Oakland As' future may hinge on new stadium
Andrew F. Hamm

The long-term future of the Oakland Athletics baseball club remaining in Oakland depends on getting a new stadium for the club, says Bud Selig, commissioner of Major League Baseball.




"This is a high priority for us," Mr. Selig told the Business Journal in an interview following the annual Bay Area baseball luncheon, a gathering of baseball players and officials and the sports media Thursday on Treasure Island in the middle of San Francisco Bay.



The A's are at a financial disadvantage compared to other teams in the American League Western Division. The other teams have found new revenues by either building new stadiums or conducting extensive renovations of existing stadiums.



But Mr. Selig says renovating Network Associates Coliseum, where the A's play, is not an option.



While not directly naming the A's as a candidate for contraction, the term he used last year to describe the shutting down of marginal teams, Mr. Selig pointed out that a combination of an old stadium, limited financial ability and a small market add up to a blueprint for the contraction Major League Baseball was considering before last season.



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He also quickly added that Major League Baseball as a business organization is in no position to help finance any new stadium.



He said such building efforts are the responsibilities of individual owners and their franchise cities. He did not name the A's specifically.



© 2003 American City Business Journals Inc.

(Article link: http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2003/02/03/daily69.html)

Remember... the expos may not be the only team on the move. - Maury

Commish knows A's have money problem

By John Shea
The San Francisco Chronicle

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For the second time in three years, Commissioner Bud Selig was the keynote speaker at Fox's annual baseball luncheon on Treasure Island, and this time he wasn't asked a single question about contraction.

So he brought it up himself.

"I don't know why I bring it up willingly, but it just shows you I'm a masochist at heart," Selig said on Thursday when someone asked about the A's and their stated desire for a new ballpark.

It's not that Selig was ready to reintroduce the A's to the contraction list. In fact, talk of contracting any team, even the Expos, must be shelved for four years under the new basic agreement, and the c-word Selig is hearing most these days -- at least from agents failing to find lucrative contracts for their clients -- is collusion, not contraction.

Nevertheless, the commissioner made the reference in a bid to deliver a point -- that the A's can't survive long term without a new ballpark -- at the risk of creating uneasiness among A's officials, who happened to be sitting across the main table from Giants officials, who happened to be stacking their chips to the ceiling.

"It's a high priority," Selig said. "No matter what economic system you have, a club has to produce a significant amount of local revenue, enough to allow it to be competitive. And when other clubs in your division produce enormous revenue -- Anaheim redid its stadium, and Seattle has a new stadium --

that gives them an inherent advantage over the Oakland club.

"The issue is keeping your team competitive and playing on the same (economic) playing field as your competitors."

What would happen to the A's without extra revenue from a new ballpark?

"It's trouble under any system," Selig said. "You don't want to consign any of your teams to failure. It goes back to what I say about hope and faith. Once you take hope and faith away, you have nothing. On April 1, if you have no chance to win, you've got a problem. So the stadium debates become very crucial."

That might have been true in Montreal. And, in some years, Minnesota. But in Oakland, April 1 is usually the first day of a playoff-bound season.

So, with respect to the good commish who traveled a long way to give props to his sport only to be sidetracked by the question-and-answer session, his sermon didn't focus on two important facts.

No. 1, the A's are doing quite well without a new park.

No. 2, Oakland is broke.

Even A's owner Steve Schott knows a new campaign for a new home in today's wobbly climate would be a waste of time.

"Obviously, we need a baseball-only park in order to double our revenues," Schott said. "But at this time, with the state of the economy, the city and county facing deficits, it isn't practical to pursue a stadium. That's why we signed the five-year lease with the Coliseum. Hopefully, for everybody's sake, things will get better economically in the next couple of years."

Talk of relocating to the South Bay is equally nonexistent, and Giants owner Peter Magowan will remind you if you've forgotten. He still holds territorial rights to the area, and he's not letting go.

"It's a dead issue," Magowan said. "I'm not any more worried about that than I've been the past few years."

The only way for the A's to move south would be for Schott to convince 23 of the other 29 owners to back him, but he's not villain enough to pull an Al Davis and force the issue. So while Schott returns to the foot of Mt. Davis for another year, Magowan will enter his fourth season at Fantasy By The Bay.

There, the only issues are what it will be called next year and when it will finally host an All-Star Game.

Magowan revealed that 2003 is the swan song for Pacific Bell Park. In 2004, "It's definitely going to change," said Magowan, noting Pacific Bell is now SBC Communications Inc. "They have a right to change it to whatever they want, and it will change. We want to have some input, and they graciously said they want our input."

But the Giants can't keep the phone heads from calling it SBC Park, and what a terrible name for the site of an All-Star Game. Selig said the Giants are a "viable candidate" to host it in 2005, confirming that rotating the game from one league to the other is no longer required. The White Sox are the hosts in 2003 and the Astros in 2004.

The Giants hope they'll get it before Barry Bonds retires.

"Ideally, yes. That's why we'd want it in '05 or '06, not '07," said Magowan, knowing Bonds' contract is guaranteed through '05 with an option for '06.

Perhaps the A's will have a ballpark plan by then. Perhaps not.

A man has to have goals- for a day, for a lifetime- that was mine, to have people say, "There goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived." - Ted Williams

Local broadcast revenue for the A's is near the bottom of MLB, which makes a new park that much more important for them. In 2001, the A's broadcast revenue was $9.4 million; for the Giants, it was $17.2 million (source - ESPN's 2002 Hot Stove Heaters). The A's need the extra revenue from a new park to at least try to close the gap with the Giants, who historically have had a greater total of local broadcast revenue.