San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
A’s, Giants share market but that’s it
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Back in the ugly days of the 1994-95 players’ strike, we often heard about the “haves” and “have-nots,” filthy rich teams that had outsized revenue streams and not-so-filthy-rich teams that did not.
During the recent owners’ lockout, we heard a different description of team classification — “big market” and “small market.” Somehow the Giants were grouped with the former while the A’s were grouped with the latter.
Even though they’re in the same market.
The A’s are a big-market team, of course. They play in Oakland, which is in the Bay Area, which is No. 6 on the Nielsen designated market area rankings, which is enormous.
A better characterization would be “high revenue” and “relatively low revenue,” which better explains the disparity but doesn’t tick off A’s fans who know full well their team plays in a market bigger than any other except New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and Dallas-Fort Worth.
What sets the A’s apart is their inability to keep up with the Joneses. In this case, the Giants. The A’s are the only secondary team in a two-team market that has failed to keep up. They’re by far the unhealthiest No. 2 team in any two-team market.
The Yankees, Cubs and Dodgers dominate their turf on most every front, over the Mets, White Sox and Angels, respectively, but the inequality isn’t nearly as drastic as what we see in the Bay Area.
According to the latest team valuations produced by Forbes, the Bronx-based Yankees are No. 1, of course, worth a ridiculous $6 billion, while the Queens-based Mets are sixth ($2.65 billion).
Both Los Angeles-Anaheim teams are in the top 10, the Dodgers No. 2 ($4.07 billion) and Angels No. 9 ($2.2 billion). Chicago’s split? The North Side’s Cubs are No. 4 ($3.8 billion) and the South Side White Sox are No. 15 ($1.76 billion).
Then we have the Bay Area. The Giants are the fifth most valuable franchise ($3.5 billion), and way down toward the bottom of the list are the A’s.
No. 27, at $1.1 billion. And there’s no end of reasons why. It’s because of the stadium. The TV and radio packages. The ticket sales. The sponsorships. The payroll. The failure to put resources into selling themselves as a big-market team and tapping into the massive population, which the Mets, Angels and White Sox do.
Pretty much at every level, the A’s are inferior to the Giants, and that’s also the case on the field, where the Giants won three World Series championships in the 2000s — though the A’s have built 11 playoff teams in the century to the Giants’ eight, a credit to Oakland’s shrewd baseball department.
The pandemic hurt both Bay Area teams in attendance and revenue. The Giants averaged 20,734 fans per game in 2021, ranking 12th in the majors, about half of what they averaged in the years they sold out every night.
The A’s averaged just 8,767, worse than every team but the Marlins, and a significant reduction from their totals in 2018 and 2019 when they drew in the neighborhood of 20,000 per game.
“Well, it was a different environment,” A’s team president Dave Kaval told The Chronicle.
“You could sell tickets. We had a million and a half people at the Coliseum. So that was a much different environment than the last two years with the pandemic. You had the year where you had no fans, and then we had a year that was affected — you had pod seating, you had restrictions on people coming to games.
“So it was obviously a challenge, but one that we successfully navigated through and still put out games and had a season, both years. And actually were quite competitive, as you know.”
Forbes estimated the A’s had $9 million in operating losses last year (before taxes, interest, depreciation and amortization), one of seven teams the magazine showed in the red. The Giants made $32 million in operating income.
“I think you have to look at it almost from an industry perspective,” Kaval said. “The industry had a substantial amount of losses because we did not have ticket revenue in a normal sense. That included the A’s, but it included pretty much all the teams.
“And then we had obviously the offseason work stoppage and the questions about this upcoming season. So we haven’t had a normal season in almost three years.
At a time it would probably make sense to lure fans to the Coliseum with some fan-friendly ticket-pricing, the A’s significantly spiked ticket prices for 2022. It’s an awful strategy, especially when John Fisher and Co. are being phased back into revenue sharing and tearing down the roster.
That is, unless the strategy is to convince MLB that baseball can no longer work in the East Bay and that the A’s must relocate to Las Vegas. Then it’s brilliant.
We still don’t believe the Vegas spiel for three key reasons, realizing a relocation must be approved by 75% of the teams. Owners shouldn’t want to hand over all of Northern California to the Giants when three teams share Southern California. Owners probably aren’t keen about moving a team from the sixth biggest media market to the 40th. Owners would prefer to benefit from a $2.2 billion expansion fee, which is what Commissioner Rob Manfred said it would cost for a new ownership to buy into the game, instead of a much smaller relocation fee.
It’s why any MLB team in Vegas figures to be an expansion team, not one that relocates. Manfred repeatedly has said expanding to 32 teams won’t happen until the A’s and Rays resolve their stadium issues, but it remains anyone’s guess if the A’s will get their proposed playland at Howard Terminal.
Oakland’s payroll figures to be tiny without Matt Olson, Matt Chapman, Chris Bassitt and perhaps others getting dealt. New Giants outfielder Joc Pederson took a shot at teams with low-end payrolls on Twitter, listing those ranked 28th, 29th and 30th (Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Baltimore): “Embarrassed for your fan base…be better. If you can’t, sell ur team to somebody that wants to show the fan base and baseball they’re at least trying to compete. Sorry unacceptable”
The A’s escaped Pederson’s wrath because they’re a notch above at 27th. All these teams would have been forced to spend more had the players’ union agreed during labor negotiations to a $100 million payroll floor. But owners in return wanted a much lower competitive balance tax, which they use as a de facto salary cap.
This is a story that never ends, isn’t it? The A’s were denied San Jose and refuse to rebuild at the Coliseum. Perhaps both ideas will be revisited if Howard Terminal doesn’t pan out. With Bud Selig gone, MLB certainly can change its mind on territorial rights.
The A’s belong in the Bay Area, and it’s on them to figure it out. Or as one outfielder/ tweeter might say, sell to someone who can.