Quote:
Originally Posted by rudel.dietrich
But yeah, Oakland sounds like the movie Major League where they make conditions worse and worse until the team leaves.
Does the stadium have running water? When will players have to use Uber to get to their road games?
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Once upon a time I worked on the re-financing of the OACC... not the original Mount Davis fiasco, but a re-financing so the City and County wouldn't EACH be paying $10M per year (90s dollars) for bonds that were supposed to be paid by ticket fees.
Anyway, it was an interesting read. For many years the A's paid no rent, or virtually no rent, for the park. And the field is actually below sea level, because they dug down to build (probably to save on foundation costs). If you've ever been there or seen the train bridge to the BART station, it spans a seasonal creek and tidelands. So the "sewer problems" are real but aggravated by the wetlands it's built on.
I noticed Salt Lake City announced the other day they are starting a group to try to attract an MLB team. It's a smaller market from Vegas but at least people would sit outside for a ballgame and they might be willing to throw money at the A's more than Vegas/Clark County/Nevada. Regardless of market size, I think at this point it's hard for them to make less money locally elsewhere than they already do. Especially if they are saddled with stadium debt for a ballpark.