I had heard that the A’s were interested in moving to Fremont, but I wonder if that deal is dead now. How many Giants fans come from San Jose? Evidently, McGowan must think there are more Giants fans in San Jose than A’s fans. Even if that is true, does McGowan not think he could get enough A’s fans from Oakland to come across the bay to San Francisco to replace what would be the perceived lost Giants fan base in San Jose that would go over to the A’s? That must be his concern. I know Josh77 knows a lot more about the issue than I do.

Because right now there are probably four Giants fans in Northern California to every A’s fan, despite Oakland’s four World Series titles to San Francisco’s zero. There are many reasons for this (tradition, TV contracts, Mays/McCovey/Clark/Bonds) but one reason is location. Baseball Fans simply don’t want to be associated with the poor, rough and mostly minority Oakland when they can be associated with hip and rich San Francisco. (This isn’t an issue in football, where Raider fans like the tough connotations of the city.) San Jose ain’t San Francisco in the "cool’ factor, but it’s a big step up from Oakland. On top of that, the south bay is where the people live nowadays, and a lot of potential Giant fans would cheer for the A’s if they were located in San Jose.

So if the A’s were in San Jose, the ratio of Giant to Athletics fans might drop all the way down to 2 to 1. Still way more than enough for the Giants to thrive. Essentially, they’re just being greedy. So yes, the Athletics should move to San Jose. Sacramento can’t support them right now—heck, they’re having trouble supporting the Kings right now and the Monarchs just folded.

That may still be on their minds…

Big sellers in the 1989 World Series were unis/caps with half/half motif.
1/2 the cap was green with the A’s logo, half black with the SF logo.

The uni was the same.

Awful.

is only even “Giants” territory (in terms of MLB exclusivity rights) because the team used the threat of moving there as leverage to ensure San Francisco’s assistance/permission in building of ATT Park, if I’m remembering correctly. The area itself never struck me as traditionally a natural location of Giants fans (though I of course interacted with a lot of them when I lived there.) The Giants Single-A team is down there, too.

In terms of now, I think a lot of it does have to do with the population base in South Bay as being perceived a developable market for each team. And given how big (in population) San Jose and the surrounding areas are—the CITY of San Jose itself is just under 1,000,000—we’re talking a lot of potential money. Plus, as someone mentioned, the demographic dynamics of the Bay are very much in the Giants favor. I think moving to San Jose would alter the perception of the the A’s as being connected to a grimy, depressed market to one of much more respectability (let alone what getting away from the Coliseum would do), and would therefore open up a lot of opportunities throughout Silicon Valley and up and down the CalTrain line to recruit fans to the A’s franchise.

In that sense, it makes sense why the Giants would wish to kill that, even if it’s pretty lame on their part.

I hope the A’s move there though. I really like San Jose and think it would be pretty cool if they got a nice stadium down there.

This one is right in my wheelhouse. The proposed stadium site is a mile from my office!

When the Giants threatened to move here, they would have screwed the taxpayers royally with stadium subsidies. We voted it down, about 55% against, as I recall. They went back to SF after that, and gave the city a much better deal.

This time could be very different. San Jose is battling budget deficits, like every city in California. The A’s owner knows that he can’t get a big, fat subsidy from the taxpayers due to hard times, and that previous stadium vote shows that we won’t be taken advantage of. The fact that he still wants to come here for the existing fan base leads me to believe that the deal could be reasonable. The thing that has changed since last time from the fans point of view is that the NHL Sharks history in the SJ arena (now “HP Pavilion”) shows that there is a real upside to having a well-run sports franchise move in. The part of downtown near the arena really blossomed over the past ten years — although the recent downturn has still killed some major bars and restaurants in that area.

In my opinion, the Giants got plenty out of the San Jose territorial rights, and it is time that they expired. They leveraged us into a new deal with San Francisco. They will do fine as long as they put a decent team on the field. I would rather have a National league team down here, but I will see a few more American league games if the A’s do the deal. MLB should not stand in the way.

Oh, and about Mark Purdy. He is an idiot Sox fan, putting down the Cubs when he gets an opportunity. After this article came out, I sent an e-mail to challenge him on his claim that he writes at a fifth grade level. I think that he should have to go on the show “Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?” to prove it.

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