Rupert Murdoch's News Corp scandal could mean trouble for U.S. sports partners
Monday, 18 July 2011 11:33
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/rupert-murdochs-news-corp-scandal-could-mean-trouble-for-us-sports-partners
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
The National Football League lockout may be winding down but NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, the 31 franchise owners and the Green Bay Packers Board of Directors may be facing a much bigger problem in the very near future if Rupert Murdoch's media business problems in England spread across the Atlantic and hit News Corp properties in the United States.
Murdoch has taken a financial hit which has forced him to buy back a significant share of his company's stock. In the case of the National Football League and Major League Baseball, he doesn't have cable subscriber fees to help pay off the licensing fees to show games on over-the-air television. His cable TV properties have no such problems in that most of the ones that pay huge rights fees to teams are on the basic expanded tier which means all of the people who get basic expanded are paying for what a few watch. It is cable TV socialism that makes Rupert Murdoch's business work, a cable TV socialism bill in the form of a 1984 piece of Congressional legislation signed into law by President Ronald Reagan allows the bundling of cable channels to be sold as one to consumers.
The 1984 cable television legislation seems to be at complete odds with the free market principles espoused by Murdoch's news and financial channels but Murdoch is all about money, not ideology.
In 1993, Murdoch gave the NFL a huge amount of money after his company won bidding rights for National Football Conference telecasts and the marriage seems to have been a happy one for both sides. So much so that Murdoch agreed to help underwrite the 2011 NFL Lockout and provide the owners with money (along with General Electric's NBC, the Walt Disney Company's ESPN, Sumner Redstone's CBS and DirecTV) to get along if there was no 2011 NFL season.
That seems like gratitude but the NFL made that demand of over-the-air, cable and satellite TV networks in the last television negotiations and got the five TV partners to agree to their demands.
Back in 1993, the NFL got billions and Rupert Murdoch was able to get his FOX over-the-air television network (although technically FOX is a syndication arm) off the ground. The NFL gave Murdoch and FOX credibility and once Murdoch got that street cred, he was able to work on other United States projects including the launch of the FOX News Channel.
There has never been any hint of impropriety in Murdoch's sports businesses whether it was with over-the-air network contracts with the National Football League, National Hockey League, Major League Baseball, NASCAR and other properties including the Bowl Championship Series or his relatively brief ownership of the Los Angeles Dodgers at the turn of the century.
(Murdoch's FOX Los Angeles regional cable sports network recently worked a deal with embattled Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, some of the money would come out of subscribers' pockets would have gone to help pay the divorce settlement between Frank McCourt and his soon to be former wife Jamie. The deal was stopped by Selig but someone will eventually get big money for Dodgers TV rights from someone whether that someone is Murdoch or some other Los Angeles cable TV entity)
But make no mistake, Rupert Murdoch and News Corp is heavily invested in American sports and given his seemingly significant problems in London that include the folding of the News of the World newspaper, numerous arrests of News International employees, the resignation of the top cop at Scotland Yard in conjunction phone hacking scandal that is engulfing Murdoch's empire that could be a problem for Goodell, Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig and others.
Do sports leagues want to be associated anymore with Murdoch and what happens if there are complaints about Murdoch's suitability to own TV stations in the United States? What happens to the rights deals that Murdoch's people have worked out with sports leagues and teams?
That may be an issue facing Goodell, Selig and others down the road depending on just how large the News of the World and other Murdoch properties in the UK, US and Australia scandal become. Murdoch has shut down the paper and has seen one of his closest associates arrested. That is not good on the resume for TV station license renewals.
Before the NFL, Murdoch's FOX network was a weak collection of UHF stations with the exception of a few cities like New York, Washington, and Los Angeles. Before the NFL, FOX had a few shows that drew some attention, the It's Gary Shandling's Show, the Tracy Ullman Show and Married With Children. Out of the Ullman show came The Simpsons, Shandling's show originally ran on Showtime and then went to FOX. Ullman's show was canceled in 1990. FOX could not establish a late night talk show, the Joan Rivers experiment was a disaster and a 1993 Chevy Chase late night show as a bomb. Not much worked for Murdoch.
Neither Al Bundy nor Bart Simpson, as popular as the characters would become, could bolster FOX. Murdoch's team was buying TV stations and became the biggest owner of over-the-air stations in the United States but by 1993, it was still the fourth network in a three horse race for ratings behind CBS, NBC and ABC.
The NFL changed all of that. Actually, it was Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys that put Murdoch on the map as Jones and Murdoch negotiated the TV deal that would change everything. The NFL had been prospering from TV rights fees since the 1961 Sports Broadcast Act which allowed the league commissioner, who is also the league's chief negotiator and lobbyist in all things NFL, to bundle the 14 member franchises into one entity in order to negotiate a TV deal. Three decades later, the NFL was a 30 franchise entity with four separate and distinct elements. CBS had the National Football Conference contests and paid slightly more money for the NFC than NBC did for American Football Conference games because the NFC had more major markets. ABC had Monday Night Football and ESPN and Turner Sports split a Sunday night package.
The NFL was being paid $3.6 million over a four year period between 1990 and 1993.
Murdoch's fourth place network was desperate for a game changer and the NFL provided him with an opening. The NFL and Jones were knocked over by Murdoch's bid for the NFC games. Murdoch was willing to fork over $1.58 billion over four years to get the NFC package along with the Super Bowl. Murdoch had a syndication arm but no news division, no sports division, none of the apparatus that CBS, ABC and NBC had. Murdoch knew that the NFL deals with an old philosophy, cash on the barrel head gets serious consideration and because he blew CBS out of the water with his bid, the NFL and Jones knew they would be getting a new partner with a patchwork of big city VHF and small area UHF stations and both sides would have to make it work.
In December 1993, The NFL took the money. In retrospect, it was the right decision but at the time it looked like just a money grab.
In early 1994, Murdoch started to prepare for the 1994 season by quickly established a sports department by giving John Madden an enormous contact and hiring his sidekick Pat Summerall. Murdoch also took Madden's CBS support team and made John feel right at home. Madden would become the face of FOX sports and with the NFL in tow, Murdoch was able to steal VHF stations in Detroit and Milwaukee away from CBS. Murdoch had one of TV's crown jewels, the NFL, and FOX would now be in a position to become a serious player in American TV.
It can be suggested that the success of the NFL and Madden on FOX led to Murdoch to start the FOX News Channel. The over-the-air network, still technically a syndication arm, started producing hits like the X-Files along with Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, In Living Color to go along with The Simpsons and Married With Children. Murdoch didn't have blockbuster ratings but the network was doing okay business and he already had a satellite news network in Europe, Murdoch turned to creating a United States cable TV news channel.
There are no what if questions. The NFL changed the fortunes of both Murdoch and Lawrence Tisch's CBS. In 1993, CBS completed the TV hat trick; it won daytime, prime time and late night ratings. David Letterman had just moved over to the network and things were looking good. But Tisch's CBS did not invest in cable TV, lost the NFL and Madden, football's top star both on and off the field, lost affiliates and would start a downward spiral. Murdoch's FOX Sports added the National Hockey League and Major League Baseball soon after the NFL deal. Eventually Murdoch would gain NASCAR and the Bowl Championship Series. On the cable TV side, Murdoch's regional sports cable networks are still strong despite being challenged by upstarts in the past few years. FOX either owns or has agreements with 24 regionals. There is also a partnership with The Big Ten Network and another with the Pac12 conference.
Murdoch's Fox Soccer Channel has the UEFA Champions League, Premier League, and Serie A among other competitions. Fox Soccer Plus has soccer and rugby programming from around the world. Murdoch's Speed Channel provides NASCAR and F-1 coverage,
Murdoch's Fuel TV presents action sports such as skateboarding, surfing, snowboarding, BMX and FMX.
Murdoch's Fox Deportes provides Spanish-language coverage of UEFA Champions League, Premiere League, and Serie A as well as Beach Soccer and the F.A. Cup. It also presents the Spanish-language Major League Baseball Game of the Week, the All Star Game, and the World Series, as well as division and league playoffs. Fox Deportes probably would not play well with FOX News Channel viewers but Murdoch doesn't really have an ideology except identifying an audience to exploit to make money. FOX Deportes is aimed at Spanish speakers in the United States, some illegal aliens more than likely, not at FOX News Channel watchers.
That's Murdoch.
Rupert Murdoch built over-the-air viable network thanks to throwing money at the NFL, he had built a strong regional sports cable network, he had his news channel and became an American citizen because non American citizens could not own TV networks. Murdoch, the Australian, should not have owned FOX but American President Bill Clinton's Federal Communication Commission in 1995 allowed Murdoch to run FOX because it was "in the best interest of the public."
Murdoch has invested billions in American sports. So far the leagues and teams have said nothing about the events in London. FOX Sports has been above board according to those in the know but league and team operators have to be keeping a close eye on what is going on with the News of the World unraveling because it could have a real impact on their businesses.
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 bickley.com, Barnes and Noble or amazonkindle.
Showing posts with label Bud Selig. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bud Selig. Show all posts
Monday, July 18, 2011
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Should Chris Christie be considered one of the most powerful people in sports?
TUESDAY, 12 OCTOBER 2010 16:22
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/should-chris-christie-be-considered-one-of-the-most-powerful-people-in-sports
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
It is silly season again as a S. I. M. magazine "the only global sport business magazine targeting a dual readership that focuses exclusively on influence and affluence in today's ever-changing world" is polling readership and asking readers to name the most influential people in the world of sports. For the record, this United Kingdom-based publication has Joseph Blatter, the President of FIFA (Soccer) out in front in the voting followed by the President of the International Olympic Committee, Dr. Jacques Rogge and Herbert Hainer, the Chairman and CEO of adidas in the top three slots. The first American on the list and coming in at number four is Heidi Ueberroth, which is a head turner. Ueberroth's father Peter, of course, ran the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Committee and was the Commissioner of Major League Baseball but his daughter simply doesn't belong as high on this list as President of NBA International. Her boss David Stern as the Commissioner of the National Basketball Association has more power.
Stern is ninth on the list well ahead of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman who is at 50. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who cannot get his league market attention and traction outside the North American continent unlike Stern, Bettman and Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, who is 11th. Selig is 32nd, one spot ahead of CBS Sports President Sean McManus, which makes no sense. McManus just gave the NCAA billions of dollars in a partnership with Turner Sports for the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. McManus' Turner Sports Partner David Levy is ranked 54th.
For some reason, S. I. M. magazine has San Francisco 49ers owner Denise DeBartolo York in the Top 100. York doesn't run the football team, her 29-year-old son Jed with a rather thin business resume does.
Stern, the former Teaneck resident, understands where the real power in sports is located. Stern's three legged stool formula for success always starts with government. In the United States and in a great many countries, elected officials either directly give money to sports (as in Malaysia) or set up laws that funnel money into sports whether it is through tax breaks, tax incentives, the building of facilities at taxpayers' expense and in America, the federal government changed the cable TV laws which allowed owners like the Yankees George Steinbrenner, the Mets Fred Wilpon and the Dolan-family owned New York Knicks, New York Rangers and New York Liberty to make enormous sums of money from cable TV. The feds also give tax breaks to corporations buying high item sports event seats for "business purposes."
In New Jersey, Chris Christie as Governor is more important to the sports world than the state's highest paid employees, the Rutgers football coach and the Rutgers men's and women's basketball coach. Christie has to decide the fate of the Meadowlands at some point soon along with the horse racing industry in the state. Horse racing is a sport even though none of the top 100 on S. I. M.'s list represent horse racing.
Governors, mayors, state elected officials are major players in sports as they control the purse strings. The Meadowlands complex never would have opened without government support.
When publications and websites put out lists of the Top 100 this, the Top 100 that, they are should always to be taken with a grain of salt. In 2007, BusinessWeek posted a list of the Top 100 Power People in sports with National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell on the top of the list. BusinessWeek should have asked me to be part of their panel because their list is filled with questionable choices and omissions.
BusinessWeek asked the wrong people — players, agents, sports gadflies, for their opinions and didn't know that there is a formula for sports success — government support, a large local cable TV deal and corporate support, the latter two made possible by government assistance.
It's too bad because that Power 100 list might be far more accurate with real sports business experts than the BusinessWeek 100 that was presented. There really is nothing on the list that indicates that the panelists thought about the UEFA 2008 football tournament. That happens to be the second most watched sports event in the world behind the World Cup.
There is nothing about cricket or boxing on the list. The National Hockey League Commissioner is rated just 27th on the list even though the NHL has lots of eyeballs watching its product in Europe far more eyeballs than the NFL on that continent.
The list also was too United States-centric. The oddity here is that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell heads a highly successfully United States business that is attempting to catch up with Soccer, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association and yes even the downtrodden National Hockey League in the global community. The list places Los Angeles Kings, Los Angeles Galaxy and AEG owner Phillip Anschutz at number 21. Anschutz may be the most powerful man in sports globally. Anschutz's LA Kings opened the 2007-08 National Hockey League season in London in the London arena he owns against the Anaheim Ducks. .
Anschutz controlled most of the franchises in Major League Soccer and brought David Beckham to America. National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern will tell you that London, England is the most ready city in Europe for an NBA franchise thanks to Anschutz.
Anschutz is also a major force behind the 2012 London Olympics.
The list has International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge but absent was the heads of the 2008 Beijing Summer Games, the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games, the 2012 London Summer Games and the 2014 Sochi Winter Games. That is worth noting because US Presidential candidate Mitt Romney launched his political career by running the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games. From there he ran for Governor of Massachusetts and may be attempting to get the Republican nomination for President in 2012.
Of course sports can be a great stepping stone. United States President George W. Bush was a two percent owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team and its general managing partner but he was never considered a Top 100 performer in sports during his days as a minority owner of a baseball team.
Texas Rangers and Dallas Stars owner Thomas O. Hicks, a major financial support of George W. Bush's 1994 and 1998 gubernatorial races in Texas and 2000 and 2004 Presidential bids is not on the list. Hicks and Montreal Canadiens owner George N. Gillett, Jr. purchased Liverpool P. C. in the English Premiere League and are building a football stadium in the English city that is more known for being the home of the Beatles John Lennon, Paul Mc Cartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr to Americans but Liverpool football has a long history. Tampa Bay Buccaneers owner Malcolm Glazier isn't on the BusinessWeek 100 Power list either. Glazier owns the most recognizable sports brand internationally, Manchester United. Manchester United football is a lot better known globally than the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Hicks and Gillett recently sold Liverpool to Boston Red Sox owner John Henry.
Two glaring omissions in the 2007 list came from the world of the original cable TV investors, Ted Rogers in Canada and Chuck Dolan in New York . Rogers owns the Toronto Blue Jays and Sportsnet, which carries Blue Jays baseball, five NHL teams telecasts and has the rights to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and the 2012 London Summer Olympics. Dolan, who helped found HBO, owns Madison Square Garden, the New York Knicks, New York Rangers, New York Liberty, the Madison Square Garden Network (which has Knicks basketball and the three New York City area hockey teams, the Rangers, Islanders and New Jersey Devils hockey as part of its programming along with the Liberty and other sports) and Radio City Music Hall.
Another cable TV guy, Altitude Sports and Entertainment Network-Colorado Avalanche-Denver Nuggets-St. Louis Rams-Colorado Crush-Colorado Rapids and Arsenal FC owner Stan Kroenke is also not highly thought of by BusinessWeek either. Nor is New York Islanders owner Charles Wang who is trying to raise hockey interest in China, nor are the Toronto Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment Chairman of the Board Larry Tannebaum a player on BusinessWeek's 100. Tannenbaum runs the NHL Maple Leafs, the NBA Raptors, the MLS Toronto FC, two Toronto arenas Leafs TV, Raptors TV and Maple Leaf Square which includes office space and residential living.
Why is Arnold Palmer on this list? Palmer was a great golfer in his day and businessman but if you include Palmer how do you leave off Jack Nicklaus and Greg Norman who are major figures in golf course development?
There is something else that is puzzling on the BusinessWeek 100 when it comes to NFL owners. Jerry Jones, Daniel Snyder, Robert Kraft, Robert Mc Nair and Jeffrey Lurie are the five most powerful NFL owners in that they stuck together and tried to break the NFL's "Leaguethink" philosophy during the last owners squabble over revenue sharing but neither Mc Nair nor Lurie are on the list. Denver owner Pat Bowlen was on the NFL TV committee, a group that helped negotiation the league's huge TV deals with Rupert Murdoch's FOX, General Electric's NBC, Disney's ESPN and Sumner Redstone's CBS along with DirecTV but he isn't on the list.
Where are politicians on this list? Without Anthony Williams, the former Washington mayor, there is no new baseball park in Washington; there is no Major League Baseball in the city period. Russian President Vladimir Putin belongs on this list. Putin lobbied the International Olympic Committee to get the 2014 Winter Olympics for Sochi and Putin was behind that the formation of a state corporation, which will supervise the infrastructural development of Sochi and the construction of the Olympic facilities.
Can BusinessWeek explain Vladislav Tretaik's 2007 exclusion on the list? Tretiak, the President of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation, refused to sign off on the International Ice Hockey Federation-National Hockey League transfer deal that allows young Russian players to play on an NHL in exchange for financial considerations.
Business Week also enlisted ESPN: The Magazine for data. Another mistake. ESPN may own TSN in Canada and ESPN International may carry North American sports around the world but you would never know it from the Power 100 list. Depending on ESPN reporters for business information is risky because ESPN reporters are clueless when it comes to business. What do Shane Battier, Amanda Beard, Bill Cowher, Carl Edwards, Brad Faxson, Martina Hingis, Mark Kreigel, Tommy Lasorda, Lisa Leslie and Mark Spitz know about dealing with politicians to secure taxpayers dollars for the Olympics, World Cup, Super Bowl and other major sports events globally for stadiums and arenas? What do they know about the difficulties in getting tax abatements, payment in lieu of taxes, tax increment financing in the United States, getting dollars from provincial hockey lotteries in Alberta, converting US dollars into pounds, Euros and Yuans?
If BusinessWeek did an honest list of the real power figures about 50 percent of the Top 100 would be gone. BusinessWeek failed to identify the real power behind sports, particularly in the United States. It's a fun list to scan but its little more than that. It is sort of like the Forbes list of what North American sports franchises are worth. Interesting reading but in reality a franchise is worth want someone is willing to pay for the business.
BusinessWeek's 2007 list was filled with glaring holes. In 2009, BusinessWeek had Tiger Woods as its most powerful sports player followed by Goodell and Stern. As always, no government people were on the 2009 BusinessWeek list. The S. I. M. 2010 list will be no better. BusinessWeek had Goodell ranked too high. Goodell is powerful in the US but is pretty feeble internationally compared to MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, NBA boss David Stern, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and FIFA President Blatter.
That will tell you a lot about that list.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio and TV commentator and speaker on the "Business and Politics of Sports. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
TUESDAY, 12 OCTOBER 2010 16:22
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/should-chris-christie-be-considered-one-of-the-most-powerful-people-in-sports
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
It is silly season again as a S. I. M. magazine "the only global sport business magazine targeting a dual readership that focuses exclusively on influence and affluence in today's ever-changing world" is polling readership and asking readers to name the most influential people in the world of sports. For the record, this United Kingdom-based publication has Joseph Blatter, the President of FIFA (Soccer) out in front in the voting followed by the President of the International Olympic Committee, Dr. Jacques Rogge and Herbert Hainer, the Chairman and CEO of adidas in the top three slots. The first American on the list and coming in at number four is Heidi Ueberroth, which is a head turner. Ueberroth's father Peter, of course, ran the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Committee and was the Commissioner of Major League Baseball but his daughter simply doesn't belong as high on this list as President of NBA International. Her boss David Stern as the Commissioner of the National Basketball Association has more power.
Stern is ninth on the list well ahead of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman who is at 50. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who cannot get his league market attention and traction outside the North American continent unlike Stern, Bettman and Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, who is 11th. Selig is 32nd, one spot ahead of CBS Sports President Sean McManus, which makes no sense. McManus just gave the NCAA billions of dollars in a partnership with Turner Sports for the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. McManus' Turner Sports Partner David Levy is ranked 54th.
For some reason, S. I. M. magazine has San Francisco 49ers owner Denise DeBartolo York in the Top 100. York doesn't run the football team, her 29-year-old son Jed with a rather thin business resume does.
Stern, the former Teaneck resident, understands where the real power in sports is located. Stern's three legged stool formula for success always starts with government. In the United States and in a great many countries, elected officials either directly give money to sports (as in Malaysia) or set up laws that funnel money into sports whether it is through tax breaks, tax incentives, the building of facilities at taxpayers' expense and in America, the federal government changed the cable TV laws which allowed owners like the Yankees George Steinbrenner, the Mets Fred Wilpon and the Dolan-family owned New York Knicks, New York Rangers and New York Liberty to make enormous sums of money from cable TV. The feds also give tax breaks to corporations buying high item sports event seats for "business purposes."
In New Jersey, Chris Christie as Governor is more important to the sports world than the state's highest paid employees, the Rutgers football coach and the Rutgers men's and women's basketball coach. Christie has to decide the fate of the Meadowlands at some point soon along with the horse racing industry in the state. Horse racing is a sport even though none of the top 100 on S. I. M.'s list represent horse racing.
Governors, mayors, state elected officials are major players in sports as they control the purse strings. The Meadowlands complex never would have opened without government support.
When publications and websites put out lists of the Top 100 this, the Top 100 that, they are should always to be taken with a grain of salt. In 2007, BusinessWeek posted a list of the Top 100 Power People in sports with National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell on the top of the list. BusinessWeek should have asked me to be part of their panel because their list is filled with questionable choices and omissions.
BusinessWeek asked the wrong people — players, agents, sports gadflies, for their opinions and didn't know that there is a formula for sports success — government support, a large local cable TV deal and corporate support, the latter two made possible by government assistance.
It's too bad because that Power 100 list might be far more accurate with real sports business experts than the BusinessWeek 100 that was presented. There really is nothing on the list that indicates that the panelists thought about the UEFA 2008 football tournament. That happens to be the second most watched sports event in the world behind the World Cup.
There is nothing about cricket or boxing on the list. The National Hockey League Commissioner is rated just 27th on the list even though the NHL has lots of eyeballs watching its product in Europe far more eyeballs than the NFL on that continent.
The list also was too United States-centric. The oddity here is that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell heads a highly successfully United States business that is attempting to catch up with Soccer, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association and yes even the downtrodden National Hockey League in the global community. The list places Los Angeles Kings, Los Angeles Galaxy and AEG owner Phillip Anschutz at number 21. Anschutz may be the most powerful man in sports globally. Anschutz's LA Kings opened the 2007-08 National Hockey League season in London in the London arena he owns against the Anaheim Ducks. .
Anschutz controlled most of the franchises in Major League Soccer and brought David Beckham to America. National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern will tell you that London, England is the most ready city in Europe for an NBA franchise thanks to Anschutz.
Anschutz is also a major force behind the 2012 London Olympics.
The list has International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge but absent was the heads of the 2008 Beijing Summer Games, the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games, the 2012 London Summer Games and the 2014 Sochi Winter Games. That is worth noting because US Presidential candidate Mitt Romney launched his political career by running the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games. From there he ran for Governor of Massachusetts and may be attempting to get the Republican nomination for President in 2012.
Of course sports can be a great stepping stone. United States President George W. Bush was a two percent owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team and its general managing partner but he was never considered a Top 100 performer in sports during his days as a minority owner of a baseball team.
Texas Rangers and Dallas Stars owner Thomas O. Hicks, a major financial support of George W. Bush's 1994 and 1998 gubernatorial races in Texas and 2000 and 2004 Presidential bids is not on the list. Hicks and Montreal Canadiens owner George N. Gillett, Jr. purchased Liverpool P. C. in the English Premiere League and are building a football stadium in the English city that is more known for being the home of the Beatles John Lennon, Paul Mc Cartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr to Americans but Liverpool football has a long history. Tampa Bay Buccaneers owner Malcolm Glazier isn't on the BusinessWeek 100 Power list either. Glazier owns the most recognizable sports brand internationally, Manchester United. Manchester United football is a lot better known globally than the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Hicks and Gillett recently sold Liverpool to Boston Red Sox owner John Henry.
Two glaring omissions in the 2007 list came from the world of the original cable TV investors, Ted Rogers in Canada and Chuck Dolan in New York . Rogers owns the Toronto Blue Jays and Sportsnet, which carries Blue Jays baseball, five NHL teams telecasts and has the rights to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and the 2012 London Summer Olympics. Dolan, who helped found HBO, owns Madison Square Garden, the New York Knicks, New York Rangers, New York Liberty, the Madison Square Garden Network (which has Knicks basketball and the three New York City area hockey teams, the Rangers, Islanders and New Jersey Devils hockey as part of its programming along with the Liberty and other sports) and Radio City Music Hall.
Another cable TV guy, Altitude Sports and Entertainment Network-Colorado Avalanche-Denver Nuggets-St. Louis Rams-Colorado Crush-Colorado Rapids and Arsenal FC owner Stan Kroenke is also not highly thought of by BusinessWeek either. Nor is New York Islanders owner Charles Wang who is trying to raise hockey interest in China, nor are the Toronto Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment Chairman of the Board Larry Tannebaum a player on BusinessWeek's 100. Tannenbaum runs the NHL Maple Leafs, the NBA Raptors, the MLS Toronto FC, two Toronto arenas Leafs TV, Raptors TV and Maple Leaf Square which includes office space and residential living.
Why is Arnold Palmer on this list? Palmer was a great golfer in his day and businessman but if you include Palmer how do you leave off Jack Nicklaus and Greg Norman who are major figures in golf course development?
There is something else that is puzzling on the BusinessWeek 100 when it comes to NFL owners. Jerry Jones, Daniel Snyder, Robert Kraft, Robert Mc Nair and Jeffrey Lurie are the five most powerful NFL owners in that they stuck together and tried to break the NFL's "Leaguethink" philosophy during the last owners squabble over revenue sharing but neither Mc Nair nor Lurie are on the list. Denver owner Pat Bowlen was on the NFL TV committee, a group that helped negotiation the league's huge TV deals with Rupert Murdoch's FOX, General Electric's NBC, Disney's ESPN and Sumner Redstone's CBS along with DirecTV but he isn't on the list.
Where are politicians on this list? Without Anthony Williams, the former Washington mayor, there is no new baseball park in Washington; there is no Major League Baseball in the city period. Russian President Vladimir Putin belongs on this list. Putin lobbied the International Olympic Committee to get the 2014 Winter Olympics for Sochi and Putin was behind that the formation of a state corporation, which will supervise the infrastructural development of Sochi and the construction of the Olympic facilities.
Can BusinessWeek explain Vladislav Tretaik's 2007 exclusion on the list? Tretiak, the President of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation, refused to sign off on the International Ice Hockey Federation-National Hockey League transfer deal that allows young Russian players to play on an NHL in exchange for financial considerations.
Business Week also enlisted ESPN: The Magazine for data. Another mistake. ESPN may own TSN in Canada and ESPN International may carry North American sports around the world but you would never know it from the Power 100 list. Depending on ESPN reporters for business information is risky because ESPN reporters are clueless when it comes to business. What do Shane Battier, Amanda Beard, Bill Cowher, Carl Edwards, Brad Faxson, Martina Hingis, Mark Kreigel, Tommy Lasorda, Lisa Leslie and Mark Spitz know about dealing with politicians to secure taxpayers dollars for the Olympics, World Cup, Super Bowl and other major sports events globally for stadiums and arenas? What do they know about the difficulties in getting tax abatements, payment in lieu of taxes, tax increment financing in the United States, getting dollars from provincial hockey lotteries in Alberta, converting US dollars into pounds, Euros and Yuans?
If BusinessWeek did an honest list of the real power figures about 50 percent of the Top 100 would be gone. BusinessWeek failed to identify the real power behind sports, particularly in the United States. It's a fun list to scan but its little more than that. It is sort of like the Forbes list of what North American sports franchises are worth. Interesting reading but in reality a franchise is worth want someone is willing to pay for the business.
BusinessWeek's 2007 list was filled with glaring holes. In 2009, BusinessWeek had Tiger Woods as its most powerful sports player followed by Goodell and Stern. As always, no government people were on the 2009 BusinessWeek list. The S. I. M. 2010 list will be no better. BusinessWeek had Goodell ranked too high. Goodell is powerful in the US but is pretty feeble internationally compared to MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, NBA boss David Stern, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and FIFA President Blatter.
That will tell you a lot about that list.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio and TV commentator and speaker on the "Business and Politics of Sports. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Saturday, May 15, 2010
When Mexico Was a Threat to Major League Baseball
When Mexico Was a Threat to Major League Baseball
By Evan Weiner
May 15, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m5d15-When-Mexico-was-a-threat-to-Major-League-Baseball#
(New York, N. Y.)Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig doesn't plan to ask his owners to move the 2011 All-Star Game from Phoenix to another venue in some other city in response to Arizona's Governor Jan Brewer signing of (Arizona) Senate Bill 1070, the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act on April 23. The law will take effect later this summer and has set off a torrent of opposition and the backlash has included a call for a boycott of the state to hurt Arizona in the pocketbook.
Selig defended Major League Baseball's record when it comes to minority hirings under his tenure earlier this week but is resisting a call for moving the game from Phoenix from various groups that claim the Brewer's signature on SB 1070 gives police the green light to go after anyone who is suspected of being in Arizona illegally in asking them for official papers and that the most likely target of the crackdown are people who appear to be Mexican.
Baseball hires many non-Americans who come to the country who need to have seasonal visas to work in the United States and Selig needs to be sensitive to the Latin American employees who work legally for Major League Baseball and for Major League Baseball subsidiaries including the minor league teams of the 30 Major League Baseball franchises.
Oddly enough, it was Mexico that almost brought the American and National League owners to their collective knees in the years after World War II. Jorge Pasquel ended up with Club Azules de Vera Cruz. Pasquel signed Satchel Paige in 1938. Pasquel also added three players who would eventually be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, Josh Gibson, Ray Dandridge and Monte Irvin.
Pasquel took many of the Negro Leagues best players and by 1946; he was raiding Major League Baseball. The Mexican Baseball League eventually would force the American and National League owners to integrate although a good many teams including the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox were very slow in adding African-American players. Pasquel also changed some of the working conditions for the players employed by the 16 teams in the American and National Leagues.
Boston was the last team to add an African-American player to the roster. Tom Yawkey's franchise finally used Pumpsie Green in 1959, 12 years after Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier.
When Bob Feller came to the major leagues in 1936 as an 18 year old pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, players had no freedom. Maybe a Babe Ruth could command a huge salary, but the Babe was bigger than the game. Feller had a choice of 16 teams when he signed, but once the signature went on the contract, he was an Indians employee for life or until a General Manager decided he could not use his services anymore.
"Before the war, the Reserve Clause kept the players on the same ball club. Unless you had clout maybe like Hank Greenberg, Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig and many other players of consequences on teams. They had some leverage in their salaries and it made a big difference at that time," said Feller. "After the war we started the pension plan."
The Mexican signings of major league players included Junior Stephens, Sal Maglie, Hal Lanier, Mickey Owen and others. Pasquel brothers made a run at Phil Rizzuto, Ted Williams, Feller and Stan Musial but their plan ultimately collapsed.
"They wanted to get the players who jumped to Mexico back here," Feller said. "Pasquel down there. He was a dictator. He and his four brothers ran the country. George Pasquel, I knew him quite well. I played ball for him in 1947 in October against teams in Mexico. So Happy Chandler and Larry Mc Phail figured out they had to give the players a pension plan and get the players back. They gave them (the players who jumped to Mexico) amnesty.
"At that time, Johnny Murphy of the American League, a relief pitcher with the Yankees and a very good one and Dixie Walker of the Dodgers was the National League representative. It was the first time the players were allowed to have their own representatives. They had to be active players and one a roster. That started the pension plan and they had $800,000 on the pension plan. Television made the baseball players pension plan."
World War II was a turning point for the American and National Leagues. Returning players put their life on the line in Europe and in the Pacific and they were no longer afraid of owners who controlled every aspect of their professional athletic life.
The Pittsburgh Pirates nearly became the first team in the 20th Century to strike over working conditions. In 1946, a Boston attorney named Robert Murphy tried to organize Major League Baseball Players.
"It all started in 1946 after World War II," said Ralph Kiner who was a young player with the Pirates at the time. "There was a guy named Bob Murphy who organized a players union and he picked the Pittsburgh Pirates as a place to start because Pittsburgh was a highly unionized city at that time. I was involved as a player then and I later on became the National League representative.
"It was a matter of fact that the players got no money. It was in the aftermath of World War II, where black players were coming into the game and the minimum salary was nothing. Like two or three thousand dollars a year. They wanted to get more money and in 1947, the minimum went to $5,000 a year and the players wanted to have other benefits like better playing conditions, and better dugouts."
But Major League owners really did not react to Murphy's threats. The biggest problem was coming from Mexico where the Mexican League was flexing its muscle.
"One thing that started the whole beginning of the pension plan was the Pasquel Brothers in Mexico who offered large amounts of money to some of the players to jump from the ranks of professional baseball in the states to Mexico. That didn't work, but it started the beginning of unionized baseball."
While Mexico was becoming a problem, it was just a matter of time before Major League Baseball was going to be desegregated. The Brooklyn Dodgers did sign Jackie Robinson to break the color barrier, but there was more to the story than just signing Robinson to right a social wrong. It came down to plain old dollars and cents.
It was economics that also crashed the color barrier.
"I don't think Branch Rickey should get the credit," said Kiner. "There was a movement at the time that they were going to bring black players into the game. He jumped the gun and got Jackie Robinson.
"But the reason for Branch Rickey obtaining and bringing black players in was economical. He didn't have to pay the black players any money to sign them and they were bought from the Negro Leagues at that time and Robinson was the choice. Rickey was the man who picked Robinson and that was a brilliant choice."
Teams could get black players on the cheap because black players were just grateful to get the chance.
"It was just another part of the changeover of baseball. It had to happen sooner or later. It was really an aftermath of World War II where the black players, or as they were called in those days, the Negroes, fought for our side. They had to be recognized," said Kiner.
Baseball was fighting on two front in 1946. There was the threat of Pasquel signing big names and the players were no longer just happy to put on a big league baseball uniform. They wanted to share in the revenues.
Pittsburgh was the top target because it was a huge union city loaded with steelworkers. The very same steelworkers that Marvin Miller would join in 1950 as an associate director of research and in 1960 would become the Assistant to the President of the United Steelworkers of America.
"We had a vote, we were going to strike on the field and not play against the New York Giants. We had a vote whether or not we were going to unionize and the vote failed. We ended up playing that game. It took a long time to unionize.
In 1953, the pension plan became a hot topic again. Kiner and Allie Reynolds hired New York attorney J. Norman Lewis to represent the player's interests and Lewis went to work on gaining increases in player's pensions.
The players proposed increases from $50 to $80 a month for five year players and from $100 to $150 a month for 10 year players and that pension payments begin at 45 instead of the age of 50. The players also wanted to make sure that the pension plan was funded by the Baseball's Central Fund and that monies from radio, TV, gate receipts from the All-Star Game and World Series TV and Radio rights fees were funneled into the Central Fund.
An agreement between the players and owners was struck on February 16, 1954 with the players getting 60 percent of the monies generated from radio, TV, gate receipts from the All-Star Game and World Series TV and Radio rights fees were funneled into the Central Fund.
The players also asked for changes in winter ball regulations, the elimination of twi-night double headers, a hike in the minimum salary from $5,000 to $8,000 and that eight year players get the same benefits as 10 year veterans.
The owners upped the minimum salary to $6,000, gave the players $8 a day in meal money and provided moving expenses for traded players at other meetings.
Mexicans had a profound effect on Major League Baseball. If Selig and the 30 Major League Baseball owners do keep the 2011 All-Star Game in Phoenix, they should start an educational program about the history of Mexico and the United States baseball and civil rights relations and how the events in the late 1930s and the 1940s changed the game forever.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and lecturer on the "Politics of Sports Business." He is available for speaking engagements at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
By Evan Weiner
May 15, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m5d15-When-Mexico-was-a-threat-to-Major-League-Baseball#
(New York, N. Y.)Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig doesn't plan to ask his owners to move the 2011 All-Star Game from Phoenix to another venue in some other city in response to Arizona's Governor Jan Brewer signing of (Arizona) Senate Bill 1070, the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act on April 23. The law will take effect later this summer and has set off a torrent of opposition and the backlash has included a call for a boycott of the state to hurt Arizona in the pocketbook.
Selig defended Major League Baseball's record when it comes to minority hirings under his tenure earlier this week but is resisting a call for moving the game from Phoenix from various groups that claim the Brewer's signature on SB 1070 gives police the green light to go after anyone who is suspected of being in Arizona illegally in asking them for official papers and that the most likely target of the crackdown are people who appear to be Mexican.
Baseball hires many non-Americans who come to the country who need to have seasonal visas to work in the United States and Selig needs to be sensitive to the Latin American employees who work legally for Major League Baseball and for Major League Baseball subsidiaries including the minor league teams of the 30 Major League Baseball franchises.
Oddly enough, it was Mexico that almost brought the American and National League owners to their collective knees in the years after World War II. Jorge Pasquel ended up with Club Azules de Vera Cruz. Pasquel signed Satchel Paige in 1938. Pasquel also added three players who would eventually be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, Josh Gibson, Ray Dandridge and Monte Irvin.
Pasquel took many of the Negro Leagues best players and by 1946; he was raiding Major League Baseball. The Mexican Baseball League eventually would force the American and National League owners to integrate although a good many teams including the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox were very slow in adding African-American players. Pasquel also changed some of the working conditions for the players employed by the 16 teams in the American and National Leagues.
Boston was the last team to add an African-American player to the roster. Tom Yawkey's franchise finally used Pumpsie Green in 1959, 12 years after Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier.
When Bob Feller came to the major leagues in 1936 as an 18 year old pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, players had no freedom. Maybe a Babe Ruth could command a huge salary, but the Babe was bigger than the game. Feller had a choice of 16 teams when he signed, but once the signature went on the contract, he was an Indians employee for life or until a General Manager decided he could not use his services anymore.
"Before the war, the Reserve Clause kept the players on the same ball club. Unless you had clout maybe like Hank Greenberg, Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig and many other players of consequences on teams. They had some leverage in their salaries and it made a big difference at that time," said Feller. "After the war we started the pension plan."
The Mexican signings of major league players included Junior Stephens, Sal Maglie, Hal Lanier, Mickey Owen and others. Pasquel brothers made a run at Phil Rizzuto, Ted Williams, Feller and Stan Musial but their plan ultimately collapsed.
"They wanted to get the players who jumped to Mexico back here," Feller said. "Pasquel down there. He was a dictator. He and his four brothers ran the country. George Pasquel, I knew him quite well. I played ball for him in 1947 in October against teams in Mexico. So Happy Chandler and Larry Mc Phail figured out they had to give the players a pension plan and get the players back. They gave them (the players who jumped to Mexico) amnesty.
"At that time, Johnny Murphy of the American League, a relief pitcher with the Yankees and a very good one and Dixie Walker of the Dodgers was the National League representative. It was the first time the players were allowed to have their own representatives. They had to be active players and one a roster. That started the pension plan and they had $800,000 on the pension plan. Television made the baseball players pension plan."
World War II was a turning point for the American and National Leagues. Returning players put their life on the line in Europe and in the Pacific and they were no longer afraid of owners who controlled every aspect of their professional athletic life.
The Pittsburgh Pirates nearly became the first team in the 20th Century to strike over working conditions. In 1946, a Boston attorney named Robert Murphy tried to organize Major League Baseball Players.
"It all started in 1946 after World War II," said Ralph Kiner who was a young player with the Pirates at the time. "There was a guy named Bob Murphy who organized a players union and he picked the Pittsburgh Pirates as a place to start because Pittsburgh was a highly unionized city at that time. I was involved as a player then and I later on became the National League representative.
"It was a matter of fact that the players got no money. It was in the aftermath of World War II, where black players were coming into the game and the minimum salary was nothing. Like two or three thousand dollars a year. They wanted to get more money and in 1947, the minimum went to $5,000 a year and the players wanted to have other benefits like better playing conditions, and better dugouts."
But Major League owners really did not react to Murphy's threats. The biggest problem was coming from Mexico where the Mexican League was flexing its muscle.
"One thing that started the whole beginning of the pension plan was the Pasquel Brothers in Mexico who offered large amounts of money to some of the players to jump from the ranks of professional baseball in the states to Mexico. That didn't work, but it started the beginning of unionized baseball."
While Mexico was becoming a problem, it was just a matter of time before Major League Baseball was going to be desegregated. The Brooklyn Dodgers did sign Jackie Robinson to break the color barrier, but there was more to the story than just signing Robinson to right a social wrong. It came down to plain old dollars and cents.
It was economics that also crashed the color barrier.
"I don't think Branch Rickey should get the credit," said Kiner. "There was a movement at the time that they were going to bring black players into the game. He jumped the gun and got Jackie Robinson.
"But the reason for Branch Rickey obtaining and bringing black players in was economical. He didn't have to pay the black players any money to sign them and they were bought from the Negro Leagues at that time and Robinson was the choice. Rickey was the man who picked Robinson and that was a brilliant choice."
Teams could get black players on the cheap because black players were just grateful to get the chance.
"It was just another part of the changeover of baseball. It had to happen sooner or later. It was really an aftermath of World War II where the black players, or as they were called in those days, the Negroes, fought for our side. They had to be recognized," said Kiner.
Baseball was fighting on two front in 1946. There was the threat of Pasquel signing big names and the players were no longer just happy to put on a big league baseball uniform. They wanted to share in the revenues.
Pittsburgh was the top target because it was a huge union city loaded with steelworkers. The very same steelworkers that Marvin Miller would join in 1950 as an associate director of research and in 1960 would become the Assistant to the President of the United Steelworkers of America.
"We had a vote, we were going to strike on the field and not play against the New York Giants. We had a vote whether or not we were going to unionize and the vote failed. We ended up playing that game. It took a long time to unionize.
In 1953, the pension plan became a hot topic again. Kiner and Allie Reynolds hired New York attorney J. Norman Lewis to represent the player's interests and Lewis went to work on gaining increases in player's pensions.
The players proposed increases from $50 to $80 a month for five year players and from $100 to $150 a month for 10 year players and that pension payments begin at 45 instead of the age of 50. The players also wanted to make sure that the pension plan was funded by the Baseball's Central Fund and that monies from radio, TV, gate receipts from the All-Star Game and World Series TV and Radio rights fees were funneled into the Central Fund.
An agreement between the players and owners was struck on February 16, 1954 with the players getting 60 percent of the monies generated from radio, TV, gate receipts from the All-Star Game and World Series TV and Radio rights fees were funneled into the Central Fund.
The players also asked for changes in winter ball regulations, the elimination of twi-night double headers, a hike in the minimum salary from $5,000 to $8,000 and that eight year players get the same benefits as 10 year veterans.
The owners upped the minimum salary to $6,000, gave the players $8 a day in meal money and provided moving expenses for traded players at other meetings.
Mexicans had a profound effect on Major League Baseball. If Selig and the 30 Major League Baseball owners do keep the 2011 All-Star Game in Phoenix, they should start an educational program about the history of Mexico and the United States baseball and civil rights relations and how the events in the late 1930s and the 1940s changed the game forever.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and lecturer on the "Politics of Sports Business." He is available for speaking engagements at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Monday, March 29, 2010
A three-league solution for the MLB
A three-league solution for the MLB
By Evan Weiner - The Daily Caller 03/29/10 at 1:20 AM
http://dailycaller.com/2010/03/29/a-three-league-solution-for-the-mlb/
The Major League Baseball season will be opening up shortly, and for baseball backers who follow the Pittsburgh Pirates or the Kansas City Royals, it figures to be yet another long season.
It’s been many years since Kansas City and Pittsburgh boosters have had something to cheer about in October, but at one time in the 1970s and 1980s, Kansas City had playoff teams and Pittsburgh had contenders in the early 1990s.
Pittsburgh lost Barry Bonds because the franchise simply did not have the money to keep him. Bonds ended up signing with the San Francisco Giants after the 1992 season when he received a six-year, $43.75 million offer from the Bay Area team. Kansas City’s failures stem more from not developing good players after the team’s championship run ended in 1985, although Kansas City still had some good teams into the 1990s because then-owner Ewing Kauffman opened his checkbook. After Kauffman died in 1993, the baseball team’s fortunes sunk with him.
Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, who himself was the owner of a struggling baseball team until he heard a higher call and took over as the owners’ top man, decided to ask some of the best minds in his industry to come up with plans to level the playing field.
The problem seems to be that the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox can just sign really good players to contracts that look more like telephone numbers, or they can bid for big-time Japanese players. New York and Boston have spent a lot of money and have been great teams; Boston has two championships in the past ten years; Philadelphia, is the best team (in theory) in the National League.
But the big money signings ruining the competitive balance argument has some flaws. Fred Wilpon’s New York Mets baseball club was awful in 2009 despite having a huge payroll, and Peter Angelos’ Baltimore Orioles won nothing in the past despite Angelos writing big checks to players.
Money is not the root of all evil in baseball, even if you believe the Red Sox CEO and President Larry Lucchino that the New York Yankees franchise is the “evil empire”.
Lucchino should not have spoken so quickly about his business partner. One of the Boston Red Sox’s properties is the Fenway Sports Group, and one of FSG’s clients is Dunkin’ Donuts. Guess which ad agency arranged a deal that featured Yankees pitcher Jaba Chamberlain in a Dunkin Donuts promotion?
Major League Baseball cannot split up the Yankees-Red Sox or there might be a whole new “Curse of the Bambino” on the industry.The Red Sox-Yankees rivalry is good for New York and Boston, for FOX, Turner Sports and ESPN. It is not good for people outside the northeast I-95 corridor, and that is something Selig wants to address.
Major League Baseball has had bad teams and bad franchises in the game since the start of the professional era in 1869. For some reason, neither the National nor the American League moved franchises around from 1903 to 1953. Team owners built their own stadiums.
The paradigm changed in March 1953, when Boston Braves owner Lou Perini moved his team to Milwaukee. Perini got a sweetheart deal from Milwaukee elected officials, who in 1950 decided to build a municipally funded baseball-football field to attract a Major League Baseball team and keep a portion of the Green Bay Packers home schedule in Milwaukee. Perini paid $1,000 in rent and got to keep concessions money, which got Walter O’Malley thinking about the future of his Brooklyn Dodgers. O’Malley felt the financially strong Dodgers franchise was going to fall behind Milwaukee, of all places, if he did not get a new stadium in Brooklyn.
O’Malley tested the waters in Jersey City, and his Dodgers played a handful of games west of the Hudson River hoping to get New York’s Mayor Robert Wagner and Robert Moses to listen to his plight. O’Malley took a deal in Los Angeles in 1957.
Financially struggling franchises followed Perini’s lead. O’Malley’s New York rival, Horace Stoneham, took his Giants to San Francisco in 1957 after taking a long look at Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Following the Tax Act of 1986, Major League Baseball found Fool’s Gold. The 1986 federal tax reform had a loophole that put a ceiling on how much revenue generated inside a municipally funded stadium or arena at eight percent, which meant owners could negotiate sweetheart contracts and pay players. New stadiums quickly came online and added revenues into the pockets of the owners but there was a problem.
It was a temporary fix for small market teams. The big boys would also get shiny new stadiums to increase revenue and baseball’s revenue sharing policies were not good to struggling owners in the 1990s. Cable TV became prominent and teams like the Yankees an Red Sox ended up owning the regional network cable TV stations that gave them even more money.
The big market owners who had astute decision-makers could pay top dollar for talent became dominant. Small market teams with limited money for payroll or signing young talent could succeed on occasion, but the success would be short lived. Once a player got to his sixth year, he could leave. Many did.
Exhibit A is the Florida Marlins franchise. Champions one year, rebuilding the next because the team could not afford to pay high prices for established talent.
One of the ideas floating around has teams shifting divisions. If Cleveland builds a good enough team to win the American League Central and get to the World Series (and that happened in 1997), Cleveland could stay in that division.
But if Cleveland is rotten and ownership is looking for extra home games against the Yankees, ownership can apply to switch divisions or trade places with, say, Toronto or Baltimore or Tampa Bay. Any one of those teams could pursue a switch if ownership feels that their team might be good enough to win the Central.
Central teams can move east or west, but movements are limited to just a two hour switch in time zones, which might be a problem for Detroit if Mike Ilitch wants to move his Tigers into the American League or National League West. Detroit, despite being a Central team, is on the eastern time zone clock.
Perhaps it is time for Major League Baseball to split into three leagues, the American League, National League and the Continental League with eight teams in the American League, eight in the National League and the other 14 in the Continental League. “Turn back the clock day” has been a good Major League promotion, so this one could be a good idea. In fact, it almost came to pass in 1960.
The Continental League of Professional Baseball Clubs was a brainchild of long time Baseball executive Branch Rickey. The man who signed Jackie Robinson to a contract with Brooklyn in 1946 and developed the farm system wanted to build a third major league after the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants relocated to California after the 1957 season. The plan in 1961 was for the Continental League to open the season with eight teams, Atlanta, Buffalo, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Denver, Houston, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York and Toronto. The league would eventually claim Major League status while building baseball squads. The league folded in August 1960 after baseball’s National League decided to expand into New York and Houston.
The American League would house eight financially viable markets that have major government support (publicly supported stadiums or stadiums that give owners land and substantial tax breaks and incentives) along with big cable TV dollars and large corporate support. The AL would have the Yankees and Red Sox along with the Chicago White Sox and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim as permanent members, sort of like the United Nations’ security council. Those four teams would stay in the AL unless they finish next to last or last.
Seattle has been profitable lately and would qualify for the league; Baltimore has a great TV deal and a sweetheart lease at Camden Yards, so it’s possible that Baltimore could be franchise number 6. Toronto with a huge market, Rogers Communications funding the enterprise and with Bay Street, the Canadian version of Wall Street, nearby should be franchise seven. Number eight is a toss-up between Detroit and Cleveland, with possibly the Texas Rangers because of the Dallas-Fort Worth or the Minnesota Twins, representing Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Six teams would be banished to the Continental League. Kansas City, Oakland, Tampa Bay are keepers. Cleveland or Detroit or Minnesota or Texas would be the fourth, fifth or sixth franchises.
Retaining a position in the American League would require that a team finishes better than sixth with the last two teams in the standings dropping to the Continental League and two former American League teams joining the league by qualifying for the CL playoffs. The 14-team CL would be split into two divisions, the American Conference and the National Conference.
The National League would also house eight financially viable markets with the same set of qualifications stemming from government backing, cable TV support and corporate financing. The NL would have the New York Mets, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and the Chicago Cubs as permanent members. St. Louis would be the fifth team; San Francisco would the sixth club. It is extremely hard to find the seventh and eighth teams to fill out the league although cases could be made for Washington and perhaps Denver.
The National Conference of the Continental League could include Arizona, Cincinnati, Colorado, Florida, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, San Diego and Washington. The same rules would apply; the two top finishers in the National Conference would replace the two bottom feeders in the National League.
The result would be better baseball. Even though all 30 teams would get the same amount of national and international TV monies, the Continental League teams would be competing against similar sized markets and there would be incentive to win for the owners, the chance to return to the American and National League and a chance to play in the World Series. For the eight teams in the American and National League, being banished to the Continental League would be embarrassing so there is more incentive to win to stay in the big market leagues because only American and National league teams can play in the World Series.
There would be a Continental League championship and that would give fans in cities like Kansas City and Pittsburgh some hope for their baseball teams. The Continental League idea is just an idea and perhaps as valid of teams trading divisions.
Selig wants changes but baseball history suggests there will be always bad teams with financial problems. It’s just the way it is.
Evan Weiner is a radio-TV commentator, author and a lecturer on “The Politics of Sports Business.”
By Evan Weiner - The Daily Caller 03/29/10 at 1:20 AM
http://dailycaller.com/2010/03/29/a-three-league-solution-for-the-mlb/
The Major League Baseball season will be opening up shortly, and for baseball backers who follow the Pittsburgh Pirates or the Kansas City Royals, it figures to be yet another long season.
It’s been many years since Kansas City and Pittsburgh boosters have had something to cheer about in October, but at one time in the 1970s and 1980s, Kansas City had playoff teams and Pittsburgh had contenders in the early 1990s.
Pittsburgh lost Barry Bonds because the franchise simply did not have the money to keep him. Bonds ended up signing with the San Francisco Giants after the 1992 season when he received a six-year, $43.75 million offer from the Bay Area team. Kansas City’s failures stem more from not developing good players after the team’s championship run ended in 1985, although Kansas City still had some good teams into the 1990s because then-owner Ewing Kauffman opened his checkbook. After Kauffman died in 1993, the baseball team’s fortunes sunk with him.
Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, who himself was the owner of a struggling baseball team until he heard a higher call and took over as the owners’ top man, decided to ask some of the best minds in his industry to come up with plans to level the playing field.
The problem seems to be that the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox can just sign really good players to contracts that look more like telephone numbers, or they can bid for big-time Japanese players. New York and Boston have spent a lot of money and have been great teams; Boston has two championships in the past ten years; Philadelphia, is the best team (in theory) in the National League.
But the big money signings ruining the competitive balance argument has some flaws. Fred Wilpon’s New York Mets baseball club was awful in 2009 despite having a huge payroll, and Peter Angelos’ Baltimore Orioles won nothing in the past despite Angelos writing big checks to players.
Money is not the root of all evil in baseball, even if you believe the Red Sox CEO and President Larry Lucchino that the New York Yankees franchise is the “evil empire”.
Lucchino should not have spoken so quickly about his business partner. One of the Boston Red Sox’s properties is the Fenway Sports Group, and one of FSG’s clients is Dunkin’ Donuts. Guess which ad agency arranged a deal that featured Yankees pitcher Jaba Chamberlain in a Dunkin Donuts promotion?
Major League Baseball cannot split up the Yankees-Red Sox or there might be a whole new “Curse of the Bambino” on the industry.The Red Sox-Yankees rivalry is good for New York and Boston, for FOX, Turner Sports and ESPN. It is not good for people outside the northeast I-95 corridor, and that is something Selig wants to address.
Major League Baseball has had bad teams and bad franchises in the game since the start of the professional era in 1869. For some reason, neither the National nor the American League moved franchises around from 1903 to 1953. Team owners built their own stadiums.
The paradigm changed in March 1953, when Boston Braves owner Lou Perini moved his team to Milwaukee. Perini got a sweetheart deal from Milwaukee elected officials, who in 1950 decided to build a municipally funded baseball-football field to attract a Major League Baseball team and keep a portion of the Green Bay Packers home schedule in Milwaukee. Perini paid $1,000 in rent and got to keep concessions money, which got Walter O’Malley thinking about the future of his Brooklyn Dodgers. O’Malley felt the financially strong Dodgers franchise was going to fall behind Milwaukee, of all places, if he did not get a new stadium in Brooklyn.
O’Malley tested the waters in Jersey City, and his Dodgers played a handful of games west of the Hudson River hoping to get New York’s Mayor Robert Wagner and Robert Moses to listen to his plight. O’Malley took a deal in Los Angeles in 1957.
Financially struggling franchises followed Perini’s lead. O’Malley’s New York rival, Horace Stoneham, took his Giants to San Francisco in 1957 after taking a long look at Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Following the Tax Act of 1986, Major League Baseball found Fool’s Gold. The 1986 federal tax reform had a loophole that put a ceiling on how much revenue generated inside a municipally funded stadium or arena at eight percent, which meant owners could negotiate sweetheart contracts and pay players. New stadiums quickly came online and added revenues into the pockets of the owners but there was a problem.
It was a temporary fix for small market teams. The big boys would also get shiny new stadiums to increase revenue and baseball’s revenue sharing policies were not good to struggling owners in the 1990s. Cable TV became prominent and teams like the Yankees an Red Sox ended up owning the regional network cable TV stations that gave them even more money.
The big market owners who had astute decision-makers could pay top dollar for talent became dominant. Small market teams with limited money for payroll or signing young talent could succeed on occasion, but the success would be short lived. Once a player got to his sixth year, he could leave. Many did.
Exhibit A is the Florida Marlins franchise. Champions one year, rebuilding the next because the team could not afford to pay high prices for established talent.
One of the ideas floating around has teams shifting divisions. If Cleveland builds a good enough team to win the American League Central and get to the World Series (and that happened in 1997), Cleveland could stay in that division.
But if Cleveland is rotten and ownership is looking for extra home games against the Yankees, ownership can apply to switch divisions or trade places with, say, Toronto or Baltimore or Tampa Bay. Any one of those teams could pursue a switch if ownership feels that their team might be good enough to win the Central.
Central teams can move east or west, but movements are limited to just a two hour switch in time zones, which might be a problem for Detroit if Mike Ilitch wants to move his Tigers into the American League or National League West. Detroit, despite being a Central team, is on the eastern time zone clock.
Perhaps it is time for Major League Baseball to split into three leagues, the American League, National League and the Continental League with eight teams in the American League, eight in the National League and the other 14 in the Continental League. “Turn back the clock day” has been a good Major League promotion, so this one could be a good idea. In fact, it almost came to pass in 1960.
The Continental League of Professional Baseball Clubs was a brainchild of long time Baseball executive Branch Rickey. The man who signed Jackie Robinson to a contract with Brooklyn in 1946 and developed the farm system wanted to build a third major league after the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants relocated to California after the 1957 season. The plan in 1961 was for the Continental League to open the season with eight teams, Atlanta, Buffalo, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Denver, Houston, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York and Toronto. The league would eventually claim Major League status while building baseball squads. The league folded in August 1960 after baseball’s National League decided to expand into New York and Houston.
The American League would house eight financially viable markets that have major government support (publicly supported stadiums or stadiums that give owners land and substantial tax breaks and incentives) along with big cable TV dollars and large corporate support. The AL would have the Yankees and Red Sox along with the Chicago White Sox and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim as permanent members, sort of like the United Nations’ security council. Those four teams would stay in the AL unless they finish next to last or last.
Seattle has been profitable lately and would qualify for the league; Baltimore has a great TV deal and a sweetheart lease at Camden Yards, so it’s possible that Baltimore could be franchise number 6. Toronto with a huge market, Rogers Communications funding the enterprise and with Bay Street, the Canadian version of Wall Street, nearby should be franchise seven. Number eight is a toss-up between Detroit and Cleveland, with possibly the Texas Rangers because of the Dallas-Fort Worth or the Minnesota Twins, representing Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Six teams would be banished to the Continental League. Kansas City, Oakland, Tampa Bay are keepers. Cleveland or Detroit or Minnesota or Texas would be the fourth, fifth or sixth franchises.
Retaining a position in the American League would require that a team finishes better than sixth with the last two teams in the standings dropping to the Continental League and two former American League teams joining the league by qualifying for the CL playoffs. The 14-team CL would be split into two divisions, the American Conference and the National Conference.
The National League would also house eight financially viable markets with the same set of qualifications stemming from government backing, cable TV support and corporate financing. The NL would have the New York Mets, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and the Chicago Cubs as permanent members. St. Louis would be the fifth team; San Francisco would the sixth club. It is extremely hard to find the seventh and eighth teams to fill out the league although cases could be made for Washington and perhaps Denver.
The National Conference of the Continental League could include Arizona, Cincinnati, Colorado, Florida, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, San Diego and Washington. The same rules would apply; the two top finishers in the National Conference would replace the two bottom feeders in the National League.
The result would be better baseball. Even though all 30 teams would get the same amount of national and international TV monies, the Continental League teams would be competing against similar sized markets and there would be incentive to win for the owners, the chance to return to the American and National League and a chance to play in the World Series. For the eight teams in the American and National League, being banished to the Continental League would be embarrassing so there is more incentive to win to stay in the big market leagues because only American and National league teams can play in the World Series.
There would be a Continental League championship and that would give fans in cities like Kansas City and Pittsburgh some hope for their baseball teams. The Continental League idea is just an idea and perhaps as valid of teams trading divisions.
Selig wants changes but baseball history suggests there will be always bad teams with financial problems. It’s just the way it is.
Evan Weiner is a radio-TV commentator, author and a lecturer on “The Politics of Sports Business.”
Friday, January 1, 2010
Do you know the way to San Jose?
Do you know the way to San Jose?
http://www.examiner.com/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m1d1-Do-you-know-the-way-to-San-Jose#
By Evan Weiner
January 1, 2010
(New York, N. Y.) --- To all those prognosticators, and you know who you are, who are trying to predict the top business sports stories of 2010, you have missed what is going to be the biggest fight. Oakland Athletics owner Lewis Wolff and the city of San Jose against the San Francisco Giants, the San Jose Giants, the city of San Francisco and Major League Baseball and the battle will center on the 1922 United States Supreme Court decision that gave the National League and the American League of baseball an antitrust exemption.
Wolff, whose lease with the Oakland Coliseum ends in 2013, would like to locate his baseball business in San Jose. Because of the 1922 Supreme Court decision that baseball was a game not a business, he has many hurdles to climb in his quest, hurdles that would not be there without the SCOTUS ruling.
A little background on this upcoming battle is necessary. In 1967, Kansas City Athletics owner Charles O. Finley decided that Oakland was his best destination after deciding that Kansas City would not support his baseball team and moved his franchise to the city that the writer Gertrude Stein once commented that “The trouble with Oakland is that when you get there, there isn’t any there there.”
Finley moved his team to an area that already had a major league baseball team, the San Francisco Giants, and agreed to an unwieldy deal that limited his ability to truly be a San Francisco Bay Area franchise as he agreed that the A’s territory was Oakland, Alameda County and Contra Costa County which is a relatively small area when examining the entire market. In 1967 neither San Jose nor Santa Clara County, California were considered major league areas but Santa Clara County became the headquarters of National Semiconductor that year and Intel moved there in 1970.
The Silicone Valley was born and all of a sudden a lot of people were not just singing “Do You Know Your Way to San Jose” because it was a hit song in 1968.
The Silicone Valley became a major money area.
Finley apparently was never enamored by Oakland and looked at moving his team to New Orleans in 1978 but he could not break his lease and actually sold the team to Marvin Davis who planned to take the team to Denver but again he could not break the lease. Finley subsequently sold his team to the Haas family in 1980. The Haas family sold the team to Stephen Schott and Ken Hoffman in 1995 and Wolff bought the team in 2005.
Wolff has been looking for a new facility virtually since his first days as A’s owner. He floated an idea of building a “Ballpark village” in a parcel of land next to the Oakland Coliseum and Arena parking lot but could not get Oakland officials to go along with the plan. He then went down I-880 and decided that Fremont, an area as close as he could get to San Jose without infringing on San Francisco Giants territory would be a perfect solution. That deal fell though.
Oakland would like to maintain the franchise, which at the present location is much closer to the San Francisco Giants corporate multi-named home field in China Basin than it would be in San Jose, but so far it appears that Wolff would like to travel into Giants territory and attempt to get a San Jose stadium.
Wolff has some options if he wants to go to San Jose. He can somehow convince the 75 percent of the other 29 baseball owners that it would be in their best interests if he could move to San Jose or he can challenge Major League Baseball’s antitrust exemption.
The San Francisco Giants ownership has territorial rights to an area where voters twice rejected the team’s request for public money to build a baseball park. Yet the Giants ownership has exclusive rights to the territory and will not cede anything to Wolff.
A San Jose group, with ties to the Single A level baseball team, the San Jose Giants of the California League – which is partially owned by the San Francisco Giants ownership—plans to fight any attempts to Wolff and San Jose officials to build a Major League state of the art baseball park in the city if taxpayers funding is used. That, of course, is a bit hypocritical by the San Francisco Giants ownership group because they know that San Francisco has provided every sort of tax break imaginable for their “privately” funded China Basin stadium.
The city of San Francisco is now getting into the fray as City Attorney Dennis Herrera has sent a threatening letter to Major League Baseball and Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig that urges baseball not to invade the Giants San Jose territory.
San Francisco has a privately funded baseball park, why is the city fighting a battle for a private business, the San Francisco Giants? That is rather easy to explain, the city of San Francisco has a major investment in the “privately” funded park. A 2008 Port of San Francisco Economic Impact Study will point this out immediately.
The Giants ballpark, which transferred monies spent at Candlestick Point when the Giants hosted 81 baseball games annually to China Basin, revitalized the area although the report did not point out the financial redistribution of money that left another part of the city, Candlestick Point behind.
“AT&T Park serves as an anchor use for the neighborhood, drawing visitors from throughout the City, region, and nation to shop and dine in South Beach. During its seven years of operation,
AT&T Park has had more than 25.4 million visitors. In 2007, attendance at Giants home games totaled 3.2 million people. AT&T Park held one of its largest events in 2007 when it hosted the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. Giants officials counted 128,322 attendees at official events, while the San Francisco Visitors & Convention Bureau estimated that 250,000 visitors came to the City for the event, contributing $60 to $65 million to the local economy.
In 2006, paid attendance to events other than Giants games totaled 153,434.
This increased activity has established a sense of vitality and a positive neighborhood identity in South Beach, contributing to strong real estate values in the area. In any given year between 2000 and 2006, the median price of condominium units in South Beach was 15 to 44 percent greater than
comparable units in San Francisco. In addition, residential rents in South Beach have consistently exceeded citywide rents since 2002. The difference in average rents between the two areas ranged from one to 11 percent between 2002 and 2006, with the gap growing every year since 2002.
Before 2002, South Beach and San Francisco apartments showed similar average rents, with a difference of only 1.2 to 1.7 percent.”
San Francisco is worried that the city would lose revenues generated by people coming up the 101 from San Jose and Santa Clara, which is why the city is joining the melee.
But there is something striking in the Port of San Francisco’s report, which covered the years between 2000 and 2007.
Fisherman’s Wharf blows away the economic engine that the baseball park allegedly generated.
“Fisherman’s Wharf consistently remains one of San Francisco’s primary tourist attractions. Approximately 12 million visitors come to Fisherman’s Wharf annually, with an average visitor age of 42 and household income of $80,000. The Fisherman’s Wharf Community Benefit District reports that 71 percent of visitors in 2006 were from outside of the Bay Area.
Pier 39, located in Fisherman’s Wharf on Port property has offered a wide variety of specialty retail and restaurants since 1978. Pier 39 now contains approximately 110 stores, 14 restaurants, and the Aquarium of the Bay. The average household income of visitors is roughly $100,000, which is 25 percent more than the average Fisherman’s Wharf visitor and 6.5 percent more than the average San Francisco visitor.
At the end of calendar year 2006, Pier 39 retail and attractions grossed $181 million, representing a $2 million increase from the previous year. Visitors tend to
spend $79 during their average 3.3 hours visit.”
Would San Francisco stop San Jose is somehow that city could replicate Fisherman’s Wharf?
Of course not.
San Francisco never stopped Monterey, California’s development and the city does compete with Lake Tahoe, which is about three and a half hours away by car.
Why is baseball such a treasured business? Why should the Giants business get preferential treatment?
Baseball is a complex business and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes had it wrong in 1922 even by 1922 baseball business standards.
The stage is being set right now and a fierce territorial battle may shape the future of baseball and determine whether or not San Jose can become the home of Lewis Wolff’s baseball team. Wolff has to decide whether he really wants to fight this war and the implications may be felt far beyond the Bay Area.
Selig and his Major League Baseball owners did allow Washington to house a franchise in 2005 despite the fact that it was Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos’ territory. Selig and MLB played around with cable TV rights to satisfy Angelos. The cable TV set up is different in the Bay Area with Comcast (and one of sports major movers in the United States Brian Roberts) fully in control of cable TV sports rights. The distance between Washington and Baltimore is nearly identical to San Francisco and San Jose.
This could be a battle that extends to Congress but would the former San Francisco Mayor, Senator Diane Feinstein along with her colleague Barbara Boxer and the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco want to get involved in the issue? Congress squawks about antitrust issues in sports but does nothing to correct inequities.
If Wolff wins his battle, what is to stop another owner from pursuing a team in the New York City market? Once upon a time there were three New York teams, the Yankees, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Giants. There is still a huge, huge cable TV contract that is available in New York, which is bigger than a number of markets put together, and New Jersey has had eyes on a Major League Baseball team for years.
The antitrust exemption has kept a third team out of the New York marketplace and is preventing San Jose from making an offer to Wolff.
Wolff isn’t the only one who is asking do you know the way to San Jose? The San Francisco 49ers ownership is looking at Santa Clara as a new home and if that fails, the York family may disregard Gertrude Stein’s warning about Oakland. Oakland is a fallback for the Yorks if Santa Clara doesn’t materialize for them.
That story may be the second biggest in sports in 2010 but that is an issue for another day.
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
http://www.examiner.com/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m1d1-Do-you-know-the-way-to-San-Jose#
By Evan Weiner
January 1, 2010
(New York, N. Y.) --- To all those prognosticators, and you know who you are, who are trying to predict the top business sports stories of 2010, you have missed what is going to be the biggest fight. Oakland Athletics owner Lewis Wolff and the city of San Jose against the San Francisco Giants, the San Jose Giants, the city of San Francisco and Major League Baseball and the battle will center on the 1922 United States Supreme Court decision that gave the National League and the American League of baseball an antitrust exemption.
Wolff, whose lease with the Oakland Coliseum ends in 2013, would like to locate his baseball business in San Jose. Because of the 1922 Supreme Court decision that baseball was a game not a business, he has many hurdles to climb in his quest, hurdles that would not be there without the SCOTUS ruling.
A little background on this upcoming battle is necessary. In 1967, Kansas City Athletics owner Charles O. Finley decided that Oakland was his best destination after deciding that Kansas City would not support his baseball team and moved his franchise to the city that the writer Gertrude Stein once commented that “The trouble with Oakland is that when you get there, there isn’t any there there.”
Finley moved his team to an area that already had a major league baseball team, the San Francisco Giants, and agreed to an unwieldy deal that limited his ability to truly be a San Francisco Bay Area franchise as he agreed that the A’s territory was Oakland, Alameda County and Contra Costa County which is a relatively small area when examining the entire market. In 1967 neither San Jose nor Santa Clara County, California were considered major league areas but Santa Clara County became the headquarters of National Semiconductor that year and Intel moved there in 1970.
The Silicone Valley was born and all of a sudden a lot of people were not just singing “Do You Know Your Way to San Jose” because it was a hit song in 1968.
The Silicone Valley became a major money area.
Finley apparently was never enamored by Oakland and looked at moving his team to New Orleans in 1978 but he could not break his lease and actually sold the team to Marvin Davis who planned to take the team to Denver but again he could not break the lease. Finley subsequently sold his team to the Haas family in 1980. The Haas family sold the team to Stephen Schott and Ken Hoffman in 1995 and Wolff bought the team in 2005.
Wolff has been looking for a new facility virtually since his first days as A’s owner. He floated an idea of building a “Ballpark village” in a parcel of land next to the Oakland Coliseum and Arena parking lot but could not get Oakland officials to go along with the plan. He then went down I-880 and decided that Fremont, an area as close as he could get to San Jose without infringing on San Francisco Giants territory would be a perfect solution. That deal fell though.
Oakland would like to maintain the franchise, which at the present location is much closer to the San Francisco Giants corporate multi-named home field in China Basin than it would be in San Jose, but so far it appears that Wolff would like to travel into Giants territory and attempt to get a San Jose stadium.
Wolff has some options if he wants to go to San Jose. He can somehow convince the 75 percent of the other 29 baseball owners that it would be in their best interests if he could move to San Jose or he can challenge Major League Baseball’s antitrust exemption.
The San Francisco Giants ownership has territorial rights to an area where voters twice rejected the team’s request for public money to build a baseball park. Yet the Giants ownership has exclusive rights to the territory and will not cede anything to Wolff.
A San Jose group, with ties to the Single A level baseball team, the San Jose Giants of the California League – which is partially owned by the San Francisco Giants ownership—plans to fight any attempts to Wolff and San Jose officials to build a Major League state of the art baseball park in the city if taxpayers funding is used. That, of course, is a bit hypocritical by the San Francisco Giants ownership group because they know that San Francisco has provided every sort of tax break imaginable for their “privately” funded China Basin stadium.
The city of San Francisco is now getting into the fray as City Attorney Dennis Herrera has sent a threatening letter to Major League Baseball and Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig that urges baseball not to invade the Giants San Jose territory.
San Francisco has a privately funded baseball park, why is the city fighting a battle for a private business, the San Francisco Giants? That is rather easy to explain, the city of San Francisco has a major investment in the “privately” funded park. A 2008 Port of San Francisco Economic Impact Study will point this out immediately.
The Giants ballpark, which transferred monies spent at Candlestick Point when the Giants hosted 81 baseball games annually to China Basin, revitalized the area although the report did not point out the financial redistribution of money that left another part of the city, Candlestick Point behind.
“AT&T Park serves as an anchor use for the neighborhood, drawing visitors from throughout the City, region, and nation to shop and dine in South Beach. During its seven years of operation,
AT&T Park has had more than 25.4 million visitors. In 2007, attendance at Giants home games totaled 3.2 million people. AT&T Park held one of its largest events in 2007 when it hosted the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. Giants officials counted 128,322 attendees at official events, while the San Francisco Visitors & Convention Bureau estimated that 250,000 visitors came to the City for the event, contributing $60 to $65 million to the local economy.
In 2006, paid attendance to events other than Giants games totaled 153,434.
This increased activity has established a sense of vitality and a positive neighborhood identity in South Beach, contributing to strong real estate values in the area. In any given year between 2000 and 2006, the median price of condominium units in South Beach was 15 to 44 percent greater than
comparable units in San Francisco. In addition, residential rents in South Beach have consistently exceeded citywide rents since 2002. The difference in average rents between the two areas ranged from one to 11 percent between 2002 and 2006, with the gap growing every year since 2002.
Before 2002, South Beach and San Francisco apartments showed similar average rents, with a difference of only 1.2 to 1.7 percent.”
San Francisco is worried that the city would lose revenues generated by people coming up the 101 from San Jose and Santa Clara, which is why the city is joining the melee.
But there is something striking in the Port of San Francisco’s report, which covered the years between 2000 and 2007.
Fisherman’s Wharf blows away the economic engine that the baseball park allegedly generated.
“Fisherman’s Wharf consistently remains one of San Francisco’s primary tourist attractions. Approximately 12 million visitors come to Fisherman’s Wharf annually, with an average visitor age of 42 and household income of $80,000. The Fisherman’s Wharf Community Benefit District reports that 71 percent of visitors in 2006 were from outside of the Bay Area.
Pier 39, located in Fisherman’s Wharf on Port property has offered a wide variety of specialty retail and restaurants since 1978. Pier 39 now contains approximately 110 stores, 14 restaurants, and the Aquarium of the Bay. The average household income of visitors is roughly $100,000, which is 25 percent more than the average Fisherman’s Wharf visitor and 6.5 percent more than the average San Francisco visitor.
At the end of calendar year 2006, Pier 39 retail and attractions grossed $181 million, representing a $2 million increase from the previous year. Visitors tend to
spend $79 during their average 3.3 hours visit.”
Would San Francisco stop San Jose is somehow that city could replicate Fisherman’s Wharf?
Of course not.
San Francisco never stopped Monterey, California’s development and the city does compete with Lake Tahoe, which is about three and a half hours away by car.
Why is baseball such a treasured business? Why should the Giants business get preferential treatment?
Baseball is a complex business and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes had it wrong in 1922 even by 1922 baseball business standards.
The stage is being set right now and a fierce territorial battle may shape the future of baseball and determine whether or not San Jose can become the home of Lewis Wolff’s baseball team. Wolff has to decide whether he really wants to fight this war and the implications may be felt far beyond the Bay Area.
Selig and his Major League Baseball owners did allow Washington to house a franchise in 2005 despite the fact that it was Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos’ territory. Selig and MLB played around with cable TV rights to satisfy Angelos. The cable TV set up is different in the Bay Area with Comcast (and one of sports major movers in the United States Brian Roberts) fully in control of cable TV sports rights. The distance between Washington and Baltimore is nearly identical to San Francisco and San Jose.
This could be a battle that extends to Congress but would the former San Francisco Mayor, Senator Diane Feinstein along with her colleague Barbara Boxer and the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco want to get involved in the issue? Congress squawks about antitrust issues in sports but does nothing to correct inequities.
If Wolff wins his battle, what is to stop another owner from pursuing a team in the New York City market? Once upon a time there were three New York teams, the Yankees, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Giants. There is still a huge, huge cable TV contract that is available in New York, which is bigger than a number of markets put together, and New Jersey has had eyes on a Major League Baseball team for years.
The antitrust exemption has kept a third team out of the New York marketplace and is preventing San Jose from making an offer to Wolff.
Wolff isn’t the only one who is asking do you know the way to San Jose? The San Francisco 49ers ownership is looking at Santa Clara as a new home and if that fails, the York family may disregard Gertrude Stein’s warning about Oakland. Oakland is a fallback for the Yorks if Santa Clara doesn’t materialize for them.
That story may be the second biggest in sports in 2010 but that is an issue for another day.
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
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