But it’s about much more than just building a ballpark. As part of a larger plan to build new hotels, restaurants, and cafes, a new destination stadium will attract visitors from all over the region. Like AT&T Park in Mission Bay did for San Francisco, our ballpark will be a catalyst to bring new investment and jobs to Oakland, kick-starting the next phase of our community’s successful economic development.

If you support Oakland — if you support the A’s — we hope you’ll stand with us. Sign our petition, and urge Major League Baseball and team ownership to keep the A’s in Oakland!

http://www.letsgooakland.com/

Why settle for only the water? Now if they could get Al Davis to think reaallly big (L.A. big) then they could get the whole coliseum. And with that parking lot, think of the possibilities…

–How much are you worth Mr. Wolff? $50 mill, $100 mill?
–Oh much much more!
–I don’t get it. What can you possibly buy with all that money?

Lew’s apparently thinking of a lot of things…

1. I’d be surprised if the Oakland Athletics partnership agreement didn’t give John Fisher the right to buy out his minority partners on demand. That’s the sort of thing his ~70% ownership share should get him.

2. Noah Cross, eh? Have you read Oaklandtown?

And whether there is or not, the negotiation strategy and odd behavior of Mr. Wolff (aka. Noah Cross) towards Oakland makes more sense if San Jose is seen as their priority, while letting Oakland know that they need more, a lot more, if Oakland even wants to be considered.

The additional advantage for the majority owners of having a disposable Lew (or at least an arrangement with Lew based on results) is, if all his antics fail and the team stays in Oakland, there’s a better chance for the Fischer’s to kiss and make up with Oakland. But all this discussion is just conjecture…

Again, whatever happens the owners have all their bases covered.

BTW, since business partners don’t usually release their contracts or partnership agreements to the public, and you say “to the best of my knowledge…in the partnership agreement”, was some information released to the public or do you have some other direct knowledge of their agreement?
Again, so I can learn something if you do…

Lew might have control as Managing Partner over day-to-day operations, but it’s to further common objectives agreed to with the 90% owners (undoubtedly with a contract), who undoubtedly cooperate with him on (and have veto power over) longer term objectives. Whatever those objectives are if Lew is able to achieve them there’s got to be an upside for him, while conversely if he isn’t able to achieve them, there’s got to be a downside.

But then I already talked about all this in my last post…

Of course public-private cooperation in San Jose is also well organized compared to Oakland.

If Lew Wolff, aka. Noah Cross, owns 10% of the A’s he’s “managing partner” (whatever that means) for a reason. Now your guess is as good as mine, but my bet is that besides being the public face he has an incentive based on performance.

An incentive might be, for example, a larger chunk of ownership. Performance might be, for example, making a move to San Jose happen (esp. given his contacts there).

If Noah, I mean Lew, can’t make this happen then the ultimatum might be either he’s out totally (as Tab suggests) or he makes a backup happen on better terms and in a better space than they have now for a reduced incentive (in Oakland, Portland, wherever).

Noah’s, I mean Lew’s, performance makes more sense in this light. He’s simply negotiating as best he can while keeping all options open and pulling as many strings as possible. There’s no way to be sure but there’s a reason that a 10% owner is “Managing Partner” and that the owners are putting up with his clown act (and making us put up with it).

One things for sure: There’s a chess match going on here, the owners have thought through all their options, and they have their bases covered.