Sat, 2009-11-28 12:23

One of the main ASSUMPTIONS sports pundits, journalists, have been putting forth for years now is idea that a 40 year old stadium is simply too old, that one needs a "state of the art" stadium like the New York Yankees, The Dallas Cowboys, or the much touted amenities of whatever corporate telecommunications company is now the name of the SF Giants Stadium. The flawed assumption could take as its mantra, Field of Dreams' "build it and they will come." Furthermore, the "Multi-purpose" stadium" (home of the Raiders and The As) is allegedly a "laughingstock." Yet, when one actually talks to most people, these things don't seem to matter so much. They want a better team! If the As had spent just a little more (relatively speaking) more money on keeping a Tejada or a Giambi or a Zito, they may have very well won a World Series in the last decade. 

I have nothing necessarily against a new stadium, but the way this issue has become used as the main reason why the As should leave Oakland strikes me as dubious. Yet the moneyed interest of major sports are no longer interested in putting an affordable competitive product on the field, as much as in catering to the rich. In this sense, they'd probably rather have regular attendance of 20,000 people each paying 3 times more than they're paying now, than 40,000 people paying current ticket prices. One could even make the argument that the major sports teams are more a drain on the struggling Oakland economy than it is worth, and that the money can be better used for other cultural and art initiatives. I don't think we need to go that far. But I'm curious what others have to say.