Field of Schemes new post KJ floats Sacramento as new A's home

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson made some headlines yesterday by asserting that he's "watching really closely what is happening in Oakland" with the A's, raising the possibility of the team moving to Sacramento if owner Lew Wolff continues to be stonewalled in his attempts to build a stadium in San Jose.

On the face of it, it's not inconceivable:

  Rank  Designated Market Area (DMA)   TV Homes  1     New York                       7,387,810  2     Los Angeles                    5,569,780   3     Chicago                        3,493,480  4     Philadelphia                   2,993,370   5     Dallas-Ft. Worth               2,571,310   6     San Francisco-Oak-San Jose     2,506,510   7     Boston (Manchester)            2,379,690   8     Washington, DC (Hagrstwn)      2,360,180   9     Atlanta                        2,292,640   10    Houston                        2,185,260    11    Detroit                        1,842,650    12    Seattle-Tacoma                 1,811,420    13    Phoenix (Prescott)             1,811,330    14    Tampa-St. Pete (Sarasota)      1,788,240    15    Minneapolis-St. Paul           1,721,940    16    Miami-Ft. Lauderdale           1,583,800    17    Denver                         1,548,570    18    Cleveland-Akron (Canton)       1,514,170    19    Orlando-Daytona Bch-Melbrn     1,465,460    20    Sacramnto-Stkton-Modesto       1,388,570    21    St. Louis                      1,253,920    22    Portland, OR                   1,190,010    23    Pittsburgh                     1,171,490    24    Raleigh-Durham (Fayetvlle)     1,143,420    25    Charlotte                      1,140,900    26    Indianapolis                   1,109,970    27    Baltimore                      1,097,310    28    San Diego                      1,077,600    29    Nashville                      1,024,560    30    Hartford & New Haven           1,006,280    

Sacramento is a bigger TV market than St. Louis, as well Pittsburgh and San Diego and a couple of other cities that pretty much define "small-market" when it comes to baseball. It's also fairly isolated from the rest of the Northern California population center, and has never gotten serious consideration in the past as an MLB city. And what else ... oh, yeah, Sacramento doesn't have anything remotely like an MLB stadium in place, and building one would be even more expensive than the Kings arena that KJ couldn't really find the money for, and wouldn't even have the potential revenues of a 365-day-a-year arena. And while Wolff has been saying he can build a stadium in San Jose without major public subsidies, Sacramento residents don't have nearly the deep pockets that South Bay fans do in terms of anteing up for personal seat licenses and the like.

And I've now spent more time thinking about this than Johnson has, so let's leave it at that.

from Field of Schemes http://www.fieldofschemes.com/news/archives/2012/05/4959_kj_floats_sacra.html