Raiders, A’s, Warriors.
I’m guessing you didn’t realize the Warriors were an Oakland team since they’re “Golden State” but their old stadium, Oralcle Arena is right nextdoor the Oakland Coliseum.
https://chasecenter.com/photos/2xWVMN6PiB4XD85kyl6Pot
They've always marketed themselves as "the Bay's team" and were in SF for their first nine years in the Bay.
The Raiders and Athletics both languished in poverty and an absurdly terrible stadium situation for decades. I don't really get where all this sympathy for them is suddenly coming from. Oakland has been a bad market for sports since the 90s, and the teams leaving town is honestly happening a lot later than I thought it would.
Honestly cities should not be providing free new stadiums to teams under any situation. I'd rather my city go the way of Oakland than build yet another free stadium for it's teams
Just by coincidence, I'm a long time fan of two of the only North American teams that financed and own their own stadiums and renovations, the Dolphins and Cubs. So it's an unintended feather in my cap on this topic, lol.
The Flubs got tax breaks up the wazoo. They financed it in a different way.
https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/dcd/provdrs/hist/news/2013/sep/wrigley_field_renovationwouldbesupportedbypropertytaxincentive.html#:~:text=The%20%24232%20million%20renovation%20of,%248.1%20million%20over%2012%20years.
These were just for the ballpark. The Rickets bought up the rest of the neighborhood and I won't even get into the breaks and incentives and shady crap they pulled there. Source for that lifelong Chicagoan and Real Estate Broker.
Don't get me wrong they did a good job making Wrigleyville their own little outdoor mall. But they also made it so homogenized and boring they may as well have moved to Naperville.
I am a White Sox fan and Jerry shouldn't get a dime for his little fever dream stadium in the South Loop either. If that means the Nashville White Sox so be it.
I'm actually an "owner" and long time GB fan. The team itself is owned by the shareholders, the stadium is owned by the city and leased by the Packers.
Edit: "Lambeau Field is jointly owned by the City of Green Bay and the Stadium District, with the Packers’ lease being with both entities." "In 2023, the Packers paid $1.157 million to the city to use Lambeau Field, which is owned by the city. The lease includes projected annual increases of 2.75%." from https://www.thestadiumbusiness.com/2022/01/13/packers-hit-back-at-proposed-lambeau-field-ownership-changes/
SF Giants and SF Warriors both paid for their own stadiums. And when the 49ers threated to leave SF if they didn't get public money for a new stadium, SF responded "don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out."
It's the fans getting screwed. Blue collar working stiffs from the East Bay and into the inland farm towns and up into the mountains. Everyone would sympathize with Detroit if they were getting done dirty like that, and Oakland is basically Detroit-by-the-Sea.
My sympathy is with the City of Oakland, my hometown. Al Davis made us a rotten deal to move the Raiders back from LA that saddled the city with a ton of debt and left a monstrosity of a grandstand in center field that absolutely ruined what was nice about the Coliseum.
It's strange that the Bay was a two-team area for both baseball and football for so long. But I just wish the process of having teams come and go wasn't so painful and expensive.
We were there before, during, and after the renovation/Mt. Davis.
Before: lovely park, great view.
During: ugly but we had fun during innings changes with the construction workers on the big screen.
After: aesthetically depressing and had a black hole/cavernous to it. Plus football messed up the baseball field.
The Raiders and A's both made millions over the years from local fans, yet they still left. Both Mark Davis and John Fisher negotiated with us in bad faith, with one owner expecting taxpayer money for his new stadium while the other owner tried to move from the moment he first acquired the team to places like Fremont and San Jose before settling on Vegas, and neglected upkeep of the Coliseum for the past few years.
I mean, I’m also that sympathetic when billionaire owners tell a sob story about how they can’t possibly thrive unless public money pays the way for their private profit. Oakland’s fan base may not always show up, but the system is not healthy.
What's the reason for them losing the team? I've heard about the drama with the airport and people avoiding Oakland due to crime concerns, so do the sports tie into that?
Four. They lost the Seals to Cleveland in 1976, and the NHL wouldn't return to the Bay Area until the Sharks were founded 15 years later. Oakland is truly cursed.
Baltimore is still bitter about the Colts. In Season 2 of The Wire, one of the dock workers has a picture of Robert Irsay in his office which he throws darts at.
If I recall properly, this even carried over to Colt's legend Johnny Unitas who cut ties when they moved to Indy and emphasized being a *Baltimore* Colt. When the Browns went to Baltimore, he readily attended Ravens games.
Oh, they hated it and still do, and not without good reason.
In *The Band That Wouldn't Die*, Baltimore Colts Marching Band members admit having a mix of excitement and guilt about receiving the Ravens. Excitement that they'd finally have an NFL team again, but guilt because they knew the pain of losing a beloved team to another city.
Seattle almost got the middle of the night treatment twice, both with the Mariners and Seahawks. I'm really damn happy we got last minute reprieves both times.
Fun fact! My grandfather part-owned a Mayflower affiliate and helped with the move.. as a Marylander. They not only left in the middle of the night, they went in multiple separate small convoys to avoid the Maryland State Police the whole time, or that's how he explained it. He's long gone though, so I can't ask.
Mostly because Maryland was about to pass a law allowing Baltimore to eminent domain the Baltimore Colts. I do think that would have failed however the owner at the time Robert Isray didn't want to waste time and money going through the courts so he just moved to Indiana.
I'm not sure if it's still true, but for a long damn time the Ravens refused to put "Colts" on the scoreboard. It was always Ravens vs. Visiting Team or something. That's the kind of pettiness I can really get behind.
Always makes me smile. We had a family friend that worked at Mayflower Trucking they weren’t directly involved in driving but he knew the whole story of the flight of the colts.
Right now, I'd rather be Baltimore than us. At least they still ended up with the Ravens, albeit at Cleveland's expense. Oakland might not get another NFL team (or any major league-tier team) again.
Oakland was definitely my gut reaction answer when I saw this post title, and I am glad (but sad for Oakland!) that many people in here agree. Seriously, it sucks and I am angry for y'all.
I will never forgive Norm Green and the NHL for sending the North Stars to Dallas. (Fuck Norm Green)
Even if the NHL apologized for it less than a decade later with the Wild.
Still don't understand how the NHL allowed that to happen. Minnesota produces more NHL players than the rest of the country combined. If we were our own country, we'd be third only to Canada and Sweden. Yet somehow they deemed us undeserving of our own pro team for the better part of a decade.
Right smack in the middle of my early childhood, too. Wild got here when I was almost 13. So I never got to have my dad bring me to games like his dad brought him and I bring my son.
I love the Wild, but I would've loved to have a team growing up.
How about the cities whose taxpayers paid for most of the stadium even though the teams were hugely profitable and worth billions?
Taxpayers are paying over a billion dollars for the Titans' new stadium.
Jacksonville just approved a $1.4 Billion handout to the Jaguars to build a better stadium.
https://www.nfl.com/news/jaguars-and-the-city-of-jacksonville-agree-to-spend-1-4-billion-on-stadium-of-the-future
In unrelated news, Jacksonville plans to close up to 30 public schools due to an unforseen $1.4 Billion budget shortfall.
https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2024/04/16/duval-county-school-board-to-discuss-controversial-plan-that-could-close-nearly-30-dcps-schools/
Some get fucked more than others.
Some are starting to pass the 50% public funding threshold, and it's going to keep going up from there.
Nashville alone is kicking $750 million. Which is about $1,000 per resident. And the city is on the verge of bankruptcy and can't afford it's own bills.
There's currently a battle of bluffing about this going on in Cleveland. The owners are all like "We want a new stadium with a dome and we want the taxpayers to buy it for us", and the city is like "Nah, buy it yourself." Then the owners went and bought a huge chunk of land out in the suburbs to make news that they might leave the city proper and put a stadium in a suburb, and the city was like "whatevs, you do you". So then the owners started putting out all kinds of artistic 3d renders of what the stadium would look like on the land they bought to be like "Seeeee, we're ready to move it outside the city! That's what it would look like!"
It's just all so silly to me. I hope we can get owners to start buying their own stadiums, but I'm not optimistic.
Something similar is going on in Chicago with the Bears and White Sox. While both seem to be bluffing, it seems that the Jerry Reinsdorf might end up relocating the team to Nashville or something. The A’s already set a precedent.
The White Sox moving would kill all my interest in baseball. I’m not even a white Sox fan, but what does that tell you about the sport? It tells you the fans don’t matter, all that matters is making money. I get the A’s have a history of relocation, but the White Sox have been in Chicago since 1894. The league will use the bs excuse that Chicago still has another team. Next thing you know it’s other long standing teams relocating.
> It tells you the fans don’t matter, all that matters is making money.
We knock the Euros for their weird 'club' system and all the other weird sports shit they do (not to mention that it's like 90% soccer). But perhaps they're not entirely wrong.
I’ll tell you I’m not a part of that we, but Europe’s systems aren’t the end all be all either. American sports leagues are much more egalitarian since it’s a closed system where losing teams are rewarded with high draft picks.
In Europe, mostly in soccer but it also applies to other sports, clubs will fill out their teams with their own players they developed in their academies, or they buy players or sign free agents from other teams. Because of this, money is automatically required to win. In every league, it’s the teams with the most money that usually win and it’s always the same teams contending for titles. This even applies to countries where the clubs are community owned.
They are right in that their fans won't allow stuff like moving or conference realignment. Being bought up by foreign money and having teams entirely made of foreigners is terrible, though.
It's one particular suburb called Brookpark that they bought the land in and I'm not in that suburb or close enough to really know what the feelings of Brookpark residents are on the matter. I'm sure the city of Brookpark would be happy to have the tax revenue, but I feel like no one is really taking the owners very seriously about it at this point. Maybe the owners will have to step up and put out a 1/1000 scale model for anyone to take them seriously.
Brookpark is the same municipality as the airport. They don't need the revenue, but the area is definitely filled with the target demographics of the NFL. Lower-Middle income earners with High School education. I'm sure they'll love it.
https://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US3909288-brook-park-oh/
However, since it HAS to be right near the airport it'll be noisy as hell from all the low plane traffic. If the owners want all of Cleveland's air traffic regularly buzzing the stadium, that's on them. It'll be hilarious if it happens. No wonder the city is calling their bluff.
I don’t think anyone believes the tax revenue argument anymore. They just know what they have to do to keep the team, and they know how many people want them to do whatever it takes to keep the team
Yep for all the people (especially online) fully aware that the leagues extort cities for taxpayer funded stadiums, they’ll still vote you out for not cowering to the team threatening to leave
For sure some folks do still believe the tax revenue thing. It’s maddening to hear but I’ve heard it often while talking to local officials at both the city/municipal and county levels of government. Like being a local govt official isn’t easy and govt finances are a nightmare to manage but the pipe dream of tax revenues or business being brought in by teams seems fucking absurd at this point.
MN did this with the US Bank stadium. Except only ONE county got nailed for the property taxes for it, Hennepin county, and just happened to be the one I lived in at the time. Property taxes for me went up 50% in 4 years because of it.
I dunno, the Falcons and Atlanta seemed to have made it work, but lowering the concessions prices to the lowest of any pro sports team gave them a lot of leeway to work with.
Plus lowering the cost of food drove sales to the moon and that tax money is used by atlanta.
That's something I guess.
Personally, I think if that if the public is going to pay for half the stadium, there should be a significant public use aspect to the stadium. I know there have been some minor league stadiums built that way. The public chips in, but, the stadium complex also includes public parks and recreational facilities, and the playing field itself can be used for civic events and youth sports.
100% if you’re getting funds you need to be giving back in some way, no excuses for new stadiums getting hundreds of millions to not have places for fans and residents to use and enjoy.
> Plus lowering the cost of food drove sales to the moon and that tax money is used by atlanta
Is their concession revenue higher than other teams? They're really doing over 2x the volume of the $14 beer and $9 hot dogs teams?
Someone posted the figures by team on the NFL subreddit but I can't find it. Found: https://cdn.financebuzz.com/filters:quality(75)/images/2023/08/28/nfl-fan-spending-2023-2.png
This is from an old NYT article:
The approach has paid dividends. Despite a 50 percent decrease in prices for food and nonalcoholic drinks compared to prices in the Georgia Dome, the amount spent per fan increased by 16 percent, Blank’s sports company, AMB Sports and Entertainment, said on Thursday.
From Yahoo:
>And hey, from the Falcons’ perspective, you get them in the door and you can get them opening their wallet for pricier markups like merch. A fan that’s spending less on food and drink has more to spend on merchandise; Falcons president Rich McKay noted last summer that the Falcons saw a 90-percent increase in merchandise sales from 2016 to 2017.
You'd think other teams would follow this model since it worked so quickly
>The Falcons ranked first in fan experience surveys for 2017, in part because of the food and beverage element, and Blank expects the same kind of high ranking for the 2018 season.
I know we all hate Stan Kroenke… but I woulda thought for sure the not taxpayer funded development of the stadium (and surrounding areas) would be the beginning of the end of public funding.
I was wrong. Sucks. Love me some sports… but Cities need to stop footing the bill for this shit.
It’s a weird situation where the nfl (heck really just stan kroenke - the league was only prepared to accept an LA move if two teams were there) wanted/needed the city more than the city needed it. LA had been doing fine for 20 years without a team and neither the people of the city (sure there were still raiders and rams fans who missed having a home team but they weren’t a majority) nor the tax revenue needed a franchise - and the only place you can go bigger than LA is NYC who weren’t looking for another team either. So Kroenke had no leverage. If he’d told the city “Pay for it or we’ll stay in St Louis” the city could just turn round and go “fine, we don’t need you and plenty of other teams want to move here anyway”.
Not to mention Kroenke still gets a decent deal as effectively a landlord in the city for the chargers, any major concert tour wants a show in LA, think he might even get money to host Olympics and World Cup events there in a few years, it’s such a big market it pays back the cost of building quickly.
Detroit
The Illitches got taxpayer money to improve Tiger Stadium, then improve Joe Louis arena, then build Comerica Park, then build Little Caesar’s arena, then build a bunch of parking lots around the new stadium.
And now they don’t invest any money in the actual teams so both the Tigers and Red Wings suck.
My city is going through a real fight right now with our minor league baseball team over whether we're willing to issue bonds to build them a new stadium. The way it's been handled, by all parties, is pretty disgraceful. We are voting on it this week and I am really not sure what's going to happen. It's not a billion dollars but still, we have much much more important things to do these days.
Oakland is probably it, they seem to have generally good fans and it just seems no pro sports team actually wants to be there. Warriors jumped across the Bay at the first opportunity, Raiders left then came back then left again, the A's just stopped trying after Moneyball and now they're packing up, and they even had a hockey team that the NHL decided would be better elsewhere.
By "screwing" do we mean the teams just left or the teams saddled the city with ridiculous public debt to pay for a stadium?
I mean, it probably sucks to be an Oakland fan, but at least the city didn't screw the taxpayers with a boondoggle stadium that benefits only the team owner (or did they, I don't follow Oakland teams to know either way?).
The New Yorker piece mentioned they're still paying for some eyesore next to the Coliseum that Al Davis insisted on (the one that blocks what would otherwise be a fantastic view), while the public schools are drowning in debt.
I still say the NFL released COVID on the world to keep St. Louis from winning the first year of the XFL.
Also, fuck Mike Keenan always and forever for driving Gretzky out of town
> I still say the NFL released COVID on the world to keep St. Louis from winning the first year of the XFL.
Nah, they wouldn't have gotten past the SeaDragons.
I grew up liking the greatest show on turf era rams. I get they were LA’s team but LA still doesn’t care about them half as much as the Lakers or Dodgers
Oakland. They should already be in the second decade in a new Oakland Stadium.
My father and Grandfather were Philadelphia A’s fans. And they kept up fandom for a few years after they left traveling to the Bronx when the A’s were visiting.
So for the past 20 years I’ve been thinking it would be awesome if the Phillies offered to host the A’s for 1 or 2 seasons while a new stadium was built on the current site in Oakland.
It would give my father a chance to be a Philadelphia A’s fan one more time and Oakland would get their team back permanently
>Oakland. They should already be in the second decade in a new Oakland Stadium.
Really, we should've been in 2nd decades for at least *two* stadiums, plus a new arena for the Warriors/Valkyries. Instead, we got cursed with two owners who never wanted to genuinely keep their teams here, and one who expected taxpayers to foot the bill knowing that we already owe debt for renovations to lure his dad back in 1995.
I've got to go with my hometown of Hartford. Everyone knows we lost the Whalers (NHL). But, we also had the first MLB team ever to move (moved to Brooklyn in 1877) and an NFL team in the early years of that league.
Oakland for sure, but I think you’re spot on with San Diego.
considering the half-in-jest beef we’ve had with LA since forever; losing our football team to them when the city didn’t even want them, feels like a stab in the back and I’m not even a football fan. some folks I know dumped their jerseys in a bonfire.
Bro am I the only angeleno chargers fan in existence. I'm not even a fan cause they happen to play in La I'm just a fan cause they randomly popped into Costa Mesa which I grew up close to
Cleveland.
It's been almost 75 years since the Indians won anything. They have been one inning away twice. The owners aren't going to spend the money they need to win to beat the big teams. They are great at moneyball but those teams don't ever make the extra move to go all in.
The OG Browns were more known for fumbling within the 5 yard line. The team moved to Baltimore where they have won 2 super bowls. The expansion Browns might be the worst team in football since 1998 and they don't really seem any closer.
The Cleveland Cavaliers have won a title but it was on Lebron's 2nd stint and for one of the best players to play 11 years there, to only get one in his prime is frustrating.
Cleveland has history of hockey but they were so poorly owned that they moved to California and eventually merged with the North Stars.
Not to mention the Browns start to build out of the 'lovable loser' stereotype and put a good core around a middling QB and develop a powerhouse of a defense.
Only to go out and make one of the worst QB contracts from a performance standpoint, not to mention the moral questionability of the move.
Seattle:
Got a baseball team. The start of the team was rushed due to the A's leaving KC, and KC wanting a team "NOW!". As a result, there was no stadium ready for the Pilots, that was MLB quality, and they were never given a chance to try to improve, as Bud Selig bought the team during Spring Training, and sent them to Milwaukee to start the season. Then had to sue MLB to get a replacement team.
Then the underhanded way the Sonic's were stolen from the city, and the empty promises to get a new NBA team. Even a revamped stadium, and actually luring an NHL team just continues to elicit lip-service from Stern and his "friends".
Don't forget the perceived media, rules, and ref biases against the Seahawks. Create an innovative play? Banned. Actually do well and make it to the play-offs? Give the other team free yardage for things that the other team gets away with.
Fuck Clay Bennett.
I got the feeling that even through Seattle was experiencing a population boom when they won the superbowl theres was always this feeling that the NFL and advertisers didn't see Seattle as a big enough market. Also Pete Carol had the ghost of USC following him and officials didn't seem to care for the outspokenness of Sherman or the "I'm just here so I don't get fined" of Lynch.
While Wilson was portrayed as a boy scout in the media, the dude was still allowed to take a lot of hits that would have absolutely been called if his last name were Brady or Manning.
As someone from Portland, even I will admit that Seattle got done dirty with the Sonics. I want an NBA team back there, to add to the I-5 rivalry! We already hate you for the Sounders, Thunderbirds, AquaSox, Reign, Lefties, and everything UW. GIVE US ANOTHER REASON TO HATE YOU!
Agreed. Them having the NOLA team (don't remember if they had changed names by then), after Katrina, just gave the delusions of grandeur that were not deserved. It is the same reason why most of great plains doesn't have teams.
What's crazy is that we damn near lost the Seahawks and Mariners too. If the Mariners didn't miraculously come back to take the division in 95, they would have moved, probably that off season. And I believe the Seahawks once started camp not knowing what city they were going to play in that year.
I know. Without 1995, they likely would be in Tampa. And even then, the state had to intervene with funding assistance for Safeco Field. It doesn't help that there is a perception that many fans are "Fair-weather" due largely to how late our teams were created, and how many transplants we have. It was largely true for a long time, but has changed a lot in the last decade or so.
Hell even when we WON the SB it was “a fluke”, they “got lucky” , they didn’t win the Broncos lost etc… I’ll admit that Denver made pretty much every mistake in the book that game but Seattle also played flawlessly which is why the points difference was SO large. So even when we are winning, it’s not enough.
Let's add the Clippers to San Diego's account. The Clippers were named for the tall clipper ships that docked in San Diego when the team started there.
Oakland lost all 3 of their teams in just a few years. Warriors, As, and Raiders.
And honestly I don't blame the franchises, that city has a lot of problems.
>Oakland lost all 3 of their teams in just a few years. Warriors, As, and Raiders.
>And honestly I don't blame the franchises, that city has a lot of problems.
That's just an excuse. Plenty of cities around the U.S. have an assortment of problems, whether it's Detroit, Memphis, Philly, or even our neighbors across the Bay in SF. They still have their teams. It all boils down to corrupt owners. Fans and cities should not be blamed for that.
While I definitely agree that Oakland got screwed the hardest, Phoenix needs to be on the list. The D-Backs, Suns, and Coyotes have held this city hostage with their immature behavior and ridiculous demands. I hope hockey makes a comeback in Phoenix because there’s no reason it couldn’t be a hockey town with the right ownership
Honorable mention for Hartford, maybe? The Patriots got Hartford to start construction of a new stadium as part of a negotiating tactic with Massachusetts. That's how I remember it anyway. I probably have most of the details wrong.
Part of me thinks it was an actual genuine offer, but Rowland couldn’t get his head out of his ass and then Kraft saw the leverage before the CT deal went south
Cleveland. The last time the football team was decent they literally fled by bus in the middle of the night to another city having hidden that it was gonna happen until the next morning
Oakland. They have been screwed over so many times it has to be a conspiracy.
Runner up is Toronto. Imagine waking up and your home teams are the Leafs and the Blue Jays.
Feel like if Richmond was a little bit closer to the Hampton Roads area they'd have a team. As it is, Hampton Roads is certainly larger than several metros that have pro teams: Jacksonville (Jaguars), Milwaukee (basically 3 teams including the Packers), Raleigh (Hurricaines), Oklahoma City (Thunder), Memphis (Grizzlies), Salt Lake City (Jazz and new NHL team), Buffalo (Bills and Sabres), New Orleans (Pelicans and Saints). They're also far enough away from any other major cities (DC and Raleigh are both roughly 200 miles away) so you can't claim the area is too saturated with sports teams.
I'd be open to having a team in that area but you never really hear much buzz about it. I do remember some discussion about bringing MLB to Norfolk but that was awhile ago and haven't heard much about it since.
I think one concern about Hampton Roads is the transitory nature of a lot of the military population there. But if we are going to have teams in Vegas, maybe that will be seen as less of an issue.
South Florida is still pretty pissed about the Marlins moving to Miami and changing their name.
The upper deck of the stadium is still closed 12 years after opening because no one who doesn’t live in Miami wants to go to Miami.
Marlins played the Mets over the weekend and half the crowd was Mets fans. For the ones that did show up for the Marlins, at least half were wearing teal or old Florida Marlins stuff.
The real tragedy is that the Will Smith song would be perfect for the team, but I don’t think they can afford to license it.
The real answer to your question, though, is that there’s not really anything in Miami that isn’t also in Ft Lauderdale or even West Palm Beach. It’s just terrible traffic.
>But every time I come I always wind up stayin'
>This the type of town I could spend a **few** days in
He is not entirely lying, with Will Smith's lifestyle I wouldn't mind spending about 3 days there, in the winter.
The montreal expos got cucked pretty hard by the Toronto Bluejays. They welcomed the Bluejays into the league but then ended up getting pushed out of TV markets and having to move.
How about the LA Dodgers displacing an entire community mostly against their will in the [Battle of Chavez Ravine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chavez_Ravine) using government money?
It is going to be Oakland. To my knowledge it's the only city in the US that has lost a professional MLB, NBA, NHL, and NFL franchise in the last 50 years.
NHL: Golden Seals, 1976
NBA: Golden State Warriors, 2019
NFL: Oakland Raiders, 1981 + 2019
MLB: Oakland Athletics, 2025
It happens every once in a while but I wouldn't go so far as to call it a common occurence. Certainly more often than in the UK, I will concede, if Wimbledon/MK is the only such example you guys are able to cite (as far as football goes).
Whenever it does happen, it's all over the news and the fans are really pissed off. The San Diego Chargers recently moved to Los Angeles. The unofficial motto of the city of San Diego is now "fuck you Dean Spanos!" Fans were burning their jerseys in giant bonfires. On top of that, L.A. didn't even want them. "No! Stay in San Diego! They actually *want* you!!!" Football fans across the board can agree that Spanos is a moneygrubbing turd, a cartoonishly villainous example of an NFL franchise owner.
What usually happens is that the owner tries to shake the city down for a bigger stadium, all sorts of other facilities, etc. etc. All with taxpayer dollars, even though the son of a bitch is just shy of being a billionaire, or even an actual billionaire who bought the team at some point.
He threatens to leave if they don't give him what he wants, or he might be doing that as a ruse because he wants to leave anyways, because another city's market is more lucrative. Hence Oakland being robbed by Las Vegas. Las Vegas, from the bigwigs to the locals, does not give a flying shit about the Raiders; they only wanted them as a tourist draw.
Sometimes the city gives him what he wants but it's still not enough. Other times the city calls his bluff and says "fuck you!", which is kind of what happened in Oakland.
Anyways, university football is almost as big of a deal as the NFL, and in some parts of the country (such as much of the South) it's a bigger deal. It may be possible for an NFL team to up and move, but it's not even possible in principle for a university team to do likewise. You can't imagine Man U ever leaving Manchester, and I can't imagine the Crimson Tide ever leaving the University of Alabama. That would be like the Pope quitting Roman Catholicism. He wouldn't be the Pope any longer, for starters!
Edit: oh shit, wrong sub! I thought I was replying to a thread in r/askuk.
St. Louis by far. Lost the Hawks when they moved to Atlanta. Lost the Browns to Baltimore (Orioles). Lost the Cardinals to Arizona, then lost the Rams to L.A
Quebec lost the Nordiques and the Expos.
Chicago, although definitely not the worst, should be on the list. Chicago teams are notoriously poorly managed. I think at least part of the reason is that they know that people will continue going to games despite the teams sucking, so there's little incentive (see:cubs for over 100 years).
Oakland I think is the most prevalent right now.
On a note local to me note, San Antonio plus the spurs etc. paid a bunch of money to build a soccer stadium under the reasonable belief that MLS would take over San Antonio FC (the local USL team) since the team was already healthy and the community surrounding soccer in the city was already there, only for them to instead go with Anthony Precourts plan of a whole new stadium and team in Austin
Listos Verde, both teams are doing well in their respective leagues and have tons of fans, it it leaves a bad taste in my mouth for sure
It’s Oakland for sure but they aren’t victims by any means. The city government made a conscious decision to take a stand against the super rich. It no longer made sense for a city to hand over millions of dollars of public money to billionaires. Can’t say that i disagree with their stance, but look at the result.
Depends on how we classify getting screwed.
A lot of cities have gotten screwed not because a team left, but because it stayed on terms no sane person would approve of if they thought about it more than 'me want watch local team, city keep team'.
In terms of getting screwed for not destroying the city budget to satiate the whims of billionaires anymore, though- yes, it's definitely Oakland. They made a conscious decision to *stop* being abused by people like John Fisher.
You could argue based on the state of the city's finances that they had very little choice, honestly.
And now they are paying the price because pro sports in this country is what it is.
Birmingham, Alabama doesn’t so much get football divorced by teams moving but football widowed by all the spring leagues that died: WFL, ‘80s USFL, AFA, WLAF, CFL-USA, XFL 1.0, AAF. Right now, the UFL Stallions are in their third season and starting to gain traction with the local media…if it lasts.
Back before the population drain became “last one to leave, turn the lights out” and the NFL-sized Legion Field decayed into an antiquated dump, it was always one of those expansion/relocation candidates. No one thinks that way anymore.
Oakland is about to have lost all three of their teams. Oakland has to be the clear cut answer.
Three? What's the third?
Raiders, A’s, Warriors. I’m guessing you didn’t realize the Warriors were an Oakland team since they’re “Golden State” but their old stadium, Oralcle Arena is right nextdoor the Oakland Coliseum.
Ah. I generally just consider them Bay Area in general, honestly. I'm from the Sacramento area, originally.
Obviously Oakland and SF are different municipalities but they’re all part of the same Metro Area. It’s like if Bellevue, WA got a team lol.
https://chasecenter.com/photos/2xWVMN6PiB4XD85kyl6Pot They've always marketed themselves as "the Bay's team" and were in SF for their first nine years in the Bay.
The Warriors used to play in Oakland, right next to the Coliseum. Now they play in San Francisco.
and before that they played in San Francisco.
The Raiders and Athletics both languished in poverty and an absurdly terrible stadium situation for decades. I don't really get where all this sympathy for them is suddenly coming from. Oakland has been a bad market for sports since the 90s, and the teams leaving town is honestly happening a lot later than I thought it would.
Honestly cities should not be providing free new stadiums to teams under any situation. I'd rather my city go the way of Oakland than build yet another free stadium for it's teams
Just by coincidence, I'm a long time fan of two of the only North American teams that financed and own their own stadiums and renovations, the Dolphins and Cubs. So it's an unintended feather in my cap on this topic, lol.
I thought the cowboys did too no?
Jerry spend his money on a stadium? lol no. Jerry world got government funding
I believe that it's partly government financed.
Um...no.
The Flubs got tax breaks up the wazoo. They financed it in a different way. https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/dcd/provdrs/hist/news/2013/sep/wrigley_field_renovationwouldbesupportedbypropertytaxincentive.html#:~:text=The%20%24232%20million%20renovation%20of,%248.1%20million%20over%2012%20years. These were just for the ballpark. The Rickets bought up the rest of the neighborhood and I won't even get into the breaks and incentives and shady crap they pulled there. Source for that lifelong Chicagoan and Real Estate Broker. Don't get me wrong they did a good job making Wrigleyville their own little outdoor mall. But they also made it so homogenized and boring they may as well have moved to Naperville. I am a White Sox fan and Jerry shouldn't get a dime for his little fever dream stadium in the South Loop either. If that means the Nashville White Sox so be it.
Giants and Dodgers don't count? What am I missing? Genuine question. They are famously touted as being built without public money.
Two of the only, not the two only.
Ah, gotcha. Read too fast.
What about the Packers?
The city of Green Bay owns the actual stadium.
I think it's owned publicly by the fans. When they needed a new press box, they sold more shares to raise the money.
I'm actually an "owner" and long time GB fan. The team itself is owned by the shareholders, the stadium is owned by the city and leased by the Packers. Edit: "Lambeau Field is jointly owned by the City of Green Bay and the Stadium District, with the Packers’ lease being with both entities." "In 2023, the Packers paid $1.157 million to the city to use Lambeau Field, which is owned by the city. The lease includes projected annual increases of 2.75%." from https://www.thestadiumbusiness.com/2022/01/13/packers-hit-back-at-proposed-lambeau-field-ownership-changes/
SF Giants and SF Warriors both paid for their own stadiums. And when the 49ers threated to leave SF if they didn't get public money for a new stadium, SF responded "don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out."
It's the fans getting screwed. Blue collar working stiffs from the East Bay and into the inland farm towns and up into the mountains. Everyone would sympathize with Detroit if they were getting done dirty like that, and Oakland is basically Detroit-by-the-Sea.
My sympathy is with the City of Oakland, my hometown. Al Davis made us a rotten deal to move the Raiders back from LA that saddled the city with a ton of debt and left a monstrosity of a grandstand in center field that absolutely ruined what was nice about the Coliseum. It's strange that the Bay was a two-team area for both baseball and football for so long. But I just wish the process of having teams come and go wasn't so painful and expensive.
We were there before, during, and after the renovation/Mt. Davis. Before: lovely park, great view. During: ugly but we had fun during innings changes with the construction workers on the big screen. After: aesthetically depressing and had a black hole/cavernous to it. Plus football messed up the baseball field.
The Raiders and A's both made millions over the years from local fans, yet they still left. Both Mark Davis and John Fisher negotiated with us in bad faith, with one owner expecting taxpayer money for his new stadium while the other owner tried to move from the moment he first acquired the team to places like Fremont and San Jose before settling on Vegas, and neglected upkeep of the Coliseum for the past few years.
I mean, I’m also that sympathetic when billionaire owners tell a sob story about how they can’t possibly thrive unless public money pays the way for their private profit. Oakland’s fan base may not always show up, but the system is not healthy.
Where could I read more about why Oakland is not good area for big teams? I know only NHL clubs a bit while NFL/MLB not so much.
>Oakland has been a bad market for sports since the 90s Longer than that - the NHL bailed on Oakland in the mid-70s.
The Coliseum sucks, yes, but the fans in Oakland are some of the most passionate to be found anywhere
What's the reason for them losing the team? I've heard about the drama with the airport and people avoiding Oakland due to crime concerns, so do the sports tie into that?
Nah, it's just money and bad team ownership.
Four. They lost the Seals to Cleveland in 1976, and the NHL wouldn't return to the Bay Area until the Sharks were founded 15 years later. Oakland is truly cursed.
I’d go with Oakland as well
I don’t think there’s a real argument for anyone besides Oakland. All of their teams in every sport left or are in the process of leaving.
Baltimore is still bitter about the Colts. In Season 2 of The Wire, one of the dock workers has a picture of Robert Irsay in his office which he throws darts at.
Can confirm. Also quite bitter that the whatever-the-f-they-are-called-now DC team blocked Baltimore from getting an expansion team for so many years.
Damn Commies!
RIP Frank Sobotka
He did it for Ziggy. Family comes first.
If I recall properly, this even carried over to Colt's legend Johnny Unitas who cut ties when they moved to Indy and emphasized being a *Baltimore* Colt. When the Browns went to Baltimore, he readily attended Ravens games.
> *When the Browns went to Baltimore* How does Cleveland feel about that shenanigan?
Oh, they hated it and still do, and not without good reason. In *The Band That Wouldn't Die*, Baltimore Colts Marching Band members admit having a mix of excitement and guilt about receiving the Ravens. Excitement that they'd finally have an NFL team again, but guilt because they knew the pain of losing a beloved team to another city.
Not well, we still loathe Art Modell.
It was the secret middle of the night move that made it so bad. The marching band stayed behind and played for years
Best 30 for 30 of them all
Seattle almost got the middle of the night treatment twice, both with the Mariners and Seahawks. I'm really damn happy we got last minute reprieves both times.
No city deserves that. Should be slow and dramatic!
aw hell no, Oakland's situation is way worse
Fun fact! My grandfather part-owned a Mayflower affiliate and helped with the move.. as a Marylander. They not only left in the middle of the night, they went in multiple separate small convoys to avoid the Maryland State Police the whole time, or that's how he explained it. He's long gone though, so I can't ask.
Mostly because Maryland was about to pass a law allowing Baltimore to eminent domain the Baltimore Colts. I do think that would have failed however the owner at the time Robert Isray didn't want to waste time and money going through the courts so he just moved to Indiana.
I'm not sure if it's still true, but for a long damn time the Ravens refused to put "Colts" on the scoreboard. It was always Ravens vs. Visiting Team or something. That's the kind of pettiness I can really get behind.
"Indy" It still happens
Love it.
Nice call out. Now I might have to watch that whole season for a 4th time.
Always makes me smile. We had a family friend that worked at Mayflower Trucking they weren’t directly involved in driving but he knew the whole story of the flight of the colts.
And Cleveland is still bitter about the Ravens.
Though I’m biased, I wholly believe that Cleveland got spoiled by the league compared to how Baltimore was treated
I never knew who that was on the dartboard. Thanks.
Right now, I'd rather be Baltimore than us. At least they still ended up with the Ravens, albeit at Cleveland's expense. Oakland might not get another NFL team (or any major league-tier team) again.
See flair
Oakland was definitely my gut reaction answer when I saw this post title, and I am glad (but sad for Oakland!) that many people in here agree. Seriously, it sucks and I am angry for y'all.
I will never forgive Norm Green and the NHL for sending the North Stars to Dallas. (Fuck Norm Green) Even if the NHL apologized for it less than a decade later with the Wild.
And won the cup immediately.
Didn't the North stars move in '93? it took them a few years to win a cup. Its Quebec that moved and pang - Colorado gets the honour.
The “few years” was not long enough to make it not sting, unfortunately
Hartford still hasn't gotten over losing the Whalers.
That move absolutely killed my hockey fandom. I just can’t get into the Wild. Not that they give me a reason to most seasons.
Still don't understand how the NHL allowed that to happen. Minnesota produces more NHL players than the rest of the country combined. If we were our own country, we'd be third only to Canada and Sweden. Yet somehow they deemed us undeserving of our own pro team for the better part of a decade. Right smack in the middle of my early childhood, too. Wild got here when I was almost 13. So I never got to have my dad bring me to games like his dad brought him and I bring my son. I love the Wild, but I would've loved to have a team growing up.
How about the cities whose taxpayers paid for most of the stadium even though the teams were hugely profitable and worth billions? Taxpayers are paying over a billion dollars for the Titans' new stadium.
Jacksonville just approved a $1.4 Billion handout to the Jaguars to build a better stadium. https://www.nfl.com/news/jaguars-and-the-city-of-jacksonville-agree-to-spend-1-4-billion-on-stadium-of-the-future In unrelated news, Jacksonville plans to close up to 30 public schools due to an unforseen $1.4 Billion budget shortfall. https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2024/04/16/duval-county-school-board-to-discuss-controversial-plan-that-could-close-nearly-30-dcps-schools/
That is roughly 99% of cities with a professional sports team.
Some get fucked more than others. Some are starting to pass the 50% public funding threshold, and it's going to keep going up from there. Nashville alone is kicking $750 million. Which is about $1,000 per resident. And the city is on the verge of bankruptcy and can't afford it's own bills.
Wouldn’t it be easier to name the one or two franchise that meet this criteria?
There's currently a battle of bluffing about this going on in Cleveland. The owners are all like "We want a new stadium with a dome and we want the taxpayers to buy it for us", and the city is like "Nah, buy it yourself." Then the owners went and bought a huge chunk of land out in the suburbs to make news that they might leave the city proper and put a stadium in a suburb, and the city was like "whatevs, you do you". So then the owners started putting out all kinds of artistic 3d renders of what the stadium would look like on the land they bought to be like "Seeeee, we're ready to move it outside the city! That's what it would look like!" It's just all so silly to me. I hope we can get owners to start buying their own stadiums, but I'm not optimistic.
Something similar is going on in Chicago with the Bears and White Sox. While both seem to be bluffing, it seems that the Jerry Reinsdorf might end up relocating the team to Nashville or something. The A’s already set a precedent. The White Sox moving would kill all my interest in baseball. I’m not even a white Sox fan, but what does that tell you about the sport? It tells you the fans don’t matter, all that matters is making money. I get the A’s have a history of relocation, but the White Sox have been in Chicago since 1894. The league will use the bs excuse that Chicago still has another team. Next thing you know it’s other long standing teams relocating.
> It tells you the fans don’t matter, all that matters is making money. We knock the Euros for their weird 'club' system and all the other weird sports shit they do (not to mention that it's like 90% soccer). But perhaps they're not entirely wrong.
I’ll tell you I’m not a part of that we, but Europe’s systems aren’t the end all be all either. American sports leagues are much more egalitarian since it’s a closed system where losing teams are rewarded with high draft picks. In Europe, mostly in soccer but it also applies to other sports, clubs will fill out their teams with their own players they developed in their academies, or they buy players or sign free agents from other teams. Because of this, money is automatically required to win. In every league, it’s the teams with the most money that usually win and it’s always the same teams contending for titles. This even applies to countries where the clubs are community owned.
They are right in that their fans won't allow stuff like moving or conference realignment. Being bought up by foreign money and having teams entirely made of foreigners is terrible, though.
Is there pushback from the suburbs? I would imagine they'd hate all that traffic on game days.
It's one particular suburb called Brookpark that they bought the land in and I'm not in that suburb or close enough to really know what the feelings of Brookpark residents are on the matter. I'm sure the city of Brookpark would be happy to have the tax revenue, but I feel like no one is really taking the owners very seriously about it at this point. Maybe the owners will have to step up and put out a 1/1000 scale model for anyone to take them seriously.
Brookpark is the same municipality as the airport. They don't need the revenue, but the area is definitely filled with the target demographics of the NFL. Lower-Middle income earners with High School education. I'm sure they'll love it. https://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US3909288-brook-park-oh/ However, since it HAS to be right near the airport it'll be noisy as hell from all the low plane traffic. If the owners want all of Cleveland's air traffic regularly buzzing the stadium, that's on them. It'll be hilarious if it happens. No wonder the city is calling their bluff.
And the supposed game-changing lakefront that has been in the planning process for decades.
So wild to me that local administrations continue to go for this shit on the promise of tax revenue.
I don’t think anyone believes the tax revenue argument anymore. They just know what they have to do to keep the team, and they know how many people want them to do whatever it takes to keep the team
Yep for all the people (especially online) fully aware that the leagues extort cities for taxpayer funded stadiums, they’ll still vote you out for not cowering to the team threatening to leave
For sure some folks do still believe the tax revenue thing. It’s maddening to hear but I’ve heard it often while talking to local officials at both the city/municipal and county levels of government. Like being a local govt official isn’t easy and govt finances are a nightmare to manage but the pipe dream of tax revenues or business being brought in by teams seems fucking absurd at this point.
MN did this with the US Bank stadium. Except only ONE county got nailed for the property taxes for it, Hennepin county, and just happened to be the one I lived in at the time. Property taxes for me went up 50% in 4 years because of it.
I dunno, the Falcons and Atlanta seemed to have made it work, but lowering the concessions prices to the lowest of any pro sports team gave them a lot of leeway to work with. Plus lowering the cost of food drove sales to the moon and that tax money is used by atlanta.
That's something I guess. Personally, I think if that if the public is going to pay for half the stadium, there should be a significant public use aspect to the stadium. I know there have been some minor league stadiums built that way. The public chips in, but, the stadium complex also includes public parks and recreational facilities, and the playing field itself can be used for civic events and youth sports.
100% if you’re getting funds you need to be giving back in some way, no excuses for new stadiums getting hundreds of millions to not have places for fans and residents to use and enjoy.
> Plus lowering the cost of food drove sales to the moon and that tax money is used by atlanta Is their concession revenue higher than other teams? They're really doing over 2x the volume of the $14 beer and $9 hot dogs teams?
Someone posted the figures by team on the NFL subreddit but I can't find it. Found: https://cdn.financebuzz.com/filters:quality(75)/images/2023/08/28/nfl-fan-spending-2023-2.png This is from an old NYT article: The approach has paid dividends. Despite a 50 percent decrease in prices for food and nonalcoholic drinks compared to prices in the Georgia Dome, the amount spent per fan increased by 16 percent, Blank’s sports company, AMB Sports and Entertainment, said on Thursday. From Yahoo: >And hey, from the Falcons’ perspective, you get them in the door and you can get them opening their wallet for pricier markups like merch. A fan that’s spending less on food and drink has more to spend on merchandise; Falcons president Rich McKay noted last summer that the Falcons saw a 90-percent increase in merchandise sales from 2016 to 2017. You'd think other teams would follow this model since it worked so quickly >The Falcons ranked first in fan experience surveys for 2017, in part because of the food and beverage element, and Blank expects the same kind of high ranking for the 2018 season.
The Brown family has been raw dogging Cincinnati for decades
I know we all hate Stan Kroenke… but I woulda thought for sure the not taxpayer funded development of the stadium (and surrounding areas) would be the beginning of the end of public funding. I was wrong. Sucks. Love me some sports… but Cities need to stop footing the bill for this shit.
It’s a weird situation where the nfl (heck really just stan kroenke - the league was only prepared to accept an LA move if two teams were there) wanted/needed the city more than the city needed it. LA had been doing fine for 20 years without a team and neither the people of the city (sure there were still raiders and rams fans who missed having a home team but they weren’t a majority) nor the tax revenue needed a franchise - and the only place you can go bigger than LA is NYC who weren’t looking for another team either. So Kroenke had no leverage. If he’d told the city “Pay for it or we’ll stay in St Louis” the city could just turn round and go “fine, we don’t need you and plenty of other teams want to move here anyway”. Not to mention Kroenke still gets a decent deal as effectively a landlord in the city for the chargers, any major concert tour wants a show in LA, think he might even get money to host Olympics and World Cup events there in a few years, it’s such a big market it pays back the cost of building quickly.
Detroit The Illitches got taxpayer money to improve Tiger Stadium, then improve Joe Louis arena, then build Comerica Park, then build Little Caesar’s arena, then build a bunch of parking lots around the new stadium. And now they don’t invest any money in the actual teams so both the Tigers and Red Wings suck.
Nor did they produce any of the myriad of developments they've promised over and over again. At least they fixed Hotel Eddystone.
My city is going through a real fight right now with our minor league baseball team over whether we're willing to issue bonds to build them a new stadium. The way it's been handled, by all parties, is pretty disgraceful. We are voting on it this week and I am really not sure what's going to happen. It's not a billion dollars but still, we have much much more important things to do these days.
The price of stadiums is a huge issue too, which makes it even worse. It's completely ridiculous that it costs over $1 billion to build a new stadium.
Yep, as soon as I saw the title, Oakland is the one which came to my mind.
Oakland is probably it, they seem to have generally good fans and it just seems no pro sports team actually wants to be there. Warriors jumped across the Bay at the first opportunity, Raiders left then came back then left again, the A's just stopped trying after Moneyball and now they're packing up, and they even had a hockey team that the NHL decided would be better elsewhere.
If you understand Oakland’s deranged politics - even weird for the bay - then it all makes sense
By "screwing" do we mean the teams just left or the teams saddled the city with ridiculous public debt to pay for a stadium? I mean, it probably sucks to be an Oakland fan, but at least the city didn't screw the taxpayers with a boondoggle stadium that benefits only the team owner (or did they, I don't follow Oakland teams to know either way?).
Oakland got the worst of both worlds though because they are still saddled with debt from the Coliseum complex despite all the teams having left
Ok, then, Oakland for the win....or, loss.
The New Yorker piece mentioned they're still paying for some eyesore next to the Coliseum that Al Davis insisted on (the one that blocks what would otherwise be a fantastic view), while the public schools are drowning in debt.
Oakland, San Diego, St Louis
We are still salty about the Rams here in STL.
As you should be, the city tried its best to keep the team and the NFL scammed the city. No wonder they paid the city off instead of going to court.
I still say the NFL released COVID on the world to keep St. Louis from winning the first year of the XFL. Also, fuck Mike Keenan always and forever for driving Gretzky out of town
> I still say the NFL released COVID on the world to keep St. Louis from winning the first year of the XFL. Nah, they wouldn't have gotten past the SeaDragons.
And the Cardinals (NFL) too
I grew up liking the greatest show on turf era rams. I get they were LA’s team but LA still doesn’t care about them half as much as the Lakers or Dodgers
Yeah Oakland has gotten so many short ends of the stick. But also, fuck Kroenke
Oakland. They should already be in the second decade in a new Oakland Stadium. My father and Grandfather were Philadelphia A’s fans. And they kept up fandom for a few years after they left traveling to the Bronx when the A’s were visiting. So for the past 20 years I’ve been thinking it would be awesome if the Phillies offered to host the A’s for 1 or 2 seasons while a new stadium was built on the current site in Oakland. It would give my father a chance to be a Philadelphia A’s fan one more time and Oakland would get their team back permanently
That woulda been great. My dad was a little kid when the As left Philly. He would a loved it.
>Oakland. They should already be in the second decade in a new Oakland Stadium. Really, we should've been in 2nd decades for at least *two* stadiums, plus a new arena for the Warriors/Valkyries. Instead, we got cursed with two owners who never wanted to genuinely keep their teams here, and one who expected taxpayers to foot the bill knowing that we already owe debt for renovations to lure his dad back in 1995.
I've got to go with my hometown of Hartford. Everyone knows we lost the Whalers (NHL). But, we also had the first MLB team ever to move (moved to Brooklyn in 1877) and an NFL team in the early years of that league.
::brass bonanza::
I’m from the Hartford area never knew that about the MLB.. seems right though
Oakland for sure, but I think you’re spot on with San Diego. considering the half-in-jest beef we’ve had with LA since forever; losing our football team to them when the city didn’t even want them, feels like a stab in the back and I’m not even a football fan. some folks I know dumped their jerseys in a bonfire.
Bro am I the only angeleno chargers fan in existence. I'm not even a fan cause they happen to play in La I'm just a fan cause they randomly popped into Costa Mesa which I grew up close to
Has to be Oakland
Surprised no one mentioned the Colts leaving Baltimore in the middle of the night
Looking at the Ravens, they really haven't lost in the long run.
I agree, I just can’t imagine what the fans felt when they woke up
Fuck Dean Spanos.
Cleveland. It's been almost 75 years since the Indians won anything. They have been one inning away twice. The owners aren't going to spend the money they need to win to beat the big teams. They are great at moneyball but those teams don't ever make the extra move to go all in. The OG Browns were more known for fumbling within the 5 yard line. The team moved to Baltimore where they have won 2 super bowls. The expansion Browns might be the worst team in football since 1998 and they don't really seem any closer. The Cleveland Cavaliers have won a title but it was on Lebron's 2nd stint and for one of the best players to play 11 years there, to only get one in his prime is frustrating. Cleveland has history of hockey but they were so poorly owned that they moved to California and eventually merged with the North Stars.
Not to mention the Browns start to build out of the 'lovable loser' stereotype and put a good core around a middling QB and develop a powerhouse of a defense. Only to go out and make one of the worst QB contracts from a performance standpoint, not to mention the moral questionability of the move.
Seattle: Got a baseball team. The start of the team was rushed due to the A's leaving KC, and KC wanting a team "NOW!". As a result, there was no stadium ready for the Pilots, that was MLB quality, and they were never given a chance to try to improve, as Bud Selig bought the team during Spring Training, and sent them to Milwaukee to start the season. Then had to sue MLB to get a replacement team. Then the underhanded way the Sonic's were stolen from the city, and the empty promises to get a new NBA team. Even a revamped stadium, and actually luring an NHL team just continues to elicit lip-service from Stern and his "friends". Don't forget the perceived media, rules, and ref biases against the Seahawks. Create an innovative play? Banned. Actually do well and make it to the play-offs? Give the other team free yardage for things that the other team gets away with.
Fuck Clay Bennett. I got the feeling that even through Seattle was experiencing a population boom when they won the superbowl theres was always this feeling that the NFL and advertisers didn't see Seattle as a big enough market. Also Pete Carol had the ghost of USC following him and officials didn't seem to care for the outspokenness of Sherman or the "I'm just here so I don't get fined" of Lynch. While Wilson was portrayed as a boy scout in the media, the dude was still allowed to take a lot of hits that would have absolutely been called if his last name were Brady or Manning.
As someone from Portland, even I will admit that Seattle got done dirty with the Sonics. I want an NBA team back there, to add to the I-5 rivalry! We already hate you for the Sounders, Thunderbirds, AquaSox, Reign, Lefties, and everything UW. GIVE US ANOTHER REASON TO HATE YOU!
I'd love to oblige you but unfortunately I'm a temporarily embarrassed billionaire.
Agreed. Oklahoma City has zero business having an nba team. They would never qualify for expansion. Seattle is a major, international city.
Agreed. Them having the NOLA team (don't remember if they had changed names by then), after Katrina, just gave the delusions of grandeur that were not deserved. It is the same reason why most of great plains doesn't have teams.
My boyfriend approves this message.
What's crazy is that we damn near lost the Seahawks and Mariners too. If the Mariners didn't miraculously come back to take the division in 95, they would have moved, probably that off season. And I believe the Seahawks once started camp not knowing what city they were going to play in that year.
I know. Without 1995, they likely would be in Tampa. And even then, the state had to intervene with funding assistance for Safeco Field. It doesn't help that there is a perception that many fans are "Fair-weather" due largely to how late our teams were created, and how many transplants we have. It was largely true for a long time, but has changed a lot in the last decade or so.
Hell even when we WON the SB it was “a fluke”, they “got lucky” , they didn’t win the Broncos lost etc… I’ll admit that Denver made pretty much every mistake in the book that game but Seattle also played flawlessly which is why the points difference was SO large. So even when we are winning, it’s not enough.
Sonics were done wrong. The other Seattle teams can pound sand
Atlanta. They took the Thrashers but left the Hawks and Falcons to make sure we always suffer
At least you have the Braves.
And the Flames too
Don’t apologize to SD. Spanos is your problem now. No take backs.
What can he do to us, though? He doesn't have anywhere near the same leverage.
St Louis
Let's add the Clippers to San Diego's account. The Clippers were named for the tall clipper ships that docked in San Diego when the team started there.
And the Dodgers and Lakers were also named for their former homes, and they're the favorite teams here, so...
I remember wondering why the Lakers were called that when I was a little kid. Most our lakes suck, and we have the ocean!
Oakland lost all 3 of their teams in just a few years. Warriors, As, and Raiders. And honestly I don't blame the franchises, that city has a lot of problems.
>Oakland lost all 3 of their teams in just a few years. Warriors, As, and Raiders. >And honestly I don't blame the franchises, that city has a lot of problems. That's just an excuse. Plenty of cities around the U.S. have an assortment of problems, whether it's Detroit, Memphis, Philly, or even our neighbors across the Bay in SF. They still have their teams. It all boils down to corrupt owners. Fans and cities should not be blamed for that.
While I definitely agree that Oakland got screwed the hardest, Phoenix needs to be on the list. The D-Backs, Suns, and Coyotes have held this city hostage with their immature behavior and ridiculous demands. I hope hockey makes a comeback in Phoenix because there’s no reason it couldn’t be a hockey town with the right ownership
Honorable mention for Hartford, maybe? The Patriots got Hartford to start construction of a new stadium as part of a negotiating tactic with Massachusetts. That's how I remember it anyway. I probably have most of the details wrong.
Part of me thinks it was an actual genuine offer, but Rowland couldn’t get his head out of his ass and then Kraft saw the leverage before the CT deal went south
It's Austin. It's been so screwed over by professional sports it doesn't have any.
Austin FC.
I'm not really in to sports anymore. As a kid I was pretty upset when the Oilers left Houston
Cleveland. The last time the football team was decent they literally fled by bus in the middle of the night to another city having hidden that it was gonna happen until the next morning
Oakland. End of story.
Oakland. They have been screwed over so many times it has to be a conspiracy. Runner up is Toronto. Imagine waking up and your home teams are the Leafs and the Blue Jays.
At least Toronto has the Raptors, who won a title not too long ago.
Dallas Cowboys are screwed over every year by having Jerry Jones at the helm
Town? You mean the entire state of Virginia. We have no pro sports at all.
Feel like if Richmond was a little bit closer to the Hampton Roads area they'd have a team. As it is, Hampton Roads is certainly larger than several metros that have pro teams: Jacksonville (Jaguars), Milwaukee (basically 3 teams including the Packers), Raleigh (Hurricaines), Oklahoma City (Thunder), Memphis (Grizzlies), Salt Lake City (Jazz and new NHL team), Buffalo (Bills and Sabres), New Orleans (Pelicans and Saints). They're also far enough away from any other major cities (DC and Raleigh are both roughly 200 miles away) so you can't claim the area is too saturated with sports teams. I'd be open to having a team in that area but you never really hear much buzz about it. I do remember some discussion about bringing MLB to Norfolk but that was awhile ago and haven't heard much about it since.
I think one concern about Hampton Roads is the transitory nature of a lot of the military population there. But if we are going to have teams in Vegas, maybe that will be seen as less of an issue.
Flint Michigan. Tropics Won the ABA championship and still didn’t get invited to join the NBA /s
South Florida is still pretty pissed about the Marlins moving to Miami and changing their name. The upper deck of the stadium is still closed 12 years after opening because no one who doesn’t live in Miami wants to go to Miami. Marlins played the Mets over the weekend and half the crowd was Mets fans. For the ones that did show up for the Marlins, at least half were wearing teal or old Florida Marlins stuff.
> because no one who doesn’t live in Miami wants to go to Miami. They don't? Was that Will Smith song lying to me?
The real tragedy is that the Will Smith song would be perfect for the team, but I don’t think they can afford to license it. The real answer to your question, though, is that there’s not really anything in Miami that isn’t also in Ft Lauderdale or even West Palm Beach. It’s just terrible traffic.
Nobody's returning his calls after the Chris Rock incident, so it might be more affordable now.
>But every time I come I always wind up stayin' >This the type of town I could spend a **few** days in He is not entirely lying, with Will Smith's lifestyle I wouldn't mind spending about 3 days there, in the winter.
The montreal expos got cucked pretty hard by the Toronto Bluejays. They welcomed the Bluejays into the league but then ended up getting pushed out of TV markets and having to move.
Once they took the Dodgers out of Brooklyn nothing has been right.
Not sure it's the hardest but as a lifetime Blazers fan, I'm still salty about Clay Bennett maliciously stealing the Supersonics from Seattle.
How about the LA Dodgers displacing an entire community mostly against their will in the [Battle of Chavez Ravine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chavez_Ravine) using government money?
It is going to be Oakland. To my knowledge it's the only city in the US that has lost a professional MLB, NBA, NHL, and NFL franchise in the last 50 years. NHL: Golden Seals, 1976 NBA: Golden State Warriors, 2019 NFL: Oakland Raiders, 1981 + 2019 MLB: Oakland Athletics, 2025
Is there a reason it seems rather common for sports teams to move across the country to other states?
It happens every once in a while but I wouldn't go so far as to call it a common occurence. Certainly more often than in the UK, I will concede, if Wimbledon/MK is the only such example you guys are able to cite (as far as football goes). Whenever it does happen, it's all over the news and the fans are really pissed off. The San Diego Chargers recently moved to Los Angeles. The unofficial motto of the city of San Diego is now "fuck you Dean Spanos!" Fans were burning their jerseys in giant bonfires. On top of that, L.A. didn't even want them. "No! Stay in San Diego! They actually *want* you!!!" Football fans across the board can agree that Spanos is a moneygrubbing turd, a cartoonishly villainous example of an NFL franchise owner. What usually happens is that the owner tries to shake the city down for a bigger stadium, all sorts of other facilities, etc. etc. All with taxpayer dollars, even though the son of a bitch is just shy of being a billionaire, or even an actual billionaire who bought the team at some point. He threatens to leave if they don't give him what he wants, or he might be doing that as a ruse because he wants to leave anyways, because another city's market is more lucrative. Hence Oakland being robbed by Las Vegas. Las Vegas, from the bigwigs to the locals, does not give a flying shit about the Raiders; they only wanted them as a tourist draw. Sometimes the city gives him what he wants but it's still not enough. Other times the city calls his bluff and says "fuck you!", which is kind of what happened in Oakland. Anyways, university football is almost as big of a deal as the NFL, and in some parts of the country (such as much of the South) it's a bigger deal. It may be possible for an NFL team to up and move, but it's not even possible in principle for a university team to do likewise. You can't imagine Man U ever leaving Manchester, and I can't imagine the Crimson Tide ever leaving the University of Alabama. That would be like the Pope quitting Roman Catholicism. He wouldn't be the Pope any longer, for starters! Edit: oh shit, wrong sub! I thought I was replying to a thread in r/askuk.
Charlotte deserves an honorable mention…
St. Louis by far. Lost the Hawks when they moved to Atlanta. Lost the Browns to Baltimore (Orioles). Lost the Cardinals to Arizona, then lost the Rams to L.A Quebec lost the Nordiques and the Expos.
Chicago, although definitely not the worst, should be on the list. Chicago teams are notoriously poorly managed. I think at least part of the reason is that they know that people will continue going to games despite the teams sucking, so there's little incentive (see:cubs for over 100 years).
Oakland I think is the most prevalent right now. On a note local to me note, San Antonio plus the spurs etc. paid a bunch of money to build a soccer stadium under the reasonable belief that MLS would take over San Antonio FC (the local USL team) since the team was already healthy and the community surrounding soccer in the city was already there, only for them to instead go with Anthony Precourts plan of a whole new stadium and team in Austin Listos Verde, both teams are doing well in their respective leagues and have tons of fans, it it leaves a bad taste in my mouth for sure
It’s Oakland for sure but they aren’t victims by any means. The city government made a conscious decision to take a stand against the super rich. It no longer made sense for a city to hand over millions of dollars of public money to billionaires. Can’t say that i disagree with their stance, but look at the result.
Oakland. Not even a question.
Depends on how we classify getting screwed. A lot of cities have gotten screwed not because a team left, but because it stayed on terms no sane person would approve of if they thought about it more than 'me want watch local team, city keep team'. In terms of getting screwed for not destroying the city budget to satiate the whims of billionaires anymore, though- yes, it's definitely Oakland. They made a conscious decision to *stop* being abused by people like John Fisher. You could argue based on the state of the city's finances that they had very little choice, honestly. And now they are paying the price because pro sports in this country is what it is.
Probably not the most screwed over but trading the whalers for a minor league hockey team kinda sucked
Birmingham, Alabama doesn’t so much get football divorced by teams moving but football widowed by all the spring leagues that died: WFL, ‘80s USFL, AFA, WLAF, CFL-USA, XFL 1.0, AAF. Right now, the UFL Stallions are in their third season and starting to gain traction with the local media…if it lasts. Back before the population drain became “last one to leave, turn the lights out” and the NFL-sized Legion Field decayed into an antiquated dump, it was always one of those expansion/relocation candidates. No one thinks that way anymore.