A's coming to Sacramento?

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Mayor Johnson drops the 'A's' word -- as in Sacramento A's
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By Ryan Lillis
rlillis@sacbee.com
Published: Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2009 - 4:34 pm
Last Modified: Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2009 - 4:58 pm

It may not have been former Mayor Joe Serna Jr. donning a green and yellow cap and boasting he would bring Major League Baseball to Sacramento, but the timing of Mayor Kevin Johnson's invitation today to the Oakland A's has people wondering.

It was the A's, after all, who declared just Tuesday that they were ditching their plans to build a stadium in Fremont. And it was A's owner Lew Wolff who said in a statement that it was his goal to keep the team "in Northern California."

Johnson said he hasn't spoken with the A's this week, and a team spokesman said Wednesday that management was "regrouping" in the wake of the Fremont plan's demise. Still, Johnson - in his first State of the City speech - said that if the Kings leave, Sacramento could look down the road for a new major league franchise.

"If they leave for some strange reason, then we need to get somebody else in Sacramento," he said. "I don't care if it's the Oakland A's, I don't care if it's the Golden State Warriors. We have to have a franchise, a top-notch, world-class franchise in our city because it helps elevate the profile of our city."

After his speech, the mayor said he has "not personally had any conversations" with the A's about moving 80 miles up the freeway.

"What I was trying to say is we're not going to sit on our hands, we're going to explore every opportunity," he said. "I don't want to be a city where after something happens we say 'Oh, we should have reacted.' We're going to anticipate, we're going to call, we're going to do everything everybody else is.

"Not that we can deliver on everything, but we're going to put ourselves into a position and let people know we're interested."

Johnson said his focus is on the Kings and a proposal to build a new arena at Cal Expo. That plan will be unveiled on Friday.

"Let's do everything that we can do to get an arena built somewhere," he said. "And if that arena can be built at Cal Expo, great."

Building a baseball stadium was the shocking moment of Serna's State of the City speech in 1996. He announced plans to start a regional stadium authority and declared, "It is time to play ball."

More than a decade later, Sacramento could now be on the short list of cities with a realistic shot of landing the A's, said Roger Noll, a Stanford sports economist.

"It seems to me that Sacramento probably is in the hunt," Noll said. "It doesn't mean they're going to win, but if the A's decide to leave the Bay Area, Sacramento could be an option."

Sacramento has one thing going for it that other cities believed to be in the hunt - cities like San Jose, Portland, San Antonio and Las Vegas - do not, Noll said: It has a baseball stadium that could be expanded to suit a major league team.

West Sacramento officials have said that the possibility - however remote - of Raley Field expanding was something that was built into stadium plans and surrounding street designs.

"The political battle of getting a stadium built has already happened and that gives you a huge leg up," Noll said.

The Sacramento region is also on par with the small market major league baseball cities in terms of its population, Noll said.

Of course, Noll also said Sacramento lacks a vital segment that attracts major league baseball: large corporations that eat up luxury boxes.

Noll doesn't expect the A's to make a decision about the organization's future until at least next year. But he likes Sacramento's chances.

"If Sacramento actually wanted the team and went after it, it would have a shot," he said.

http://www.sacbee.com/sports/story/1653977.html

I don't have a link, I just copied and pasted from another forum. It's legit though.

NOTE: I added the link because we do NOT allow articles to be posted without them. - VF21
 
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I honestly think this is the best place for the A's. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
 
I've never really been into baseball but with a team representing me in a why i might try to get into it. The only reason id disagree with bringing the A's here is the Oakland fans. I wouldn't wan't to take them away like our Kings might be.
 
Love to have the A's potentially in my backyard but I personally think the best place for the A's is (in order of importance) 1. Oakland, 2. San Jose/Santa Clara County 3. Sacramento.

I'm not sure what Wolff's ultimate plan is, but I just don't see him setting his sights here unless he can get the development area he wants to go along with a ballpark ala his "village" concept for the two Fremont sites. That development was AFAIC the only reason he was going to kick in the more money for the ballpark because he's a real estate developer. If his only viable option is to expand Raley Field, I'm not sure he's all that interested.

I also look at how hard it was for the A's to land a radio deal here. Maybe that problem goes off the table if the Kings/Monarchs leave and they have KHTK looking for sports programming.

I'd like Mayor Johnson to ensure the Kings/Monarchs stay here before he starts looking at alternative pro sports tho. If they think the corporate base here can support it better than the east bay does/did, bless their hearts.
 
I think it's a mistake to bring up the idea of the A's in Sacramento days before the the Cal Expo presentation. This hurts any momentum you would want to generate for the Kings' proposal. Why worry about the Kings in Sacramento when the A's may come here? It's just counter productive to be looking at a Kings-less Sacramento and throwing out the idea that we could just go after another team.

However I'd love to have the A's here. Always been more a casual SF fan, but would jump ship to support the hometown team.

I also think a MLB stadium would be an easier sell here in Sacramento. Baseball has a lot of positive connotations that would fit here in Sac.

Stealing the A's and the Kings wanting a new arena will compete with each other.
 
I honestly think we can have both teams no problem. Sure Raley Field needs to be expanded but at least theres something to work off of and not start from scratch. A good number of people go watch the River Cats so I think have a major league team would have no problem filling seats.
 
The price of a ticket to an A's game compared to the price of a ticket to a Rivercats game is the key difference.

Is there a corporate base here large enough to support two pro franchises? That's another key consideration. The Maloofs claim it's too small for one.
 
A while back in the Bee there was an article about A's and Raley field. The ownership of the River Cats said Raley's field cannot be remodeled into a MLB-satisfactory park. They would need to add a second tier and the foundation put in won't support that, nor is it possible to make the other necessary changes. It was designed for minor league baseball, period.

I'll guarantee the owners of the River Cats don't want the A's coming in here, because it and would ruin that team, and the City of West Sacramento would be screwed. Beautiful new baseball stadium with no team, because the River Cats would probably have to move.
 
Then again, if the Kings move to the Cal Expo site that opens up a pretty big plot of land off I-80 where the soon to be defunct Arco Arena currently sits. I believe there's still a rudimentary baseball stadium foundation rotting away there anyway.

I'm with Monty though. The A's should stay in Oakland because that's where their history is. If that continues to be impossible, San Jose is the next best option. It's close enough that their current fanbase won't be totally displaced and the economy in San Jose is much stronger than in Sacramento. I can see Sacramento supporting two franchises at some point in the future, but not right now.
 
As much as I'd love to have A's in Sac, it's too small for two franchises. In fact, it's even small for one. If A's want to move out, then they should have move to San Jose. The economy in San Jose is much stronger than in Sac like hrdboild said.
 
I'd echo these sentiments. As much as I wanted a big league team in Sacramento growing up, I'd much rather have the Kings and River Cats than just the A's. And since I went to college in the Bay Area, I've grown more attached to the A's staying down there. If it's between the A's moving to some other state (or SoCal, which might as well be another state) or Sac, then that's a no brainer. But I'm not sure Sacramento and the A's are a good fit right now.
 
A while back in the Bee there was an article about A's and Raley field. The ownership of the River Cats said Raley's field cannot be remodeled into a MLB-satisfactory park. They would need to add a second tier and the foundation put in won't support that, nor is it possible to make the other necessary changes. It was designed for minor league baseball, period.

Wait a minute...WHAT!?!? Didn't they sell Raley Field as being expandable for MLB when they built it? Or was it just expandable period? I could have sworn they kept blabbering on that they could put a second deck on it and build some additional seating to increase the capacity to the low 40K. Did they change that during the construction and decide not to get it structurally ready for it?

I guess that's why Johnson is talking about MLB and not the West Sac mayor. But I'm officially confused now as to why Raley can't be expanded nonetheless (in addition to being opposed to the A's moving here).
 
Wait a minute...WHAT!?!? Didn't they sell Raley Field as being expandable for MLB when they built it? Or was it just expandable period? I could have sworn they kept blabbering on that they could put a second deck on it and build some additional seating to increase the capacity to the low 40K. Did they change that during the construction and decide not to get it structurally ready for it?

I guess that's why Johnson is talking about MLB and not the West Sac mayor. But I'm officially confused now as to why Raley can't be expanded nonetheless (in addition to being opposed to the A's moving here).
Nope, it wasn't that long ago that I read that from the River Cats owner. Said it was not possible to convert Raley Field to a MLB stadium. I'll try and find it, but can't right now.
 
You know what? Everything I can find now says the field is expandable. I swear the Bee had something different, but I can't find it. So I'll retract my statement, unless I can actually find that article. :o
 
yeah, I'm seeing that too along with a dollar figure of 300 mil to do it. I also see that somebody talked with a Bee reporter who said it can't be done but no link to an article or the reporter so it's likely that turned into a story :)
 
I would still guess that the owner of the River Cats would not be thrilled to be forced to move the team and build a new stadium somewhere else.
 
I'd also suspect that what they figured was possible back then and what would be state of the art (or whatever would be necessary to entice a MLB franchise) back when it was built and what would be state of the art now is different and that's where it becomes unlikely. Well, that and finding the $300 million (plus) dollars to actually expand it is impossible right now.

I'm curious to read the old stories about what they envisioned for the development around Raley Field back in the day and what they thought they could do to prep for a major league team and where that seemed to go recently.
 
Yes, I do think that there is a difference in what they'd have to do to Raley's Field to make it state-of-the-art for today's MLB, compared to when it was built. Besides construction cost, they'd also have to add in the cost of buying the existing stadium and some kind of compensation to the owner of the River Cats. An expensive deal.
 
I always thought West Sac should have been at least considered for an arena. There's all that space next to Raley field, and if we cant have an arena overlooking the river on the Sacramento side, why not on the Yolo side? But I guess it's Cal Expo or bust, for now.