His "task force" or whatever the fark has sat on the Oakland situation for three years now. Selig keeps saying the A's need a new stadium, but does absolutely f*ck all to move the situation forward. I wish he'd just say yes or no to the San Jose move so that everyone can get on with their lives.

Personally, I'm hoping for "no", since maybe that opens the door for an ownership group willing to build a new stadium in the existing Coliseum parking lot.

MaudlinMutantMollusk: Move 'em to Sacramento

*ducks*

You'll get no argument from me. However we have an idiot mayor who would doubtless make a clusterfark out of any new stadium they'd like to build here. There's a chance they may try something since the whole Kings arena thing failed.

Rays to Montreal. A's to Philly.

Problem solved.

Well, they can build one themselves. Public funds should not be used to build stadiums.

For those who don't know,. mayor of San Jose publicly blasts the Public Employee Unions for the city's "massive" debt.
The SEC is investigating him because he down-played the Public Employee Union debt while trying to sell bonds (to fund the ball park). link

And he's trying to bring the A's to San Jose at an unrecoverable 25 million dollar loss.


TL;DR, he's like Scott Walker and is tricking voters using the A's. Don't be fooled.

Bring the A's to Austin. No wait don't. The heat would probably kill them.

obeymatt: [www.sportstvjobs.com image 375x351]

Damn it, what is it about his face that is just so punchable. Oh, that's right. I'm an Astros fan, and he's done everything in his power to screw us over with this AL move. That and the horrible former ownership and management played a huge part in dooming this team to mediocrity as well. Since they're gone though, I will hold on to my irrational hatred of Selig until the day he dies. Probably long after that as well.

Go Fast Turn Left: downstairs: WTF Indeed: Rays to Montreal. A's to Philly North Carolina.

Problem solved.

Seriously, NC (I believe) is the largest market without an MLB team.

NC isn't so much a "market" as it is a "state".

Indianapolis should be ahead of either Raleigh or Charlotte as far as getting an MLB team.

Indianapolis, in a state that is basketball crazed, has an NBA team that ranks DFL in attendence despite the fact they are ranked 3rd in their conference. The local AAA team draws well, but a 3rd major sport in this town would not fly, it barely supports 2.

/worse than Atlanta as a sports town
//SRSLY

A new stadium in Tampa proper that includes a moat surrounding the entire facility, thus making access from the street and/or parking levels requiring a series of footbridges would probably win the "Not So Subtle Troll of the Year" award.

WTF Indeed: Rays to Montreal Havana. A's to Philly.

Problem solved.

I don't think fans in Philly are ready for a team that scores so many runs.

/and why are all west coast ballparks ultra-pitcher friendly mausoleums?
//my fantasy team really wants to know

downstairs: It also depends on other factors too. Miami is #8, Oakland is #11 and Tampa is #18... and no one seems to care about baseball there.

Bullshiat. Attendance in Oakland, like in most other areas, waxes and wanes depending on how good the product on the field is. From 2001 to 2005, the last stretch of decent Oakland A's teams, attendance was tracking closely with the AL average, drawing over 2 million in each of those seasons. Before that, the A's were one of the top draws from 1988-1992.

Since 2005, there's been a pretty crappy team run out onto the field, the product of constant rebuilding efforts since the ownership is apparently treading water, waiting for what they think will be approval to move to San Jose. This causes the double-whammy of poorly performing teams with no recognizable players for the casual fan. All of this, by the way, occurs in what is widely derided as one of the 2 worst baseball stadiums in the league (though I don't get the hate for the Coliseum).

Looming in the background of any efforts to get a new stadium in Oakland is the atrocious local governance. The city has had a long string of leadership that either totally doesn't give a shiat about getting anything done (Jerry Brown), was utterly incompetent (Ron Dellums), or is too busy firing beanbags at OWS (Jean Quan). And it's been going on well before that. Look at the hideous clusterfark that was the Raiders moving back.

With any normal set of circumstances, there'd be a stadium deal done and the East Bay gets its pretty new venue for a historic franchise. Instead we've gotten the perfect storm of local dimwittery, an ownership group that insists on some retarded sprawl development accompanying any new park, and a commissioner that inexplicably lets the matter twist in the wind forever.

I can't speak to how it is in Florida.

Fans don't decide to buy a ticket because they like the stadium.

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig insists the Oakland Athletics and Tampa Bay Rays must have new ballparks to be able to compete.

Then he can crack into that $7B projected revenue and pay for them.

If Bud thought he could hold Oakland or St. Petersburg/Tampa hostage by threatening to move unless they get new publicly-funded ballparks, he would have done so already.

He can't do that because:
1) Oakland and Tampa would help their teams pack, and
2) In the current landscape of austerity, no city in the country is going to devote a large amount of public funds to an expensive stadium project..

So he's stuck ineffectually shouting to the rafters that Oakland and Tampa need to build their teams ballparks. Poor, poor Bud.

Rays have a good fan base considering its 60 miles from Tampa, in a ghetto.

Build the new stadium next to the Bucs and you will see a HUGE improvement in attendance.

Hey, Bud, if the A's and the Rays are like the Phoenix Suns who sold all Suns games to cable, they can farking build their own new stadiums with all that cable revenue.

Fark off and die.

downstairs: Seriously, NC (I believe) is the largest market without an MLB team.

According to my research, the ten largest MSAs without teams (the fact that North Carolina is a state notwithstanding) are:

23. Portland/Vancouver/Hillsboro, OR
24. San Antonio/New Braunfels, TX
25. Sacramento/Arden/Arcade/Roseville, CA
26. Orlando/Kissimmee/Sanford, FL
30. Las Vegas/Paradise, NV
31. San Jose/Sunnyvale/Santa Clara, CA
32. Columbus, OH
33. Charlotte/Gastonia/Rock Hill, NC-SC
34. Austin/Round Rock/San Marcos, TX
35. Indianapolis/Carmel, IN

For what it's worth, Milwaukee (39) is the only team in an MSA smaller than Indy, though Cincy, Cleveland, and KC rank 27-29.

If I were Bud Selig, I would immediately cross Orlando (it's Florida), Columbus (proximity to Cincy & Cleveland), and Vegas (gambling) off the list.
I'd be a little afraid to go into Sacramento, based on how things are turning out with the Kings there. Though, I'm admittedly pretty uninformed on that matter--is that more the fault of ownership, lack of attendance, or lack of public financing?
Indy might be a little close to Cincy;

Texas seems pretty appealing, because of population growth and the fact that San Antonio and Austin are both around 3 hours away from both DFW and Houston.
San Jose or Santa Clara would be a logical move for the A's.
Would Charlotte (4+ hours from Atlanta) or Portland (3 from Seattle) be receptive to MLB teams?
Also, what's Vancouver's interest in professional baseball like?

An-Unnecessarily-Long-Name: Rays have a good fan base considering its 60 miles from Tampa, in a ghetto.

Build the new stadium next to the Bucs and you will see a HUGE improvement in attendance.

Was it knowingly built in a ghetto or did the area turn into one later?

madden101: I'd be a little afraid to go into Sacramento, based on how things are turning out with the Kings there. Though, I'm admittedly pretty uninformed on that matter--is that more the fault of ownership, lack of attendance, or lack of public financing?

I was typing out a long, detailed explanation, but really, the TL;DR here is that the Maloofs (Kings owners) are pretending to have more money than they do, and backed out of the arena deal because they couldn't afford a few million bucks to do the preliminary work for construction. Kevin Johnson, the mayor of Sacramento, is an idiot for many reasons but chiefly he's an idiot here for thinking that doing business with the Maloofs was a good idea.

madden101: downstairs: Seriously, NC (I believe) is the largest market without an MLB team.

According to my research, the ten largest MSAs without teams (the fact that North Carolina is a state notwithstanding) are:

23. Portland/Vancouver/Hillsboro, OR
24. San Antonio/New Braunfels, TX
25. Sacramento/Arden/Arcade/Roseville, CA
26. Orlando/Kissimmee/Sanford, FL
30. Las Vegas/Paradise, NV
31. San Jose/Sunnyvale/Santa Clara, CA
32. Columbus, OH
33. Charlotte/Gastonia/Rock Hill, NC-SC
34. Austin/Round Rock/San Marcos, TX
35. Indianapolis/Carmel, IN

For what it's worth, Milwaukee (39) is the only team in an MSA smaller than Indy, though Cincy, Cleveland, and KC rank 27-29.

If I were Bud Selig, I would immediately cross Orlando (it's Florida), Columbus (proximity to Cincy & Cleveland), and Vegas (gambling) off the list.
I'd be a little afraid to go into Sacramento, based on how things are turning out with the Kings there. Though, I'm admittedly pretty uninformed on that matter--is that more the fault of ownership, lack of attendance, or lack of public financing?
Indy might be a little close to Cincy;

Texas seems pretty appealing, because of population growth and the fact that San Antonio and Austin are both around 3 hours away from both DFW and Houston.
San Jose or Santa Clara would be a logical move for the A's.
Would Charlotte (4+ hours from Atlanta) or Portland (3 from Seattle) be receptive to MLB teams?
Also, what's Vancouver's interest in professional baseball like?

Would like to see the A's in San Jose. 2nd choice would be in San Marcos, TX. That is smack dab in between The Austin and San Antonio metros. The way the growth is going in that area, it's getting harder to tell where one starts, and the other begins.

Indianapolis and Charlotte would be the two logical places to go. Portland is pretty much out of the running after they dumped their money into renovating the baseball stadium that they had so it could better accomodate the Timbers. (Slag on soccer all you want, but it's made the Pac Northwest a much tougher place to find money for the other sports.)

The Rays need to get out of Tampa, I would say to Charlotte as the Durham Bulls are already their AAA squad. As for Indy, maybe hope for an expansion to 32, and there I'd probably go to San Antonio as the city to come in with them. Sacramento is more or less stuck trying to lure the A's.

Contrabulous Flabtraption: Contrabulous Flabtraption: madden101:
I'd be a little afraid to go into Sacramento, based on how things are turning out with the Kings there. Though, I'm admittedly pretty uninformed on that matter--is that more the fault of ownership, lack of attendance, or lack of public financing?


It's cuz of the Maloofs (kings owners). The city just offered them a deal for a new arena where the city puts in $255 million, AEG puts in $55 million, and the Maloofs would put in $70. They walked away.

Oops, $70 million

The Maloofs want a bigger media market most likely. It's all about the cheese.

Move them to Montreal

/no...not really

Harv72b: Would more people show up if the A's were involved in a pennant race? Absolutely--Baltimore drew more than 3.7 million during their last playoff season in 1997. But when the floor is as low as it is in Oakland (where a comparatively good product is being fielded), you do have to wonder how long the league will continue to back the franchise staying there.

Oakland is a bit of a unique case as you have everyone, including the commissioner, the media and the team telling anyone who'll listen that their home field is a horrible shiathole. You also have a team close by that came off a World Series championship recently in direct competition. I think the poor performance in recent years combined with a PR anti-campaign has really driven down attendance.

Your points comparing Baltimore and Pittsburgh are well-taken. And while I agree with several posters above stating that it's not the stadium that makes the fan come out to the game, I think that both Camden Yards and PNC Park are rightfully regarded as some of the best places to watch a game, which I think influences attendance some. Also, while the A's have been better than both clubs in recent years, to the casual fan who makes up the difference in head count between good years and bad years, it doesn't make a ton of difference whether a team is 62-100 or 72-90.

Oakland has been a leader in the past when it comes to drawing fans. I just think it's simply not true to describe the area as "not caring about baseball". Give the team some clear direction and get their future out of this miserable purgatory they've been thrust into, and I think that Oakland remains a viable market.

IAmRight: Sin_City_Superhero: Almost every state has legalized gambling, in one form or another, so why single out Vegas?

Not on sports.

/if you do know of other places where I can legally gamble on sports in the US, please feel free to let me know

Atlantic City? At least if there's no New Jersey team involved (so no Nets, no Dvils)