What’s a few hundred million to keep spit on your grave?
A’s owner John Fisher, like all other owners, wants the public to pay his costs to build the new stadium complex. He requested an estimated $855 million in public subsidies to build on the Howard Terminal site in Oakland. In April, when the team said it had agreed to buy land in Las Vegas, the first dollar figure tossed around was $500 million. Now, three weeks later, the A’s have reportedly moved on to another land purchase in Vegas, looking for $395 million in subsidies.
The A’s may try to justify the use of taxpayer money with a myriad of arguments: that because state and city governments have covered certain costs in past stadium deals, they should be here again. (Because, you know, everything that has happened as a matter of precedent in the world of government and sports is right and just.) And they can try to defend the move by pointing to a long-running and so far fruitless series of negotiations in Oakland.
But in a strange way, none of those arguments really matter. When a sports team threatens to relocate, logic is often kicked to the curb. At the end of the game, state and city governments sometimes turn to the simplest calculations: they pay, or the team is gone.
It doesn’t matter that the franchise may have ultimately been bluffed, or may have settled for lower subsidies than requested. Nor is it often relevant, at that point, whether the subsidies will actually bring an appropriate return on investment for taxpayers.
Ponying up money becomes a decision of the heart. From one angle, that’s unfortunate, because stadium subsidies are resources that could be allocated in other ways. And from another angle, it’s almost sweet, because even if it’s overpaid, keeping a team in town makes a lot of people happy.
But the point: rationality is not the point. And that’s what makes Fisher’s upcoming choice so appealing. Because he too is staring at two different outcomes.
If Fisher moves the team to Las Vegas, he is destroying his legacy in Oakland. He will be reviled, literally for generations, after he is gone. People still talk about Walter O’Malley (and Robert Moses) decades later, and the Dodgers’ move to Los Angeles is now 65 years old.
And what does Fisher get for this hatred — what is his reward and gain? A stadium that cost him less money. So let’s say in some assumed 30-or-so year period to finance the stadium — while the value of the franchise and perhaps his other assets will still increase — he’ll have a few hundred million more to add to his net worth value.
OK … and? What does that amount do for Fisher, who is worth an estimated $2.2 billion, per Forbes, as heir to the Gap clothing fortune? It’s not money that changes life for him, at least not in any obvious way. In 30 years, he is more than 90 years old. Is he trying to save up the dough to reach Elon Musk on Mars?
Now, landing public dollars will likely earn him the respect of his peers in team ownership, a sense that he won’t set a precedent that stops their gravy train when owners try to -subsidize future stadiums. Keeps him cool in the club. He may also need a certain dollar level to feel like he’s being treated fairly, however, he specified that.
But what will Fisher buy with the money the public subsidy will save him? What utility does a man of his position and station actually derive from those dollars? High-fives at the owner’s meeting cost thousands and thousands of people cursing your name at breakfast in Oakland?
It is very difficult to restore your reputation in any field. Just ask co-owners Steve Cohen and Jim Crane, whose companies outside of baseball both faced obscene federal charges before they got into baseball. Ironically, the chance to clean up one’s public perception, often by spending large sums of money, is what sometimes attracts owners to sports in the first place.
Meanwhile, you have Fisher saying, screw it: protecting my memory isn’t worth a few hundred million. I could do something better with that money.
Like what?
A title, if his team in Las Vegas captures one, would create some new love Fisher has never experienced. But it doesn’t take away the hatred he fanned back home, hatred that could have turned into admiration if only he’d spent more money.
Some people are real maybe no one cares how they are viewed. Perhaps Fisher is one of those people. Some people may just want the accumulation of wealth, and gain success from it. But that doesn’t exactly make sense, does it?
There is no guarantee that the reduced $395 million in public funding Fisher is seeking for the newest Las Vegas site will be available. Either way, the payoff for being despised keeps falling. It makes you wonder if it’s worth the trouble.
How little is your reputation worth, John Fisher?
(Top photo: Lachlan Cunningham/Getty Images)