Latest news with #JohnFisher
Yahoo
04-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
San Jose Earthquakes Owner Hires Bank to Sell MLS Club
San Jose Earthquakes owner John Fisher has hired an investment bank to sell his MLS club, according to multiple people familiar with the billionaire's plans. An official announcement is expected sometime on Wednesday. Fisher, who owns and recently relocated MLB's Athletics from Oakland, has retained Moelis & Co. to run the process. The move comes nearly four years after Fisher hired Moelis to explore selling minority shares of his soccer club. Fisher intends to sell a control interest in the Earthquakes this time, according to a source, who was given anonymity because the matter is private. Advertisement More from Moelis, San Jose and MLS declined to comment. In January, the Earthquakes ranked 20th in Sportico's MLS team valuations at $600 million. Fisher paid a $20 million expansion fee for the team in 2007. The Earthquakes play in a soccer-specific stadium, PayPal Park, which is also home to the NWSL's Bay FC. Last year's attendance was the third-lowest in the league, and revenue also ranked near the bottom. Yet, the Bay Area's demographics and deep roster of billionaires push up the value of the club. It had been more than three years since an MLS control stake was sold, before Gail Miller reached an agreement in April to buy Real Salt Lake and NWSL's Utah Royals for nearly $600 million. Miller purchased RSL from the David Blitzer-led group that paid nearly $400 million for the club in January 2022, which had been the prior MLS sale. Advertisement The Vancouver Whitecaps are also on the market. Last December, the MLS franchise majority owned by Greg Kerfoot hired Goldman Sachs to facilitate a sale. MLS is facing an inflection point in several ways, with a critical 24 months ahead. A World Cup bump has long been priced into MLS team values, and it now needs to deliver on the opportunity by converting more casual sports fans to the league. MLS is also weighing shifting its playing schedule to match the FIFA soccer calendar. And top of mind for many teams is how to unlock more value from the league's media partnership with Apple. Fisher has the Earthquakes on the market as he transitions his MLB team from Oakland to Las Vegas. The Athletics are playing this season at Sacramento's Sutter Health Park, the home of the Triple-A Sacramento River Cats. The Athletics are expected to spend at least two more seasons in the California capital before the opening of their new $1.75 billion home in Vegas. Fisher owns more than 95% of the Athletics and hired Galatioto Sports Partners to help sell LP stakes to raise more than $500 million to go towards ballpark construction. Clark County is contributing $350 million of the cost. Advertisement Fisher is worth $3 billion, according to Forbes. Last season, the Earthquakes finished in last place in the Western Conference but sit eighth among 15 teams halfway through this season. (This story has been updated in the third paragraph to reference MLS declining to comment.) Best of Sign up for Sportico's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
The Guardian
03-07-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Debacle in the desert: will the Athletics' $1.75bn stadium on the Vegas Strip ever be built?
It had just turned 8am on a crystal clear, late June Monday morning, but it was already 85F (29C). Despite the tolerable heat (for the desert), a giant air-conditioned tent had been erected on the former site of the Tropicana, the famed hotel which was demolished in a controlled implosion last October. Athletics owner John Fisher, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred and a gaggle of politicians had gathered on the compact, nine-acre site for a ceremony more than two years in the making: the groundbreaking for the new A's stadium on the Las Vegas Strip, coming your way in 2028. On the surface, it was your run-of-the-mill pomp and circumstance: a series of uneven speeches mixed in with a few kids gushing over how much they can't wait to have the former Oakland and current A's in Las Vegas. But if you had been following the long-running A's stadium saga, one which led them to a temporary minor-league residency in Sacramento this season, you didn't have to look far beyond the rented heavy-duty construction props to see the farce, and you didn't have to dig much deeper than the dignitaries shoveling into the makeshift baseball diamond to understand what this ceremony really was: the latest stop on Fisher's neverending, would-be stadium tour. The heavy equipment staged behind A's owner John Fisher at today's stadium groundbreaking was 𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐬 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐲 and isn't being used in construction, a PR person confirmed. 1/3#Athletics #LasVegas #StadiumDeals #ENR #RentAGroundbreaking 'This could be an entire 10-part Netflix docuseries,' says Neil DeMause, editor of Field of Schemes, a site that follows the trials and travails of stadium construction and renovation in North America. 'All the twists and turns in all the different places in the Bay Area they looked, and John Fisher throwing a hissy fit and going off to Las Vegas. And now them being in Sacramento but saying they're going to move to Las Vegas, but still not actually seemingly making any progress. I mean, it's a lot.' JC Bradbury, an economist who studies the financing of sports venues, is similarly mystified about what the next step is. 'It's unclear what the endgame of John Fisher is,' he says. 'Whether he miscalculated, doesn't understand, doesn't care about money, or there's something I'm just totally missing in all of this' It's not the first time the A's have faced questions about their ability to build their new stadium. As far back as 2001, the A's tried to construct a successor to the aging, dilapidated Oakland Coliseum in at least nine sites across the Bay Area, including their final bid, a waterfront shipping port known as Howard Terminal. The city had agreed to hand Fisher, a part-owner and heir to The Gap clothing empire, some $750m in infrastructure and grants before he controversially pulled out of the deal and fled for the desert. Why would Fisher leave nearly a billion dollars for a park on a 55-acre plot, in a top-10 television market in love with its ballclub, for nine acres and a minuscule market with fans who don't know their A's from their elbow? We still don't know, but there are plenty of new questions to try and answer about a process that doesn't add despite Fisher, Manfred, and the Vegas officials who insist that everything is on time and on schedule. What we do know is that Fisher has not surpassed the $100m he must spend on the park to unlock the $380m in public dollars; he's reportedly spent half that on planning and development. We also know that costs of construction are rising. One of the reasons that Stuart Sternberg, owner of the Tampa Bay Rays, says he pulled out of a $600m public subsidy deal is that Hurricane Milton caused a delay to construction of his new stadium, and so he wanted even more public capital to make him whole on potential overruns. Perhaps seeing a future of cash calls, Sternberg is selling the Rays, another team with long-term stadium issues currently playing home games in a minor league park. Fisher, who on the surface has far less business acumen than Sternberg, has seen construction prices rise for the original 33,000-capacity stadium, which would be the smallest in MLB, from $1.5bn to the $1.75bn figure announced six months ago. With an unstable inflationary environment, potential tariff costs and heavy debate on interest rates, Alexander Marks, who heads up Schools over Stadiums, a protest group that has tried to block massive public subsidies that were provided for a billionaire's ballpark despite Nevada's abysmal education rankings, is among critics who believe the price doesn't add up. 'Schools in Clark County aren't being built because of construction costs,' Marks says. 'The Wynn Resorts just announced that they would be putting their renovations on hold because construction costs are up. So it's kind of odd that this is the one guy in Vegas that has figured out how to keep costs the exact same, which leads me to believe that's not the case.' Turns out Marks was on to something. On Saturday, just days after the 'groundbreaking', Fisher finally admitted that the cost could rise yet again to $2bn. It takes time to get the raw materials and labor in place for a project of this scale, and time is quickly translating into money, all while the A's owner is on the hook for all overruns. So where is all this capital coming from? And does Fisher have, or wish to spend, his family fortune on the ballpark? The back-of-the-napkin math says the 64-year-old currently has a $300m loan from Goldman Sachs, $380m in public dollars and roughly $175m from Aramark, the stadium vending group that purchased an equity stake in the A's in May. That's around $855m, leaving a sizable gap left to get this project over the line. On 18 June, Fisher, who Forbes says is worth $3bn, announced he's selling Major League Soccer's San Jose Earthquakes, who were valued in January by Sportico at $600m. It's a move that will both take time to complete and seems hasty considering the money pit this project is becoming. Fisher is short – way short – and that will mean digging deep into his own pockets and risking his family wealth for a project that makes little fiscal sense to anyone analyzing in good faith. The A's are valued at roughly $1.7bn, close to the recent Baltimore Orioles sale, but the latter actually have a major-league park to play in. The A's stadium could cost over a billion of Fisher's own money, and so there are serious doubts as to whether this venue will actually happen. Are there contractor deals done? Has a memorandum of understanding, outlining financial obligations, outlining the intentions and expectations of the parties involved, actually been written? 'Fisher has to realize he's a dead man walking,' Bradbury says. 'And he is sort of trying to play out the string to save as much face as he can. And what's eventually going to happen is someone will come in and be the savior. And that may involve not being in Las Vegas.' Even if the stadium is actually built, and the low-budget A's do land in Vegas, there are even more issues waiting. Despite the 40 million visitors that Las Vegas counts annually, the A's will have to fight to fill seats while competing with live entertainment and nightlife, gambling and the NFL's Raiders and the NHL's Golden Knights, at least for a few months a season, all inside their tiny market. So with all that said, why didn't the A's fight to play at least some games at the local minor-league park and try to get some grassroots support going? It's just another confounding move by Fisher, who made the shortsighted move to play in Sacramento in order to keep revenue from his local television deal. Meanwhile, over in Sactown, not only are the A's not selling out their small minor league park, but their failure to take the capital's name and embrace the city in any tangible way has alienated fans in what's meant to be their home for three years. Not to mention that players are already fed up with their substandard ballpark. Bradbury speculates that with all the bad will surrounding the club, they could wind up in Salt Lake City or elsewhere next season. So now Fisher is, and let's say it politely, disliked, in multiple cities. And should the stadium deal in Las Vegas unravel, it would make for a unique trifecta. That leads to the final question. Why? Why would a billionaire go through all these trials and travails for a move that seemingly doesn't add up, practically or fiscally? We know the then-Oakland A's needed some sort of stadium deal in place by 2024 in order to keep their slice of MLB's revenue sharing stream, but that doesn't begin to explain it. 'This is the dog catching the car,' DeMause says. 'And now that he has caught the car, I don't think he had any idea what to do with it. He switched up on stadium sites [in Las Vegas] in a matter of 24 hours. He did not have a plan for where to play once Oakland kicked him out, even though he didn't have a lease. It either didn't occur to him or he figured he would figure it out later.' The case against Fisher is damning, yet instead of selling and walking away with a tidy profit, he soldiers on. Is it a case of a wealthy team owner thoroughly enjoying the attention of desert-based suitors after years of combat with Oakland's leaders? Is it a case of an heir on a quest to prove to someone, maybe himself, that he has the chops to pull something like this off? DeMause believes it's all possible, but offers up a simpler explanation. 'It's very, very clear: he's really bad at this.'
Yahoo
02-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Debacle in the desert: Will the Athetics' $1.75bn stadium on the Vegas Strip ever be built?
It had just turned 8am on a crystal clear, late June Monday morning, but it was already 85F (29F). Despite the tolerable heat (for the desert), a giant air conditioned tent had been erected on the former site of the Tropicana, the famed hotel which was demolished in a controlled implosion last October. Athletics owner John Fisher, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred and a gaggle of politicians had all gathered on the compact, nine-acre site for a ceremony over two years in the making: the groundbreaking for the new A's stadium on the Strip, coming your way in 2028. On the surface, it was your run-of-the-mill pomp and circumstance: a series of uneven speeches mixed in with a few kids gushing over how much they can't wait to have the former Oakland and current A's in Las Vegas. But if you had been following the long-running A's stadium saga, one which led them to a temporary minor-league residency in Sacramento this season, you didn't have to look far beyond the rented heavy-duty construction props to see the farce, and you didn't have to dig much deeper than the dignitaries shoveling into the makeshift baseball diamond to understand what this ceremony really was: the latest stop on Fisher's neverending, would-be stadium tour. 'This could be an entire 10-part Netflix docuseries,' Neil DeMause, editor of Field of Schemes, a site that follows the trials and travails of stadium construction and renovation in North America, told The Guardian. 'All the twists and turns in all the different places in the Bay Area they looked, and John Fisher throwing a hissy fit and going off to Las Vegas. And now them being in Sacramento but saying they're going to move to Las Vegas, but still not actually seemingly making any progress. I mean, it's a lot.' Advertisement 'It's unclear what the endgame of John Fisher is,' JC Bradbury, an economist who studies the financing of sports venues, said. 'Whether he miscalculated, doesn't understand, doesn't care about money, or there's something I'm just totally missing in all of this' It's not the first time the A's have faced questions about their ability to build their new stadium. As far back as 2001, the A's tried to construct a successor to the aging, dilapidated Oakland Coliseum in at least nine sites across the Bay Area, including their final bid, a waterfront shipping port known as Howard Terminal. The city had agreed to hand Mr Fisher, a part-owner and heir to The Gap clothing empire, some $750m in infrastructure and grants before he controversially pulled out of the deal and fled for the desert. Why would Fisher leave nearly a billion dollars for a park on a 55-acre plot, in a top-10 television market in love with its ballclub, for nine acres and a minuscule market with fans who don't know their A's from their elbow? We still don't know, but there are plenty of new questions to try and answer about a process that doesn't add up to anyone despite Fisher, Manfred, and the Vegas officials who insist that everything is on time and on schedule. What we do know is that Fisher has not surpassed the $100m he must spend on the park to unlock the $380m in public dollars; he's reportedly spent half that on planning and development. We also know that costs of construction are rising on a daily basis. One of the reasons that Stuart Sternberg, owner of the Tampa Bay Rays, says he pulled out of a $600m public subsidy deal is that Hurricane Milton caused a delay to construction of his new stadium, and so he wanted even more public capital to make him whole on potential overruns. Perhaps seeing a future of cash calls, Sternberg is now selling the Rays, another team with long-term stadium issues currently playing home games in a minor league park. Advertisement Fisher, who on the surface has far less business acumen than Sternberg, has seen construction prices rise for the original 33,000-capacity stadium, which would be the smallest in baseball, from $1.5bn to the $1.75bn figure announced six months ago. With an unstable inflationary environment, potential tariff costs and heavy debate on interest rates, Alexander Marks, who heads up Schools over Stadiums, a protest group that has tried to block massive public subsidies that were provided for a billionaires ballpark despite Nevada's abysmal education rankings, is among critics who believe the price doesn't add up. 'Schools in Clark County aren't being built because of construction costs,' Marks told the Guardian. 'The Wynn Resorts just announced that they would be putting their renovations on hold because construction costs are up. So it's kind of odd that this is the one guy in Vegas that has figured out how to keep costs the exact same, which leads me to believe that's not the case.' Turns out Marks was onto something. On Saturday, just days after the 'groundbreaking', Fisher finally admitted that the cost could rise yet again to $2bn. It takes time to get the raw materials and labor in place for a project of this scale, and time is quickly translating into money, all while the A's owner is on the hook for all overruns. So where is all this capital coming from? And does Fisher have, or wish to spend, his family fortune on the ballpark? The back-of-the-napkin math says the 64-year-old currently has a $300m loan from Goldman Sachs, $380m in public dollars and roughly $175m from Aramark, the stadium vending group that purchased an equity stake in the A's in May. That's around $855m, leaving a sizable gap left to get this project over the line. On 18 June, Fisher, who Forbes says is worth $3bn, announced he's selling Major League Soccer's San Jose Earthquakes, who were valued in January by Sportico at $600m. It's a move that will both take time to complete and seems hasty considering the money pit this project is becoming. Advertisement Fisher is short – way short – and that will mean digging deep into his own pockets and risking his family wealth for a project that makes little fiscal sense to anyone analyzing in good faith. The team is valued at roughly $1.7bn, close to the recent Baltimore Orioles sale, a team that actually has a major-league park to play in. The stadium could cost over a billion of his own money, and so there are some serious doubts as to whether this venue will actually happen. Are there contractor deals done? Has a memorandum of understanding, outlining financial obligations, outlining the intentions and expectations of the parties involved, actually been written? 'Fisher has to realize he's a dead man walking,' Bradbury said. 'And he is sort of trying to play out the string to save as much face as he can. And what's eventually going to happen is someone will come in and be the savior. And that may involve not being in Las Vegas.' Even if the stadium is actually built, and the low-budget A's do land in Vegas, there are even more issues waiting. Despite the 40m visitors that Las Vegas counts annually, the A's will have to fight to fill seats while competing with live entertainment and nightlife, gambling and the NFL's Raiders and the NHL's Golden Knights, at least for at least a few months a season, all inside their tiny market. So with all that said, why didn't the A's fight to play at least some games at the local minor-league park and try to get some grassroots support going? It's just another confounding move by Fisher, who made the shortsighted move to play in Sacramento in order to keep revenue from his local television deal. Meanwhile, over in Sactown, not only are the A's not selling out their small minor league park, but their failure to take the capital's name and embrace the city in any tangible way has alienated fans in what's meant to be their home for three years. Not to mention that players are already fed up with their substandard MLB ballpark. Bradbury speculates that with all the bad will surrounding the club, they could wind up in Salt Lake City or elsewhere next season. So now Fisher is, and let's say it politely, disliked, in multiple cities. And should the stadium deal in Las Vegas unravel, it would make for a unique trifecta. Advertisement That all leads to the final question. Why? Why would a billionaire go through all these trials and travails for a move that seemingly doesn't add up in any way shape or form, practically or fiscally? We know the then-Oakland A's needed some sort of stadium deal in place by 2024 in order to keep their slice of MLB's revenue sharing stream, but that doesn't begin to explain it. 'This is the dog catching the car,' DeMause said. 'And now that he has caught the car, I don't think he had any idea what to do with it. He switched up on stadium sites [in Las Vegas] in a matter of 24 hours. He did not have a plan for where to play once Oakland kicked him out, even though he didn't have a lease. It either didn't occur to him or he figured he would figure it out later.' The case against Fisher is damning, yet instead of selling and walking away with a tidy profit now, he soldiers on. Is it a case of a wealthy team owner thoroughly enjoying the attention of desert-based suitors after years of combat with Oakland's leaders? Is it a case of an heir on a quest to prove to someone, maybe himself, that he has the chops to pull something like this off? DeMause believes it's all possible, but offers up a simpler explanation. 'It's very, very clear: he's really bad at this.'
The Guardian
02-07-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Debacle in the desert: Will the Athetics' $1.75bn stadium on the Vegas Strip ever be built?
It had just turned 8am on a crystal clear, late June Monday morning, but it was already 85F (29F). Despite the tolerable heat (for the desert), a giant air conditioned tent had been erected on the former site of the Tropicana, the famed hotel which was demolished in a controlled implosion last October. Athletics owner John Fisher, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred and a gaggle of politicians had all gathered on the compact, nine-acre site for a ceremony over two years in the making: the groundbreaking for the new A's stadium on the Strip, coming your way in 2028. On the surface, it was your run-of-the-mill pomp and circumstance: a series of uneven speeches mixed in with a few kids gushing over how much they can't wait to have the former Oakland and current A's in Las Vegas. But if you had been following the long-running A's stadium saga, one which led them to a temporary minor-league residency in Sacramento this season, you didn't have to look far beyond the rented heavy-duty construction props to see the farce, and you didn't have to dig much deeper than the dignitaries shoveling into the makeshift baseball diamond to understand what this ceremony really was: the latest stop on Fisher's neverending, would-be stadium tour. The heavy equipment staged behind A's owner John Fisher at today's stadium groundbreaking was 𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐬 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐲 and isn't being used in construction, a PR person confirmed. 1/3#Athletics #LasVegas #StadiumDeals #ENR #RentAGroundbreaking 'This could be an entire 10-part Netflix docuseries,' Neil DeMause, editor of Field of Schemes, a site that follows the trials and travails of stadium construction and renovation in North America, told The Guardian. 'All the twists and turns in all the different places in the Bay Area they looked, and John Fisher throwing a hissy fit and going off to Las Vegas. And now them being in Sacramento but saying they're going to move to Las Vegas, but still not actually seemingly making any progress. I mean, it's a lot.' 'It's unclear what the endgame of John Fisher is,' JC Bradbury, an economist who studies the financing of sports venues, said. 'Whether he miscalculated, doesn't understand, doesn't care about money, or there's something I'm just totally missing in all of this' It's not the first time the A's have faced questions about their ability to build their new stadium. As far back as 2001, the A's tried to construct a successor to the aging, dilapidated Oakland Coliseum in at least nine sites across the Bay Area, including their final bid, a waterfront shipping port known as Howard Terminal. The city had agreed to hand Mr Fisher, a part-owner and heir to The Gap clothing empire, some $750m in infrastructure and grants before he controversially pulled out of the deal and fled for the desert. Why would Fisher leave nearly a billion dollars for a park on a 55-acre plot, in a top-10 television market in love with its ballclub, for nine acres and a minuscule market with fans who don't know their A's from their elbow? We still don't know, but there are plenty of new questions to try and answer about a process that doesn't add up to anyone despite Fisher, Manfred, and the Vegas officials who insist that everything is on time and on schedule. What we do know is that Fisher has not surpassed the $100m he must spend on the park to unlock the $380m in public dollars; he's reportedly spent half that on planning and development. We also know that costs of construction are rising on a daily basis. One of the reasons that Stuart Sternberg, owner of the Tampa Bay Rays, says he pulled out of a $600m public subsidy deal is that Hurricane Milton caused a delay to construction of his new stadium, and so he wanted even more public capital to make him whole on potential overruns. Perhaps seeing a future of cash calls, Sternberg is now selling the Rays, another team with long-term stadium issues currently playing home games in a minor league park. Fisher, who on the surface has far less business acumen than Sternberg, has seen construction prices rise for the original 33,000-capacity stadium, which would be the smallest in baseball, from $1.5bn to the $1.75bn figure announced six months ago. With an unstable inflationary environment, potential tariff costs and heavy debate on interest rates, Alexander Marks, who heads up Schools over Stadiums, a protest group that has tried to block massive public subsidies that were provided for a billionaires ballpark despite Nevada's abysmal education rankings, is among critics who believe the price doesn't add up. 'Schools in Clark County aren't being built because of construction costs,' Marks told the Guardian. 'The Wynn Resorts just announced that they would be putting their renovations on hold because construction costs are up. So it's kind of odd that this is the one guy in Vegas that has figured out how to keep costs the exact same, which leads me to believe that's not the case.' Turns out Marks was onto something. On Saturday, just days after the 'groundbreaking', Fisher finally admitted that the cost could rise yet again to $2bn. It takes time to get the raw materials and labor in place for a project of this scale, and time is quickly translating into money, all while the A's owner is on the hook for all overruns. So where is all this capital coming from? And does Fisher have, or wish to spend, his family fortune on the ballpark? The back-of-the-napkin math says the 64-year-old currently has a $300m loan from Goldman Sachs, $380m in public dollars and roughly $175m from Aramark, the stadium vending group that purchased an equity stake in the A's in May. That's around $855m, leaving a sizable gap left to get this project over the line. On 18 June, Fisher, who Forbes says is worth $3bn, announced he's selling Major League Soccer's San Jose Earthquakes, who were valued in January by Sportico at $600m. It's a move that will both take time to complete and seems hasty considering the money pit this project is becoming. Fisher is short – way short – and that will mean digging deep into his own pockets and risking his family wealth for a project that makes little fiscal sense to anyone analyzing in good faith. The team is valued at roughly $1.7bn, close to the recent Baltimore Orioles sale, a team that actually has a major-league park to play in. The stadium could cost over a billion of his own money, and so there are some serious doubts as to whether this venue will actually happen. Are there contractor deals done? Has a memorandum of understanding, outlining financial obligations, outlining the intentions and expectations of the parties involved, actually been written? 'Fisher has to realize he's a dead man walking,' Bradbury said. 'And he is sort of trying to play out the string to save as much face as he can. And what's eventually going to happen is someone will come in and be the savior. And that may involve not being in Las Vegas.' Even if the stadium is actually built, and the low-budget A's do land in Vegas, there are even more issues waiting. Despite the 40m visitors that Las Vegas counts annually, the A's will have to fight to fill seats while competing with live entertainment and nightlife, gambling and the NFL's Raiders and the NHL's Golden Knights, at least for at least a few months a season, all inside their tiny market. So with all that said, why didn't the A's fight to play at least some games at the local minor-league park and try to get some grassroots support going? It's just another confounding move by Fisher, who made the shortsighted move to play in Sacramento in order to keep revenue from his local television deal. Meanwhile, over in Sactown, not only are the A's not selling out their small minor league park, but their failure to take the capital's name and embrace the city in any tangible way has alienated fans in what's meant to be their home for three years. Not to mention that players are already fed up with their substandard MLB ballpark. Bradbury speculates that with all the bad will surrounding the club, they could wind up in Salt Lake City or elsewhere next season. So now Fisher is, and let's say it politely, disliked, in multiple cities. And should the stadium deal in Las Vegas unravel, it would make for a unique trifecta. That all leads to the final question. Why? Why would a billionaire go through all these trials and travails for a move that seemingly doesn't add up in any way shape or form, practically or fiscally? We know the then-Oakland A's needed some sort of stadium deal in place by 2024 in order to keep their slice of MLB's revenue sharing stream, but that doesn't begin to explain it. 'This is the dog catching the car,' DeMause said. 'And now that he has caught the car, I don't think he had any idea what to do with it. He switched up on stadium sites [in Las Vegas] in a matter of 24 hours. He did not have a plan for where to play once Oakland kicked him out, even though he didn't have a lease. It either didn't occur to him or he figured he would figure it out later.' The case against Fisher is damning, yet instead of selling and walking away with a tidy profit now, he soldiers on. Is it a case of a wealthy team owner thoroughly enjoying the attention of desert-based suitors after years of combat with Oakland's leaders? Is it a case of an heir on a quest to prove to someone, maybe himself, that he has the chops to pull something like this off? DeMause believes it's all possible, but offers up a simpler explanation. 'It's very, very clear: he's really bad at this.'
San Francisco Chronicle
24-06-2025
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
John Fisher to sell San Jose Earthquakes as A's prepare for Las Vegas move
John Fisher intends to sell the San Jose Earthquakes after hiring bank Moelis & Co. to carry out the sale, the Major League Soccer club announced Wednesday. The news comes ahead of Monday's official groundbreaking for another Fisher-owned team, the Athletics, to celebrate the start of construction for the franchise's stadium in Las Vegas. The baseball stadium will cost an estimated $1.75 billion. Fisher's family has pledged $1 billion toward that price tag. His selling the Earthquakes appears to be a move to potentially free up additional funds. The soccer club is valued at $600 million, according to a Sportico report in January, after Fisher paid a $20 million expansion fee for it in 2007. 'The San Jose Earthquakes and PayPal Park have been an important part of our lives for nearly two decades,' Fisher said in a statement. 'We are proud of the role the Quakes have played in the growth of soccer throughout Silicon Valley. The Bay Area is a special place and we're deeply grateful to the fans, players and staff who've been with us on this journey.' Fisher also hired Galatioto Sports to attract investors in an effort to raise upwards of $500 million, with Clark County in Las Vegas planning to contribute $350 million. The A's are expected to play at least three seasons at Sutter Health Park, home to the Sacramento River Cats, the Giants' Triple-A Affiliate. Fisher's decision to move the A's out of Oakland has earned him widespread criticism. What he accomplished with the Earthquakes in San Jose is its own story. In 2005, the San Jose Earthquakes, then owned by the Anschutz Entertainment Group, announced the franchise would be uprooted to become the Houston Dynamo. Fisher brought the Earthquakes back two years later as an expansion franchise and subsequently built a soccer-only stadium in 2015 that has since hosted premier soccer on numerous occasions. From selling out matches for the U.S. women's national team to welcoming international fútbol icon Lionel Messi as recently as this year, PayPal Park — previously known as Avaya Stadium before being renamed in 2021 — is among Fisher's notable achievements as the Quakes' owner. Attendance for Earthquakes matches has paled in comparison to other MLS teams. Their average home attendance ranked third to last in MLS last season. PayPal Park is also home to Bay FC, who debuted in the NWSL in 2024 and expect to build their own stadium in the future. The Quakes remain above the postseason cutoff in the Western Conference standings with a 6-7-5 record this season, led by first-year head coach Bruce Arena, a big-name hire. 'On behalf of Major League Soccer, I want to thank the Fisher family for their longstanding commitment to the Earthquakes and the San Jose community,' MLS Commissioner Don Garber said in a statement. 'Under their leadership, the club invested in world-class facilities like PayPal Park, built a highly respected youth academy and helped grow the game in one of the nation's most dynamic markets.'
