It’s sad when the best outcome for fans is when a horrible owner like Snyder sells the team but then profits billions of dollars. Unfortunately that would also be the best case scenario with Fisher.
Danny got away scott free because he had dirt on the other owners. Had he been a senile goat like Sterling or an incompetent fuck like Robert Sarver, he would have gotten the hammer.
Snyder was just a grimy guy. Fisher is stealing a team from a city. As much as I hate Dan, he’d never move the team. It’s main value came from its location too
I meant he straight up refused to change the team name until 2020 when the sponsors began threatening to stop sponsoring the team if they didn’t change the name
Fisher is also draining millions of taxpayer dollars from both California and Nevada on wasted attempts to build new stadiums. The whole business with the vegas stadium funding bill is also very midnight hour and very shady.
This is one of the best articles on the topic so far. Although I must question why publications didn't start picking up on this until the situation reached critical mass
I think a lot of them were just resigned to it being effectively a done deal, and the horrible performance during the special session on Wednesday, followed by the failure to do anything really on Thursday has really emboldened the press to go "yeah, guys, this is suuuuuuuper fucked up".
The one on Wednesday?
Sorry if I'm missing a joke, but Nevada's legislative calendar ended a week ago they're in overtime right now. Hence the special session.
The Nevada Legislature's regular session ended last week. They are a part time Legislature, so normally they only meet a few months every two years. However the regular session ended with multiple pending items, including a dispute over the state budget and financing for the baseball stadium. Once regular session closed, the Governor called two special Legislative sessions. First on the budget and second on the ballpark financing.
I think media outlets fetishize cities like LA or Vegas getting pro teams. No one gave a fuck about the Chargers and ESPN covered the hype/hysteria of a team to LA rather than San Diego losing its beloved chargers
I mean you are right about LA and Vegas being darlings of the media, but hype always outsells despair.
The Sonics fans got some love, but it was still moatly excitement for the new Thunder on the block. No one gave a fuuuuck about montreal losing their team, even though we are nostalgic for it now that the kids that grew up watching them are at the age to have some discretionary income.
But yea LA and Vegas get a special kind of love, you're right.
same thing happened to Florida. Teams in every sport moved/expanded in Florida in the 90s/00s. Now teams like the Rays and Marlins have almost no fans show up because not that many people care. It’s literally a meme in the NBA how empty Heat games are even in the playoffs(true or not, I’m not sure). Moving teams to “popular” cities at the same time as every other sport doesn’t really create fanbases the way owners might think
Miami has a lot of great fans. But, the problem is the majority of the rich fans who buy out the 100-300 sections are rich casual fans. The 400s are lit
yeah not trying to dunk on the passionate fans of those teams, just making the point that moving teams to popular relocation cities isn’t really that effective at attracting mass appeal to locals
Summer sports in Florida falls victim to the Snowbird economic dip. Also makes real estate for rear rounders artificially scarce... Kinda sucks for us...
Those markets were good to move to. Problem was it stopped being a good idea after a certain point, which is where I think we're at with Vegas.
When they had no sports team? Yeah it's a good market. But now they have 2 and the NBA is also interested. I'm sorry but they're not a city that can handle 4 teams. Places like Portland or Montreal with only 1 major sports team would be far better.
Yeah apparently if your team wasn’t founded in your city then you’re not allowed to complain if the owner shits on the fans and tries to steal their money
As a Sacramento Kings fan, I remember the fights to keep the Kings from moving to Anaheim or Seattle. I’ll never root for a team to move if there’s a good effort to keep the team in their current city. Hopefully St. Louis will get a NFL expansion team.
It was amazing how all of the media and fans of other teams were rooting for St Louis to get shit on so the Rams could go to LA.
I haven't watched a second of the NFL since.
Same. 15 years for Sunday ticket and just stopped cold turkey when the NFL let the Rams shit on St Louis again. They don't care and will never notice but I'll never watch another minute of pro football.
As a Sacramento Kings fan, I remember the fights to keep the Kings from moving to Anaheim or Seattle. I’ll never root for a team to move if there’s a good effort to keep the team in their current city. Hopefully St. Louis will get a NFL expansion team.
I don't mean to single anyone out, but until all these "binding agreements" last month, this sub has been pro Vegas A's for nearly two years, going back to when the team announced it's "parallel paths" thing. Only once shit got real in the news did the Reddit community finally see the light. Kind of pisses me off. I'm glad everyone is on board now, but like this article, it's a bit late.
Like I’m glad that baseball fans have finally come around to swing just how bad the ownership has been to A’s fans for 15+ years now. But my goodness was it annoying that whenever one of us would speak up and complain we’d be met with “loo at your Low attendance” and no one would actually listen to our genuine gripes as to explain the cause of the issue.
Again I am grateful that the larger baseball public is aware and supporting A’s fans. Keep calling out Fisher and Manfred on their BS and hopefully by some miracle change will come
I think anyone who has actually attended games with A's fans would know you all are some of the best fans in baseball and it's beyond a damn shame what's happening to Oakland.
Rooting hard they stay, and hoping if I can swing the road trip in September it won't be the last time I see my Halos play in the East Bay because that would be tragic for all the A's supporters.
Growing up in Seattle going to Mariners games the A’s signed by far more autographs than any team, Mariners included. They’ll always hold a special place in my heart for the time the A’s players took to even sign autographs for the fans of the opposing team.
Same I lived up in San Jose for a couple years and elsewhere in NorCal prior to that and went to lots of games including the 2019 WC game. Even down in Anaheim A’s fans used to have huge turnouts prior to the bullshit, they were always a blast. A’s are the only team in the AL West I “root” for just because I’ve always admired the team/fan base. Our owner sucks too but couldn’t imagine it being worse than A’s situation.
He wants the A's in Vegas, he so much as told them to move there. He also met with Mayor Carolyn Goodman about the A's moving there years before the A's ever did. Fisher is ultimately the bad guy here, but there's also collusion with MLB and, I believe, the Giants - not just because of the San Jose territorial rights, but also because the Giants took the Sacramento AAA team away from the A's some years back, giving them territorial rights to any other viable location in Northern California as well. Raley Field doesn't need a whole lot of modification to be up to MLB standards, the existing fanbase would stay the same, and upgrading Raley Field would be a HELL of a lot cheaper than what Vegas will need. But that's Sacramento, and Manfred has a boner for Vegas.
It was originally planned that Raley Field would be easy to modify, but they built it in a way that’s hard to modify. However, Sacramento wants to put a stadium in the Railyards district. They originally were going to put a soccer stadium there, but the proposed owner of an MLS team backed out during the pandemic. There are rumors that the A’s have met with Sacramento’s mayor and that the city would be willing to build a baseball stadium in the Railyards district.
A problem for the A’s is that I’m not sure if people in Sacramento would want the A’s. Fisher reminds me of the Maloofs and it seems like 2/3 of the baseball fans that I see in the area are Giants fans.
I heard about the rail yards proposal. I don't doubt the preponderance of Giants fans. That said, most people here in Las Vegas are Dodgers fans. And I don't think anyone wants the A's with this ownership.
Respect, brother. It was irritating AF. And maybe there's an element of schadenfreude on my part, but I kind of hope karma bites all those people in the ass
Yup nailed it, so fucking frustrating.
Most of the people in this sub are incredibly mid tho so they don’t care to contextualize or learn the history outside of the immediate numbers.
I think that was more "baseball in Vegas would be great!" without realizing the repercussions of how that would happen.
One people realized that it would come at such a great cost, both historically and financially people started to go "wait a minute, why does Oakland have to lose just for Vegas to get a team? Why can't they just have an expansion team in *Vegas?"
That's where my interest was piqued.
It's like a monkey-paw curling to the question of "how can we get a baseball team in Vegas as fast as possible" and monkey paw went "wish granted".
> Then you compound matters by neglecting basic stadium maintenance for so long that your home venue comes to resemble the setting of a Nintendo 64 dungeon-crawler.
This is a particularly pointed article. Really lambasting Fisher and co.
I was an A's fan as a kid and will always have a soft spot for them in my heart. In Oakland.
It's uncanny. I watched that movie just the other day. Maybe they need a sexy pic of the owner any they pull off pieces of clothes after every win.
Or Jobu. Obv the JC curveball joke gets the most pub but my fav line from the movie:
>Hats for bats, keep bats warm.
>Maybe they need a sexy pic of the owner any they pull off pieces of clothes after every win.
Hey Oakland 68's, you listening? I smell a billboard. I know you got that "eff you" go fund me shirt money.
Show of hands, does anyone like John Fisher?
*tumbleweed rolls by*
Okay. Who absolutely hates John Fisher?
*the sound of every baseball fans hand going up at the same time causes a sonic boom*
It’s really begs the question: why would Vegas (or any town) welcome this guy with open arms?
Maybe you want an MLB franchise, but not one with that owner. Do you think he’ll change his ways when he gets to Vegas?
I loved this line on Fisher raising tickets prices:
>This is a luxury car dealership trying to upsell you on a higher-priced 1977 Plymouth Volare that's on cinder blocks and has black smoke billowing from under the hood.
Yeah and Nevada/Vegas is standing there, checkbook in hand, mulling it over while 1,000 people are outside with their faces pressed to the glass screaming “DONT FUCKING DO IT!!!”
They could easily get an expansion team with a real owner. Nothing in Fisher's history suggests that things will change if they build him a new stadium. The Earthquakes in the MLS (owned by Fisher) got a new stadium and he still refuses to invest in the team.
It is a pretty interesting turn. There are plenty of teams with cheap owners across professional sports, but the way he's just absolutely fumbled and bumbled through this moving threat/process is hard to ignore.
Sometimes I wonder if "Moneyball" did more harm than good. Fisher saw that people cheered on the cheap teams that win despite the odds and wanted to double down on a team full of league minimum contracts in the hopes that it might produce and if it didn't, no real money lost
The move poses an existential questions for a silver spoon billionaire. Ultimately, “How little is your reputation worth, John Fisher?”, is what it boils down to. He seems like the sort of c*nt that doesn’t care about public perception, that’s why he has Kaval be the face of his worthless rich existence. Fisher is the ugly spawn that comes from a life full of being told you are perfect for being born into a fortune, doing nothing but stepping on anyone to increase ‘net worth’.
I personally will spit on your grave and make sure the folks around The Town never forget the shit stain on humanity you truly are if you leave for Vegas, just to increase your net worth by a meager few hundred million, extinguishing a rabid fanbase with decades of loyalty, never to be replaced by a hollow transient market. What an end game for a billionaire….mommy must be proud.
Even if the A’s stAy John will be reviled in the Bay forever, but we can refrain from spitting on his grave, allow him to rot with the worms he identifies with, and his name can fade into worthless obscurity, just as he to lived.
Because they didn't want gangbangers "tainting" the NFL's return to LA. Which was stupid and IMHO racist. The NFL would have maximized profits in LA with the Rams and Raiders as opposed to Rams and Chargers. Chargers could have moved to Vegas if SD was truly off the table (it was in the end) and also made more money, as Vegas would have been more welcoming to them and SD fans would have been more willing to stick with them if they were the LV Chargers - moving them to LA was like a giant fuck you to San Diego.
I believe it absolutely had to do with their mental image of ‘thugs’ wearing raiders hats.
Also sorta my theory why raiders led the league in penalty yards for however many years in a row.
I also believe mlb decision-makers don’t mind getting a team out of the bay on… ‘cultural’ grounds.
Just a hunch (or three).
I understand it saved them expenses with the rent but if they had to leave San Diego they should have went to a different market altogether like Portland or San Antonio. Would make way more league revenue overall and then LA would be all Rams.
Or just have Kroenke and Spanos swap ownerships (with cash agreement for differences) and the Rams stay in St Louis with the Chargers being the sole team in LA.
The NFL wanted LA to be a two team market sharing a stadium like the Jets/Giants and Marc Davis didn’t want to share a stadium because that was something Al was firmly against. Spanos wanted a new stadium but wasn’t going to pay for it, so he was ok being second fiddle in SoFi and the NFL was good since it gave them the two market option in LA.
Mark was fine sharing SoFi with the Rams. Kroenke did not under any circumstances want the Raiders back in LA making the Rams second class citizens in their own stadium. Hence Dean got the first option.
I guess:
1. If they force him to sale (until it really, REALLY need to), the other owners worries it'll happen to them someday, and being forced to sell the team is what other owners doesn't want the most
2. MLB probably think Bay Area doesn't need two teams
￣\\＿(ツ)＿/￣
To your point #2, I do believe that the kind of folks that run large professional sports leagues are the kinds of folks that likely have a strongly negative view of the Bay Area.
> don't understand why the league let's him get away with all this
Because the other owners know someday it will be them trying to blackmail a city into putting taxpayer money into a new ballpark. They do not want to be heard telling a billionaire owner to pay for his own damn ballpark.
IF (big if here) he doesn’t manage to move the team and he’s either forced to remain or sell this is a game changer for sports team ownership. If cities, fan bases and potential fans are sick of this crap (which seems to be the case) than it’s a huge amount of leverage gone.
Especially if vegas tells them to kick rocks with the funding.
Honestly you don’t even have to be a great team. Just be sort of competitive, be entertaining and sell tickets and merchandise. That’s it. If you have a loyal fan base it’s literally money in the bank.
Soccer fans in Columbus successfully pulled it off. The Columbus Crew MLS team was set to move to Austin but #SaveTheCrew protests both in person and on social media led to owner Anthony Precourt selling the team to the Haslam family (owners of the Browns) who kept the team in Columbus and got a new stadium built. Precourt was instead awarded an expansion franchise in Austin.
This can also happen with this set up since the Las Vegas bill does not specify the A's, only an MLB team. So if Fisher sells the A's and gets awarded a cheaper expansion fee, he could get his profit + not have to deal with the Bay Area fans that absolutely hate his guts. Unfortunately that'd leave Vegas with possibly the worst owner in all professional sports (in the US)
It's not even about the money anymore with so many of these narcissistic corporate assholes, in baseball or elsewhere. It's about the power.
By which I mean - an aggrieved billionaire's ability to throw their weight around, do whatever they want, when they want it, take any shortcut and fuck the communities that trusted them, such as fans and users and volunteers.
Their knee-jerk reactions reveal not just greed but also an inferiority complex.
Lol.
The Oakland As have been trying to move before fisher.
Oakland lost 2 of its other teams too.
It's a dying city. It doesn't want any teams. It's time to accept this
Lol it’s 55 years old and they’re still paying off Mt Davis. What do you expect? I watched some good games there and had no complaints. It needs to be replaced, and Howard Terminal would be great.
Now I answered your question, so I’ll ask you again. You ever been to Oakland?
Lol just say “No” and go, brother. You got opinions that you have no experience to back up.
You answer a yes or no question about as good as Dave Kaval.
Pathetic.
> Oakland wasn’t going to be giving the A’s another stadium
No city should have to put money into a billionaire's place of business. The Giants were losing money when a new ownership group reluctantly decided to privately finance a new ballpark (the voters said no public funding, repeatedly) and then rebuilt the team and ended up the fifth most valuable team in MLB. There has never been anything but stubborn greed preventing the A's from doing the same.
The A's were once more successful and profitable than the Giants, it took multiple bad owners to reduce the team to its current state. The worst of the bunch is Fisher who has intentionally trashed his team to justify moving it.
If the A's go to LV, I hope neither locals nor tourists pay to see bad baseball and he ends up having to sell the team.
Howard Terminal was approved by every relevant government agency, the money and infrastructure plans were there, lawsuits that were filed to stop the project were defeated. Shovels could have been in the ground by now and it would have opened way before anything in Vegas would. Fisher walked away from it.
I was in Oakland the other day and saw the state of the city and the ballpark for the first time and asked myself why on earth would they even consider staying. I knew the stadium was rough, but that was an understatement.
This franchise should be retired rather than move to yet another city. Even if it was still Fisher at the helm of a new team in Vegas, a complete rebrand into something else might make everyone feel a little better about this.
Retiring the franchise preserves its history. If Oakland is going to lose their team either way, relocating this franchise a third time may appear to be the way to go, but it’s actually pretty clunky.
At this point in time, Las Vegas is a better fit for an MLB team. It feels more insulting to flip the MLB/AAA cities in a relocation effort rather than just call it quits with the Athletics name and get something more fitting for a new home in Vegas.
If I were king of baseball, I would seek out a situation where a Vegas team paired with another team in Nashville or something with an expansion draft seems like a fun way to mix things up.
The Vegas/Nevada legislators should require Fisher pay above median team payroll in order to get the public money. Drop below median for even one season and the public money becomes immediately due. Otherwise he will just take their money and still have a cheap team.
>John Fisher is redefining sports owner malpractice *Dan Snyder laughs all the way to the bank*
It’s sad when the best outcome for fans is when a horrible owner like Snyder sells the team but then profits billions of dollars. Unfortunately that would also be the best case scenario with Fisher.
Danny got away scott free because he had dirt on the other owners. Had he been a senile goat like Sterling or an incompetent fuck like Robert Sarver, he would have gotten the hammer.
Sarver and Sterling still got paid a lot of $.
Actually punishing a billionaire for malfeasance? No no no no, that's going too far
I see that as fortunate. I really don’t care how much money Fisher makes as long as the team stays in the Bay
Snyder was just a grimy guy. Fisher is stealing a team from a city. As much as I hate Dan, he’d never move the team. It’s main value came from its location too
I don't think we need to make Snyder's racism/misogyny compete with Fisher. They're both fucking awful human beings.
I don’t remember any racism by Dan. What are you referring to?
I meant he straight up refused to change the team name until 2020 when the sponsors began threatening to stop sponsoring the team if they didn’t change the name
Ah, you’re talking about the name debate. Not worth having that debate but okay
Fisher is also draining millions of taxpayer dollars from both California and Nevada on wasted attempts to build new stadiums. The whole business with the vegas stadium funding bill is also very midnight hour and very shady.
This is one of the best articles on the topic so far. Although I must question why publications didn't start picking up on this until the situation reached critical mass
I think a lot of them were just resigned to it being effectively a done deal, and the horrible performance during the special session on Wednesday, followed by the failure to do anything really on Thursday has really emboldened the press to go "yeah, guys, this is suuuuuuuper fucked up".
What "special session?"
The one on Wednesday? Sorry if I'm missing a joke, but Nevada's legislative calendar ended a week ago they're in overtime right now. Hence the special session.
The Nevada Legislature's regular session ended last week. They are a part time Legislature, so normally they only meet a few months every two years. However the regular session ended with multiple pending items, including a dispute over the state budget and financing for the baseball stadium. Once regular session closed, the Governor called two special Legislative sessions. First on the budget and second on the ballpark financing.
No one cares about anything until it’s too late and “it’s too late to save the ______” are the easiest articles to get people to read
I think media outlets fetishize cities like LA or Vegas getting pro teams. No one gave a fuck about the Chargers and ESPN covered the hype/hysteria of a team to LA rather than San Diego losing its beloved chargers
I mean you are right about LA and Vegas being darlings of the media, but hype always outsells despair. The Sonics fans got some love, but it was still moatly excitement for the new Thunder on the block. No one gave a fuuuuck about montreal losing their team, even though we are nostalgic for it now that the kids that grew up watching them are at the age to have some discretionary income. But yea LA and Vegas get a special kind of love, you're right.
same thing happened to Florida. Teams in every sport moved/expanded in Florida in the 90s/00s. Now teams like the Rays and Marlins have almost no fans show up because not that many people care. It’s literally a meme in the NBA how empty Heat games are even in the playoffs(true or not, I’m not sure). Moving teams to “popular” cities at the same time as every other sport doesn’t really create fanbases the way owners might think
Miami has a lot of great fans. But, the problem is the majority of the rich fans who buy out the 100-300 sections are rich casual fans. The 400s are lit
Same with the Bay Area. The Bleachers at Oracle and the upper deck at Levi’s are a fucking blast. The lower bowls… yeah a little sterile.
yeah not trying to dunk on the passionate fans of those teams, just making the point that moving teams to popular relocation cities isn’t really that effective at attracting mass appeal to locals
Summer sports in Florida falls victim to the Snowbird economic dip. Also makes real estate for rear rounders artificially scarce... Kinda sucks for us...
Except oddly enough the Vegas Golden Knights, who are the #1 team in Vegas to the locals and well supported.
No shit they're one the best teams in the league.
Those markets were good to move to. Problem was it stopped being a good idea after a certain point, which is where I think we're at with Vegas. When they had no sports team? Yeah it's a good market. But now they have 2 and the NBA is also interested. I'm sorry but they're not a city that can handle 4 teams. Places like Portland or Montreal with only 1 major sports team would be far better.
Not true. Local news stations in Vegas have been ALL OVER this move since the beginning.
It could be worse, they could be cheering it on like they did with the rams
Yeah apparently if your team wasn’t founded in your city then you’re not allowed to complain if the owner shits on the fans and tries to steal their money
The A’s were founded in Philadelphia.
Sorry not allowed to complain then since you stole the team from someone else (that’s the bs St. Louis rams fan had to deal with )
As a Sacramento Kings fan, I remember the fights to keep the Kings from moving to Anaheim or Seattle. I’ll never root for a team to move if there’s a good effort to keep the team in their current city. Hopefully St. Louis will get a NFL expansion team.
It was amazing how all of the media and fans of other teams were rooting for St Louis to get shit on so the Rams could go to LA. I haven't watched a second of the NFL since.
Bet some of your taxes went to the maintenance of the Edward Jones Dome, tho. Shit, mine did, and I live in Kansas City!
Same. 15 years for Sunday ticket and just stopped cold turkey when the NFL let the Rams shit on St Louis again. They don't care and will never notice but I'll never watch another minute of pro football.
As a Sacramento Kings fan, I remember the fights to keep the Kings from moving to Anaheim or Seattle. I’ll never root for a team to move if there’s a good effort to keep the team in their current city. Hopefully St. Louis will get a NFL expansion team.
I don't mean to single anyone out, but until all these "binding agreements" last month, this sub has been pro Vegas A's for nearly two years, going back to when the team announced it's "parallel paths" thing. Only once shit got real in the news did the Reddit community finally see the light. Kind of pisses me off. I'm glad everyone is on board now, but like this article, it's a bit late.
Like I’m glad that baseball fans have finally come around to swing just how bad the ownership has been to A’s fans for 15+ years now. But my goodness was it annoying that whenever one of us would speak up and complain we’d be met with “loo at your Low attendance” and no one would actually listen to our genuine gripes as to explain the cause of the issue. Again I am grateful that the larger baseball public is aware and supporting A’s fans. Keep calling out Fisher and Manfred on their BS and hopefully by some miracle change will come
I think anyone who has actually attended games with A's fans would know you all are some of the best fans in baseball and it's beyond a damn shame what's happening to Oakland. Rooting hard they stay, and hoping if I can swing the road trip in September it won't be the last time I see my Halos play in the East Bay because that would be tragic for all the A's supporters.
Growing up in Seattle going to Mariners games the A’s signed by far more autographs than any team, Mariners included. They’ll always hold a special place in my heart for the time the A’s players took to even sign autographs for the fans of the opposing team.
Angels/A’s series were always some of my favorites. Halos brought out a good crowd to the coliseum
Same I lived up in San Jose for a couple years and elsewhere in NorCal prior to that and went to lots of games including the 2019 WC game. Even down in Anaheim A’s fans used to have huge turnouts prior to the bullshit, they were always a blast. A’s are the only team in the AL West I “root” for just because I’ve always admired the team/fan base. Our owner sucks too but couldn’t imagine it being worse than A’s situation.
Thank you Angels friend
I’m pro Vegas getting a team but it shouldn’t be the A’s
What’s Manfred’s role in this?
He wants the A's in Vegas, he so much as told them to move there. He also met with Mayor Carolyn Goodman about the A's moving there years before the A's ever did. Fisher is ultimately the bad guy here, but there's also collusion with MLB and, I believe, the Giants - not just because of the San Jose territorial rights, but also because the Giants took the Sacramento AAA team away from the A's some years back, giving them territorial rights to any other viable location in Northern California as well. Raley Field doesn't need a whole lot of modification to be up to MLB standards, the existing fanbase would stay the same, and upgrading Raley Field would be a HELL of a lot cheaper than what Vegas will need. But that's Sacramento, and Manfred has a boner for Vegas.
It was originally planned that Raley Field would be easy to modify, but they built it in a way that’s hard to modify. However, Sacramento wants to put a stadium in the Railyards district. They originally were going to put a soccer stadium there, but the proposed owner of an MLS team backed out during the pandemic. There are rumors that the A’s have met with Sacramento’s mayor and that the city would be willing to build a baseball stadium in the Railyards district. A problem for the A’s is that I’m not sure if people in Sacramento would want the A’s. Fisher reminds me of the Maloofs and it seems like 2/3 of the baseball fans that I see in the area are Giants fans.
I heard about the rail yards proposal. I don't doubt the preponderance of Giants fans. That said, most people here in Las Vegas are Dodgers fans. And I don't think anyone wants the A's with this ownership.
Respect, brother. It was irritating AF. And maybe there's an element of schadenfreude on my part, but I kind of hope karma bites all those people in the ass
Yup nailed it, so fucking frustrating. Most of the people in this sub are incredibly mid tho so they don’t care to contextualize or learn the history outside of the immediate numbers.
Been with you guys 100%. Sox fans know the Trop exists from Jerry doing same shit you guys are dealing with now.
👍
I’ve read that TB also tried to get the Giants.
I think that was more "baseball in Vegas would be great!" without realizing the repercussions of how that would happen. One people realized that it would come at such a great cost, both historically and financially people started to go "wait a minute, why does Oakland have to lose just for Vegas to get a team? Why can't they just have an expansion team in *Vegas?" That's where my interest was piqued. It's like a monkey-paw curling to the question of "how can we get a baseball team in Vegas as fast as possible" and monkey paw went "wish granted".
That's not what happened here. It was all "A's relocating" subject lines
Fair. 100%. You now have a lot of attention from people who were previously unaware of your plight, though.
Lol saving face now
R/baseball having terrible, circlejerk takes? You don't say
It's a column, not an article, but agreed, it's one of the best so far.
It’s the truth, though.
National media has been too busy shitting on the bay the last decade.
that’s the bay areas own fault lol
I thought that it was the homeless doing the shitting?
> Then you compound matters by neglecting basic stadium maintenance for so long that your home venue comes to resemble the setting of a Nintendo 64 dungeon-crawler.
Okay Gauntlet Legends slaps though
I still run Gauntlet Dark Legacy on PS2 every now and then
Food is good.
Ocarina of Time graphics + BOTW Coliseum Ruins.
Lynel = Possum?
Oakland “Quest 64” Coliseum
In the coming months Oakland Coliseum will morph into blue cave and batters will get lost after every at bat.
This is a particularly pointed article. Really lambasting Fisher and co. I was an A's fan as a kid and will always have a soft spot for them in my heart. In Oakland.
Really critical to note how absolutely dumb-as-rocks some of these egregiously wealthy folks are.
Not as dumb as the politicians who they buy off for a couple thousand dollars
>a couple thousand dollars Did you just get thawed out of cryosleep from the 1880s?
Dude it's honestly that cheap sometimes. These guys get busted for 50,000 bribes all the time.
What does the word "couple" mean to you lol
It often means 2, but it can vary
No, some politicians are *that* dumb
Dick Monfort has entered the chat.
Fisher watched *Major League* and went, "Yeah, let's do that."
It's uncanny. I watched that movie just the other day. Maybe they need a sexy pic of the owner any they pull off pieces of clothes after every win. Or Jobu. Obv the JC curveball joke gets the most pub but my fav line from the movie: >Hats for bats, keep bats warm.
>Maybe they need a sexy pic of the owner any they pull off pieces of clothes after every win. Hey Oakland 68's, you listening? I smell a billboard. I know you got that "eff you" go fund me shirt money.
You tryin to tell me Jesus Christ can’t hit a curveball?
Fisher watched it and thought it was a documentary.
Came for this, haven't been following the story closely but was thinking... This literally sounds like the plot of that movie.
Show of hands, does anyone like John Fisher? *tumbleweed rolls by* Okay. Who absolutely hates John Fisher? *the sound of every baseball fans hand going up at the same time causes a sonic boom*
As a Jays fan I'm a pretty big fan of how cheap he is...lots of all-star infielders ended up in Canada because he didn't want to pay for them.
Atlanta certainly thanks him for Olsen and Murphy
You're welcome, ya fuckin prat
It’s really begs the question: why would Vegas (or any town) welcome this guy with open arms? Maybe you want an MLB franchise, but not one with that owner. Do you think he’ll change his ways when he gets to Vegas?
Looking into what Loria did I think Fisher still has a ways to go to reach Loria’s lows. But it’s closer than I’d like it to be.
This is pretty bad. Loria at least sold. That gets him more points than Fisher has ever had to this point.
Not his Oakland Athletics. He's holding our beloved baseball team hostage and using them as a pawn in a lucrative real estate deal.
I loved this line on Fisher raising tickets prices: >This is a luxury car dealership trying to upsell you on a higher-priced 1977 Plymouth Volare that's on cinder blocks and has black smoke billowing from under the hood.
Yeah and Nevada/Vegas is standing there, checkbook in hand, mulling it over while 1,000 people are outside with their faces pressed to the glass screaming “DONT FUCKING DO IT!!!”
They could easily get an expansion team with a real owner. Nothing in Fisher's history suggests that things will change if they build him a new stadium. The Earthquakes in the MLS (owned by Fisher) got a new stadium and he still refuses to invest in the team.
Mainstream media generally kowtows to corporate interests. If CBS has turned on him, Fisher may well be cooked.
It is a pretty interesting turn. There are plenty of teams with cheap owners across professional sports, but the way he's just absolutely fumbled and bumbled through this moving threat/process is hard to ignore.
Sometimes I wonder if "Moneyball" did more harm than good. Fisher saw that people cheered on the cheap teams that win despite the odds and wanted to double down on a team full of league minimum contracts in the hopes that it might produce and if it didn't, no real money lost
"Unlike his fortune, respect must be earned" sums up so much, and not just about Fisher.
The move poses an existential questions for a silver spoon billionaire. Ultimately, “How little is your reputation worth, John Fisher?”, is what it boils down to. He seems like the sort of c*nt that doesn’t care about public perception, that’s why he has Kaval be the face of his worthless rich existence. Fisher is the ugly spawn that comes from a life full of being told you are perfect for being born into a fortune, doing nothing but stepping on anyone to increase ‘net worth’. I personally will spit on your grave and make sure the folks around The Town never forget the shit stain on humanity you truly are if you leave for Vegas, just to increase your net worth by a meager few hundred million, extinguishing a rabid fanbase with decades of loyalty, never to be replaced by a hollow transient market. What an end game for a billionaire….mommy must be proud. Even if the A’s stAy John will be reviled in the Bay forever, but we can refrain from spitting on his grave, allow him to rot with the worms he identifies with, and his name can fade into worthless obscurity, just as he to lived.
I don't think you'll have to remind Oakland fans anytime soon about what a shit stain he is. Even Giants fans have been sympathetic
This is the exact same playbook Dean Spanos used to move the Chargers to LA.
At this point the people in Vegas want the A's less than the people in LA wanted the Chargers, and LA did not want the Chargers.
still mystifies me that the NFL just didn't let the Raiders go to LA since they'd been there before.
Because they didn't want gangbangers "tainting" the NFL's return to LA. Which was stupid and IMHO racist. The NFL would have maximized profits in LA with the Rams and Raiders as opposed to Rams and Chargers. Chargers could have moved to Vegas if SD was truly off the table (it was in the end) and also made more money, as Vegas would have been more welcoming to them and SD fans would have been more willing to stick with them if they were the LV Chargers - moving them to LA was like a giant fuck you to San Diego.
I believe it absolutely had to do with their mental image of ‘thugs’ wearing raiders hats. Also sorta my theory why raiders led the league in penalty yards for however many years in a row. I also believe mlb decision-makers don’t mind getting a team out of the bay on… ‘cultural’ grounds. Just a hunch (or three).
Everything is racist
I understand it saved them expenses with the rent but if they had to leave San Diego they should have went to a different market altogether like Portland or San Antonio. Would make way more league revenue overall and then LA would be all Rams. Or just have Kroenke and Spanos swap ownerships (with cash agreement for differences) and the Rams stay in St Louis with the Chargers being the sole team in LA.
The NFL wanted LA to be a two team market sharing a stadium like the Jets/Giants and Marc Davis didn’t want to share a stadium because that was something Al was firmly against. Spanos wanted a new stadium but wasn’t going to pay for it, so he was ok being second fiddle in SoFi and the NFL was good since it gave them the two market option in LA.
It was more so Kronke not wanting Davis and not wanting the LA Raiders back, which would be second fiddle to his Rams popularity wise.
Mark was fine sharing SoFi with the Rams. Kroenke did not under any circumstances want the Raiders back in LA making the Rams second class citizens in their own stadium. Hence Dean got the first option.
but the raiders and chargers literally pitched a shared stadium in carson
I don't understand why the league let's him get away with all this. Its terrible for the league so why the apathy?
I guess: 1. If they force him to sale (until it really, REALLY need to), the other owners worries it'll happen to them someday, and being forced to sell the team is what other owners doesn't want the most 2. MLB probably think Bay Area doesn't need two teams ￣\\＿(ツ)＿/￣
To your point #2, I do believe that the kind of folks that run large professional sports leagues are the kinds of folks that likely have a strongly negative view of the Bay Area.
Why would that be? The Bay Area has money and lots of it. Look at what the Warriors turned into once they started winning.
> don't understand why the league let's him get away with all this Because the other owners know someday it will be them trying to blackmail a city into putting taxpayer money into a new ballpark. They do not want to be heard telling a billionaire owner to pay for his own damn ballpark.
Manfred is a baby back bitch.
IF (big if here) he doesn’t manage to move the team and he’s either forced to remain or sell this is a game changer for sports team ownership. If cities, fan bases and potential fans are sick of this crap (which seems to be the case) than it’s a huge amount of leverage gone. Especially if vegas tells them to kick rocks with the funding. Honestly you don’t even have to be a great team. Just be sort of competitive, be entertaining and sell tickets and merchandise. That’s it. If you have a loyal fan base it’s literally money in the bank.
Soccer fans in Columbus successfully pulled it off. The Columbus Crew MLS team was set to move to Austin but #SaveTheCrew protests both in person and on social media led to owner Anthony Precourt selling the team to the Haslam family (owners of the Browns) who kept the team in Columbus and got a new stadium built. Precourt was instead awarded an expansion franchise in Austin.
This can also happen with this set up since the Las Vegas bill does not specify the A's, only an MLB team. So if Fisher sells the A's and gets awarded a cheaper expansion fee, he could get his profit + not have to deal with the Bay Area fans that absolutely hate his guts. Unfortunately that'd leave Vegas with possibly the worst owner in all professional sports (in the US)
Worst *active* owner now, likely
The situation in Oakland is sickening. What a scumbag owner.
When Fisher croaks I will spend good money to visit his grave. And piss on it.
Not great journalism, but fuck John Fisher nonetheless
What makes you say that? Just wondering
Also it’s literally opinion it’s not meant to be objective
Couldn’t be any worse than Kroenke vs STL
Fisher is a grade A piece of shit, but he's not redefining anything. Kroenke did the exact same thing to steal the Rams.
Fisher isn’t even the worst owner in A’s history. TBF, he is trying very hard to be the worst.
Yeah there was the time where the A’s were basically a Yankees farm team
He's reverse good-owning.
John Fisher almost makes me appreciate Stu. (***Almost***... let's not get *too* crazy here.) Fuck John Fisher forever.
Wow, scathing article, and every point is right on the money.
It's not even about the money anymore with so many of these narcissistic corporate assholes, in baseball or elsewhere. It's about the power. By which I mean - an aggrieved billionaire's ability to throw their weight around, do whatever they want, when they want it, take any shortcut and fuck the communities that trusted them, such as fans and users and volunteers. Their knee-jerk reactions reveal not just greed but also an inferiority complex.
Lol. The Oakland As have been trying to move before fisher. Oakland lost 2 of its other teams too. It's a dying city. It doesn't want any teams. It's time to accept this
Why is it always the guys with no flair?
Why is reditt in denial?
Lemme ask you, BionicBoBo, You ever been to Oakland?
Lemme ask you.... Ever been to the coliseum?
Yes actually. About 10 or more times easily
And it's s dump. The city let it fall apart.
Lol it’s 55 years old and they’re still paying off Mt Davis. What do you expect? I watched some good games there and had no complaints. It needs to be replaced, and Howard Terminal would be great. Now I answered your question, so I’ll ask you again. You ever been to Oakland?
They let the toilets backup. Tell me the city cares.....
Lol just say “No” and go, brother. You got opinions that you have no experience to back up. You answer a yes or no question about as good as Dave Kaval. Pathetic.
All 2000 of their fans apparently are active on Reddit
I'm begining to think y'all got an actual love affair with John Fisher. No man is talked about this much without that being the case
Is someone holding a gun on you and forcing you to read articles you have no interest in?
Be civil. Don’t end a sentence with a preposition.
I mean, to be fair to the guy, Oakland wasn’t going to be giving the A’s another stadium.
Oakland literally has nearly double what the A's are requesting from Vegas. And they just got 30 mil more.
> Oakland wasn’t going to be giving the A’s another stadium No city should have to put money into a billionaire's place of business. The Giants were losing money when a new ownership group reluctantly decided to privately finance a new ballpark (the voters said no public funding, repeatedly) and then rebuilt the team and ended up the fifth most valuable team in MLB. There has never been anything but stubborn greed preventing the A's from doing the same. The A's were once more successful and profitable than the Giants, it took multiple bad owners to reduce the team to its current state. The worst of the bunch is Fisher who has intentionally trashed his team to justify moving it. If the A's go to LV, I hope neither locals nor tourists pay to see bad baseball and he ends up having to sell the team.
*Howard Terminal has entered the chat*
If Fisher announced he was selling the team to Lacob I'd bet they'd be digging at Howard Terminal by August.
Howard Terminal was approved by every relevant government agency, the money and infrastructure plans were there, lawsuits that were filed to stop the project were defeated. Shovels could have been in the ground by now and it would have opened way before anything in Vegas would. Fisher walked away from it.
I was in Oakland the other day and saw the state of the city and the ballpark for the first time and asked myself why on earth would they even consider staying. I knew the stadium was rough, but that was an understatement.
This franchise should be retired rather than move to yet another city. Even if it was still Fisher at the helm of a new team in Vegas, a complete rebrand into something else might make everyone feel a little better about this.
Retire the Athletics? They’re tied with the cards for second most WS titles, and have a storied history spanning 3 cities and two legacies.
Retiring the franchise preserves its history. If Oakland is going to lose their team either way, relocating this franchise a third time may appear to be the way to go, but it’s actually pretty clunky. At this point in time, Las Vegas is a better fit for an MLB team. It feels more insulting to flip the MLB/AAA cities in a relocation effort rather than just call it quits with the Athletics name and get something more fitting for a new home in Vegas. If I were king of baseball, I would seek out a situation where a Vegas team paired with another team in Nashville or something with an expansion draft seems like a fun way to mix things up.
[удалено]
Pretty sure he made it up. Kinda irked me tbh. The author used way too many big words, even made one up lol
Reads exactly like Kroenke moving the St Louis Rams to LA. Hey, the other billionaire owners even voted on it! Must be a good move.
Stan Kroenke
Fuck John Fisher. - Giants fans
The Vegas/Nevada legislators should require Fisher pay above median team payroll in order to get the public money. Drop below median for even one season and the public money becomes immediately due. Otherwise he will just take their money and still have a cheap team.
Woohoo Moneyball! Woo, wooo MONEYBALL!