by Jerry Feitelberg

OAKLAND–Oakland A’s owner Lew Wolf and the A’s have rejected the City of Oakland’s offer to stay at the Coliseum for the next ten years and have rejected the lease. Wolf reportedly will go for a three year lease at a time during which time the A’s will try and secure a stadium which will be either in San Jose or another location in the Bay Area.

Wolf is not going to sign up for ten years with the City of Oakland for the Coliseum, the A’s claim the Colisuem does not meet the standards of what a Major League Stadium should be all about, with the backed up sewage, the poor drainage system, the poor drainage on the field when it rains at the park. It’s a matter now of where are the A’s going to play?

The Giants will not reliquish territorial rights for San Jose and that’s going to be a big fight if the A’s ever decide to go down there. What’s going to happen with the A’s? Were not sure yet but they hope to work something out in Oakland. The only way the A’s will stay in Oakland is if Mayor Jean Quan has some financing from an outside group to develop what is known as the Coliseum Complex.

The City has not been talking aobut it too much so we don’t know what is going to aspire from that front, in addition the Warriors who have announced that they’ll be vacating the Coliseum Arena and hope to open up a new stadium in San Francisco in 2018. Warriors owner Joe Lacob has every right to take the team and play it wherever he wants.

The unfortunate part is Oracle Arena where the Warriors play now has been such a spectacular home for the Warriors and the noise level at the game and loyalty of the fans in that location has been spectacular. But teams who have been bad like the Warriors had been for deacades for so many years that don’t sell out and yet the Warriors have shown they can provide entertainment and sell out their games.

Lacob in coimng to San Francisco and feels there’s more corporate money but there are a lot of his critics that are not sold on the location at Mission Bay. The Muni T line does come to that location, they may have to add additional lines for people who come from BART from the Embarcadero like they do with AT&T. Muni intends to run a subway shuttle direct from Powell Street to the Mission Bay Arena in 2019 but it may still may not be enough.

The other side of the problem is the fact that it’s going to be at Mission Bay and their not really close to shops and restaurants as the Giants and the parking maybe a problem if the Giants and the Warriors have an overlap for home games on the same day. That may cost the Giants and Warriors a tremendous amount of traffic, however as we said before Lacob is entitleted to move his team wherever he wants.

Jerry Feitelberg is a talk show host on http://www.sportsradioservice.com