Owned

[Frayed Knot]

Also the Chicago Fire (later Winds)
The Shreveport Steamer
The Philadelphia Bell
and the Portland Storm (later Thunder)

[Guest Edgy DC]

MLS and the WUSA pretty much followed the WFL's folly.

Several city-councilmen were backing other groups and are pretty peeved.

[soupcan]

Edgy DC wrote: Several city-councilmen were backing other groups and are pretty peeved.

Read that this morning although it seemed that their major, and possibly only, objections had to do with percentage of minority investors in each group.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Welcome to Washington.

Of course, this is one of those things that will always be an issue as long as MLB and their clubs are allowed their anti-trust exemption.

[Frayed Knot]

I suspect it's as much a case of councilmen getting all upset because if their guys don't get chosen how will they get a hold of any of the inevitable graft and spillover?

Stuff like that has nothing to do with MLB's anti-trust exemption and is only tangentially related to minority ownership.

[Guest Edgy DC]

]Stuff like that has nothing to do with MLB's anti-trust exemption and is only tangentially related to minority ownership.

Yes it does. As does the potential for graft.

[Frayed Knot]

So this would differ if it were a football team or basketball team being sold ... how exactly?



<----- oe: I'm Ron Gardenhire and I just pulled a hammy typing that.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Because as long as there's only one team allowed in a locality, the stakes are much higher and the gatekeepers hold that much more power.

[Frayed Knot]

So in the NBA & NFL - where there's no blanket anti-trust exemptions - a new team could just spring up in a city w/o league say so? Or as if the businessmen of America simply choose to collectively ignore the LA market as a potential spot for an NFL team?

I understand your objections to closed-shop leagues but you (and many writers about baseball it seems to me) have a habit of blaming the A-T exemption as if it's the source of the problems. If that boogy-man of an exemption disappeared tomorrow (and it's been weakened to the point where it practically has) I don't think a blessed thing would change.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Tell that to Peter Angelos' accountant.

I don't have any boogeymen.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

I seem to remember one NFL relocation where the league said, "If they want to move, we can't stop them." (It may have been Rams to St. Louis.) That may have really meant, "We're not all that interested in stopping them." I have no idea.

But assume that the statement is true. Does that mean that if the Rams had wanted to move to Chicago or Atlanta, and go into direct opposition to an existing franchise, that the league still couldn't stop them?

The San Diego Clippers did move into Lakers territory. Same situation? Of course, the Clippers posed little threat to the Lakers.

It's also strange that the Athletics can't move to San Jose without the permission of the Giants, even those San Jose is further from San Francisco than Oakland is. (Somehow San Jose was tagged as being in the Giants' territory.) I'd also think that the Giants would be glad to have the A's move further away, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

There's a lot I don't understand.

[Guest Edgy DC]

There are a lot more people loaded in San Jose than there are in Oakland, suggesting perhaps that it's better for the Giants to have San Jose as neutral territory and lose Oakland, then the other way aorund.

[Frayed Knot]

]... That may have really meant, "We're not all that interested in stopping them."

That's exactly what it meant. Commissioner Rozelle was directly told by judges and his own legal people that the NFL had the power to prevent unfettered franchise movement but that the criteria they were using: a 3/4 majority of teams needed and no guidelines as to when & why a team could leave it's existing market, was not ony unfair -- a simple majority would be more in line, but also was being applied unevenly -- other fanchises were moved while they denied Al Davis's Raiders the same right (he claims because he wasn't part of Pete Rozelle's inner circle).
Rozelle falsely continued to claim - after losing the Davis case - that he had no power to prevent future movements (Colts among others) hoping that politicians in danger of losing a team would get mad enough to grant the NFL enough anti-trust exemptions that would give it carte blanche power over all their franchises. It didn't work however since the A-T power cede to MLB was considered an legal anomoly by that time and was already being steadily scaled back. So the NFL sat back as Oakland, Houston, Baltimore, LA (twice), St Louis & Cleveland (am I forgetting anyone?) were abandoned and many of the remaining cities threatened with future abandonment if new stadiums weren't built and/or upgraded.
I also suspect that LA is still kept as an open city as a relocation-sword over the head of current cities who are reluctant to fork over enormous amounts of cash in order to keep their franchises.


And the entire point is, that the NFL (and other sports) are doing all this w/o the blanket anti-trust exemption that baseball has; and, as much as I wouldn't mind seeing it go away, it's just not that important in the grand scheme of things and citing as the root of most of baseball's problems doesn't solve anything. Angelos got money for "territorial infringment" just the same as the billionaires who own the NJ Jets or Giants would if a new or moved team were to suddenly try to play at Shea.

[Frayed Knot]

P.S. The new Oakland A's owners are looking into a stadium deal in Freemont which would bring them much closer to the pop center of San Jose but is still in Alameda County and therefore wouldn't be considered an invasion of the territory of the SF Giants.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Interesting stuff. Thanks, Knot.

[Guest Edgy DC]

]And the entire point is, that the NFL (and other sports) are doing all this w/o the blanket anti-trust exemption that baseball has;

Doing all what? I don't quite get you.

]Angelos got money for "territorial infringment" just the same as the billionaires who own the NJ Jets or Giants would if a new or moved team were to suddenly try to play at Shea.

They shouldn't. Certainly not if the Tampa Bay Buccaneers moved to Shea.

[Frayed Knot]

"Doing all what? I don't quite get you"

Moving franchises and threatening cities with further movement in order to have public money spent to enhance the value of billion dollar businesses.
The other 3 major sports - particularly the NFL - have been much more active on those fronts than has MLB.


"They shouldn't. Certainly not if the Tampa Bay Buccaneers moved to Shea."

But they certainly would and the big bad A-T exemption monster wouldn't be the cause of it.

[Guest Edgy DC]

]Moving franchises and threatening cities with further movement in order to have public money spent to enhance the value of billion dollar businesses. The other 3 major sports - particularly the NFL - have been much more active on those fronts than has MLB.

That's actually been my point --- that the anti-trust exemption has given the league more control over team movement than the other three team sports, so I don't know what you're trying to tell me here.

Teams, like every most other corporations, should have every right to move, and every opportunity to leverage that right. The other teams shouldn't have anything to do with it.

[Frayed Knot]

Except that your original claim was that DC (in this case) politicians pulling for specific owners - and the attendant goodies that go along with having 'their guys' on the inside - is somehow a function of MLB's A-T exemption. But making that exemption disappear won't make that go away as the other sports have shown us. And besides, those sports have the ability to control franchise movement, they just need better specifics to enforce it rather than relying on a blanket protection which likely won't stand up to scrutiny anyway.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I did not say that political abuse was a "function of" the anti-trust exemption. What I wrote was, "Because as long as there's only one team allowed in a locality, the stakes are much higher and the gatekeepers hold that much more power."

It's a part of the issue.

[nymr83]

]Teams, like every most other corporations, should have every right to move, and every opportunity to leverage that right. The other teams shouldn't have anything to do with it.

I disagree entirely, I think teams in all major sports should be treated as public trusts. i'd even go so far as to say that the ONLY justification for moving should be prolonged poor attendance. the good old "build me a stadium or i'm gone" bullshit should be criminal.

[Guest Edgy DC]

But they're not. They're privately held corporations that bring in hundreds of millions of dollars. And corporatons, like the people they're made up of, have rights.

[nymr83]

you said they should be allowed to do X,Y,Z so i responded with my opinion of what they should be allowed to do... it was not my intent to represent that as what they can actually do.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I'm missing your meaning.

You disagree with me entirely about what?

About whether teams should be pubicly held trusts? I didn't speak to that.

About whether, as the privately held corporations they are, they should be allowed to move? You didn't speak to that.

[MFS62]

The next order of business for the ownership will probably be getting the Nats more local TV time. This has been an issue since before the 2005 season. From what I've heard from friends down there, the bottom line is it relates to the MLB appeasement of Angelos in return for his not suing over alleged �territorial rights� when the Nationals came to town.

There are two regional sports networks (Comcast and MASN) that carry the O�s and Nats, respectively. MASN was created last year and is partially owned/controlled by Angelos. The upshot is only a portion of the Nats games are available on cable; some are viewable over the air and others can be picked up on other stations depending on opponent (ESPN, TBS, WGN).

Comcast and MASN are currently suing each other. The Comcast contract to carry the Orioles expires after this season so the thinking is that everybody gets to the table this off season and works something out.

Edgy, is what they've been telling me substantially correct? Is it that messed up?

Later

[Guest Edgy DC]

I have less information than you. It's messed up, sure. But it's probably like the Mets and Yankees the last two years. It'll be messed up until people take their interests to the table and negotiate a settlement. With the Nats (a) playing terribly and ( lacking fans with a long-term expectation of seeing them televised, the fight isn't over such a hot commodity as the Mets and Yankees.

The problem is that a new product needs exposure, and the lack of it is degrading the value and the oppporutnity. The Nats need to be televised.

[Vic Sage]

]The Nats need to be televised.

unlike the revolution... which will not be televised.

[Willets Point]

Vic Sage wrote: ]The Nats need to be televised. unlike the revolution... which will not be televised.

Actually the Revolution are televised it's just hard to compete with the Red Sox game.

[nymr83]

]About whether teams should be pubicly held trusts? I didn't speak to that.

thats not what i took from this:

="Edgy DC"]Teams, like every most other corporations, should have every right to move, and every opportunity to leverage that right. The other teams shouldn't have anything to do with it.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Two sentences. Nothing there speaks to whether or not teams should be publicly held trusts.

(On edit: I should have decided between "every" and "most.")