MLB in Sac post-A’s?
- Thread starter Warhawk
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Sacramento gonna build Portland's ball park lol.
Tetsujin
The Game Thread Dude
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on the plus side, Portland can use that imaginary ball park money to pay for Dundon’s new Blazer arena!
I'm convinced the baseball people here are a real estate grift. They have been buying low and selling high on various plots throughout the metro. The waterfront site they have the option on right now is right smack dab on university hospital operations territory, nextdoor to classrooms and a major research building, and on the other side there is patient space. I think the real plan is to get far enough they force the university to intervene and buy the land to keep it from moving forward.
tbf to the Diamond Project people, my alma mater bought up most of the land near Fenway Park and we can all agree that's going nowhere, so maybe there is a world they can coexist I just am not sure it's that location.
Can report that @Warhawk and I were at the press conference in person today. The energy is right and funding is there. I love being out in front of things, with an entire network in place and shovel-ready land secured before MLB has even announced an expansion bid process. I don't know whether MLB sees Sacramento as viable, but in terms of market size, particularly with the A's moving to Vegas, we should definitely be in play.
Get out there and put butts in seats at A's games so we can prove to MLB that the region can support an expansion team!
Get out there and put butts in seats at A's games so we can prove to MLB that the region can support an expansion team!
Can they actually build the pretty park facing the bridge and how proximate will it really be to the water?
Tetsujin
The Game Thread Dude
If I’m not mistaken the location of the new park would be directly next to the current one so just imagine the views from Sutter Health Park just a couple of acres further south.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that the bridge would be in the skyline behind the park, simply for aesthetic reasons.
Any architectural plans at this point are just rough sketches. They're still not sure whether they would rebuild at the current Sutter Health Park location or if they would build just to the south and then presumably tear down the old park and replace with the standard "mixed use residential" that now typically surrounds urban sports builds. Apparently they still need to bring in the prime investor (i.e. whoever would pay the expansion fee and own the team) and that investor would have a lot of say over exact details.
It's not actually clear to me if an MLB team would completely displace the RiverCats, but it seems likely. Right now the only metros that have both MLB and AAA are Seattle (Tacoma has a AAA team), Minneapolis (St. Paul), and Houston (Sugar Land) - there are a few more that are about 30 miles out from a major league team, and Vegas has AAA right now without the MLB just yet. But I wouldn't be terribly surprised if the RiverCats ended up getting bumped to Stockton or something if that West Sac plot gets an MLB team.
While this would definitively slam the door shut on MLB ever returning to Oakland (most likely) which I hate -- I do support any venture which has part ownership with the local tribe(s). If John Fisher somehow gets forced out and it's the A's staying in Sacramento long-term, that would be one way to lure me back as a MLB fan again. If it's an expansion team, I'll have to wait and see. Either way, I think this would be a good thing for the cities of Sacramento and West Sacramento.
The one thing that makes me a bit leery of a Texas group is the idea that once buying a Sac team they might get it in their head to move it to Texas. With San Antonio and Austin both being large enough to also potentially support a baseball team there's at least that tiny worry that this is the way to get another city to do all the hard work and then just build a stadium and run.
100-year-lease contract! That'll do it for me!
If the funding for the stadium is being supplied locally, I'm sure there will be a no relocation clause in the contracts. They might just see this as a way to get in the club so to speak for the next time a team is available for sale. Minority owners selling their stake to become majority owners in another city appears to be somewhat common. That's what Vivek (Warriors) did with the Kings and John Fisher (Giants) with the A's.
Tetsujin
The Game Thread Dude
Fisher’s a weird case because when he first bought into the A’s he was a “silent” partner with Lew Wolff (also a cheapskate who was trying to move the A’s but still somehow better than John Fisher because the place he was trying to move them to was still at least within the same geographical region as Oakland and/or a weird plan that was never going to work in Fremont). Unlike most of the guys buying into teams these days, he’s a complete and total nepobaby who has done nothing but spend/lose the money his parents made while his slightly less dumb brothers at least try to run the family business to a degree.
Oh my god typing this all out I just realized John Fisher is pretty much living the life of a Maloof Brother
The Crown Downtown folks that helped with the Kings arena effort showed up today as RBI (again led by Mike Tavares) to support this event.
It was great to see everyone out there, including @Capt. Factorial !
It was great to see everyone out there, including @Capt. Factorial !
QWERTYLICIOUS
Starter
IF (not gonna count my chickens before they hatch just yet) Sacramento gets an expansion team, I am going to be left with the extremely difficult decision of shifting my allegiance to the local/home team, or keeping it out in the bay.
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Talk to Mike. Not sure what shipping to Japan would cost though…Gonna need someone to send me a shirt and hat since I couldn’t be there in person this time around
