Since Wolff bought the team, did he make a profit off the Oakland A’s at all? Or did he want to move the team because he wants to make MORE money? With the payroll as low as it has been and luxury tax receipts, I doubt Wolff is doing too badly with his purchase of this team.

i’m tired off his frat brother loyalty to slug selig, is he scared to insult him? its the same chump that wanted to contract the A’s in 2001. challenge these territorial rights, find some compromise. the “bust” shouldnt be an option.

 http://articles.latimes.com/2001/nov/03/sports/sp-65353

“Obviously, Magowan feels strongly about that,” Schott said during a state-of-the-team conversation with reporters at the A’s spring training site in Phoenix. “He came out just the other day with a statement. I don’t know if it was to diffuse the bigger problems he might have. I’m not sure what those all are, but he said that there’s territory rights and blah blah blah.”

Schott claims that the Giants are trying to have it both ways, since they originally got permission to move south, but ended up building their new ballpark right at the entrance to the Oakland Bay Bridge.

“I’m not a history buff by any means,” Schott said. "But I believe that when Charlie Finley moved the A’s out here, and the Giants were already here, there was no questions and no discussions about territorial rights. The only way the Giants ended up with territorial rights was because they were going to build a stadium down in San Jose.

“There was no question about whose territory it was. They had to get permission from the A’s. They didn’t pay for those territorial rights, by the way. Now, in the meantime, they built a stadium closer to Oakland than they were before. And now, if we talk about another stadium down in that area, they go berserk. It’s like my 4-year-old granddaughter says sometimes, ‘crybaby, crybaby.’ They like to cry a lot about it.”

The A’s can only dream of a setup like SBC Park. They are mired in a small-market morass that will only be solved by the increased revenue that would come from a new baseball-only ballpark. Schott indicated that he would like to keep the team in the East Bay, but he wouldn’t entirely rule out a legal battle over the territorial rights issue.

“If push comes to shove, I’m not exactly saying what we’ll do, but there will be a time when we’ll have to do something because we can’t exist in the situation we are at,” Schott said. “And I don’t intend to continue to exist how we are.”

 It is unclear exactly what the owners might vote on–to eliminate the Expos and Twins immediately, to allow them to play another season in the hope of securing new owners and/or new ballparks, or to authorize Selig to implement contraction should he choose as part of this fall’s negotiations with the players’ union. The union insists it must approve any contraction plan, particularly with regard to dispersal of players and their contracts.

Other contraction possibilities include the Florida Marlins, Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Oakland Athletics. But the Expos and Twins perhaps work best because they have owners willing to sell and stadium leases with reasonable escape clauses.

http://articles.latimes.com/2001/nov/03/sports/sp-65353

Here’s a guy who after a two season analysis thinks that attendance is “inelastic” – how idiotic is that? He compares his players to old and new carpets. He blames Billy Beane for not letting him spend proper money on the major league team. This prick couldn’t care less about Oakland, the Bay Area, or the fans. Stick to hotel management Lew, you’re in way over your head with this owning a big league franchise thing. You suck bad so just sell the team to someone who will keep the team in Oakland and run it right.

He sees a big population in San Jose and he thinks he can siphon some of those fans to A’s games but he doesn’t care about them. He’ll have a new excuse when that doesn’t happen.