May 03 2006 03:54 PM
Master Index of Archived Threads
Owned
| Edgy DC May 03 2006 02:48 PM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on May 03 2006 03:15 PM |
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Final Nationals sale finalized finally.
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| Willets Point May 03 2006 03:06 PM |
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Who owns them? What are their chances of building a contender that will rival the Mets for divisional races for decades to come?
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| Edgy DC May 03 2006 03:16 PM |
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Oopsie. My link wasn't working. It's fixed now.
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| Yancy Street Gang May 03 2006 03:18 PM |
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I hope they rename the team.
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| Edgy DC May 03 2006 03:34 PM |
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¿Por que?
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| soupcan May 03 2006 03:35 PM |
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I bet they rename the GM.
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| Yancy Street Gang May 03 2006 03:36 PM |
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Hate the name Nationals. It's already the name of the league.
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| Edgy DC May 03 2006 03:39 PM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on May 04 2006 09:16 AM |
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Solid provenance to that name. Change it, and the odds of something far worse --- with ugly provenance, based on Gen Y market research --- is a strong possiblity.
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| Yancy Street Gang May 03 2006 03:40 PM |
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I remember they were tossing around the name Greys. I liked that. Or Grey Sox. You know, I'd even prefer "Devil Senators" to Nationals.
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| Rotblatt May 03 2006 03:46 PM |
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The Washington Xtremes?
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| Edgy DC May 03 2006 03:50 PM |
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With the Grays listed as arguably a better name*, would you take embrace the announcement of a name change knowing that there's a 50% chance that they could be named the Grays and a 50% chance that they could be named the XTremes?
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| cooby May 03 2006 03:52 PM |
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Horrors, what if they called them the Xtreme (singular) instead?
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| Edgy DC May 03 2006 03:54 PM |
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| Yancy Street Gang May 03 2006 03:56 PM |
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No, I don't think I'd take that risk. I wouldn't mind if they were called the Supremes, though. The Senators had their time in the sun, maybe it's time to give some props to the judicial branch.
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| Yancy Street Gang May 03 2006 03:58 PM |
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And while we're at it, I've long thought that there was an unfortunate mixup when two expansion teams were named in 1969. Were it up to me, the Montreal team would have been the Royals, and the Kansas City team would have been the Monarchs.
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| Yancy Street Gang May 03 2006 04:07 PM |
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I just found a pretty cool site that lists names of historical minor league teams. The longest running name of an "organized" team in Kansas City is the Blues, 1904 through 1954. The Cowboys played in 1902 and 1903.
For Las Vegas, I'd stick with the Stars:
And I wonder if they even considered calling the Mariners the Raniers?
And yet another reason to rue the westward move of the Giants and Dodgers. If an expansion team had been placed in San Francisco, they probably would have been called the Seals, which I think is a great name.
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| soupcan May 03 2006 04:23 PM |
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I was rooting for Miami Marlins and Denver Bears when the Marlins and the Rockies came to be.
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| Willets Point May 03 2006 04:27 PM |
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I for one am against state/region naming. Name 'em for the city they play in! And just one city please Angels!
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| Elster88 May 03 2006 04:28 PM |
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Nope. No bears allowed in Denver. I like the way Chicago has Bears and Cubs.
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| Yancy Street Gang May 03 2006 04:31 PM |
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Me too. What's even worse is that they took the name of a defunct NHL team. (Those Colorado Rockies are now the New Jersey Devils, I think.)
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| soupcan May 03 2006 05:05 PM |
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Denver Bears were a minor league team.
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| SteveJRogers May 03 2006 05:27 PM |
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Yup
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| SteveJRogers May 03 2006 05:31 PM |
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Good point. Done wonders to Washington allready. Caved to anti-gun lobbyists and you got the WIZARDS! Heh, Sports headline and ESPN Sportscenter copy writers will have a field day with an Orlando-Washington East Conference Final. Through in some Harry Potter or Gandalf references (or whatever magic/fantasy adventure movie is the current IT at the moment)
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| TheOldMole May 03 2006 06:10 PM |
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If they're going to take the name of a defunct hockey team, how about the Screaming Eagles?
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| DocTee May 03 2006 07:47 PM |
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Collective singular names suck: Heat, Magic and all the rest. I think the Stanford Cardinal got that craze started.
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| Elster88 May 04 2006 09:03 AM |
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The Jazz was a good singular nickname....until the team moved to Utah.
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| soupcan May 04 2006 09:13 AM |
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I can live with a team moving locales and keeping their name. But if the original name is based upon their original locale then why wouldn't they change it? Philadelphia/Kansas City/Oakland Athletics is fine. Los Angeles/St. Louis Rams - no problemo. Utah Jazz makes no sense nor does Los Angeles Dodgers or Lakers or Arizona Cardinals. Salt Lake is known for it's jazz clubs and all the well known jazz musicians that originated from that area? Really? Many trolleys to dodge or lakes to canoe in L.A.? Bright red cardinals are indigenous to arid desert climates? Who knew?
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| Elster88 May 04 2006 09:16 AM |
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At least they had the red car thing in LA. Or at least that's what I learned from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?.
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| Frayed Knot May 04 2006 09:21 AM |
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Not only is jazz not native to Utah but I think it's illegal there.
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| soupcan May 04 2006 09:35 AM |
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That's right! I distinctly remember a team in the WFL called the 'Sun'. I think it was the California Sun. ON EDIT:  The Southern California Sun
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| Frayed Knot May 04 2006 09:46 AM |
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Also the Chicago Fire (later Winds)
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| Edgy DC May 04 2006 09:59 AM |
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MLS and the WUSA pretty much followed the WFL's folly.
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| soupcan May 04 2006 10:22 AM |
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Read that this morning although it seemed that their major, and possibly only, objections had to do with percentage of minority investors in each group.
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| Edgy DC May 04 2006 10:42 AM |
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Welcome to Washington.
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| Frayed Knot May 04 2006 10:48 AM |
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I suspect it's as much a case of councilmen getting all upset because if their guys don't get chosen how will they get a hold of any of the inevitable graft and spillover?
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| Edgy DC May 04 2006 10:51 AM |
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Yes it does. As does the potential for graft.
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| Frayed Knot May 04 2006 10:54 AM |
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So this would differ if it were a football team or basketball team being sold ... how exactly?
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| Edgy DC May 04 2006 10:58 AM |
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Because as long as there's only one team allowed in a locality, the stakes are much higher and the gatekeepers hold that much more power.
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| Frayed Knot May 04 2006 11:07 AM |
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So in the NBA & NFL - where there's no blanket anti-trust exemptions - a new team could just spring up in a city w/o league say so? Or as if the businessmen of America simply choose to collectively ignore the LA market as a potential spot for an NFL team?
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| Edgy DC May 04 2006 11:12 AM |
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Tell that to Peter Angelos' accountant.
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| Yancy Street Gang May 04 2006 11:22 AM |
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I seem to remember one NFL relocation where the league said, "If they want to move, we can't stop them." (It may have been Rams to St. Louis.) That may have really meant, "We're not all that interested in stopping them." I have no idea.
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| Edgy DC May 04 2006 11:29 AM |
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There are a lot more people loaded in San Jose than there are in Oakland, suggesting perhaps that it's better for the Giants to have San Jose as neutral territory and lose Oakland, then the other way aorund.
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| Frayed Knot May 04 2006 02:49 PM |
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That's exactly what it meant. Commissioner Rozelle was directly told by judges and his own legal people that the NFL had the power to prevent unfettered franchise movement but that the criteria they were using: a 3/4 majority of teams needed and no guidelines as to when & why a team could leave it's existing market, was not ony unfair -- a simple majority would be more in line, but also was being applied unevenly -- other fanchises were moved while they denied Al Davis's Raiders the same right (he claims because he wasn't part of Pete Rozelle's inner circle). Rozelle falsely continued to claim - after losing the Davis case - that he had no power to prevent future movements (Colts among others) hoping that politicians in danger of losing a team would get mad enough to grant the NFL enough anti-trust exemptions that would give it carte blanche power over all their franchises. It didn't work however since the A-T power cede to MLB was considered an legal anomoly by that time and was already being steadily scaled back. So the NFL sat back as Oakland, Houston, Baltimore, LA (twice), St Louis & Cleveland (am I forgetting anyone?) were abandoned and many of the remaining cities threatened with future abandonment if new stadiums weren't built and/or upgraded. I also suspect that LA is still kept as an open city as a relocation-sword over the head of current cities who are reluctant to fork over enormous amounts of cash in order to keep their franchises. And the entire point is, that the NFL (and other sports) are doing all this w/o the blanket anti-trust exemption that baseball has; and, as much as I wouldn't mind seeing it go away, it's just not that important in the grand scheme of things and citing as the root of most of baseball's problems doesn't solve anything. Angelos got money for "territorial infringment" just the same as the billionaires who own the NJ Jets or Giants would if a new or moved team were to suddenly try to play at Shea.
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| Frayed Knot May 04 2006 02:51 PM |
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P.S. The new Oakland A's owners are looking into a stadium deal in Freemont which would bring them much closer to the pop center of San Jose but is still in Alameda County and therefore wouldn't be considered an invasion of the territory of the SF Giants.
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| Yancy Street Gang May 04 2006 03:01 PM |
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Interesting stuff. Thanks, Knot.
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| Edgy DC May 04 2006 03:44 PM |
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Doing all what? I don't quite get you.
They shouldn't. Certainly not if the Tampa Bay Buccaneers moved to Shea.
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| Frayed Knot May 04 2006 04:45 PM |
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"Doing all what? I don't quite get you"
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| Edgy DC May 04 2006 04:55 PM |
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That's actually been my point --- that the anti-trust exemption has given the league more control over team movement than the other three team sports, so I don't know what you're trying to tell me here. Teams, like every most other corporations, should have every right to move, and every opportunity to leverage that right. The other teams shouldn't have anything to do with it.
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| Frayed Knot May 04 2006 11:34 PM |
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Except that your original claim was that DC (in this case) politicians pulling for specific owners - and the attendant goodies that go along with having 'their guys' on the inside - is somehow a function of MLB's A-T exemption. But making that exemption disappear won't make that go away as the other sports have shown us. And besides, those sports have the ability to control franchise movement, they just need better specifics to enforce it rather than relying on a blanket protection which likely won't stand up to scrutiny anyway.
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| Edgy DC May 04 2006 11:45 PM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on May 05 2006 04:49 PM |
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I did not say that political abuse was a "function of" the anti-trust exemption. What I wrote was, "Because as long as there's only one team allowed in a locality, the stakes are much higher and the gatekeepers hold that much more power."
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| Nymr83 May 04 2006 11:58 PM |
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I disagree entirely, I think teams in all major sports should be treated as public trusts. i'd even go so far as to say that the ONLY justification for moving should be prolonged poor attendance. the good old "build me a stadium or i'm gone" bullshit should be criminal.
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| Edgy DC May 05 2006 08:05 AM |
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But they're not. They're privately held corporations that bring in hundreds of millions of dollars. And corporatons, like the people they're made up of, have rights.
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| Nymr83 May 05 2006 12:58 PM |
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you said they should be allowed to do X,Y,Z so i responded with my opinion of what they should be allowed to do... it was not my intent to represent that as what they can actually do.
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| Edgy DC May 05 2006 01:14 PM |
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I'm missing your meaning.
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| MFS62 May 05 2006 02:04 PM |
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The next order of business for the ownership will probably be getting the Nats more local TV time. This has been an issue since before the 2005 season. From what I've heard from friends down there, the bottom line is it relates to the MLB appeasement of Angelos in return for his not suing over alleged “territorial rights” when the Nationals came to town.
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| Edgy DC May 05 2006 02:16 PM |
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I have less information than you. It's messed up, sure. But it's probably like the Mets and Yankees the last two years. It'll be messed up until people take their interests to the table and negotiate a settlement. With the Nats (a) playing terribly and (b) lacking fans with a long-term expectation of seeing them televised, the fight isn't over such a hot commodity as the Mets and Yankees.
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| Vic Sage May 05 2006 02:49 PM |
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unlike the revolution... which will not be televised.
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| Willets Point May 05 2006 03:00 PM |
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Actually the Revolution are televised it's just hard to compete with the Red Sox game.
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| Nymr83 May 05 2006 04:36 PM |
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thats not what i took from this:
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| Edgy DC May 05 2006 04:41 PM |
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Two sentences. Nothing there speaks to whether or not teams should be publicly held trusts.
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