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A's move to Fremont runs counter to downtown trend
Few teams have moved away from downtowns
San Francisco Business Times - October 27, 2006 by David Goll

Though the team has just extended its lease at McAfee Coliseum for at least the next four seasons, the Oakland Athletics are looking like a team on the move.

And it would be an unusual one for Major League Baseball teams these days. While many teams have built stadiums in or near downtown areas -- the Giants, San Diego Padres, Seattle Mariners, Colorado Rockies, St. Louis Cardinals, Detroit Tigers, Cleveland Indians, Cincinnati Reds, Pittsburgh Pirates and Baltimore Orioles -- A's management seems intent on moving to Fremont, a sprawling, suburban-style city that has no downtown.

There are few parallels to what the A's are attempting. The Texas Rangers built a ballpark in Arlington, a suburb between Dallas and Fort Worth, but the team's old stadium was nearby. Attendance there has never been stellar.

And the Florida Marlins share Dolphin Stadium with the Miami Dolphins football team in a suburban area about 15 miles north of downtown Miami. Attendance at that park has been among the worst in Major League Baseball for years.

"It is kind of an unusual move, considering the trend for most baseball teams today," said Leo Kahane, a Cal State East Bay economics professor and editor of the Journal of Sports Economics. "On the other hand, Fremont is centrally located in the Bay Area and close to major population centers like San Jose."

The news earlier this month that A's owner Lewis Wolff has bought 10 acres in Fremont adjacent to 143 undeveloped acres he has expressed an interest in for a new A's ballpark has hyped speculation about Fremont.

Though nothing is official, Wolff has been negotiating with Cisco Systems Inc., the San Jose computer networking giant that has a long-term lease on the Fremont property it once eyed for a corporate campus. Wolff also has said there are other potential sites in the East Bay's second-largest city for a ballpark village that could include housing, retail, restaurants and hotels.

Given that Wolff is a developer and has expressed distaste that the A's have to share a 40-year-old multipurpose stadium with the Oakland Raiders, there seems little doubt about his intentions.

"He's a real estate guy and interested in building more than a ballpark," said Paul Staudohar, business professor emeritus at Cal State East Bay and author of books on the business of sports. "His development would also include retail and housing. It's sure to be a package deal."

Staudohar said Wolff is probably also eyeing a new source of fans in San Jose area, which is much closer to Fremont than Oakland is. That may be problematic because Major League Baseball rules say Santa Clara County, which includes San Jose, is territory belonging to the San Francisco Giants.

Others have speculated Wolff is seeking major financial backing from Cisco and other Silicon Valley tech companies to build the multiple-use development, including the ballpark.

Jane Brunner, an Oakland City Councilwoman who participated in earlier talks with Wolff to build a baseball-only stadium, said this is primarly a business decision for the man who became co-owner and managing partner of the A's in April 2005.

"He had a market study done on who would buy luxury boxes, how much corporate support he would receive, but we never saw the results," she said. "We worked very hard to find sites and (Wolff) told us initially all he needed was the land and he would stay in Oakland. But that changed to him wanting 'clean' land with few complications. That's not easy to do with inner-city redevelopment."

Brunner said she and other city officials came up with sites in the downtown area, the waterfront and the area north of the Coliseum, but Wolff found reasons to pass on them. But she said Wolff's reluctance to build in Oakland was just one obstacle to getting a stadium deal done.

Brunner said she "has always wanted to see the A's stay" in Oakland, but she added that sentiment is not shared by several key city officials, most notably outgoing Mayor Jerry Brown and his successor, Ron Dellums.

Brown, who has spent his tenure trying to revitalize the city's core by attracting more than 10,000 residents, favored housing over a downtown baseball park.

Brunner said both housing and a ballpark would have been possible in the city's Uptown area.

"What's really sad is that we changed anything (at McAfee Coliseum) for the Raiders instead of the A's," Brunner said. "They play eight games there a year versus 81 for the A's."

Still, the losing the A's isn't a significant money issue, she said. "I don't think losing the A's would have a huge economic impact on the city."

Indeed, Cal State East Bay's Kahane said the economic impact of professional sports teams tends to be exaggerated.

"There's this perception baseball clubs are big business, but your average Macy's department store generates greater revenue," he said. "They employ more people and operate year-round."

David Goll is a reporter for the East Bay Business Times, an affiliated newspaper.