Quakes-related Bay Area newspaper articles (Wednesday, 11/17/04)

Funny, I saw this under a different headline.

At any rate, I'm curious to know what Quake fans think of it. Seems a lot closer to economic feasibility than any other hope for keeping the team in the Bay Area that I've seen. (My lady, warts and all).

Something like this would probably save the Quakes nearly a million a year in rent off the top, and probably improve ancillaries by more than that. And it would cost the city less than building a new stadium. Sure, you have to live with an old and ill-fitted stadium, but isn't the alternative a lot worse?

I've been thinking for a while about what the league and owner 'owes' SJ and its fans. Nowithstanding the front-office turnover and generalized botching of the first several years of the franchise's existence, I think it does not owe SJ waiting around in a bad situation for years without any concrete evidence it's going to get better. I do think, however, that if there's a feasible way to make get the team anywhere near the break-even point, MLS and AEG does owe it to them to look into it.

The big ifs, of course, are whether the city council cares enough to pursue it, and whether SJState would oppose it even if adequately compensated.

 

I've always thought that a re-furbished Spartan is the way to go. It always seemed a little too obvious.

May Spartan Shops go die in a fire.

 

Just in Case no one remembers we ALREADY RE-furbished Spartan Stadium.

During the NASL, and the first incarnation of the San Jose Earthquakes it was enhanced. Espansion of North & South fields. Better Bleaches. Entire Upper West Wing added. They needed a bigger stadium for SJState to make it big time, BUT, they wouldn't have been able to do it without the EarthQUAKES there to help fund the bloody thing.

Again, I like Spartan, BUT as we all know, folks in the Bay Area are snobby. They like brand new things. After seeing the HomeDepot Center, it makes complete sense on why we are way behind the 8-ball here. If you see the potential of what a stadium like HDC can do to a community, then it makes complete sense to the success of soccer in the Bay Area. It becomes a MECCA or Central Station for soccer. HDC is awesome.

For anyone who questions it, if you see HDC, then you see the light.

 

While reading Purdy's column, I thought it was a terrific idea but I kept hearing the response from the city--that they won't use public funds toward any stadium deal. In order to buy the land, as proposed, the $$ would have to come from somewhere. Also, that would require the city to care enough to make the effort to get such a deal done. You know SJSU and Spartan Shops would be defiant and difficult in negotiations.

Not to be a nay-sayer but it all seems like a lot of headaches for SJ city officials to take on over an issue that, frankly, they don't care that much about.

I applaude Mark Purdy for pitching an idea, though.

 

When making those comments, I would presume they were talking about spending tens of millions on a shiny new stadium. This would probably cost significantly less than that. (Maybe $4 or 5 million? Part of which they might get back by charging the Quakes a token rent and maybe sharing a minority part of ancillaries).

. . . but that doesn't encessarily make you wrong. They could well react exactly this way. And I have an even easier time seeing SJSU reacting the way you describe.

Still, I hope AEG has or will follow up with city.

 

Purdy's column appears to have been ghost-written by Dean Munro. This is exactly the pitch Munro has been making before, during, and since the SSV Rally. Assuming that the City and Spartan Shops could work something out (HUGE assumptions, given the personnel involved), it remains a very intriguing option because it does not involve voter approval, new uses for the land, taffic studies, EIR's, etc. Once the business terms are worked out, there a significantly fewer hurdles than would be the case with a new build.

 

The city has said it has approx. $6 million that it would give toward Spartan Stadium renovations. But SJSU and Spartan Shops have not been cooperative, so this avenue has been pretty much abandoned.

 

Keep in mind now, though, that there is a new university president who is committed to a top-flight athletic program. And that the current Director of Athletics is retiring 6 months ahead of schedule (thank God!). And that a search committee led by none other than Bill Walsh (SJSU Class of '55) is set to appoint a new Director of Athletics.

There could be a new day dawning on Washington Square. This idea may not be as moot as we think.

 

And an Earthquake!

 

my question is how could LD selling his house not be "related" to a Germany move? All signs are pointing to Germany, and I don't know about the rest of you.. but I don't think I can take this anymore!

 

He might be moving to more upscale digs in Palo Alto.
But, I'm with you, I'm starting to think that the best thing for the guy would be the move to Europe. See how he likes it, and he can always come back.

As far as Mark Purdy's points are concerned, I would hope that a completely revamped Spartan Stadium remain an option. In the atmosphere that exists around professional sports in the Bay Area, I doubt that many municipalities are going to cough up the freebie land that would be needed. I doubt that a new i/o, even with the cooperation of AEG would be able to afford to buy the land, pay for the stadium and all the rest, unless he has the deep pockets that would be necessary.

As far as Spartan Shops' and SJSU's lack of cooperation are concerned, they just need to be made the offer they can't refuse. Where are you, Tony? I think they could still be open to some kind of offer provided they are not given the George W. Bush My-Way-Or-The-Highway kind of negotiation.

 

I'm not really talking about refurbishing it, so much as about buying out the lease, at least in terms of eliminating most of the uncertainty premium on rent and capturing most of the ancillaries.

Then you can refurbish yourself if it's in your economic interest.

For the record, from the genereal news thread, here is a more detailed version of what I'm talking about.

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This proposal strikes me as more realistic than the other options-- which as I see them are three: expecting a public entity, AEG, or some white-knight new owner to pay for a new one. It's based on two assumptions:

1. Every man has his price
2. The price for the lease rights of a stadium built piece-by-piece from 1933 to 1998 would be a lot lower than finding a place for, and building a new stadium in the Bay Area.

I'm guessing the latter would be about $70 million. I'm not sure why the former would be any more than about a tenth of that. The Quakes are currently paying a premium for not being a long-term occupant, and even at that, the present value of their current lease being extended forever can't be more than $20 million dollars, once you factor for the extreme improbability that the Quakes will be there moer than a couple more years on the current terms, that figure goes down precipitously.

If the City of San Jose (or the county, or whomever) stepped in and offered $7 million cash upfront for a 20-yr lease (and remember, depending on the terms, that need not necessarily limit the SJ State Spartans in very many ways they aren't already limited now), a coldly rational person acting only on economic motives should probably take it. Of course we don't know if the lease manager, Spartan Shops, is the former, and we know they aren't the latter, so whether they take it is an open question.

And we also know a proposal like this would be asking the City to write most of this loss off (they could recoup some of it by asking for a nominal fee along the lines of what the Crew and Galaxy pay for use of land, as well as a small cut of ancillaries). And there's a very real chance they'd not be interested in such a thing.

However, it seems, in a pure economic sense, to be better for all three entities than each of the other's preferred alternatives. And that's the essence of compromise.

 

Great article! I fully agree with this proposal and believe it to be the best and most reasonable option in the near term (5 - 15 years). With some minor modifications, the stadium would be a great place to watch soccer. Ask Wee Man.

Since 1975, I have been watching professional soccer in the stadium. I have seen Pele, Eusbio, Beckenbauer, Cruyff, Best, Mueller, Donovan, etc. play in the stadium. Can that be said of the HDS?

Crazy George, first game in MLS History, NASL Cup 197?, Women's World Cup, and the greates game in MLS History. A new stadium would have none of this. Why are we not fighting harder for this option?

Answer: AEG. They don't care about growing the sport and developing the market that could support a new stadium in the future. Rather, they want to build a sports entertainment empire with soccer being one of the components. Piss off AEG.

 

Kind of reminds me of the WebVan story. There was a 2 or three page article in the Murk' a couple years back telling the story of how that whole deal was run, drivers making stops at stores to pick up things no longer in stock and so on.

The Jist of it was the people running WebVan really were not all that interested in being a good Web-based food store, that was just a way of getting their name and their delivery channel into your home & mind so they could sell you stuff they thought was more profitable...

Crappy focus, crappy product

 

This was botched long before AEG got here. Believe me, I'm from Dallas, I know "league owned team syndrome" when I see it. The Dallas Burn were on a slow road to nowhere until Frisco (and to a smaller extent, years of genius GMing by Andy Swift) saved our asses. They weren't gonna contract or move us anytime soon, because comparitively, our lease was nowhere near as bad as yours. But they weren't gonna do anything for us, either. We were what military people call "an economy of force operation."

By the time AEG stepepd in, it had gotten to the point that nobody else would. I wish the Dentsu/Rothenberg thing had worked. We may not be having this discussion today.

But AEG has been a visionary in this league. He/They believe in it long-term. Yeah, he wants one hand washing the other, but that's the closest you're gonna get to magnanimity until the league ahs already turned in some balck ink.

 

There will soon be two "new sheriff's in town."

Once a local I/O is identified and approved and the bucks come out, AEG will be moot.

Then we go to SJSU's new athletic administration (coming soon) and convince them that a cooperative effort is necessary to save both programs.

Simple, no?