Easter time is always a wonderful season to think about the future and develop new solutions for old problems. It is also a time to make resolutions and redouble our efforts to do better – a time of rededication and renewal.
One area that should be addressed, for those of us who care deeply about San Jose, is the attempt to make ourselves a major league city. Of course, we all know that our quality of life and our job opportunities make this valley unique – “big time” in anyone’s parlance. Toss in the amazing fact that the majority of the inventions and innovations of the last half century, from the ipod and pc to the birth control pill and transistor, were invented and developed right here - everyday things that affect how we live, work, and play. Now that’s something to crow about and herald to the world.
With all of that said, there is still a deep and abiding passion, even yearning, for more. We observed it in the battle for the Arena in 1988, and the nearly fifteen-year effort, completed in the late nineties, to locate and fund our favorite mango building: The Tech Museum of Innovation. In both cases people in our City embraced the future and trusted it. There are other examples not so fortunate, such as the abortive effort to lure the Giants to a suburban locale near Milpitas in 1992. This was the penultimate and perhaps most forlorn plan for baseball in the South Bay.
We must learn from our mistakes; we must not blindly follow faulty strategy or confused planning into the valley of darkness. This will surely be our last time for a chance at Major League Baseball in San Jose.
And this effort will take real leadership and vision – don’t be confused by imitations. Our citizens are intelligent and wise. The hill is steep. San Jose has all the ingredients needed for a superb city – but it remains to be seen if we have the political wisdom.
The question is, do the citizens of San Jose want a baseball team and stadium?
How do we know?
They want libraries, and they want parks, not funds diverted from parks, do they want polo teams playing on Morrill Avenue from horses of people from Los Altos?
Do they want a stadium and a team, and they are the citizens of San Jose?
Make no mistake, yours truly is from a baseball family, and dedicated to sports.
But those of us that want it, are the citizens of San Jose a factor?
Tom’s comments about learning from the past is very accurate, if we are now to be successful in bringing Major League Baseball to San Jose as well as actively working to retain our great existing endangered local teams (Earthquakes, Sabercats, Sharks, San Jose Giants ) which have many of the same benefits but are lower cost more affordable family and friends entertainment .
The potential tangible and intangible benefits of Major League Baseball and other professional sports are great for San Jose – economically (jobs, tax revenues, new businesses and increased existing business activity) as well as intangible ( increased community pride, family entertainment, ) and a boost to San Jose’s regional and national public image and identity.
The challenges are unfortunately equally as great and many have been well discussed (territory rights, what is the best team, showing owners the profitable local sports business opportunity ) but we need Major League Actions, if we are really serious about bring major league baseball to San Jose.
Our previous unsuccessful efforts, while well intentioned have been Minor League.
Did we just misunderstand the voters concerns and were bad negotiators with the sport business owners in our previous attempts or what?
If we are going to be successful we need to do all of the following:
1. Find Nationally Recognized – Sports ( Bill Walsh ) and Political ( ?? ) spokespersons to lead the effort as well as have local spokespersons
2. Hire a knowledgeable professional sports negotiator to strongly negotiate a great deal for San Jose, any public funds, a local upfront first right of purchase if a future team move is proposed and have San Jose own the naming rights which is not possible unless we create competition between baseball owners to come to a profitable San Jose market. The owners have the advantage if we focusing on only one team – the Oakland A’s which puts us in a competition with Oakland for who will give the A’s baseball owners the best deal. This is too important and our city government’s history of negotiating a good deal for our taxpayer’s dollars is poor compared to other cities.
3. Get heavy business community support now, not a future promise – pre sell team and stadium naming rights, corporate boxes, television / cable rights, look at a possible entertainment district tax to offset or match or replace any general fund / redevelopment sales tax usage or use revenue bonds, See San Francisco’s urban SBC Park and Denver’s Sports Arena deal specifics
4. Our baseball proposal needs to be viewed as a good deal for all taxpayers. Many voters believe that scarce tax dollars are now better spent for under funded public and social services as well as aging and inadequate public infrastructure. It needs to have a real verifiable local economic payback, not be a public tax subsidy to major league millionaire sports owners and local business interests to convince the voters
5. Stadium location is absolutely the key to success. Be as close as possible to downtown ( Diridon South ) with existing transit and parking to reduce costs and a site that is supported by the affected neighborhood voters not just the first easiest available San Jose site to be successful in getting all the necessary voter support for very limited public funding. The Del Monte site which is 1 –1 ½ miles from the recognized downtown and can be imposed on the affected neighborhoods but you lose significant local voter support and face future fan transportation issues, potential political, legal historical reuse challenges, significant higher total costs, and delays.
There is a major difference between having fans / residents voice their positive opinions about bring major league baseball to San Jose and putting together a proposal that sufficient voters will approve if you ask for additional taxes to either directly support a baseball stadium or taking tax funds away from other public services to support a baseball stadium especially if your proposed stadium site is again opposed by local neighbors ( remember the past Arena battle ) and require more costs to mitigate neighbors valid concerns which will be limited if you chose the Diridon South site.
Where are the realistic common sense business, serious sales promotion efforts and addressing now the obvious issues and consumer ( voter ) concerns that Silicon Valley businesses are famous for in San Jose’s major league baseball team promotion efforts?
Anything less than the above, has a very low probability of success in my opinion.
Many of us really want a major league baseball team in a great downtown urban location but if we do not learn from the past and then seriously plan, execute and negotiate in a Major League Professional way we need to be satisfied with being seen as a minor league baseball town
I have read this before. Can we discuss other topics.
The Salvation Army moving out of downtown. Will that mean fewer lifelong downtown zombies and shopping cart homes? What about this?
Are there any studies that show there is indeed a fan base in San Jose large enough to support a major league team, given the high prices to attend MLB games?
Billy Beane is nothing short of a god for what he has been able to do in a small market. But what if Beane leaves the A’s? Has a survey been done to see how loyal the fans would be if the team wasn’t a winner?
It would indeed be great to have a park and tailgate and sit in the sun… but taxpayers should not be on the hook for a MLB team.
I’m all for it if it can be privately financed.
fWIW – http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=2790
Homeless Housing Downtown!!!
If there is no fan base in San Jose, why is Peter Magowan making a big issue of the Giants’ territorial rights?
Who in the South Bay, does not want baseball?
Downtown. I’m 89 and have lived downtown for half of my life. All these building have blocked our view and the sunshine. I would like more senior housing built. It seems affordable senior housing would be a great investment for downtown instead of or in addition to homeless shelters for felons and others.
The streets and sidewalks in downtown are unsafe: cracks, potholes, uneven. I almost broke my neck twice in one day walking around. How do the drunks do it? Are there statistics?
What’s the status of SJ next Budget? How much in the red are we? Im on a fixed income and prices are rising higher than I earn? How can I offset this differnce? Does SJ have a plan to help me?
If SJ streets / sidewalks caused your wheelchair / walker to tip over, please look into this as a public serivce announcement.
San Jose Budget is $57 million short but additional costs for city retirements and salary growth and additional state fund takeaways will probably make it worst and ” severe service reductions and layoffs are looking unavoidable ” per City Council Agenda 3/22/05 Item 10.1
http://www.sjmayor.org/event_library/new_website/MARCH05/budgetmessagemarch05.pdf
Complaints about Streets SEE http://www.sanjoseca.gov/transportation/sm_pavementmaintenance.htm
Sidewalks Division -Dept of Transportation – 408-277-3158
There are affordable housing and other individual assistance, tax breaks etc for people that meet income, disability senior etc requrements. SEE the Homelessness & Social Services Organizations in Local cities, Santa Clara County and California Folder on UNSCC-NEWS for information and references on http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UNSCC-NEWS/links There are other web links for consumer and other information on the UNSCC-NEWS web site
San Jose Office on Aging services http://www.sanjoseca.gov/prns/rcsoa.htm
Why dont you run for mayor? Im so old I dont have the money, health nor time to do this—what should have been done years ago. You have my vote Goodman Mayor Rast.
It seems like the community has a hard time digging this type of project because of lack of (or swiftness) in implementation. When “out of the box” concepts come out of the public agencies the community crosses its fingers for an (positive) outcome. Examples are aplenty on this site.
Our residents have only so much energy/time to invest themselves in this effort – it’s a LONG process. It doesn’t mean most people don’t want a ball park. They just don’t want the roller coaster ride that precedes it.
If leadership and vision are the only things that will get a ballpark to San Jose (plus Ed’s comments) – who will the public respond to? Who will MLB and the corporate sponsors respond to? Are we going in the right direction?
that would be “the public has a hard time digging into this type of project”…not trying to throw in slang here…
Peter is concerned because these team are 100 years old, and these issues go back to the 1910s.
Ps, does baseball Tom, Baseball Richard, Baseball Larry know who Hal Chase was and why he is important to the history of baseball in the South Bay?
Nice job, Stan.
The other Mark states that Santa Clara County alone doesn’t have the population base to generate average attendance of 35K per game. I believe it does. Even though HP is half that capacity, the place is packed full with Sharks fans. I see no reason to think that the same thing won’t happen with a major leage baseball team, and the % of sports fans in Santa Cruz county is barely a blip on the radar so their growth rules don’t even factor in.
Mark,
You have some very good and accurate points about how most cities have repeatedly and predictably negotiated very poorly sports business deals (look at Oakland’s Raiders deal) that continously waste public tax funds.
“Our baseball proposal needs to be viewed as a good deal for all taxpayers” and “It needs to have a real verifiable local economic payback, not be a public tax subsidy to major league millionaire sports owners and local business interests to convince the voters”.
I suggested some solutions although there are possible more details to overcome the obvious problems areas “ Hire a knowledgeable professional sports negotiator to strongly negotiate a great deal for San Jose, any public funds, a local upfront first right of purchase if a future team move is proposed and have San Jose own the naming rights which is not possible unless we create competition between baseball owners to come to a profitable San Jose market.”
Let me make it absolutely clear – while I support the concept of Major League Baseball coming to San Jose – it has to be a “great sports business deal” for San Jose especially if ANY public funds are used, in the right location and with the all the right deal terms and it should eliminate all or almost all downside risk to San Jose’s taxpayers especially any of the predictable future financial problems like most major league sports business deals (( I will move unless you give me more tax funds ) .
The significant challenges and potential problems in structuring a great San Jose sport business deal are very predictable. Our known public efforts so far are typical of bad sports business deals Paying for “ territory rights”, not going after the “ baseball monopoly “ legally and politically now that baseball has a bad image and only pursuing one team – Oakland A’s are some examples.
What is not predicable is if San Jose’s business community and politicians, unlike many past efforts and local projects, will develop good common business sense and are willing to hire experienced successful sports business negotiation experts and nationally known spokespersons to assist us in changing the way sports business deals are structured by creating completion between multiple baseball team owners who will want to come to a profitable San Jose market and structure a great San Jose sports business deal.
The point of my comments. – ” Fans have the power to change the way sports business is conducted. ” but you have to understand the sports business and be willing to change how deals are done to be successful. Is San Jose ?
If you are interested in additional sports business information look at UNSCC-NEWS web site Links at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UNSCC-NEWS/links –
– Folder – Current San Jose Public Policy, Proposed Development & Issue Information / References for San Jose Neighborhood & Residents
– Folder – San Jose’s Proposed Baseball Stadium & Del Monte / Other Sites Discussion – Information & References
– See Links – Business of Baseball, Cato Institute – Sports Pork: The Costly Relationship between Major League Sports and Government , and especially League of Fans – articles, discussions and information – ” Fans have the power to change the way sports business is conducted. ” and ” League of Fans is motivated by people, just like you, who wish to turn their grievances with the sports industry into action for reform. ” and the Ralph Nader article –
They discuss in detail the challenges and potential negatives with the historical way most major league sports deals are typically done by local politicians or business people with little or no sports business negotiations experience that results in very predicable losing public tax financed sports deals.
Pet Peeve – San Jose does not have citizens – it has residents. We are citizens of the United States – you are a resident of San Jose or whatever city you happen to reside in. Got it?
Before anyone gets carried away with all this talk about how wonderful baseball (or any other professional sport) is for the local economy; please go to your local library and check out the book: “Major League Losers”. This tome by an economics professor cuts to the chase quickly and shows that there is little economic gain from having major league sports. And the cost to the taxpayer is never-ending (ie: “Build me a new stadium, arena, etc or I’m moving the team to…”).
Where should the Oakland A’s move? Howabout due east of Oakland? Say out to the eastern Alameda County line. The population growth there and in Contra Costa Counties is exploding. When you also look at the projected population growth of areas like San Joaquin, Sacramento, Stanislaus and Merced Counties – you’ll see that a major league baseball team in close proximity to those areas will be a huge success at the gate. Additionally, the team will still be a part of the bay area and will be accessible to the current fan base.
Conversely, while Santa Clara County’s population continues to grow, the counties to the south (San Benito & Monterey) and to the west (Santa Cruz) have extremely strict growth control factions and do not have the projected population growth to really help “move the needle” on attendance. While San Benito County has generally been more receptive to population growth and urbanization, the environmental Sierra Club factions in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties attempt to block every effort to substantially grow the population in those areas. And folks the truth is that the residents of Santa Clara County alone cannot generate an average attendance of 35k per game 81X a year. However, the population bases of Alameda, Contra Costa and the nearby San Joaquin Valley communities can help reach the huge attendance numbers needed to make a JLB team a paying proposition for its operators.
Good research, Tom
now can you tell us about Adolph Pfister, who helped bring about Alum Rock Park for local families to play ball in the park to further the game
Lot better than “Falling Down” Fallon, who probably was the big proponent of beer sales at the park
Got it.
cit·i·zen Audio pronunciation of “citizen” ( P ) Pronunciation Key (st-zn)
n.
1. A person owing loyalty to and entitled by birth or naturalization to the protection of a state or nation.
2. A resident of a city or town, especially one entitled to vote and enjoy other privileges there.
3. A civilian.
4. A native, inhabitant, or denizen of a particular place: “We have learned to be citizens of the world, members of the human community” (Franklin D. Roosevelt).
Mark T,
Don’t write off the potential fan base in Santa Cruz. Given the right promotions, who knows…
1. Free sprout sandwiches to the first 10,000 fans
2. Dennis Kucinich autographed picture day
3. ???
Ed,
Baseball is great – love it, love the Gigantes… but given recent trends, isn’t it a bit pollyannish to think that SJ can successfully navigate the landmines that you’ve layed out in your posts?
I’m concerned that this obsession with trying to be a big-league city will take the San Jose’s focus and resources away from things that are truly important.
And given that city managers and planners have an ingrained desire to build monuments to themselves, I really don’t trust them to do right by taxpayer interests when it comes to something as sexy as a new stadium and MLB team.
It just seems like an all to familiar rainbow with another sack of coal waiting for the taxpayers at the end.
Yes, I know who Chase was, great ball player, and I know his son. How about Marv Owen, the greatest ball player, some say, to come out of this area: Detroit vs. the Gas House Gang of the Dean brothers – famous brawl in World Series. And for good measure, the Scott Herhold piece about Sodality Park in the Merc a few wks. back mentioned the Consolidated Laundry team – my Dad was the bat boy and Eli Bariteau a super star in SJ and the best piticher in the state – give up? TMcE
San Jose Giants are much more fun to watch and so is Santa Clara who always has great baseball teams. Screw major league baseball and all those blown up on steriods dopes. They all will do anything to be the best including and not limited to cheating. Everything is so out of wack with sports it’s umbelievable. But it is the same as evevything else, all made by the media and TV. Without that the boys of summer would still be having part time jobs to make ends meet.
What I find to be funny, is all of these pseduo baseball fans, or mayors have to be defended as they do no wrongers, miss that point.
SCU Broncos have the best game in town, and more businesses these days have Giant days at the San Jose Giants than anywhere else.
too bad we have people with little knowledge of sports, all of a sudden presume to tell us what records we can look it, and that the elite must be defended at all costs so that we the people must stand in line behind them, when they get their nods, while we are told by “lawyers” government is not there for us.
Sorry to rant, but sometimes the people get to do that. sorry, we are not among the elect who make comments on the Schiavo case, and “just kidding”
I dont know why anyone thinks we should have baseball in SJ. Who are all these people that want it because no one I know does. We dont need more traffic and taxes. Dont go spending our money on things people is SJ dont even want or need.
Developers already control the city. It’s too late.
It’s all a conspiracy theory with you mr. “Land”. Do more research.
The proposal would bring revenue. Conservative thinking will further doom this city. Not looking into a sports team and an urban sports franchise to liven up the downtown economy would be stupid. A vote against it at this point is a vote for cutting valuable city services like police and fire. The money has to come from somewhere. In a city this size it is the biggest viable option. The only other one is to release all city land to developers and have them control the city. Your choice.