Last March, just as it was becoming clear that the Raiders were moving to Las Vegas and two months after the Warriors broke ground on their new San Francisco arena, the Oakland A’s unveiled a new advertising campaign.
Plastered on billboards and on the sides of buildings, the A’s wanted to make it clear that they were “Rooted in Oakland.”
It was a not-too-subtle pot shot at the other two Oakland franchises that have opted to leave the booming but cash-strapped hub of the East Bay; the A’s planted a flag in the city and declared themselves “Oakland’s team.”
Less than a year later, that slogan — still plastered around town, by the way — will need to be revisited.
Because the A’s might not be Oakland’s team for long.
The A’s wanted to build a new ballpark at Laney College. They announced the plans, were negotiating with the governing body of the school, and thought they were well on track to making that ballpark dream a reality.
On Tuesday, the Peralta Community College District board told Laney Chancellor Jowel Laguerre to stop negotiating with the team.
The A’s were blindsided — the Laney site is now off the table, and gone with it is the A’s only current viable option for a downtown Oakland ballpark.
Howard Terminal, the much-discussed site near Jack London Square? That was already a pipe dream — and without any substantial financial support from the city [which has neither the cash nor the inclination to give any(more) to a professional sports team] it’s completely unviable.
As I wrote Wednesday, the A’s best option for a new — or newish — ballpark moving forward is their current home: the Coliseum site.
There’s a plethora of reasons to not like the Coliseum site — it’s far away from downtown, to start — but it currently appears to be the best (and only) way for the A’s to stay in Oakland.
But the A’s don’t have to stay.
The A’s have a ticking clock — while owner John Fischer might be loaded and willing to pay for new digs, he operates the A’s in the black for a reason — as Major League Baseball is set to stop cutting the team revenue sharing checks (worth about $30 million a year) in 2021. It’s at that point that the A’s will no longer be considered a small-market team.
And new ballpark has been billed as a way for the A’s to increase revenue in the wake of that decision.
I don’t know if the A’s are or are not a real small market team — the East Bay has about 3 million people, after all — but I do know that they certainly operate like one, which is a nice way say that money is the franchise’s guiding principle.
If the A’s determine that the Coliseum site won’t be able to produce the revenue necessary to make the A’s a “major-market team”, then they can either change their principles or find a market that will support them, both in cold hard cash from municipal or state governments and in attendance.
Charlotte? Montreal? Mexico City? Portland?
Come on down, make a bid.
Major League Baseball could help the A’s and their Bay Area fans by removing Santa Clara County from the Giants’ territorial rights — something to make up for the fact that they are removing the team from revenue sharing — and that could re-open the possibility of the A’s moving to San Jose, but seeing as Major League Baseball literally just fought the city of San Jose in court for the right to keep that city in Giants’ territory, that seems unlikely, no?
So what if one of those other cities comes calling with a truck full of cash driven by a fiscally irresponsible, politically craven mayor (“Hey, I brought you this Major League Baseball team and all it cost was the entire city budget!”). Typicallly, teams use that as leverage to shake down their current homes — “give us a new ballpark or else…”
What is Oakland going to do when those other cities come for its baseball team?
As we saw with the Raiders: Nothing.
Oakland might be booming, but it’s facing a projected $100 million shortfall in 2019-20 fiscal year — the city literally cannot afford to give the A’s a cent to stay in Oakland.
So, no, there’s nothing stopping the A’s from leaving town.
So will the A’s remain “Rooted in Oakland”?
It seems less and less likely by the day.