean to spend it on

shudder

stuff like food, clothes, schools, housing for THOSE People???

After all our Savior sez Dammed are the poor in spirit and on earth and they shall inherit He!! because if they were headed off to heaven they would be Rich like all Good Peeple

from the Gospel according to da Rich

Messed up my timelines above. The Raiders left LA well before the Rams did.

When Los Angeles was NFL-free, I know at least a couple of LA-area people who wore it as a badge of honor.

I seem to remember a former Seahawks owner threatening to move his team to LA, actually starting the process, and being stunned that there weren't throngs of fans lining along the streets with flowers and big welcome signs.

The NFL needs LA much more than LA needs the NFL. This is true of most, if not all, NFL cities, except maybe Jacksonville, which needs all the help it can get.

having no team in LA for years benefited NFL owners quite a bit, because nearly every market is smaller.

so any claim - no matter how dishonest - about perhaps moving there got the attention of elected officials all over the country.

the Giants and Jets, meanwhile, had to pay for their own stadium because NJ laughed at them - why go to a smaller market like LA? they knew the teams weren't going anywhere.