NYCGOBEARS said:
Cal8285 said:
71Bear said:
Cal8285 said:
Looperbear said:
Sucks that the franchise that condones racism prevailed over the franchise that did more than any other to defeat racism.
Well, a "franchise" doesn't really get to claim its past actions as its own when the people responsible for those actions were forced out long ago in a nasty coup, and there have been so many changings of the guard that it is irrelevant.
If the Dodgers hadn't lost the claim to what "they" did to intergrate baseball when Branch Rickey was forced out, then they lost it when the took the biggest crap in the history of sports on the fans who supported them through a lot of decades of being crappy, the occasional heartbreak, and most importantly, the integration of baseball. O'Malley even suckered Stoneham into leaving lucrative New York for San Francisco, which would never be the financial windfall that LA is, but all that aside, the O'Malleys deserved no credit for helping defeat racism in baseball, and neither does the current organization.
I won't blame current ownership for some of the many racist decisions made since the franchise moved to LA, those decisions were made by previous owners, but neither should the current franchise get much credit for what they have absolutely nothing to do with.
"which would never be the financial windfall that LA is"...
Forbes most recent ranking of sports franchise values...
LA is valued at 2.75 billion
SF is valued at 2.65 billion
Both are in the Top 20 of all franchises in all sports in the world.
Both play in stadiums that were built and are owned by the franchise and both are completely paid off.
I would suggest that the franchises have both been incredibly successful from a financial point of view.
The Forbes numbers don't really reflect the difference in the kind of windfall LA was versus SF. Forbes does funny things with TV numbers. Forbes doesn't include any real estate values in their valuation. Additionally, in the last sale, McCourt didn't sell all of what O'Malley got in coming to LA, notably the parking lots, so part of the financial windfall of moving to LA has been split up and is no longer part of the Dodgers, but if we're assessing the financial windfall of moving to LA versus SF, that needs to be taken into account.
The quality of management also affects the Forbes numbers a lot, and Giants management over the last 20 years versus the quality of Dodger management over the last 20 years has affected the numbers. The number one reason why the Mets are as low as they are is incompetent management. A New York team with competent management will be more valuable than a San Francisco team. All else equal, the Giants would have been financially better off in New York. The Dodgers got such a good deal to move, they almost certainly benefited financially by abandoning their loyal fans and moving.
Local TV money still favors the Dodgers over the Giants by a lot, although the current deal screwed things up pretty good so far. In terms of how many local fans will show up for games, the Dodgers have a big advantage. Because the Giants have a better park in a better location, they get more tourist attendance, which helps offset the fact that the locals will not attend in the same numbers, and the difference in how many locals will show up is reduced because the Giants have the better park that is more easily accessed by public transit. Another advantage is the Dodgers own their land, the Giants do not. The Giants may own the stadium, they may have a long term land lease, but they don't own the land.
But flip back 60 years, and the Dodgers deal was absurdly more valuable than the Giants. There is a reason why SF came VERY close to losing the Giants twice, once coming within minutes of losing them to Toronto (not 2 seconds like Verlander almost not going to Houston, but less than half an hour). They didn't get land for a stadium, they had a much smaller area to draw from, and a much smaller TV market. Obviously the screw up of the location of the ballpark was a big deal, and hurt the Giants for their first 40 years, but even without that, the Dodgers deal was tons better.
Some factors have changed to help SF, like that 42 years after the move, the Giants got a better stadium in a better location than Dodgers Stadium, and the Silicon Valley boom resulted in a lot more corporate money paying for sponsorships and high end tickets.
Still, the Giants will never be able to be the top payroll team in MLB like the Dodgers can be, because SF will never be the financial windfall for the Giants that LA was for the Dodgers (and one reason why the Forbes value difference is smaller is because LA spends more of the money they get).
Does the Giants Mission Bay development figure into these numbers? I doubt it. That could potentially be a huge game changer.
The Mission Rock project doesn't figure into the numbers -- the Forbes figures ignore real estate values.
I still doubt that value of that project (versus any potential future value of the LA land) overcomes the difference in values of TV deals, but who knows.
And if we're going to consider the Mission Rock project to be part of a "financial windfall" for the Giants moving to SF, we're talking about something that took 40 years to develop. With half a brain, ownership could have done a LOT better in the 40 years from 1958-1998 in New York than they ever could have in SF. The same can't be said of LA versus NY. And luck is a big part of the Mission Rock project getting the Giants money (assuming it happens).
It also is interesting that the McCourt to Guggenheim deal let half of the 260 acres surrounding the ballpark stay with McCourt, then they jointly contributed to a new entity. While it is unclear whether there will ever be any meaningful development of the surrounding area, if there is, the Dodgers will only have half the value as landowners. If we're looking at real estate values as part of the respective values of the franchises, don't exclude McCourt's half from the equation. If the Guggenheim group had paid for everything, their purchase price for the franchise would have been higher.
The deal the Giants made coming to SF didn't get squat in terms of land, the Dodgers got a lot of land. SF was NEVER going to basically GIVE land to the Giants as LA did to the Dodgers. The fact that a subseqeuent owner decided to hold on to half of the land when he sold the team doesn't mean we shouldn't include that value when we look at the deal that the Dodgers got to go to LA got compared to the deal the Giants got to go to SF.
I am very casually acquainted with someone who has been part of ownership since the 1992 purchase from Lurie. He has made clear, when they got the land in the late 1990's, it was for a parking lot, while potential development may have been casually thrown around, it was a fantasy, a pipe dream, the land was needed for a parking lot, that's what they got the land for in the late 1990's. At some point, they realized they had real estate that they could make more valuable, but if the project turns out to create a lot of cash for the team, don't give them credit for incredible foresight, it will have been a lucky turn of events. Forbes doesn't consider it part of the "franchise" value, but, of course, in 2017, owners of sports franchises everywhere are looking at development projects near where they play to be a big part of the investment. If we only considered the value of the sports end of things, the Coliseum site would be best for the A's. But to finance the stadium, they want some of those big development bucks available.
In 1957, the Dodgers got a deal where it made financial sense to leave NYC. In 1957, The Giants got a deal where it made no financial sense to leave NYC. They were snookered. The Stoneham family would have lost a lot less money through the 75 season if they had stayed in New York, almost certainly would have made some, and could have gotten more than $8 million in 1976 for the team if it had been in NYC -- LaBatts was willing to pay $12 million to have the team go to Toronto, but $4M was going to break the SF lease, only $8 million to the Stonehams, and the court made an SF buyer only match that. Franchise values were going up by the year, and surely someone would have paid more than that for a team in NYC (Steinbrenner had paid about $10M a few years earlier).
Things have already changed to make things closer to even, and maybe things will change more in the future. But in 1957, LA was a sweetheart deal, SF was a sucker deal.
