“SELL THE TEAM”, “SELL THE TEAM”, “SELL THE TEAM”
A famous movie called Moneyball has an often quoted line by baseball fans across the globe. Brad Pitt’s character, ironically playing Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane, says “How can you not be romantic about baseball.”
Based on the true story of the early 2000s Oakland A’s, Beane saw his team struggle and lose almost everything, yet he remained faithful and worked to save his team from absolute poverty, employing strategies throughout the movie to save his team, and in the end is successful.
Sadly, it looks like the Athletics won’t get the fairytale hero to save them from relocation this time. After years of rumors of a move to Las Vegas, it now looks like relocation is definitely on the A’s horizon. How did we get here? How does a professional baseball team get to the point where they aren’t making enough money?
Dr. Joe Dennis, professor and adviser for the sports communication major at Piedmont University, said the A’s situation is unique. “They’ve adopted a barebone spending model — they are not making a lot of revenue, but they’re not spending a lot, either.”
Dennis is an associate professor at Piedmont University, the only college in Georgia which offers sports communication degree. He is also a lifelong baseball fan, specifically of the Chicago White Sox. Dennis grew up 15 minutes away from the White Sox Stadium and is no stranger to the history of baseball, as he said he has been a fan for nearly all 46 years he has been alive. As a baseball fan, Dennis said he is upset about the way the Athletics front office is handling the relocation option.
“Baseball is really unique in that it has no salary cap and no salary minimum, and so it’s absurd that teams can get away with spending nothing and just putting a product out there that allows other teams to basically have exhibition games against them.”
He has seen Theo Epstein, former general manager of the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs, employ tanking tactics, but feels what the A’s are doing is completely different.
“Many teams have done this. They will intentionally lose and trade their star player away, but they do that to get really great prospects and build through the draft,” Dennis said, adding that Oakland received very little in return for the trades of top players like Matt Olson and Chris Bassitt. “That message isn’t there, they got nothing for those trades – he’s (John Fischer) basically just tanking to get the team out of Oakland”
Dennis said this cheap attempt of ownership only hurts the fans.
It isn’t all on the ownership though. Juan Pagan, assistant athletic director at Eagles Landing Christian Academy in McDonough, Georgia, said there’s another group who has to pick up the slack — the front office. “They are pretty much the face of the team from a business aspect.”
In addition to being involved in athletics, Pagan also has a master’s degree in business administration. Over the course of his lifetime, Pagan said he has seen various players across various sports blatantly deny a team because of a front office issue. Major athletes like Ken Griffey Jr., John Elway and Eli Manning were all examples of athletes who saw a team with major front office problems and said “no” to being drafted by them.
“Without a good front office you won’t get any big time free agents, big time players in draft picks, to make your franchise players,” he said. “I believe that’s what is going on with the Oakland Athletics right now.”
At least for one game on a Tuesday evening, deafening chants rained down from the Oakland Coliseum. Chants that overpowered the broadcasting crew’s voices. Chants that caused the pitcher to believe his headset was broken. This rare sight at the Coliseum, where the team typically averages 8,555 fans, was due to a reverse boycott by fans on June 13 against their owner, John Fisher. The often empty stands of the Coliseum were far from it, with game attendance at 27,759 people, as A’s fans wanted to show they can still support a team in Oakland.
Unfortunately, it may be too little, too late.
Rock Star Writers Blog 