Oakland Athletics Stadium Update: Oakland Ditches Kephart

Both the Oakland Athletics and Raiders watched new developments surface in the seemingly never-ending saga of the fate of Oakland sports teams over the weekend. Inside Bay Area News reported that Oakland City Council members and Alameda County Supervisors plan to deliver a letter to Floyd Kephart, which will notify him that the city and county do not intend to extend his September 24th deadline to finalize a plan for the Coliseum City.

The letter follows the realization of several factors. The first is that Kephart’s plan failed to fully address funding needs for a $4 billion megacomplex. Secondly, the plan was meeting resistance from both the Athletics and Raiders; both teams felt that embedding their stadium proposals within a larger project would only complicate their stadium situations. Thirdly, Alameda County’s priority is clearly paying off the $50 million debt it owes on the current O.Co Coliseum, so it was difficult to have discussions with the county about future stadiums.

What This Means

The reason that this is significant is that when then-mayor Jean Quan brought in developer Floyd Kephart, Kephart was granted an exclusive negotiating agreement in order to make the Coliseum City work however it needed to. This left the city powerless to perform its own negotiations on any other stadium plan. 

More from White Cleat Beat

• Zach Logue yet another disappointing Oakland A’s trade return
• Luis Barrera heading to familiar foe in Los Angeles Angels
• Looking back at Ruben Sierra with the Oakland A’s
• San Francisco Giants showing Oakland A’s offseason could be worse
• Lucas Luetge what Oakland A’s need in bullpen

For the first time since the Coliseum City proposal, Oakland and Alameda County are free to conduct their own negotiations.

The SF Business Times notes that at the heart of this is the ability to negotiate stadium-only proposals with both the Athletics and the Raiders, because isolated stadiums should be easier to plan than entire sports complexes (in theory). This bodes well for the Athletics, because A’s management has expressed interest in being the sole financiers of their own stadium. When the city approaches the team about a stadium proposal, the money should be there to put the plan in motion.

In theory, this should also improve the chances that Oakland can convince the Raiders to stay, because a stadium-only proposal is what the NFL has encouraged the city and the team to work on from the very beginning. However, the Raiders want a stadium that costs $900 million, and the team is yet to reveal how much of their own money they are willing to contribute (except for the possibility of a $200 million loan from the National Football League). Funding sources that have been suggested include concession revenue, charging higher rent for the teams that utilize the stadium, or selling the current Coliseum site. The question that looms large, however, is if the public will be on the hook for new stadium costs.

Public Skepticism

Oakland and Alameda County are right to be suspicious of publicly funded stadiums. Consider what happened in Indianapolis after the Colts demanded a new stadium.

This article from Bloomberg Business covers the total costs very well, but here is a summary of the real cost to people who live in Indianapolis: The hotel tax was raised from six percent to nine percent, the county rental car tax increased from two percent to four percent,  the county food and beverage tax doubled to two percent, and surrounding counties implemented an additional one percent restaurant tax. All this because the city (its taxpayers) owed more than half a billion dollars on a project that the Colts only contributed $100 million to. 

More from Oakland A's News

• Zach Logue yet another disappointing Oakland A’s trade return
• Luis Barrera heading to familiar foe in Los Angeles Angels
• San Francisco Giants showing Oakland A’s offseason could be worse
• Lucas Luetge what Oakland A’s need in bullpen
• Oakland A’s bring Deolis Guerra back on minor league deal

And as for the RCA Dome, the former home of the Colts that was demolished in 2008, Indy taxpayers are STILL PAYING FOR THAT STADIUM TOO.

This is a scenario that Oakland and Alameda County are trying to prevent by drawing a hard line against public funding for new homes for the Raiders and Athletics.

Good News For The A’s

That is encouraging for A’s fans that want to see a new baseball-only stadium built in Oakland. Now that Kephart no longer has exclusive negotiating rights and stadium-only proposals are now on the table, the city and county should not have too many difficulties negotiating a deal with A’s ownership, who has expressed eagerness to build a modern ballpark without any cost to taxpayers.

For those who are still wondering if there is any traction to move the Athletics to San Jose, the court case remains in appeals-limbo. San Jose lost its legal challenge against Major League Baseball in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court, but the city has appealed its case to the Supreme Court. The Supremes will decide whether or not to accept the case during its term which begins next month. Note that the Supreme Court accepts less than one percent of all of the cases appealed to it, so it is extremely unlikely that this case will be heard. If it is accepted, however, the Supreme Court is the most likely of all courts to rule in favor of San Jose simply because it has the authority to overturn the tradition of antitrust exemptions that MLB has enjoyed.

For now, the city’s hands are freed. They can now negotiate with the Athletics and Raiders directly. The timing and scope of a new A’s stadium will almost certainly depend on how the Raiders proceed, but this is still a critical step forward for Oakland sports.

Next: Oakland Athletics Officially Eliminated From Playoff Contention