I got a letter from one Bleacher Dave today. He's not happy with Steve Schott:

Steve Schott is shamelessly schlepping for Bud Selig when he claims that Miguel Tejada is unaffordable. He's merely unwilling to make the investment in his payroll, and do the hard, uncertain work of growing his customer base – work that comes with financial risk – to reap the rewards of that investment. Mr. Schott is letting his chance for WS glory as a championship team owner slip away to advance Bud's misguided agenda. I generally believe in individual self-interest instead of conspiracies, but Schott toed the party line religiously. Too religiously. He mischaracterized the A’s unwillingness to pay Tejada as an inability to pay, and in doing so he used all of Bud's pet phrases from last year’s labor negotiations: "small market", "new stadium", and the "system", thereby alleviating the A's from any responsibility for their current purported lack of sufficient revenues and absolving them of their duty to manage their business in such a manner as to grow their revenues if they deem them to be insufficient. Schott's lips are moving, but it's Bud's voice I hear.

Schott's going to bleed this once in a generation assemblage of baseball talent off, one by one, maligning the city of Oakland, and alienating his fan base in the process. By the time he's done, there won't be much of a market for baseball in Oakland. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. By casting away recognizable, marketable properties (players) he is hurting the A's potential local media contracts, damaging the A's image with potential corporate sponsors, and making it difficult to be a fan. How many casual fans and corporate dollars is MVP Miguel Tejada or a guy with Jason Giambi's Q rating and image worth a season? People all over the country ridicule A's fans for being pathetic masochists associated with a team that repeatedly lets it best players walk away. Would you pay millions to associate your product with that image?

Worst of all, the damage he's doing is lasting. Even if the team is sold, by claiming penury based on geography he is trading on the misperceptions that are held about Oakland. Those misperceptions that claim that Oakland is a poor city, has lousy attendance, and plays in a "ruined" stadium. By the way, according to the Bureau of Labor, the median annual salary of Oakland residents is higher than the national average. But yet, the perception is that Oakland is a poor city. The misperceptions that Schott is breeding and strengthening won't just go away with a change in ownership, but will cost any owner time and money to countervail. He's hurting the value of his franchise - that's why he has no intention to sell the OAKLAND A's. The franchise would be far more valuable elsewhere. He's in league with Bud to move this team.

This team is drawing less now than it did 15 years ago. I don't think it's a coincidence that the ownership group that came from a background in consumer goods - the Haas family and the Levi brand - was able to draw more fans. They were marketers. They understood the value of a brand and how to market to consumers.

I don't believe for a moment that the PR "gaffes" that Schott makes are gaffes at all - they're intentional. You don't make hundreds of millions of dollars without knowing how to win friends and influence people. The faster that Schott can run this franchise in the ground, the faster the thorny "anomaly" in Bud's side goes away. Besides, from a strictly financial standpoint, it is more profitable for Schott to own a moribund, perpetually non-competitive team. He will be able to turn a profit without any risk by relying on revenue sharing funds, national media income, and local revenues. If the team is lousy, he won't be under pressure to retain players and increase payroll. He'll be able to follow the KC path, reduce payroll to the $30M range, and make money hand over fist, all the while moaning how he can't compete in this "small market."

This is about gamesmanship - pure and simple. Schott wants a new stadium, and he's spiting this region, and A's fans everywhere, for not buying him one. If the taxpayers don’t buy him a stadium, he’ll put us through the annual agony of watching home-grown stars depart for greener pastures. What a financial windfall for him if he gets a taxpayer funded stadium. He's gotta be dyin’, looking around the country at all the other teams getting shiny brand new stadiums for free, and calculating what that does for those franchises' sale value. And poor l'il Stevie is being left out. He bought the team in a sweetheart deal, and if he can get a stadium - wow, the value goes up geometrically. His capital gain would increase from the tens of millions to a hundred million +. If the franchise was worth $170M to a DC buyer without a stadium, do you doubt it would be worth less than 200M+ with a lease to play in a new stadium?

New stadiums are the current drug of choice for baseball franchises - the quick fix, the magic bullet. Whatever ails a franchise, new taxpayer funded digs are the cure. If a new stadium guarantees tremendous new revenue streams, why aren’t teams willing to finance them themselves? Ask the Brewers, Pirates, or Indians – their new stadiums haven’t been a windfall for the teams, but will remain a boondoggle for the taxpayers for many years. The Indians filled Jacobs Field for a time, but no longer. And the debt service goes on.

Steve Schott is no bumbling PR disaster happening before our eyes, he's an avaricious shark despoiling the fabric of our national pastime. The sports industry is unique, in that the score is kept on the field as well as on the P and L statement. A higher commitment to making money over winning championships threatens to undermine the entire premise of sport. If the game is about profitability, why not go watch the cash registers ring at Wal-Mart? I'm ashamed I support his team, because I help to further enrich a man who invests proportionally less of his income in his team than I do - a man who has wealth beyond my wildest imaginings. I'll be the sucker in the bleachers with a bag over his face.

NEW OWNERS NOW!

Bleacher Dave
"A Fan of the Game"

Sometimes you do have to bite the bullet to keep a star around just to show the fans you care about them. That's what KC did with Sweeney. All those other good players who left were good but not great, and if you had a decent organization you could replace them. But players like Sweeney and Tejada and Giambi are the types of stars franchises need to attract fans. Schott needs to realize that, or they'll wind up with the best team that no one comes to see.