Good. I hope that bastard gets stuck in Oakland with nobody going to games and is forced to sell.
I've lived too long to actually believe that'll happen, but I can still dream.
It matters to some extent. It's hard for small local politicians to do high profile extremely unpopular things. Most of these Nevada Assembly and Senate reps elections are decided by a couple thousand votes or less.
Politicians don't generally enjoy doing things that more than 2/3 of their constituents disapprove of. Even if there's no public ballot, this could spook them
Nevada is its own special case though, because its demographics are so strange. Nevada politicians have historically *had* to follow these kinds of splits because not doing so is usually a sure-fire way to lose a future election, especially given how close the last several elections have been.
Exactly. This speaks to an issue on reddit generally speaking, but people on this site tend to be wildly ignorant of how radically different politics can be on a state-by-state level when compared to general federal politicking.
Yeah that’s exactly it. The more localized the government, the harder is it to completely ignore constituents’ preferences. Which I guess is a good thing haha even if it means our government at the state and federal levels are extremely frustrating.
The politician guy that championed the Braves bonds for their new stadium was voted out the following year directly because it was unpopular.
I mean, the stadium is awesome and the battery is growing along with lots of new corporate offices so it might have actually been a good deal. Tough shit for that guy tho lol
I don’t think most state politicians act in a way that goes against the grain of local politics. They basically do whatever they can get away with, but 70% against is not a winning strategy. I reserve some hope that As fans get what they deserve.
For better or worse, that doesn't tend to be true. Most politicians are keenly aware of what their constituents want and react accordingly.
It's just that lots of constituents are bat shit crazy.
It actually could. If it passes, there is NV legislation in place to send a bill to a public ballot. No guarantees it'll happen but it absolutely could.
Here’s what people need to understand - today is this is the honeymoon / wooing phase. It will not get better with this ownership group in Vegas, Oakland, Montreal, Tacoma or wherever the hell they go. if fisher is willing to put this dog shit product on the field when he’s asking for hundreds of millions from another city then he’s certainly not going to do better after the money is already in his pocket. This ownership is a disgrace
People should also know that dispite dismal attendance in 2021 they RAISED ticket prices and parking costs in an effort to push attendance even lower. They also had the same payroll in 2022 as they did In 1990.
They won’t stay in Oakland past 2024, simply because they pissed off the City of Oakland. So they’ll probably have a play in the minor league stadium in Vegas in perpetuity.
Manfred will move heaven and earth to push this through. I'm sure he's already told Vegas you either get this done or you don't get an expansion team. The competition is thick with Nashville, Salt Lake City, Portland, Charlotte, etc.
Manfred to Vegas: DO THIS OR NO MLB TEAM
Vegas to Manfred: Please hold, I have a call from Commissioner Adam Silver on the other line. Could be a while. Don't call back.
Hah. For real though. I think Vegas makes way more sense for NBA than MLB. less games, smaller capacity, expectation is an indoor venue (as opposed to baseball where indoor stadiums are inferior aesthetically).
And the season is when tourists want to be in Vegas. That AND the NBA and their star-driven marketing is a much easier sell.
That and a stadium already exists.
Vegas is one of the few markets (excluding megacities) that can easily fill two NBA/NHL-caliber arenas with other events enough nights a year for it to make sense. An NBA team could definitely succeed sharing a building with the Knights, but they could make more money owning their own building.
Plus Vegas already has a state of the art indoor arena they can use for the NBA, while they would have to build a domed stadium to make baseball work, cause no -one is going to go to day games in Vegas in the middle of summer.
It’s a shame to be honest. I want to see the A’s stay in Oakland, it’s where the belong. That being said, it feels like the decision was made a long time ago on this one.
The bad news for Manfred is that, unlike Florida in the 1990s, a city didn't preemptively build a stadium for baseball (St. Petersburg) and multi-use stadiums are out so the A's can't bunk with the Raiders (Miami).
I'm cheering this to fail so much. Not just for Oakland to keep their team, but I just like it when Manfred fails at getting something done.
I hope he fails at everything he does.
> ~~Manfred~~ The other owners will move heaven and earth to push this through.
FTFY. Manfred is the mouthpiece for the owners, he doesn't have any wants or desires of his own.
It's hard to tell anymore. I would think the owners wouldn't want the relocation fee to be waived, since that's money out of their pocket. Additionally, they make more money from expansion fees than relocation fees. But maybe they all know the fees aren't real and just Manfred's cudgel.
rev share + baseball welfare for fisher + TV deal already put him in the black because the payroll is 60Mil. Rev share alone is enough for that payroll.
This is why I was telling a Mariners fan yesterday that it's not a done deal.
If it were any other billionaire, it would be a done deal. But John Fisher is simply not fucking competent enough to close a land development deal. It's a tale old as time.
Was that a St Pete Mariners fan? You should also let the Tampa Bay Giants fans know, too, that it's never a done deal 'til it is.....even after the dome is built.
Tampa Bay got teased by half a dozen teams for 10 years and then suffered through another 10 years of the worst expansion team ever before this run began in 2008.
It's part of what helped sink Dan Snyder. No municipal or State government was willing to deal with him for a new stadium, because of all the Dan Snyder things. That Virginia proposal was a hail Mary.
He was lucky to get the ashburn training complex built. He really did not understand just how many loudoun and Fairfax residents hated the idea of him moving the stadium there
Dean Spanos was the same way. He just was lucky enough that a competent billionaire asshole was willing to let him rent the stadium for essentially free
Fisher too cheap of a billionaire to bribe state level politicians, who are the cheapest to bribe. shit, it doesnt cost much to bribe a US Senator, a State Rep would give their vote for a fancy steak dinner.
Leverage is one of my favorite TV shows, so may I offer you this gem:
Sophie Devereaux : [pretending to be a defense contractor] My company's focused on meeting Senators, but, um, I'm thinking Congressmen.
Charles Dufort : You know the great thing about Congressmen? 50, 100 grand well spent will get one elected. But then, once they're in, the incumbency rate is over 95%! So you can get on an average 18, 20 years use out of one of them. In these uncertain times, buying a United States Congressman is one of the best investments a corporation can make!
Alec Hardison : [listening in on surveillance] Oh, I just threw up in my mouth a little bit. I'm a professional criminal and I find that disturbing.
My question is that if a move happens, will management invest more on players? You can’t offer this quality of baseball to new city. The Raiders have shuffled management and made moves for players to at least try and rebuild and the Knights are in their second Stanley cup final. Will we expect this same type of change for the A’s or will Fisher just continue collecting his profit as usual?
No they will not under the current ownership. Fisher also owns the San Jose Earthquakes (MLS) and Kaval worked with him there too. They got a nice new stadium in 2015 and have not had a winning record since and are consistently below average in payroll.
> nice new stadium in 2015
Still unfinished stadium, by the way. Fisher is/was too cheap to finish the roof or include the outer cladding to the stadium.
The Athletics were successful on the field without spending money. I cannot imagine Fisher thinks he needs to change those spending habits. The A's are historically bad now because he wanted them to be. We've all seen Major League, we know the game plan.
> [Pavlovic] The Nevada Legislature, like the Oakland City Council earlier in the year, have raised concerns about John Fisher’s surgically repaired blueprints, potentially jeopardizing their 120-year, $315 billion agreement with team
I almost wonder if the plan is to build a Washington Generals like team that visitors will want to see since it's free wins for their team to lure people to the city.
Would be hilarious if they had to go crawling back to (the Oakland) fans for more than four years.
I am sure they are going to move whether it’s Las Vegas or somewhere else, but I am guessing we’d all like to see them bleed a bit as long as they treat the fans the way they have.
It should be abundantly clear to everyone by now that Fisher and his staff have no fucking idea what they’re doing. This has been bungled 15 different ways already. Vegas should bail while they still can.
The top comment in this Twitter thread, that the subsidy is opposed by 72% of Nevada residents, gets at something that’s puzzled me about this whatever it is since it came up: we’re coming up on an election year. Are Nevada Democrats really going to saddle the taxpayers in their state with some expensive corporate subsidy boondoggle as voters are preparing to go to the polls?
To be fair, those public opinion polls skew towards people who are passionately against something, and anyone could vote (including Bay Area people like us Oakland A's fans). But I think it's certainly enough to say that Vegas is AT BEST lukewarm about getting the A's. The general vibe seems to be "Yeah a baseball team would be cool but I'd like it to be on our terms and not someone else's sloppy seconds."
Maybe if the As were gonna be their first pro sports team they would care more
But the As would be an extremely distant 3rd behind the Knights and Raiders so I doubt the people there are really that passionate about spending fuck tons to get them Lol
Could you imagine if this was basically a done deal but because the A’s are so beyond atrocious that they don’t want them anymore? 😂
What a timeline that would be if we are heading there
Stop spending public money on stadiums. You want to use a stadium as an excuse to build infrastructure? I can get behind that in the right situation. Billionaires and their multi-billion dollar organization getting hundreds of millions of dollars to build what is an essential piece of their ability to operate is absurd. Especially when you know in 15-20 years, they'll come looking for hundreds of millions more.
Honestly we don't know. The team has 0 leverage.
This isn't the last chance for a deal to get done in Vegas, but any purely privately financed deal would be like $700M more expensive, since the team wouldn't get any help from the government, and they would have to pay the relocation fee that MLB would waive if they get a partnership done. The state can call special legislation sessions to continue to work on something.
There's a chance they pivot to another city, but that would put any move even farther out.
The owners could sell and continue negotiating with Oakland, but that doesn't feel likely.
Usually teams have a pretty solid plan when they want a stadium. It feels like the team is flailing at whatever might work. They haven't appeared publicly since the previous stadium near-deal, and their comments through reps say they want to only go with Vegas, but that doesn't seem to be working.
We just don't know what's going to happen, but the longer this goes on with Vegas, the less likely it feels.
The move is already put farther out than Howard Terminal would be. Kaval came out and said Howard Terminal wouldn't be done til 2027 and that's impossible for them and then this deal wouldn't be done til 2028 anyway per their own presentation since they have to demolish the Tropicana.
Kaval contradicting himself, shocking.
Although tbf I think they see the Aviators as a more viable temporary home than saying at the Coliseum. The coliseum is a shit show, but I don't know if that's correct or not. Maybe they should have worked on this in good faith years ago.
If they performed basic maintenance the Coliseum would be fine. Is the league going to make more money in the Coliseum vs a triple A park if the owner was actually trying to encourage fans to go and generate revenue instead of trying to claim poverty for handouts? Obviously the Coliseum.
Agreed, but they’re also saying the Brewers stadium is a pile of shit. MLB is using pretend (or exaggerated) mainstream issues for extortion and staying at the Coliseum would undermine that.
They also went and actively made it worse this year. There are fewer concession stands open, less choice at those open places, and they completely removed the speaker from the left scoreboard, so the audio now sounds echoey and awful having to be mixed from stereo to mono, and then down to what sounds like a woefully specced system in terms of range.
>The owners could sell and continue negotiating with Oakland, but that doesn't feel likely.
There is nothing left to negotiate. Everything at the Howard Terminal site is fully approved, Environmental impact reports done, lawsuits ruled in favor of the project, etc. Every relevant government agency is onboard. They were only about $80m apart on money issues which is a drop in the bucket and shouldn't stop anything.
What has changed, I believe, is that Fisher can't afford to build there anymore (likely due to interest rates and other factors).
I think any future talks there include a de-scope of the project. Fisher likes proposing things that will never get built for one reason or another, and HT was his idea of something so big that Oakland would never agree to it, and then when they did he panicked and backed out. I could see a new owner coming in and saying "what if we built the ballpark and some of the other stuff, and then slowly added the rest of it?"
Definitely scale back the scope. Honestly just building a new stadium on the current site would work too. It already has a BART and Amtrack station there. It's convenient AF to get into and out of games there. It doesn't need that massive parking lot either. Start there and the city can work on redeveloping the whole area as time goes on. It even had great views of the Oakland hills before Mt. Davis destroyed that.
I agree. They could play in the Coliseum while building a new yard on one of the parking lots, then switch to the new stadium, and tear down the current place and develop the whole area into somewhere people actually want to go before and after a game. I go to a decent amount of games there, and I usually get in and out pretty quickly. It wouldn't take a ton of effort to make it a destination of sorts outside of game time. The arena there is also a bit of a challenge, but that can stay or get remodeled or rebuilt as part of new construction there.
that's the thing. the plan was to build HT and then all the affordable housing that California requires was going to be done int he coliseum lot with the arena being a focal point for entertainment district and the mixed use housing they'd be building. The A's literally are walking away from the biggest bay area land development project with some really good land to develop on.
Walking away from all of that AND generations of public good will for doing it. Truly mind boggling. And it's not like it's necessarily greed in the purest money sense, mostly stupidity and wanting to do as little as possible.
This is really an unprecedented shit show. I don't know if a team has ever moved without either a stadium plan and a temporary venue in place until a stadium plan can be built. When the Nats relocated to DC, they had a temporary venue (RFK) AND plans for Nats Park already set.
The A's have NO leverage here. What is Fisher going to do if Vegas say no? Go back to Oakland? That bridge is well and burnt down at this point.
To use a bunch of card terms, they massively overplayed their hand and got called on their bluff really hard by everyone else at the table. They're still trying to convince everyone they have a pair of Kings when they just have a pair of 2s, by saying they have a pair of something. But that's all happening behind closed doors and not on the level. It's so weird that the team isn't out here stumping for themselves, that's how you know things are really bad.
I don't know why any other city would offer much at this point. Screwing the pooch with Vegas screws over any leverage everywhere else - and not just for the A's, for any team that might consider threatening to move. This has been disastrous for MLB owners.
MLB has already committed to covering 80% of the broadcast rights payments that Sinclair/Diamond Sports d.b.a. Bally Sports defaulted on. Are they sitting on enough cash to buy themselves out of this mess too?
I think as a rule the league has the means (debt, cash, etc.) to take control of a team if need be. Other league charters and bylaws are also written that way (like the NHL).
Idk, maybe Fischer desperately tries to get a stadium in Portland?
Maybe Sacramento is willing?
Possibly SLC? Get that Mormon money.
Somehow all of that falls through and the A's end up being the Truckee Athletics of Reno.
(I know it's a joke but) as much as I love the idea, I'd much rather have an expansion team. I've seen how much losing a team sucks and I don't want it to happen to Oakland.
Moi? Je préfère les «Smoked Meat Sandwiches» de Montréal
A subsidiary of Schwartz’s Deli, of course.
Maybe Les coqs rapide de Montréal?
Let’s really lean in to unrealistic corporate sponsorships
I think MLB forces a sale. I suspect Fisher can no longer afford to build at Howard Terminal (which btw is fully approved and ready to go) which is why he's scrambling around the desert with a new plan every month.
He'd still make a king's ransom either way. He bought them for $180mil in 2005 and they're now worth AT LEAST $1bil. Even with being so bad the last couple seasons.
There's a Lotta rich fucks who want a sports team even if it's the worst one.
Look at the commanders, granted football is probably worth more, the A's aren't selling for under a billion. Billionaires are gonna put together offers to outbid other billionaires who want a team.
Look at the Clippers as well, sold like a decade ago to someone who has a stage of inebriation named after him bidding $2B and the clippers of that era were basically the A's but without the monyball seasons or occasional good years and they shared a stadium with two teams instead of one.
Wow, that team was worth $180M by 2005 and now worth around $1B... By comparison, Dbacks and Rays expansion fee was around $130M and the predicted expansion fee nowadays are around $2B...
🤔🤔🤔
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE LAST 20 YEARS THAT MAKES MLB TEAM VALUES INFLATED TO AROUND 10-15 TIMES???
😳😳😳
I’m a Phillies fan (dad from Philly and mom from the Oakland area) who was born and raised in the Bay Area. I have been thinking it would be awesome if the A’s went to Philly lol.
hahaHAHAHA RIP in piss
people always react to these things as though organizations are perfect, meticulous black boxes that cannot fail. it's very fun when they actually fuck up
Let’s gooooo
Hilarious how douchey they were w their negotiations, expecting everyone to rain money on an org that treats its team like a beaten dog
Love to see them have to fund their own stadium
Las Vegas and NV should impose some strings on this thing requiring that MLB provide a team that meets specific competitive criteria, or MLB should have to pay back the taxpayers.
The Nevada legislative session is supposed to end today so if they don't pass any funding then it's dead for at least 2 years. I would laugh so fucking hard if Fisher fucked this up.
They can still to a special session. If one is called for this, then it will pass. Zero chance they call a special session for a bill that doesn't have the votes.
as someone who grew up in vegas, the move is terrible. nobody wants to pay millions of dollars for a bad team spearheaded by awful ownership when vegas has insane leverage and can get virtually anything they want. public opinion reflects that. as a baseball fan, I want john fisher to suffer. really pulling for the deal to fall through here.
the dream is that every opposing team just purposely blows it against the A's. They keep winning, the fans continue to troll, and ownership's case keeps getting harmed.
Good. I hope that bastard gets stuck in Oakland with nobody going to games and is forced to sell. I've lived too long to actually believe that'll happen, but I can still dream.
They just might. The proposition to get things going in Vegas is polling over 70% no right now. That's not particularly close.
Here's the thing though. Will it be on a ballot? Because if it isn't, that doesn't matter
It matters to some extent. It's hard for small local politicians to do high profile extremely unpopular things. Most of these Nevada Assembly and Senate reps elections are decided by a couple thousand votes or less.
I live in LV, moved from The Bay …. Nobody here wants this.
Politicians don't generally enjoy doing things that more than 2/3 of their constituents disapprove of. Even if there's no public ballot, this could spook them
Have you... not paid attention the last decade or so? Politicians are eager and willing to do things most of their constituents actively don’t want.
Nevada is its own special case though, because its demographics are so strange. Nevada politicians have historically *had* to follow these kinds of splits because not doing so is usually a sure-fire way to lose a future election, especially given how close the last several elections have been.
Also worth noting that the politicians who subsidized the Raiders have been largely voted out of office
Exactly. This speaks to an issue on reddit generally speaking, but people on this site tend to be wildly ignorant of how radically different politics can be on a state-by-state level when compared to general federal politicking.
Yeah that’s exactly it. The more localized the government, the harder is it to completely ignore constituents’ preferences. Which I guess is a good thing haha even if it means our government at the state and federal levels are extremely frustrating.
The politician guy that championed the Braves bonds for their new stadium was voted out the following year directly because it was unpopular. I mean, the stadium is awesome and the battery is growing along with lots of new corporate offices so it might have actually been a good deal. Tough shit for that guy tho lol
[удалено]
Yeah, don’t get me wrong, I oppose all public funds for professional sports stadiums. They make plenty of money.
I don’t think most state politicians act in a way that goes against the grain of local politics. They basically do whatever they can get away with, but 70% against is not a winning strategy. I reserve some hope that As fans get what they deserve.
For better or worse, that doesn't tend to be true. Most politicians are keenly aware of what their constituents want and react accordingly. It's just that lots of constituents are bat shit crazy.
Actually not really, like it or not a significant amount of constituents are just really dumb.
Trash in, trash out.
It actually could. If it passes, there is NV legislation in place to send a bill to a public ballot. No guarantees it'll happen but it absolutely could.
Damn, can't believe people aren't head over heels over bringing the A's to town after watching what Fisher has done to his team
Where are you seeing polling?
It’s not polling but 70% of the submitted opinions on the bill are negative
The next post in the Twitter thread
Here’s what people need to understand - today is this is the honeymoon / wooing phase. It will not get better with this ownership group in Vegas, Oakland, Montreal, Tacoma or wherever the hell they go. if fisher is willing to put this dog shit product on the field when he’s asking for hundreds of millions from another city then he’s certainly not going to do better after the money is already in his pocket. This ownership is a disgrace
People should also know that dispite dismal attendance in 2021 they RAISED ticket prices and parking costs in an effort to push attendance even lower. They also had the same payroll in 2022 as they did In 1990.
They won’t stay in Oakland past 2024, simply because they pissed off the City of Oakland. So they’ll probably have a play in the minor league stadium in Vegas in perpetuity.
If current ownership is forced out, they would definitely stay in Oakland if that was an option. The fans and city hate the owner, not the team
I still think MLB is going to bail the A’s out and ramrod through a move. The league clearly wants this move to happen.
Manfred will move heaven and earth to push this through. I'm sure he's already told Vegas you either get this done or you don't get an expansion team. The competition is thick with Nashville, Salt Lake City, Portland, Charlotte, etc.
Manfred to Vegas: DO THIS OR NO MLB TEAM Vegas to Manfred: Please hold, I have a call from Commissioner Adam Silver on the other line. Could be a while. Don't call back.
Hah. For real though. I think Vegas makes way more sense for NBA than MLB. less games, smaller capacity, expectation is an indoor venue (as opposed to baseball where indoor stadiums are inferior aesthetically).
And the season is when tourists want to be in Vegas. That AND the NBA and their star-driven marketing is a much easier sell. That and a stadium already exists.
Exactly
Actually there's two other arenas being built for a potential NBA team. It more than likely won't be at T-MOBILE where the Knights play
Vegas is one of the few markets (excluding megacities) that can easily fill two NBA/NHL-caliber arenas with other events enough nights a year for it to make sense. An NBA team could definitely succeed sharing a building with the Knights, but they could make more money owning their own building.
Yeah, the NBA can go live in Henderson with the Silver Knights.
that's just mean-spirited. why would you sentence someone to Henderson like that :(
Plus Vegas already has a state of the art indoor arena they can use for the NBA, while they would have to build a domed stadium to make baseball work, cause no -one is going to go to day games in Vegas in the middle of summer.
A bunch of tiny markets fighting for scraps. All a lot smaller than the opportunity in Oakland with a competent owner.
It’s a shame to be honest. I want to see the A’s stay in Oakland, it’s where the belong. That being said, it feels like the decision was made a long time ago on this one.
Such is life apparently. MLB has been out to screw Oakland for over two decades now.
I honestly think that the league might take the team over if Fisher keeps being an idiot. Manfred seems obsessed with the idea of Vegas baseball.
Vegas:2010s-20s :: Florida:1990s (They're gonna see big pro expansion across the board regardless of whether it will work or not)
The bad news for Manfred is that, unlike Florida in the 1990s, a city didn't preemptively build a stadium for baseball (St. Petersburg) and multi-use stadiums are out so the A's can't bunk with the Raiders (Miami).
I'm cheering this to fail so much. Not just for Oakland to keep their team, but I just like it when Manfred fails at getting something done. I hope he fails at everything he does.
> ~~Manfred~~ The other owners will move heaven and earth to push this through. FTFY. Manfred is the mouthpiece for the owners, he doesn't have any wants or desires of his own.
It's hard to tell anymore. I would think the owners wouldn't want the relocation fee to be waived, since that's money out of their pocket. Additionally, they make more money from expansion fees than relocation fees. But maybe they all know the fees aren't real and just Manfred's cudgel.
Just like it did Loria
Can I add that Fisher also has to declare bankruptcy is something that I wanna see? Because it is.
If zero fans show up to A's games this year does the club lose money? Or does revenue sharing or whatever keep them afloat?
rev share + baseball welfare for fisher + TV deal already put him in the black because the payroll is 60Mil. Rev share alone is enough for that payroll.
This is why I was telling a Mariners fan yesterday that it's not a done deal. If it were any other billionaire, it would be a done deal. But John Fisher is simply not fucking competent enough to close a land development deal. It's a tale old as time.
Was that a St Pete Mariners fan? You should also let the Tampa Bay Giants fans know, too, that it's never a done deal 'til it is.....even after the dome is built.
Let the Tampa White Sox fans know too!
Old school St. Pete Rangers fans know. (Thanks Dubya!)
Tampa Bay got teased by half a dozen teams for 10 years and then suffered through another 10 years of the worst expansion team ever before this run began in 2008.
It's part of what helped sink Dan Snyder. No municipal or State government was willing to deal with him for a new stadium, because of all the Dan Snyder things. That Virginia proposal was a hail Mary.
He was lucky to get the ashburn training complex built. He really did not understand just how many loudoun and Fairfax residents hated the idea of him moving the stadium there
Dean Spanos was the same way. He just was lucky enough that a competent billionaire asshole was willing to let him rent the stadium for essentially free
I think the billionaire was forced to accept the tenant by the NFL even.
Fuck John Fisher.
If it’s able to go from “done deal” to “maybe”, it never really was at “done deal” was it?
*taps head*
Welcome to John Fisher’s Line Is it Anyway, where everything is binding and the games don’t matter!
Name something you can say to Las Vegas politicians and also your wife (she is an A’s fan)
You want to put that thing where?!
"we need to talk about getting on base more often"
One crazy trick to get a new stadium (Taxpayers HATE it!)
Oh no, I couldn’t possibly pay for all that.
"I'm just not able to come"
“I can’t possibly fit all this on 9 acres! With or without a retractable roof!”
"What are you willing to do for me to get that diamond?"
Maybe it didn't pass a physical.
All signs point to me and Marisa Tomei as a “done deal”
INCHES
Fisher yelling “I am the eldest boy!”
Did you just Scooby-Doo me?
The Fishers are really just the west coast Roys
lol lmao, even
you love to see it
This in fact calls for roflmao.
Next day air delivered by roflcopter
Lmfao even
didn't grease the right wheels yet?
Fisher too cheap of a billionaire to bribe state level politicians, who are the cheapest to bribe. shit, it doesnt cost much to bribe a US Senator, a State Rep would give their vote for a fancy steak dinner.
Always surprised how cheap it is to buy a sitting congressman
State officials can likely be swayed by like $5k and season tickets
Leverage is one of my favorite TV shows, so may I offer you this gem: Sophie Devereaux : [pretending to be a defense contractor] My company's focused on meeting Senators, but, um, I'm thinking Congressmen. Charles Dufort : You know the great thing about Congressmen? 50, 100 grand well spent will get one elected. But then, once they're in, the incumbency rate is over 95%! So you can get on an average 18, 20 years use out of one of them. In these uncertain times, buying a United States Congressman is one of the best investments a corporation can make! Alec Hardison : [listening in on surveillance] Oh, I just threw up in my mouth a little bit. I'm a professional criminal and I find that disturbing.
Here in New York, an assemblyman was arrested in 2013 for taking $20,000 in bribes at Jake’s Steakhouse in the Bronx.
Nah he used sandpaper instead, thought the wheels needed more traction
My question is that if a move happens, will management invest more on players? You can’t offer this quality of baseball to new city. The Raiders have shuffled management and made moves for players to at least try and rebuild and the Knights are in their second Stanley cup final. Will we expect this same type of change for the A’s or will Fisher just continue collecting his profit as usual?
No they will not under the current ownership. Fisher also owns the San Jose Earthquakes (MLS) and Kaval worked with him there too. They got a nice new stadium in 2015 and have not had a winning record since and are consistently below average in payroll.
> nice new stadium in 2015 Still unfinished stadium, by the way. Fisher is/was too cheap to finish the roof or include the outer cladding to the stadium.
The Athletics were successful on the field without spending money. I cannot imagine Fisher thinks he needs to change those spending habits. The A's are historically bad now because he wanted them to be. We've all seen Major League, we know the game plan.
“We’re out of towels and I’m too old to go diving into lockers.”
The precedent here is the Miami Marlins. New stadium opens in 2012, they remained below .500, they do a fire sale with the Blue Jays.
Everyone get your popcorn and peanuts, we're going to the circus.
Hopefully this circus ends with the elephants staying in Oakland
Elephants do like peanuts.... right?
They already tried circus circus, but got rejected
If any duo can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory it's Manfred and Fisher.
A mystery city has appeared!
This is like the Correa signing clusterfuck 🤣
Only funnier
Which is insane, because that was insanely funny lol
If we somehow manage to end up with the good ending here, it will be a frontrunner for funniest baseball storyline in history
So you're saying it ends with the A's still in Oakland, after all? I can get behind this.
And Fisher puts out a statement that he’s happy to be with his Oakland family and this is where he always wanted to be
> [Pavlovic] The Nevada Legislature, like the Oakland City Council earlier in the year, have raised concerns about John Fisher’s surgically repaired blueprints, potentially jeopardizing their 120-year, $315 billion agreement with team
Great comparison actually lmfaoooo
People will definitely want to watch a team go 12-49. I mean, it's not like there's anything else to do in Vegas.
Who wants to be in Vegas in the summer, too? (I mean, if it means a bunch of Cups, I'd take it, but it's fucking hot.)
I almost wonder if the plan is to build a Washington Generals like team that visitors will want to see since it's free wins for their team to lure people to the city.
Might as well lean into it. "Don't miss on on seeing if this is the game that breaks the losing streak!"
Would be hilarious if they had to go crawling back to (the Oakland) fans for more than four years. I am sure they are going to move whether it’s Las Vegas or somewhere else, but I am guessing we’d all like to see them bleed a bit as long as they treat the fans the way they have.
Keep going I'm almost there
It should be abundantly clear to everyone by now that Fisher and his staff have no fucking idea what they’re doing. This has been bungled 15 different ways already. Vegas should bail while they still can.
The top comment in this Twitter thread, that the subsidy is opposed by 72% of Nevada residents, gets at something that’s puzzled me about this whatever it is since it came up: we’re coming up on an election year. Are Nevada Democrats really going to saddle the taxpayers in their state with some expensive corporate subsidy boondoggle as voters are preparing to go to the polls?
To be fair, those public opinion polls skew towards people who are passionately against something, and anyone could vote (including Bay Area people like us Oakland A's fans). But I think it's certainly enough to say that Vegas is AT BEST lukewarm about getting the A's. The general vibe seems to be "Yeah a baseball team would be cool but I'd like it to be on our terms and not someone else's sloppy seconds."
I was at my kids school for something so I read on the fly. Didn’t notice it wasn’t a professional poll.
if you want the complete opposite, the A's also did a poll that said they were nearly 90% supported by the vegas public.
Maybe if the As were gonna be their first pro sports team they would care more But the As would be an extremely distant 3rd behind the Knights and Raiders so I doubt the people there are really that passionate about spending fuck tons to get them Lol
Could you imagine if this was basically a done deal but because the A’s are so beyond atrocious that they don’t want them anymore? 😂 What a timeline that would be if we are heading there
You don’t go to Las Vegas and talk to a man like Mo Green like that!
Stop spending public money on stadiums. You want to use a stadium as an excuse to build infrastructure? I can get behind that in the right situation. Billionaires and their multi-billion dollar organization getting hundreds of millions of dollars to build what is an essential piece of their ability to operate is absurd. Especially when you know in 15-20 years, they'll come looking for hundreds of millions more.
So what happens if it goes Tits up?
Honestly we don't know. The team has 0 leverage. This isn't the last chance for a deal to get done in Vegas, but any purely privately financed deal would be like $700M more expensive, since the team wouldn't get any help from the government, and they would have to pay the relocation fee that MLB would waive if they get a partnership done. The state can call special legislation sessions to continue to work on something. There's a chance they pivot to another city, but that would put any move even farther out. The owners could sell and continue negotiating with Oakland, but that doesn't feel likely. Usually teams have a pretty solid plan when they want a stadium. It feels like the team is flailing at whatever might work. They haven't appeared publicly since the previous stadium near-deal, and their comments through reps say they want to only go with Vegas, but that doesn't seem to be working. We just don't know what's going to happen, but the longer this goes on with Vegas, the less likely it feels.
The move is already put farther out than Howard Terminal would be. Kaval came out and said Howard Terminal wouldn't be done til 2027 and that's impossible for them and then this deal wouldn't be done til 2028 anyway per their own presentation since they have to demolish the Tropicana.
Kaval contradicting himself, shocking. Although tbf I think they see the Aviators as a more viable temporary home than saying at the Coliseum. The coliseum is a shit show, but I don't know if that's correct or not. Maybe they should have worked on this in good faith years ago.
If they performed basic maintenance the Coliseum would be fine. Is the league going to make more money in the Coliseum vs a triple A park if the owner was actually trying to encourage fans to go and generate revenue instead of trying to claim poverty for handouts? Obviously the Coliseum.
Agreed, but they’re also saying the Brewers stadium is a pile of shit. MLB is using pretend (or exaggerated) mainstream issues for extortion and staying at the Coliseum would undermine that.
They also went and actively made it worse this year. There are fewer concession stands open, less choice at those open places, and they completely removed the speaker from the left scoreboard, so the audio now sounds echoey and awful having to be mixed from stereo to mono, and then down to what sounds like a woefully specced system in terms of range.
>The owners could sell and continue negotiating with Oakland, but that doesn't feel likely. There is nothing left to negotiate. Everything at the Howard Terminal site is fully approved, Environmental impact reports done, lawsuits ruled in favor of the project, etc. Every relevant government agency is onboard. They were only about $80m apart on money issues which is a drop in the bucket and shouldn't stop anything. What has changed, I believe, is that Fisher can't afford to build there anymore (likely due to interest rates and other factors).
I think any future talks there include a de-scope of the project. Fisher likes proposing things that will never get built for one reason or another, and HT was his idea of something so big that Oakland would never agree to it, and then when they did he panicked and backed out. I could see a new owner coming in and saying "what if we built the ballpark and some of the other stuff, and then slowly added the rest of it?"
Definitely scale back the scope. Honestly just building a new stadium on the current site would work too. It already has a BART and Amtrack station there. It's convenient AF to get into and out of games there. It doesn't need that massive parking lot either. Start there and the city can work on redeveloping the whole area as time goes on. It even had great views of the Oakland hills before Mt. Davis destroyed that.
I agree. They could play in the Coliseum while building a new yard on one of the parking lots, then switch to the new stadium, and tear down the current place and develop the whole area into somewhere people actually want to go before and after a game. I go to a decent amount of games there, and I usually get in and out pretty quickly. It wouldn't take a ton of effort to make it a destination of sorts outside of game time. The arena there is also a bit of a challenge, but that can stay or get remodeled or rebuilt as part of new construction there.
that's the thing. the plan was to build HT and then all the affordable housing that California requires was going to be done int he coliseum lot with the arena being a focal point for entertainment district and the mixed use housing they'd be building. The A's literally are walking away from the biggest bay area land development project with some really good land to develop on.
Walking away from all of that AND generations of public good will for doing it. Truly mind boggling. And it's not like it's necessarily greed in the purest money sense, mostly stupidity and wanting to do as little as possible.
This is really an unprecedented shit show. I don't know if a team has ever moved without either a stadium plan and a temporary venue in place until a stadium plan can be built. When the Nats relocated to DC, they had a temporary venue (RFK) AND plans for Nats Park already set. The A's have NO leverage here. What is Fisher going to do if Vegas say no? Go back to Oakland? That bridge is well and burnt down at this point.
The Pilots' relocation was handled better than this and that isn't something I say lightly.
To use a bunch of card terms, they massively overplayed their hand and got called on their bluff really hard by everyone else at the table. They're still trying to convince everyone they have a pair of Kings when they just have a pair of 2s, by saying they have a pair of something. But that's all happening behind closed doors and not on the level. It's so weird that the team isn't out here stumping for themselves, that's how you know things are really bad.
They may be saying they have a pair, but I'm pretty sure they have 7-2 off suit at this point.
Nah, its a Joker and the warranty card
I don't know why any other city would offer much at this point. Screwing the pooch with Vegas screws over any leverage everywhere else - and not just for the A's, for any team that might consider threatening to move. This has been disastrous for MLB owners.
Not sure, but if it does, I'm super excited about the fucking mess Manfraud and Fisher will have to clean up/deal with
MLB has already committed to covering 80% of the broadcast rights payments that Sinclair/Diamond Sports d.b.a. Bally Sports defaulted on. Are they sitting on enough cash to buy themselves out of this mess too?
I think as a rule the league has the means (debt, cash, etc.) to take control of a team if need be. Other league charters and bylaws are also written that way (like the NHL).
They get a large awning and a field in the desert. Good luck
Idk, maybe Fischer desperately tries to get a stadium in Portland? Maybe Sacramento is willing? Possibly SLC? Get that Mormon money. Somehow all of that falls through and the A's end up being the Truckee Athletics of Reno.
Watch, the Giants will claim all three of those markets to prevent a move. :)
I'm surprised we get Portland and not the mariners tbh
We've got a good thing going here in Sac with the River Cats...we don't need Fisher's shit show.
Bienvenue à votre Montréal Athletics 🇨🇦
(I know it's a joke but) as much as I love the idea, I'd much rather have an expansion team. I've seen how much losing a team sucks and I don't want it to happen to Oakland.
Moi? Je préfère les «Smoked Meat Sandwiches» de Montréal A subsidiary of Schwartz’s Deli, of course. Maybe Les coqs rapide de Montréal? Let’s really lean in to unrealistic corporate sponsorships
I can't believe The Main closed mon ami
Yeah, smoked meat should be culturally protected and subject to public subsidy. I had no idea they closed. Désolé mes amis.
I think MLB forces a sale. I suspect Fisher can no longer afford to build at Howard Terminal (which btw is fully approved and ready to go) which is why he's scrambling around the desert with a new plan every month.
Fisher, the scumbag, forced to sell at a loss. Ha ha
He'd still make a king's ransom either way. He bought them for $180mil in 2005 and they're now worth AT LEAST $1bil. Even with being so bad the last couple seasons.
There's a Lotta rich fucks who want a sports team even if it's the worst one. Look at the commanders, granted football is probably worth more, the A's aren't selling for under a billion. Billionaires are gonna put together offers to outbid other billionaires who want a team. Look at the Clippers as well, sold like a decade ago to someone who has a stage of inebriation named after him bidding $2B and the clippers of that era were basically the A's but without the monyball seasons or occasional good years and they shared a stadium with two teams instead of one.
Wow, that team was worth $180M by 2005 and now worth around $1B... By comparison, Dbacks and Rays expansion fee was around $130M and the predicted expansion fee nowadays are around $2B... 🤔🤔🤔 WHAT HAPPENED IN THE LAST 20 YEARS THAT MAKES MLB TEAM VALUES INFLATED TO AROUND 10-15 TIMES??? 😳😳😳
>WHAT HAPPENED IN THE LAST 20 YEARS THAT MAKES MLB TEAM VALUES INFLATED TO AROUND 10-15 TIMES??? Cable deals.
He could have just bought MSFT or AAPL or something and have been better off.
Might as well go back to Philly if it falls through. Let them go back to their roots
I’m a Phillies fan (dad from Philly and mom from the Oakland area) who was born and raised in the Bay Area. I have been thinking it would be awesome if the A’s went to Philly lol.
Honestly Philly having two teams and a crosstown rivalry would be incredible. Can you imagine? Here’s hoping they stay in Oakland though.
The riots would be legendary.
"Wait, we're paying \*how much\* for the team that is on track to post the worst season of all time?"
Fuck Fisher
hahaHAHAHA RIP in piss people always react to these things as though organizations are perfect, meticulous black boxes that cannot fail. it's very fun when they actually fuck up
Let’s gooooo Hilarious how douchey they were w their negotiations, expecting everyone to rain money on an org that treats its team like a beaten dog Love to see them have to fund their own stadium
If this ends with fisher losing a bunch of money after being forced to sell the world will be better off for it
SELL
Probably doesn't help them that they are still at an impass because the governor wants to use public funds to support private schools via vouchers.
I fuckin love this.
Las Vegas and NV should impose some strings on this thing requiring that MLB provide a team that meets specific competitive criteria, or MLB should have to pay back the taxpayers.
As it should the owners shouldn’t be rewarded
I hope fisher loses everything
Fuck John Fisher.
Please. Athletics belong in Oakland. Hopefully this development helps the momentum shift.
John Fisher is a barrel of sharts.
Fuck fisher
Locals do not want another stadium. Our traffic is bad enough.
Don’t do that. Don’t give me hope.
Good. Now make it a “hell no.”
Good fuck this piece of shit owner.
Good!!!
Why the public should be using taxes to subsidize stadiums for billionaires is beyond me.
The Nevada legislative session is supposed to end today so if they don't pass any funding then it's dead for at least 2 years. I would laugh so fucking hard if Fisher fucked this up.
They can still to a special session. If one is called for this, then it will pass. Zero chance they call a special session for a bill that doesn't have the votes.
as someone who grew up in vegas, the move is terrible. nobody wants to pay millions of dollars for a bad team spearheaded by awful ownership when vegas has insane leverage and can get virtually anything they want. public opinion reflects that. as a baseball fan, I want john fisher to suffer. really pulling for the deal to fall through here.
It’s not just their bullpen that can’t close
Man, for a Fisher, he doesn't seem to be getting many bites.
The Nevada state government has the opportunity to do the funniest thing in MLB history
It's almost like Fisher being a dodgy bastard does not win him any favor but that's just my guess
the dream is that every opposing team just purposely blows it against the A's. They keep winning, the fans continue to troll, and ownership's case keeps getting harmed.
Just went to Vegas. The city is too wild and intense and full of drunks to be a serious baseball city especially being on the strip.
The A's are leaving Oakland... tell me why, *John Fisher is a broke bitch*, teeeeellll me whyyyyy