Tag: City of San Jose

That’s Amaury News and Commentary: San José chances of Expansion are better than Oakland; 5 San Jose Mayors send letter to MLB Commissioner

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San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan sent a letter this week signed by Mahan and four previous San Jose Mayors to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred that the South Bay is not San Francisco Giants territory and that MLB should allow an expansion team to come San Jose and the Giants should no longer have territory rights to San Jose and the South Bay (The Business Journals photo)

San José chances of Expansion are better than Oakland

That’s Amaury News and Commentary

By Amaury Pi Gonzalez

OAKLAND–Five of San Jose’s mayors send Commissioner Rob Manfred a letter asking MLB to permanently suspend territorial rights seeking an opportunity for an expansion team. Matt Mahan, the Mayor of San José, and four of his predecessors Sam Liccardo, Chuck Reed, Ron Gonzales and Tom McEnery — wrote in the letter that Santa Clara County territorial rights should not belong to San Francisco Giants.

With the Oakland A’s move to Las Vegas, the San Francisco Giants will be the one team playing in a market with the largest population, in the country, over 7.5 million people in the nine-county Bay Area. Ironically the Oakland A’s gave the San José territorial rights away in 1992 to the San Francisco Giants, who were ready to leave Candlestick Park for Florida.

The A’s intentions were for the Giants to stay in the Bay Area by building a new park in San José. San José is not only the most populous city in the Bay Area with over 1 million residents, more than San Francisco and Oakland but also with Silicon Valley, a major technology hub in California.

However, back in 1992 San José’s Silicon Valley was very young and the south bay city had not become the financial power that it is today. 2023 is another story. According to Consumer Affairs ranking the median household income in the City of San José is $126,377 per year.

Santa Clara County/San José is a thriving dynamic city headquarters to some of the largest technology companies in the world, as well as the home of the NHL San José Sharks and the MLS San José Earthquakes and the San José Giants, the California League Class Single – an affiliate of the San Francisco Giants.

The letter by the San José current and previous Mayors is a very good move into the possibility of the south bay city getting an expansion team. San José still a city growing, with tremendous potential and definitely should be taken seriously by Major League Baseball to rival such other cities seeking an expansion team like Nashville, Portland, Charlotte and possibility others.

Baseball is a summer sport, San José offers the best warm weather consistently over Oakland and San Francisco. Located is the southernmost part of The Bay, San José does not share the marine layer or the fog.

In the next few years BART will be able to complete the loop around the bay, and extend their service from the Berryessa station into downtown San José. Also, Cal-Trains, VTA, Amtrak all come thru/to San Jose. I believe San José is the biggest threat to Oakland in getting an expansion team, because of its size and less economic and social problems.

While it is very early in the process of MLB expansion teams, a “problem” that the Office of the Commissioner believes cannot even get started until the Oakland A’s and Tampa Bay Rays have new stadiums/cities to play in, there should be no doubt that San José is a serious player and can easily push Oakland’s plans to oblivious, if those plans are to get an expansion team.

This is not the 1968 San José that Dionne Warwick sang about her big hit “Do You Know the Way to San José”, because today everybody knows the way to San José.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Oakland A’s lead play by play announcer on the A’s Spanish radio network at 1010 KIQI San Francisco and 990 KATD Pittsburg and does News and Commentary on http://www.sportsradioservice.com

San Jose Sharks special report: Downtown project could be devastating for team’s future; Sharks could move out of San Jose

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SAP Center in San Jose will have plenty of company when Google begins construction for a downtown village and other projects around the arena (photo from Sports Net)

By Daniel Dullum and Marko Ukalovic

SAN JOSE–Back in November 2020 a San Jose Sharks press release to fans and media said the team was considering the possibility of moving out of SAP Center and San Jose if a proposal between Google and the City of San Jose is not met regarding selling SAP Center parking lots A, B, and C to Google which are located right in front of the arena which would be used for Google parking. Google is planning to build a downtown west village and other construction projects around SAP Center.

Sharks Sports and Entertainment strongly made it clear to the city and Google that they wanted to work with them and that purchasing the parking lots for Google’s use was at one time on the table. But since November have not moved an inch on their plans. Google and the city are sticking to what they have on the drawing board and what the Sharks are afraid of a huge downtown village and project with massive construction that would impede the Sharks conducting business, huge traffic snarls, and multiple construction projects for Google’s downtown village.

SAP and Shark Sports Entertainment reiterated again on Sunday through a press release that the city and Google have not revised their documents and looks like they will go forward with their plans that still would require huge traffic environment impacts in the Santa Clara Street downtown west area where SAP is located that would interfere with arena business whether for hockey games or concerts.

In the November letter the Sharks have said for more than a year they have shared their concerns with Google and the city about the massive proposed development projects around the arena that would cause gridlock and cause backed up traffic for fans trying to get to Sharks and Barracuda hockey games. The letter went onto say “Unfortunately, those discussions have yielded limited results and the planners of these projects appear intent on moving forward in a manner that could force the Sharks out of San Jose.”

The new SAP and Sharks letter from Sunday says that the Sharks have tried to work the parking lot issues out with the city and Google but as the documents show they will not modify their construction plans around the arena and the purchasing of parking lots A, B, C, are off the table.

There will be a final phase meeting at the San Jose Planning Commission on April 28th to allow the public to speak and most likely fans and administration staff of the San Jose Sharks not limited to Team President Jonathan Becher who said in November that the Sharks moving out of San Jose would be a last resort. Another meeting on May 25th will be scheduled in front of the city council.

In the event that Google and the City go forward with their plans on the drawing board and the worst case scenario the Sharks decide to move out of San Jose two locations the Chase Center in San Francisco and Golden One Center in Sacramento were raised but neither have NHL regulation ice or dimensions for ice hockey. The Oakland Coliseum Arena which had NHL hockey in the 1970s with the defunct California Golden Seals is the only other possible place left in the Bay Area.

The only other place that has a ready made NHL facility is in Quebec City Canada where Quebec has been waiting for a hockey team since the Nordiques left to become the Colorado Avalanche in 1995. The fans in San Jose have voiced their objections regarding the Google construction because the Sharks have been such a huge part of the San Jose community since they moved into SAP Center in 1993.

Marko Ukalovic is a San Jose Barracuda beat writer and Daniel Dullum hosts Headline Sports podcasts at http://www.sportsradioservice.com