From a few days ago... I didn't see anyone post this anywhere so thought I would throw it up. Our sneaky little friends "Stand for San Jose" are back again... they are funded by the SJ Giants, who are majority-owned by the SF Giants.

A group that opposes the potential relocation of the A's to downtown San Jose filed suit Friday, challenging a recent vote by the San Jose City Council that gave the baseball team the right to buy 5 acres of land.

The council voted Nov. 8 to approve a two-year, $50,000 option for the A's to buy the land near HP Pavilion for $6.98 million.

The group contends the land is worth at least $14 million. It describes itself as a "cross-section of San Jose individuals and organizations" and includes the San Francisco Giants' Class A minor-league affiliate, the San Jose Giants.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/02/BA0E1M7OJT.DTL

Technically the "highest and best use" of the land would value it at $14 million. Ergo, selling it at $7 million to the A's would be a $7 million subsidy. Tough to sell that to the public in these hard economic times, but as far as sports team subsidies go that is pretty miniscule when you are getting a $350 million privately funded stadium and 82 home games per year.

Sidenote on "highest and best use" - SJ like most cities has a general plan that governs what % of its land is allocated industrial/commercial/residential etc. SJ has too much housing and not enough commercial space, so the general plan is trying to create more commercial/job zoning. However, the highest valued land in SJ is residential zoned property - it is 4x more valuable than commercial zoned land. My point is, it's unfair for people to call this a subsidy based on the "highest and best use" standard when SJ's own general plan would probably force the land to be zoned commercial and not residential. It would be most valuable as residential but SJ's laws wouldn't let it be zoned residential.