By oaklandathletic (12.149.144.130) on Thursday, May 06, 2010 - 12:05 pm:

The Oakland A’s and Florida Marlins are currently the only teams in Major League Baseball with outdated stadiums that are also shared with an NFL football team. The Marlins are currently building a new stadium in Miami on the site of the old Miami Orange Bowl. By April 2012 the Marlins will move into their stadium and change their name to the Miami Marlins. In Northern California on the west side of the San Francisco Bay sits the San Francisco Giants state of the art ballpark built in 2000. Across the Bay is the Oakland Coliseum where the A’s play their home games and share the stadium with the Oakland Raiders. Since 2003 the A’s ownership has been looking at sites in Oakland, Fremont and San Jose. In the last couple of years the focus has been building a stadium outside of Oakland. If you were to look at attendance at A’s home games this year and last year fans might be protesting a potential move outside the city by not showing up at all. On Opening Night this year the A’s could not sell out the game and when the New York Yankees, ESPN’s favorite team, came into town there were was an average of 23,690 fans in attendance for the three-game series. The Yankees are a huge draw on the road no matter who they play or the record of the team. When the Yankees came to Oakland in past seasons the attendance was near 55,000.

The Oakland A’s ownership is currently focused on building a stadium in San Jose. However the Giants have territory rights to the area meaning the A’s would need approval first from the Giants and the MLB to build a stadium. The Giants have not budged but the same issue came up in 2005 when the Nationals wanted to move to Washington D.C. from Montreal but the Baltimore Orioles had territory rights to the D.C area. A deal was worked out even though the Nationals ceded their ownership to radio and broadcasting rights, the only team in the MLB without those rights. The A’s were ranked dead last in attendance in 2009 and so far this season things are not looking good even with an early hot start.

Many issues like the bad economy and a crappy stadium contributed to the decline in attendance but if you are an A’s fan and you live in the East Bay it cannot make you feel good that the team is pursuing a stadium outside of Oakland. On top of that A’s general manager Billy Bean, who is known for his money ball approach, has consistently traded away established players for hot, up incoming prospects. This worked early in the 2000’s but with hardly any Major League stars on the team now it is hard for A’s fans to get excited about prospects who to the average fan probably have no knowledge of the A’s minor league system or players. In the 1989 movie Major League the owner of the team, Rachel Phelps, tried to field the worst team in baseball with a bunch of has-been’s and unknowns in order to move the team and build a new stadium. The current Oakland A’s are resembling that team. The formula seems to be field an average team which brings no fans to an old stadium which means you can point to low attendance as an issue for wanting to move. If the A’s fielded a good contending team and attendance went up it does not make the Giants or the MLB anymore inclined to give them San Jose and the rights to build a stadium. It will be interesting to see how this plays out for the A’s as the city of Oakland has stepped up their efforts to keep the team in town. Remember in the movie Major League the Indians players did everything they could to get a playoff berth to piss-off the owner and saved the team from moving out of town. Let’s see what the A’s players can put together to keep the team in Oakland.

http://fansided.com/2010/05/05/are-the-oakland-a%E2%80%99s-the-indians-from-the-movie-major-league/

By oaklandsi (69.107.127.26) on Thursday, May 06, 2010 - 03:41 pm:

so the Rays' stadium isn't considered outdated? it surely can't be considered a better venue for baseball than the coliseum...

By mroakland (76.102.83.101) on Thursday, May 06, 2010 - 04:45 pm:

Don't forget that huge sterile monstrosity with artificial turf in Toronto. Also, that move out of Montreal to a new stadium in DC was a BRILLIANT move. Now Washington will be the only city in the Nation to have two different failing franchises. Except now, the stakes are bigger with the public debt of the new ballpark.

By oaklandsi (69.107.127.26) on Thursday, May 06, 2010 - 04:48 pm:

I saw a game in Toronto some years back. It looked like they were playing on a giant pool table...ugh

By eyleenn (71.131.5.49) on Thursday, May 06, 2010 - 09:25 pm:

I'm sure they Rays' stadium is considered outdated, but I remember hearing that they have a long, airtight lease. They have also struggled to draw fans.

By raiderjohn (64.139.4.178) on Friday, May 07, 2010 - 12:59 pm:

Haha, the Rays are hot and should be contending, imagine all the national games they should be getting and probably half are in Tropicana, what an embarrassment.