A new report by Sports Business Daily (subscription required) indicates that the city of Oakland hopes to work something out with its National Football League team, the Raiders, before working on a potential 10-year lease extension for the Oakland Athletics.
Why A’s owner Lew Wolff and his group of blowhards are looking to sign an extension that would lock the A’s into having to play in that run-down stadium is beyond belief. The carrot being dangled at them? The A’s wouldn’t be asked to pay much rent to lease the stadium for that decade. Instead, they plan on putting in the nominal amount of $10-$12 million to put up a new scoreboard.
I sure hope that scoreboard is sponsored by Mr. Rooter.
Courtesy of Yahoo
It hasn’t happened just one or twice. The A’s clubhouse has flooded out multiple times, the latest occurring in September of last year, via Yahoo.com.
According to A’s VP of baseball operations David Rinetti, rain was to blame for Saturday’s flooding. That’s a troubling piece of information because it represents the third different issue that has led to sewage flooding at O.co this season (2013) alone.
This could very well be nothing more than an ongoing joke, but it’s more telling than A’s fans and supporters want to let on. Heck, even some players from visiting teams have taken note.
https://twitter.com/glen_perkins/statuses/381489306109353984
It’s indicative of the larger issue at hand. Both the Raiders and A’s are playing at the most run-down stadium in professional sports, especially now that the San Francisco 49ers are moving into a new stadium this upcoming NFL season.
For the A’s, O.co has had more of an impact than just sewage in the dugout and clubhouse. Their attendance simply hasn’t been there over the years, via ESPN.com.
| Year | Average Attendance | MLB Rank |
| 2014 | 22,962 | 17th |
| 2013 | 22,337 | 23rd |
| 2012 | 20,728 | 27th |
| 2011 | 18,232 | 30th |
| 2010 | 17,511 | 29th |
The increase in attendance in each of the last five years has more to do with the product that general manager Billy Beane has put on the field than anything else. While Oakland’s payroll has increased in recent seasons, it’s still among the lowest in all of baseball.
This has forced them to trade away some key players and let others walk in free agency. Barring a chance in circumstances, Jed Lowrie will likely be the latest to bolt following the 2014 season.
Beane has done an amazing job building a contender from scraps off the street, but this type of success has proven to be unsustainable in the past. Oakland will assuredly contend for a World Series this year, and maybe next year, but that’s not the point. Once its young players hit their arbitration years, there is a good chance Beane will have to move them in order to salvage something.
The reason?
He simply doesn’t have the financial capital to compete with the big spenders around the world of baseball. Oakland is the stepsister in a large media market, which essentially means that its conducting business in a smallish market. By no means are the A’s going to be able to contend with the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees of the world in terms of a payroll, but that’s not what fans in Northern California are asking for. Instead, they just want the ability to see their home-grown youngsters make it past their arbitration years.
Is that too much to ask?
Kelley L. Cox, USA Today
During a time when Oakland A’s baseball was bustling with excitement, the ownership group and city continue to let the fan base and players down. Now, we understand that Major League Baseball and the San Francisco Giants aren’t helping out too much (that’s a conversation for another time), but asking for handouts from the league and competitors in the same market rather than marketing your brand and working behind the scenes like Jed York has with the 49ers, isn’t a plan for long-term financial success.
Instead, it brings you a 1o-year stadium lease extension in a worn-down, sewage-filled stadium. I love going to that dump every year, multiple times. It reminds me of my childhood. But I am also a realist. O.co is a dump and the A’s can’t expect to sustain success over a long period of time as long as they’re expected to play there 81 times a year.
Simply put, the A’s winning ways don’t impact incompetence of owner
Photo: ESPN.com