President Donald Trump buying New York Mets?
WEDNESDAY, 16 FEBRUARY 2011 14:33
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/president-donald-trump-buying-new-york-mets
It has been a big week for the man that the comedian Billy Crystal calls P. T. Barnum, Donald J. Trump. The made for TV star is applying for two jobs that he thinks he can fill. The President of the United States and the owner of the New York Mets. Based on his business success or lack of business success in New Jersey, it is unlikely Donald Trump will ever live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D. C. or own the Mets.
People who possess casinos that go bankrupt or put a football league into the ground generally don't win Presidential elections or are embraced by Major League Baseball franchise owners and asked to join their exclusive club.
Trump seemed to "wow" the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington last week although his personal life, the business failures, the bankruptcies and the United States Football League debacle would seem to make him a rather unlikely conservative candidate. He also reached out to the Wilpon family to see if he could buy the Mets from the group that is entangled in the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme.
Trump is the ultimate publicity hustler and has lived off the New York tabloid newspapers and TV gossip shows for decades for no real reason. Perhaps he will form a new political party, The Lucky Sperm Club Party. In 1986, during the National Football League-United States Football League antitrust trial, Trump became infuriated while listening to testimony about Barron Hilton, the son of Hilton Hotel chain founder Conrad Hilton. He kept repeating the line, "lucky sperm club, lucky sperm club."
When this reporter asked what the lucky sperm club was, Trump responded that Barron Hilton (who is Paris Hilton's grandfather) did nothing to earn his money, that Conrad made the money. When asked about get a huge sum of money from his father Fred, Trump turned away and didn't have an answer.
Donald Trump has been presented on NBC as the as an incredibly successful businessman and host of a so-called "reality" show, "The Apprentice". The show's ratings have steadily fallen since 2004 but for some reason NBC during the General Electric ownership days liked Trump enough to keep the show around long past the show's expiration date.
There is no such thing as "reality" on "reality TV" despite the publicity surrounding programs like Trumps', however, since the show features a man who has been anything but successful with the failure of his football team and his casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, his airline and other ventures.
Trump probably doesn't like to be reminded of this, but people who were connected with the United States Football League will tell you Trump, more than anyone else, was the leader in destroying the league which last played on July 14, 1985. While Trump wasn't the only poor businessman in the endeavor; he just led the owners down the path to ruin.
On July 29, 1986, Trump's football aspirations came to a crushing end. A Federal Court jury in New York couldn't figure out the football business and handed him both a win and loss.
A quarter of a century later, The Donald is not a beloved football icon. Trump is remembered as the pied piper who failed USFL people. Former USFL personnel are not impressed with The Apprentice, Trump's golfing exploits, his boxing ventures, his character on wrestling or his licensing of his name to businesses.
He failed at a business that should have worked. Spring football in the United States should have been foolproof, as it came with a TV deal with ABC and a separate deal with the Getty Oil owned ESPN (Getty sold ESPN to ABC in 1984).
The United States Football League started at a swanky New York hotel on May 11, 1982 and died in New York in a court house in Foley Square about four years later. The league had franchises in Arizona, Birmingham, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, New Jersey, Oakland, Philadelphia, Tampa Bay and Washington and had a two-year TV agreement with ABC and ESPN and a national radio contract with ABC.
Eleven days prior to the league's first games, Heisman Trophy winner and underclassman Herschel Walker signed a deal with Walter Duncan's New Jersey Generals. That signing would eventually change National Football League eligibility rules. Duncan would sell the franchise to Trump on September 22, 1983 after the first season was complete. The team cost Trump a reported six million dollars. Trump had originally sought a USFL team when Dixon was planning the league but had some financial problems and didn't go through with purchase.
The USFL had strong franchises and as many weak ones, like the Boston Breakers. The Breakers encountered stadium problems and moved to New Orleans in 1984 and then to Portland in 1985. Like a good number of USFL teams, financial problems beset them.
Oddly enough, while the USFL was going through financial woes, another group of businessmen led by Californian Alex Bell decided 1984 would be a good year to start yet another spring football league.
The International Football League announced its official formation on July 1, 1983, at Donald Trump's Grand Hyatt Hotel next to Grand Central Terminal. It is unknown whether the check cleared for the IFL banquet and meetings at Trump's hotel.
The news conference was a big party that featured cheerleaders, lots of food and drink and IFL hats. It would be the only "official" function the league would hold.
The IFL's twelve charter franchises included Chicago, Florida, Honolulu, Houston, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina (Charlotte), Ohio, San Jose, and Tennessee. The league would also play in the spring, like the USFL.
Yet, the IFL faded away by 1984.
Years later, another group of businessmen were poised to start a league in the 1990s called the Professional Spring Football League. Again there was a New York news conference to alert the world that a new league was coming. The league even brought in ex-Jets and ex-Generals coach Walt Michaels to head up a New York entry, but all that is left of the league are some baseball caps with the letters PSFL. Michaels decided not to discuss his years with Trump that day.
Following the first season, the USFL added six teams in Pittsburgh, Houston, San Diego, Jacksonville, San Antonio and Memphis. Trump purchased the Generals on September 22, 1983. Chicago and Arizona swapped franchises. San Diego never played a game and moved operations to Tulsa. Boston became the New Orleans Breakers.
The league continued to be beset with financial problems in 1984. Chicago and Pittsburgh folded. The Tulsa based Oklahoma Outlaws merged business operations with Arizona who had been Chicago in 1983; the Detroit based Michigan Panthers hooked up with the Oakland Invaders. Philadelphia moved to Baltimore to play home games but the Stars trained in Philadelphia. Washington relocated to Orlando, New Orleans ended up in Portland and the USFL took over the Los Angeles Express, who among other contracts gave Steve Young a $40 million contract.
The Express owner William Oldenberg spent wildly on players and lost $15 million. Oldenburg had major financial problems as well and left the team a financial ruin. The ABC deal required the league to have teams in New York (New Jersey), Los Angeles and Chicago. Chicago folded, the league kept Los Angeles going in 1985 because of the ABC deal and Trump, well Trump was talking about building a condominium stadium in the Flushing junk yards across the way from Shea Stadium in Queens, New York. Trump, to his credit, was the first to publicly talk about a plan that required customers to buy a seat license and then pay for a ticket. It is a concept that many NFL teams use today.
Perhaps, should Donald Trump buy the Mets, the team will use the condominium ploy to sell tickets.
The spring league had plans to compete with the NFL in the fall of 1986. Led by Trump and Eddie Einhorn, who promised to take over the defunct Chicago franchise if the league abandoned the March to July schedule, the league started making moves.
The USFL filed an antitrust suit against the National Football League, charging in part that the NFL monopolized the fall football television schedule. Trump somehow convinced his fellow owners that the league would thrive by going head to head with the NFL in the fall. Originally the USFL brought in famed attorney Roy Cohn to handle the case but settled on Harvey Myerson was their lead attorney. According to Carl Peterson, who ran the Philadelphia-Baltimore Stars franchise for Myles Tannenbaum, the NFL wanted to avoid a court case and offered to take two unnamed USFL franchises, presumably Baltimore and Oakland (to replace the departed Oakland Raiders and Baltimore Colts in the NFL) but USFL owners like Trump and Einhorn balked at the possibility and demanded that the NFL take at least four and possibly as many as six USFL teams and decided that an antitrust suit against the NFL was the way to proceed.
The NFL was not going to take in Trump's New Jersey-based franchise. Einhorn was headed to Honolulu with the Chicago franchise where we had a sweetheart deal to play in the city's Aloha Stadium.
Baltimore had a USFL championship caliber team in the Stars and had an owner who probably would have made the cut in the NFL, Myles Tannenbaum. Oakland did not do well financially however the NFL spent a lot of money and time in court fighting Raiders owner Al Davis' right to relocate his team from Oakland to Los Angeles which made the city a lead candidate for NFL inclusion. The NFL had passed on Birmingham and Memphis in 1976 after the World Football League folded and it was unlikely those two USFL cities were on the short list of towns the NFL wanted. Other USFL cities that might have piqued the NFL's interest from the USFL could have been Jacksonville and Phoenix.
There were other bad owners like the San Antonio Gunslingers Clinton Manges who had no money. The late Harry Usher, the USFL Commissioner who presided over the league in the Trump days. Manges once threw a pair of guns on the table at a USFL meeting in Teaneck, New Jersey for some reason and Usher politely asked Manges to put his toys away. Peterson remembers a meeting where Manges was being asked about lack of payments to players and Manges told Usher to line up with all the others who were suing him.
"We had a real good season with the Breakers in Boston," recalled Dick Coury who made the cross continent trip between 1983-85 with his team in Boston, New Orleans and Portland. "It was three great experiences. It was different. In the National Football League, when you change cities, it means you got fired.
Coury admitted that the strain of financial uncertainty certainly played a role on his teams. The moves affected families, in terms of setting up homes, doing banking, and other day to day tasks. That affected the team that was 11-7 in 1983, 8-10 in 1984 and 6-12 in 1985.
"It was difficult and most of our players did go to all three cities," he recalled. "When we moved, the team did house the coaches until the players got there. We moved in the off-season, so most of players just came into town and found apartments for the season. It was not easy, but our players took it well. It was trying for some of the families. We had to be ready to move, we didn't unpack in any city, we just kept our clothes in a suitcase, in case we had to move we were ready to go."
Coury had been with the Portland World Football League franchises in the 1974. The World Football League somehow lasted until 1975.
"In the World Football League, we had players mostly at the end of their career. I had players like Ben Davidson and Pete Beathard, who could still play but were on the downward side. In the USFL, we had some great players like Herschel Walker, Jim Kelly, Marcus DuPree."
"Had we stayed in the spring, we would still be playing in the USFL," he said.
But his former Breakers owner Randy Vataha said it was just not that simple. He remembered an owner's dinner prior to the start of the league when Tampa Bay owner John Bassett was asked about how a league operated as Bassett was the only USFL owner with previous ownership experience with the WFL, and the World Hockey Association Toronto Toros/Birmingham Bulls.
"Bassett said, we will have 12 teams, six games a week. Six teams will win, six will lose and we need to understand that to be a successful league," said Vataha.
"Our payrolls were about $1.5 million a year. The NFL was around $6-7 million. As teams started to lose, they went after NFL players and brought the average to $5 million.
"That was $42 million more than we had budgeted."
To offset the 1983 losses, the league expanded to six cities and got some $36 from expansion monies to split between the 12 original teams. One of those new owners was Trump.
"Trump lobbied for one year to move to the fall, and so we suspended the league during the antitrust law suit and we would have started in the fall of 1986," said Vataha.
Only July 29, 1986, a jury declared that the NFL was an illegal monopoly but they could not figure out what to pay the USFL in damages. They decided to give the USFL a dollar and hoped that the Judge Peter K. Leisure would adjust the figure. Apparently the jury did not understand Judge Leisure's instructions on monetary damages.
Myerson and the league won the case, but were awarded just $3 in damages. Vataha said the real cause of the league's demise was not NFL owners but USFL owners who didn't pay attention to what Bassett said.
"No matter what you spend, there are six teams that win and six teams that lose every week. We could have been successful if we stayed a spring football league, had a budgetary restraint and didn't compete with the NFL. But some of the owners decided they had to win and went out of business," said Vataha.
"The salaries went up; we expanded too fast and decided to play in the fall. We went out of business."
The end of the USFL meant Jim Kelly, Herschel Walker, more than 100 players would join the NFL player ranks. Three players would contribute to the Giants 1986 Super Bowl victory, offensive lineman Bart Oates, running back Maurice Carthon and punter Sean Landeta.
"I just kind of laughed a little bit after months and months of high profile courtroom proceedings ended up in a $3 outcome. I thought that was kind of funny," said Landeta. "Other than that, I thought a lot of fun like that went down the drain."
The USFL was just "small potatoes"
Trump and the USFL won the battle but lost a war. In 2011, the NFL has to be extremely careful about how the league conducts business thanks to the Trump-led lawsuit. That alone would raise a red flag among Major League Baseball owners. Trump has done well in the golf course business.
Donald Trump never owned another football team and within a few years of the demise of the USFL faced severe financial problems. Chances are pretty good Trump will never own an NFL team. The USFL should have said to Trump, "You're Fired" back in 1984 or 1985. But Trump does have a TV show, and has proven what comedian Billy Crystal once said about him when he walked it a room at a 2008 golfing event. Crystal in his Howard Cosell voice announced, here he comes ladies and gentlemen: P. T. Barnum.
Barnum was the king of the side show as is Trump today.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is available at www.bickley.com, Barnes and Noble or amazonkindle. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Showing posts with label New York Mets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York Mets. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Why N.J. cannot get a Major League Baseball team
WEDNESDAY, 05 MAY 2010 12:45
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
COMMENTARY
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/why-nj-cannot-get-a-major-league-baseball-team
Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig has a committee trying to figure out whether Oakland A's owner Lew Wolff can move his team from Oakland to San Jose, if San Jose can find the money and is able to build a mostly publicly-financed baseball stadium. The committee has not figured out, as of yet, if they know the way to San Jose but there will be an answer some day. What happens in Northern California should have no immediate impact on New Jersey. But as it stands now, neither San Jose nor northern New Jersey can be the home of a major league baseball team.
The areas are in other team's territories and Major League Baseball, thanks to an antitrust exemption, can just say no to anyone who wants to put a team in San Jose or East Rutherford, New Jersey. There is no proposal at the present time to attract a Major League team to New Jersey although when then Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth opened the door to possible expansion in 1987, New Jersey had a presentation ready. New Jersey also tried to attract George Steinbrenner's interest and get him to move the Yankees across the Hudson in the 1990s.
There are two owners of Major League Baseball teams who have serious doubts about the revenue production capabilities of their present stadiums. Wolff in Oakland and Stuart Sternberg in St. Petersburg.
Wolff has failed in getting a "stadium-village" for his A's and a real estate in Oakland and in Fremont, which is about 20 miles south on the I-880 of the team's present home at the Oakland Coliseum. In St. Petersburg, Tampa Rays ownership, which includes Managing General Partner Stuart Sternberg of Rye, New York is looking for a new stadium in either St. Petersburg or Tampa.
There was a rumor, which was just a rumor, that Rays ownership thought about moving the Rays to Connecticut. There is one other major fly in the ointment though. The Rays' lease with the St. Petersburg stadium ends in 2027.
Both Wolff and Sternberg are trying to work out an arrangement to remain in their present markets. Wolff can get out of his lease within a few years in Oakland as he signed a short-term agreement to keep his team at the Coliseum through 2013. Here is the problem that Wolff faces and a problem that New Jersey would face if someone in the state decided to go after a Major League Baseball team.
Major League Baseball assigns territories to teams. The San Francisco Giants ownership has the San Jose/Santa Clara County territory which is more than 40 miles south of the Giants China Basin ballpark. The Oakland Coliseum is considerably closer to San Francisco and is accessible by the Bay Area Rapid Transit and is not far down the I-880 from the Bay Area Bridge. San Jose became Giants territory in the 1990s when the team attempted to get a stadium built in the South Bay's most populous city. Neither San Jose nor Santa Clara voters had any interest in paying for a Giants stadium and turned down ballpark referendums. Despite the no votes, MLB has not changed the Giants' territorial claim.
Major League Baseball does not live by the same antitrust laws as normal businesses because the Supreme Court of the United States in 1922 ruled that baseball was a game and not a business and gave the "game" an antitrust exemption which still applies to areas like territories and television. Wolff is blocked from even thinking about crossing the Santa Clara County line because that would be crossing his baseball brothers. Wolff tried to get as close as he could to San Jose and Santa Clara and not upsetting the Giants ownership by trying to relocate to Fremont.
Now Wolff is openly talking to San Jose despite the fact that Giants ownership will not cede the territory and Giants ownership through a subsidiary, the San Jose Giants — the California League Class A Giants affiliate — is trying to block San Jose from building a stadium. Giants ownership has a one-quarter interest in the San Jose Giants.
Wolff's Oakland A's are struggling drawing people this year. Oakland does not have the corporate crowd that fills the Giants China Basin stadium. Santa Clara residents might send Major League Baseball is big wakeup call on June 8 by going against national trends and voting to spend public money to build a football stadium for the San Francisco 49ers to show the Giants, MLB and the city of San Francisco that they are fed up with the Giants territorial claims and to stick it to San Francisco city officials and San Francisco Giants ownership by "stealing" or "poaching" the 49ers. Santa Clara is willing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the stadium.
San Jose is the Silicone Valley and somehow both MLB and the Giants are convinced that money headed up the 101 Freeway to San Francisco will shift to a San Jose baseball team which would have a crippling affect on the Giants. The San Francisco baseball team is one hour away from San Jose; Oakland is across the Bay and is accessible by mass transit.
Wolff doesn't seem to want to sue Major League Baseball and challenge the antitrust exemption. Wolff shares the Oakland Coliseum with the NFL's Raiders and Raiders owner Al Davis did sue the NFL in the 1980s when the league interfered with his negotiations with the Coliseum for a lease extension and then tried to block the Raiders' move to Los Angeles.
Davis won.
In 1984, San Diego Clippers owner Donald Sterling thumbed his nose at NBA officials and moved his franchise to Los Angeles without league consent. He was fined $100 million for the move. Sterling sued the league. The two parties settled. Sterling stayed in LA and paid the NBA a $6 million fine.
Major League Baseball did not move a team between 1971 and 2004. The Washington Senators left the nation's capital for Arlington, Texas in 1972. A number of attempted franchise shifts failed for various reasons including San Diego going to Washington in 1974, the Giants to Toronto in 1976, Oakland to Denver in 1979. A number of teams looked at moving to Tampa including the Giants, Seattle Mariners, George W. Bush's Texas Rangers and the Minnesota Twins. Minnesota ownership nearly sold the team to Greensboro, North Carolina interests in the late 1990s if a stadium became available in that North Carolina city. Voters turned down a Greensboro stadium in 1998.
It is not easy to move a team to open markets like Tampa was before 1995, like Denver before 1991, like Washington between 1972 and 2004. What chance does San Jose have? What chance does New Jersey or Connecticut have?
New Jersey may have the right stuff for a Major League Baseball team. In 2000, Major League Baseball had big names like Paul Volcker, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Richard C. Levin, the Yale University President, the former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell and media personality George Will, a former political operative and college professor who won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1977, analyze baseball's financial condition.
The "Blue Ribbon Panel" on baseball economics left the door open for franchise relocation to places like northern New Jersey and Washington despite the presence of teams in the vicinity. New Jersey or Connecticut have a major revenue stream that is currently untapped. Cablevision's Madison Square Garden network has little summer programming of note that would draw in potential viewers since the Yankees formed the YES Network and the Mets, along with Time Warner and Comcast, started SNY. There probably is more than $60 million on the table waiting for a third New York City area team.
New York City is still the financial capital of the United States. The city once had three baseball teams - the Yankees, the Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers. Walter O'Malley took his Dodgers to Los Angeles in 1957 although he kicked the tires and his Dodgers played seven games at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, N.J. in 1956 and 1957. O'Malley used Jersey City as leverage in his bid to get New York to spring for a new stadium for his Dodgers. Giants owner Horace Stoneham seemed more determined to move his team from upper Manhattan out of the New York area than O'Malley ... with Minneapolis one of his choices.
With the population, the corporate wealth and television monies available, New York City or northern New Jersey would be ripe for a failing franchise. But New Jersey is blocked (as Connecticut would be) because both the Yankees and Mets would nix any move into their territories and the Philadelphia Phillies ownership would probably object to a third New York area team if it was placed in New Jersey. (The Philadelphia Flyers got a million dollars from John McMullen when he bought the Colorado Rockies NHL team and move his newly acquired team into the Meadowlands in 1982).
In Oakland, Wolff has Comcast's TV money, but he lacks corporate support. San Jose wants to build a stadium and Oakland is back in the game.
There are three essentials to running a successful franchise whether it is in Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League or the National Basketball Association or even Major League Soccer. Government support is an absolute necessity in terms of building a facility. Government can build the place with taxpayers' dollars or give substantial tax breaks and incentives (as the Giants/Jets stadium entity is receiving at the Meadowlands) to owners to build their own plants. The federal government regulates Cable TV where billions are made by sports franchises and separates the Yankees, Mets, Angels, Red Sox, Phillies and Mariners from the rest of baseball and corporate support. Corporates can take 50 cents off the dollar in buying luxury boxes, club seats for business purposes.
Wolff already shares the market with the Giants in the Bay Area and cannot get his foot in the door in San Jose. If Sternberg was looking at the New York City area, he would get a door slammed in his face. Sternberg is not seeking a New York area facility and is concentrating on getting a place built in Tampa. The lease in St. Pete has a long way to go but as the late John McMullen once said, a contract is just a piece of paper.
Major League Baseball moved the financially troubled and ownerless Montreal Expos into Washington after the 2004 season once MLB secured a commitment from the city that it would build a state-of-the-art baseball facility. Remember McMullen's comment.
A contract is just a piece of paper.
Washington is about 40 miles from Baltimore and was a part of the Peter Angelos' Baltimore Orioles territory. MLB worked out a deal with Angelos which gave him a regional cable TV network, the Mid Atlantic Sports Network, as a partial payment for the Washington team which "invaded" his territory. That agreement might work in Wolff's favor and could be used by someone in New Jersey if that someone decided that New Jersey and Major League Baseball are perfect together.
The owners of the Seattle SuperSonics took their NBA team to Oklahoma City with two years left on their contract in Seattle to use the publicly financed and refinanced facility for their basketball team. Clayton Bennett reached a financial agreement with Seattle and left. But Bennett had the NBA Commissioner David Stern's blessing. Bruce Ratner is taking the Nets from the Meadowlands to Newark for the next two years with New Jersey's approval along with Stern.
New Jersey had the right stuff for Major League Baseball in 2000 according to Volcker, Levin, Mitchell and Will. The state could not go after the Montreal Expos franchise when it was up for sale in 2002, 2003 and 2004 because of the antitrust exemption. That is why people who want a Major League Baseball team in New Jersey should be paying close attention to Wolff's actions in Oakland and San Jose and what Selig's committee rules.
The door to Major League Baseball in New Jersey could all of a sudden open.
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
COMMENTARY
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/why-nj-cannot-get-a-major-league-baseball-team
Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig has a committee trying to figure out whether Oakland A's owner Lew Wolff can move his team from Oakland to San Jose, if San Jose can find the money and is able to build a mostly publicly-financed baseball stadium. The committee has not figured out, as of yet, if they know the way to San Jose but there will be an answer some day. What happens in Northern California should have no immediate impact on New Jersey. But as it stands now, neither San Jose nor northern New Jersey can be the home of a major league baseball team.
The areas are in other team's territories and Major League Baseball, thanks to an antitrust exemption, can just say no to anyone who wants to put a team in San Jose or East Rutherford, New Jersey. There is no proposal at the present time to attract a Major League team to New Jersey although when then Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth opened the door to possible expansion in 1987, New Jersey had a presentation ready. New Jersey also tried to attract George Steinbrenner's interest and get him to move the Yankees across the Hudson in the 1990s.
There are two owners of Major League Baseball teams who have serious doubts about the revenue production capabilities of their present stadiums. Wolff in Oakland and Stuart Sternberg in St. Petersburg.
Wolff has failed in getting a "stadium-village" for his A's and a real estate in Oakland and in Fremont, which is about 20 miles south on the I-880 of the team's present home at the Oakland Coliseum. In St. Petersburg, Tampa Rays ownership, which includes Managing General Partner Stuart Sternberg of Rye, New York is looking for a new stadium in either St. Petersburg or Tampa.
There was a rumor, which was just a rumor, that Rays ownership thought about moving the Rays to Connecticut. There is one other major fly in the ointment though. The Rays' lease with the St. Petersburg stadium ends in 2027.
Both Wolff and Sternberg are trying to work out an arrangement to remain in their present markets. Wolff can get out of his lease within a few years in Oakland as he signed a short-term agreement to keep his team at the Coliseum through 2013. Here is the problem that Wolff faces and a problem that New Jersey would face if someone in the state decided to go after a Major League Baseball team.
Major League Baseball assigns territories to teams. The San Francisco Giants ownership has the San Jose/Santa Clara County territory which is more than 40 miles south of the Giants China Basin ballpark. The Oakland Coliseum is considerably closer to San Francisco and is accessible by the Bay Area Rapid Transit and is not far down the I-880 from the Bay Area Bridge. San Jose became Giants territory in the 1990s when the team attempted to get a stadium built in the South Bay's most populous city. Neither San Jose nor Santa Clara voters had any interest in paying for a Giants stadium and turned down ballpark referendums. Despite the no votes, MLB has not changed the Giants' territorial claim.
Major League Baseball does not live by the same antitrust laws as normal businesses because the Supreme Court of the United States in 1922 ruled that baseball was a game and not a business and gave the "game" an antitrust exemption which still applies to areas like territories and television. Wolff is blocked from even thinking about crossing the Santa Clara County line because that would be crossing his baseball brothers. Wolff tried to get as close as he could to San Jose and Santa Clara and not upsetting the Giants ownership by trying to relocate to Fremont.
Now Wolff is openly talking to San Jose despite the fact that Giants ownership will not cede the territory and Giants ownership through a subsidiary, the San Jose Giants — the California League Class A Giants affiliate — is trying to block San Jose from building a stadium. Giants ownership has a one-quarter interest in the San Jose Giants.
Wolff's Oakland A's are struggling drawing people this year. Oakland does not have the corporate crowd that fills the Giants China Basin stadium. Santa Clara residents might send Major League Baseball is big wakeup call on June 8 by going against national trends and voting to spend public money to build a football stadium for the San Francisco 49ers to show the Giants, MLB and the city of San Francisco that they are fed up with the Giants territorial claims and to stick it to San Francisco city officials and San Francisco Giants ownership by "stealing" or "poaching" the 49ers. Santa Clara is willing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the stadium.
San Jose is the Silicone Valley and somehow both MLB and the Giants are convinced that money headed up the 101 Freeway to San Francisco will shift to a San Jose baseball team which would have a crippling affect on the Giants. The San Francisco baseball team is one hour away from San Jose; Oakland is across the Bay and is accessible by mass transit.
Wolff doesn't seem to want to sue Major League Baseball and challenge the antitrust exemption. Wolff shares the Oakland Coliseum with the NFL's Raiders and Raiders owner Al Davis did sue the NFL in the 1980s when the league interfered with his negotiations with the Coliseum for a lease extension and then tried to block the Raiders' move to Los Angeles.
Davis won.
In 1984, San Diego Clippers owner Donald Sterling thumbed his nose at NBA officials and moved his franchise to Los Angeles without league consent. He was fined $100 million for the move. Sterling sued the league. The two parties settled. Sterling stayed in LA and paid the NBA a $6 million fine.
Major League Baseball did not move a team between 1971 and 2004. The Washington Senators left the nation's capital for Arlington, Texas in 1972. A number of attempted franchise shifts failed for various reasons including San Diego going to Washington in 1974, the Giants to Toronto in 1976, Oakland to Denver in 1979. A number of teams looked at moving to Tampa including the Giants, Seattle Mariners, George W. Bush's Texas Rangers and the Minnesota Twins. Minnesota ownership nearly sold the team to Greensboro, North Carolina interests in the late 1990s if a stadium became available in that North Carolina city. Voters turned down a Greensboro stadium in 1998.
It is not easy to move a team to open markets like Tampa was before 1995, like Denver before 1991, like Washington between 1972 and 2004. What chance does San Jose have? What chance does New Jersey or Connecticut have?
New Jersey may have the right stuff for a Major League Baseball team. In 2000, Major League Baseball had big names like Paul Volcker, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Richard C. Levin, the Yale University President, the former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell and media personality George Will, a former political operative and college professor who won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1977, analyze baseball's financial condition.
The "Blue Ribbon Panel" on baseball economics left the door open for franchise relocation to places like northern New Jersey and Washington despite the presence of teams in the vicinity. New Jersey or Connecticut have a major revenue stream that is currently untapped. Cablevision's Madison Square Garden network has little summer programming of note that would draw in potential viewers since the Yankees formed the YES Network and the Mets, along with Time Warner and Comcast, started SNY. There probably is more than $60 million on the table waiting for a third New York City area team.
New York City is still the financial capital of the United States. The city once had three baseball teams - the Yankees, the Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers. Walter O'Malley took his Dodgers to Los Angeles in 1957 although he kicked the tires and his Dodgers played seven games at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, N.J. in 1956 and 1957. O'Malley used Jersey City as leverage in his bid to get New York to spring for a new stadium for his Dodgers. Giants owner Horace Stoneham seemed more determined to move his team from upper Manhattan out of the New York area than O'Malley ... with Minneapolis one of his choices.
With the population, the corporate wealth and television monies available, New York City or northern New Jersey would be ripe for a failing franchise. But New Jersey is blocked (as Connecticut would be) because both the Yankees and Mets would nix any move into their territories and the Philadelphia Phillies ownership would probably object to a third New York area team if it was placed in New Jersey. (The Philadelphia Flyers got a million dollars from John McMullen when he bought the Colorado Rockies NHL team and move his newly acquired team into the Meadowlands in 1982).
In Oakland, Wolff has Comcast's TV money, but he lacks corporate support. San Jose wants to build a stadium and Oakland is back in the game.
There are three essentials to running a successful franchise whether it is in Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League or the National Basketball Association or even Major League Soccer. Government support is an absolute necessity in terms of building a facility. Government can build the place with taxpayers' dollars or give substantial tax breaks and incentives (as the Giants/Jets stadium entity is receiving at the Meadowlands) to owners to build their own plants. The federal government regulates Cable TV where billions are made by sports franchises and separates the Yankees, Mets, Angels, Red Sox, Phillies and Mariners from the rest of baseball and corporate support. Corporates can take 50 cents off the dollar in buying luxury boxes, club seats for business purposes.
Wolff already shares the market with the Giants in the Bay Area and cannot get his foot in the door in San Jose. If Sternberg was looking at the New York City area, he would get a door slammed in his face. Sternberg is not seeking a New York area facility and is concentrating on getting a place built in Tampa. The lease in St. Pete has a long way to go but as the late John McMullen once said, a contract is just a piece of paper.
Major League Baseball moved the financially troubled and ownerless Montreal Expos into Washington after the 2004 season once MLB secured a commitment from the city that it would build a state-of-the-art baseball facility. Remember McMullen's comment.
A contract is just a piece of paper.
Washington is about 40 miles from Baltimore and was a part of the Peter Angelos' Baltimore Orioles territory. MLB worked out a deal with Angelos which gave him a regional cable TV network, the Mid Atlantic Sports Network, as a partial payment for the Washington team which "invaded" his territory. That agreement might work in Wolff's favor and could be used by someone in New Jersey if that someone decided that New Jersey and Major League Baseball are perfect together.
The owners of the Seattle SuperSonics took their NBA team to Oklahoma City with two years left on their contract in Seattle to use the publicly financed and refinanced facility for their basketball team. Clayton Bennett reached a financial agreement with Seattle and left. But Bennett had the NBA Commissioner David Stern's blessing. Bruce Ratner is taking the Nets from the Meadowlands to Newark for the next two years with New Jersey's approval along with Stern.
New Jersey had the right stuff for Major League Baseball in 2000 according to Volcker, Levin, Mitchell and Will. The state could not go after the Montreal Expos franchise when it was up for sale in 2002, 2003 and 2004 because of the antitrust exemption. That is why people who want a Major League Baseball team in New Jersey should be paying close attention to Wolff's actions in Oakland and San Jose and what Selig's committee rules.
The door to Major League Baseball in New Jersey could all of a sudden open.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Is Monterey still viewed as a potential big league city by American sports leagues?
http://www.examiner.com/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2009m5d28-Is-Monterey-still-viewed-as-a-potential-big-league-city-by-American-sports-leagues#comments
Evan Weiner
Go to Evan's Home Page
Business of Sports Examiner
Is Monterey still viewed as a potential big league city by American sports leagues?
May 28, 2:40 PM
At one time, Monterey, Mexico was on the "A-List" of cities that could eventually house a Major League Baseball team. Former Colorado Rockies owner Jerry McMorris was absolutely certain that Monterey would have been a perfect fit for the game. Monterey had some money; the city is located about two hours away by car from the Mexico-Texas border, it wasn't far from Major League teams in Arlington and Houston, Texas which meant a Monterey team would have rivals and the city had a rich baseball history in the Mexican League.
But McMorris and Major League Baseball officials were not looking at Monterey's baseball history back in the mid-1990s when the city emerged as a potential baseball market. Monterey was and still is Mexico's third largest city, Monterey's main business was and still is the steel industry but many multinational companies had and still have a significant footprint within the Monterey business community and the city's businesses had an awful lot of links to the United States. It was judged as recently as 2003 to be a better bet for sports franchise economic success than Mexico City, the largest market in North America.
During Major League Baseball's days of infatuation with Monterey, Fortune magazine listed the city as the best Latin American marketplace. That was in 1999. The same year that McMorris’ Rockies played the San Diego Padres in northeast Mexican city. It was the second Monterey trip for the San Diego baseball club. The Padres and the Mets played the team's opening series there of the 1996 season. Major League Baseball gave Monterey more than just a casual look.
By 2003, Major League Baseball was getting pressure from the United States Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza who suggested to Commissioner Bud Selig that Monterey host a quarter of the Major League Baseball-owned Montreal Expos 81 home games, about 20 contests, in Monterey in 2004. On October 21, 2003, California Congressman Bob Filner took to the House floor and said "it is time we include Mexico and make baseball the North American pastime."
Rep. Filner stated as his introduced a resolution before the House that "(Monterey) is one of the safest cities in Latin America" and that "it is the home to the Sultans of the Mexican League and the Sultans ballpark could be expanded to more than 30,000 seats."
The Congressman's remarks fell on deaf ears. Major League Baseball split Expos home games between Montreal and San Juan, Puerto Rico in both 2003 and 2004.
Major League Baseball did look at Monterey as a possible destination for the Montreal Expos franchise but the city was never a major contender for a team. In late 2004, Major League Baseball transferred Montreal to Washington to start play in 2005. Major League Baseball has not looked at Monterey since then. But Monterey is re-emerging this autumn as a destination for a pre-season National Basketball Association game as the league is sending Philadelphia and Phoenix to play an October game in the city.
No one is suggesting Monterey is on the NBA's expansion/relocation market list should the league decide to add more teams or move a struggling franchise. It appears that a local promoter came up with the right contract and money and the NBA was impressed enough to reach an agreement to play a pre-season contest in Monterey for the first time since 2006. NBA Commissioner David Stern and most of his owners don't mind sending teams to Europe or China to expand marketing opportunities and a one night stand in Monterey appears to fit into that category.
Why didn't Monterey become a Major League Baseball city? The best guess is that it didn't have the critical elements that a United States city could offer, which is government support for a new or renovated stadium with luxury boxes and club seats, a massive local cable TV contract and huge corporate support with companies buying tickets and writing them off as a business expense. Monterey could not put together a money package that could compete with United States cities bidding for the Montreal franchise. In the end, Washington was the only city that aggressively went after the Expos franchise. The love affair with Monterey was just one of those passing fancies.
Would Major League Baseball been able to financially compete in Monterey? The answer is no based on the fact that the Montreal franchise ended up in Washington and that Florida Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria kicked the tires in San Antonio and Las Vegas while he was searching for a city that would build him a stadium for his Florida Marlins. Loria got his publicly funded park in Miami. Oakland A's owner Lewis Wolff tried to build a stadium as part of a stadium village complex down the I-880 in Fremont and after failing there, he is asking if baseball knows the way to San Jose, California, not far from Monterey, California.
Monterey, Mexico's business community spends a lot of money on the city's two football (soccer) teams and while two baseball series were relatively successful in 1996 and 1999, that should not be viewed as the launching pad to Major League Baseball. Ticket prices back then were cheaper than what they are in 2009 and Monterey is not considered the safest city in terms of crime in Latin America anymore.
All of this doesn't mean that Monterey should be overlooked as a sports city on a global scale. The NBA is in the business of not only putting a game on the court but selling T-shirts, hats and anything else that can fit a logo of the league or individual teams and the league will have willing customers to buy whatever items the league is playing to sell even though neither Philadelphia nor Phoenix are among the league's glamour teams.
Monterey has never gone after a National Football League franchise but at the same time city officials were dancing with Major League Baseball, businessmen from the area were pitching a plan to build a stadium near the Texas-Mexico border with the hope of drawing interest from consumers on both sides of the border. Nothing ever came of the idea. It is doubtful that Major League Soccer would have any interest in setting up shop in an area that is dominated by football (soccer).
Monterey never might ever get an NBA or a Major League Baseball franchise, however the city is planning a bid for the 2020 Summer Olympics and the city hosts a women's tennis tournament. There have also been other international sports events held in the city.
There are no Jerry McMorris's, Tony Garzas or Bob Filners pushing Monterey today as a Major League Baseball city. The global recession is not showing any real signs of abating which doesn't help Monterey's big league aspirations and the United States Department of State's warning to American citizens to exercise caution when traveling to Mexico because of Mexico's violent drug trade can not be construed as a positive for Monterey.
The NBA is going to Monterey on a one night stand and that should bring up the question, is Monterey, Mexico still viewed as a potential major league sports city? The answer might come sometime in October.
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Evan Weiner
Go to Evan's Home Page
Business of Sports Examiner
Is Monterey still viewed as a potential big league city by American sports leagues?
May 28, 2:40 PM
At one time, Monterey, Mexico was on the "A-List" of cities that could eventually house a Major League Baseball team. Former Colorado Rockies owner Jerry McMorris was absolutely certain that Monterey would have been a perfect fit for the game. Monterey had some money; the city is located about two hours away by car from the Mexico-Texas border, it wasn't far from Major League teams in Arlington and Houston, Texas which meant a Monterey team would have rivals and the city had a rich baseball history in the Mexican League.
But McMorris and Major League Baseball officials were not looking at Monterey's baseball history back in the mid-1990s when the city emerged as a potential baseball market. Monterey was and still is Mexico's third largest city, Monterey's main business was and still is the steel industry but many multinational companies had and still have a significant footprint within the Monterey business community and the city's businesses had an awful lot of links to the United States. It was judged as recently as 2003 to be a better bet for sports franchise economic success than Mexico City, the largest market in North America.
During Major League Baseball's days of infatuation with Monterey, Fortune magazine listed the city as the best Latin American marketplace. That was in 1999. The same year that McMorris’ Rockies played the San Diego Padres in northeast Mexican city. It was the second Monterey trip for the San Diego baseball club. The Padres and the Mets played the team's opening series there of the 1996 season. Major League Baseball gave Monterey more than just a casual look.
By 2003, Major League Baseball was getting pressure from the United States Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza who suggested to Commissioner Bud Selig that Monterey host a quarter of the Major League Baseball-owned Montreal Expos 81 home games, about 20 contests, in Monterey in 2004. On October 21, 2003, California Congressman Bob Filner took to the House floor and said "it is time we include Mexico and make baseball the North American pastime."
Rep. Filner stated as his introduced a resolution before the House that "(Monterey) is one of the safest cities in Latin America" and that "it is the home to the Sultans of the Mexican League and the Sultans ballpark could be expanded to more than 30,000 seats."
The Congressman's remarks fell on deaf ears. Major League Baseball split Expos home games between Montreal and San Juan, Puerto Rico in both 2003 and 2004.
Major League Baseball did look at Monterey as a possible destination for the Montreal Expos franchise but the city was never a major contender for a team. In late 2004, Major League Baseball transferred Montreal to Washington to start play in 2005. Major League Baseball has not looked at Monterey since then. But Monterey is re-emerging this autumn as a destination for a pre-season National Basketball Association game as the league is sending Philadelphia and Phoenix to play an October game in the city.
No one is suggesting Monterey is on the NBA's expansion/relocation market list should the league decide to add more teams or move a struggling franchise. It appears that a local promoter came up with the right contract and money and the NBA was impressed enough to reach an agreement to play a pre-season contest in Monterey for the first time since 2006. NBA Commissioner David Stern and most of his owners don't mind sending teams to Europe or China to expand marketing opportunities and a one night stand in Monterey appears to fit into that category.
Why didn't Monterey become a Major League Baseball city? The best guess is that it didn't have the critical elements that a United States city could offer, which is government support for a new or renovated stadium with luxury boxes and club seats, a massive local cable TV contract and huge corporate support with companies buying tickets and writing them off as a business expense. Monterey could not put together a money package that could compete with United States cities bidding for the Montreal franchise. In the end, Washington was the only city that aggressively went after the Expos franchise. The love affair with Monterey was just one of those passing fancies.
Would Major League Baseball been able to financially compete in Monterey? The answer is no based on the fact that the Montreal franchise ended up in Washington and that Florida Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria kicked the tires in San Antonio and Las Vegas while he was searching for a city that would build him a stadium for his Florida Marlins. Loria got his publicly funded park in Miami. Oakland A's owner Lewis Wolff tried to build a stadium as part of a stadium village complex down the I-880 in Fremont and after failing there, he is asking if baseball knows the way to San Jose, California, not far from Monterey, California.
Monterey, Mexico's business community spends a lot of money on the city's two football (soccer) teams and while two baseball series were relatively successful in 1996 and 1999, that should not be viewed as the launching pad to Major League Baseball. Ticket prices back then were cheaper than what they are in 2009 and Monterey is not considered the safest city in terms of crime in Latin America anymore.
All of this doesn't mean that Monterey should be overlooked as a sports city on a global scale. The NBA is in the business of not only putting a game on the court but selling T-shirts, hats and anything else that can fit a logo of the league or individual teams and the league will have willing customers to buy whatever items the league is playing to sell even though neither Philadelphia nor Phoenix are among the league's glamour teams.
Monterey has never gone after a National Football League franchise but at the same time city officials were dancing with Major League Baseball, businessmen from the area were pitching a plan to build a stadium near the Texas-Mexico border with the hope of drawing interest from consumers on both sides of the border. Nothing ever came of the idea. It is doubtful that Major League Soccer would have any interest in setting up shop in an area that is dominated by football (soccer).
Monterey never might ever get an NBA or a Major League Baseball franchise, however the city is planning a bid for the 2020 Summer Olympics and the city hosts a women's tennis tournament. There have also been other international sports events held in the city.
There are no Jerry McMorris's, Tony Garzas or Bob Filners pushing Monterey today as a Major League Baseball city. The global recession is not showing any real signs of abating which doesn't help Monterey's big league aspirations and the United States Department of State's warning to American citizens to exercise caution when traveling to Mexico because of Mexico's violent drug trade can not be construed as a positive for Monterey.
The NBA is going to Monterey on a one night stand and that should bring up the question, is Monterey, Mexico still viewed as a potential major league sports city? The answer might come sometime in October.
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
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