ESPN article goes badly for John Fisher

Sportswriter Tim Keown's 7,000-word story on A's ownership's clumsy attempt to move the team is a master class in journalism, revealing John Fisher's and Dave Kaval's incompetence and dishonesty.

ESPN’s Tim Keown on Wednesday published a richly detailed “behind-the-scenes” story on John Fisher’s attempt to move the A’s to Vegas.

It’s a journalistic master class in letting a loathsome subject hang himself with his own words, and Keown deserves kudos for his thorough, just-the-facts reporting and objective, level-headed tone.

But even Keown’s professional fairness couldn’t save Fisher from his pretzel logic and wobbly pile of falsehoods. Keown also expertly underlined the many issues still facing Fisher and his own personal Igor – A’s president Dave Kaval.

Sportswriter Craig Calcaterra had the best review of Keown’s excellent article, saying: “Fisher and Kaval don’t come out of it looking good. In fact, they’re even worse than you think.”  

That pretty much sums it up. But Fisher and Kaval tell so many half-truths and outright lies in the piece, I wanted to list them all.

By my count, the ESPN story contains around 20 items in which the A’s officials were either a) caught lying to Keown or someone else, b) contradicting past quotes or actions, c) making little to no sense, d) revealing unwittingly that the Vegas move is a disaster in the making, or e) all of the above.

Let’s dive into that list, shall we? Here we go:

1. Oakland was very close to sealing the ballpark deal, contrary to Fisher’s version.
Fisher and Kaval bailed on Howard Terminal negotiations with new Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao on April 19, just as they were close to finalizing a deal. Thao told Keown the two sides were just $101 million apart at first, but “Oakland had just been assured of another $65 million in federal grants, which would have brought the difference between down to $36 million.” Again, they were just $36 million apart on a $12 billion development. Then Fisher and Kaval, inexplicably, blew it up.

2. Kaval lied to Thao’s office on April 19 when he said a “leak” had led to the Las Vegas Review Journal story announcing the team’s deal for a Vegas site.
As Leigh Hanson, Thao’s spokesperson, suggests: How can it be an inadvertent “leak” when Kaval is quoted throughout the story?

"Not sure it's a leak when you're quoted in the story," Hanson said. "Pretty sure that's not how leaks work. If you're going to be strategic, try not to be so sloppy."

3. All Fisher cares about is getting free money.
Keown writes: Oakland city officials simply couldn't guarantee a stadium deal before the team's January 2024 deadline to continue to receive the franchise's lifeblood: revenue sharing from Major League Baseball. Losing revenue sharing, Fisher said, "would be hugely detrimental to the organization."

There it is. Fisher is giving away the game, admitting that he has only one goal: To keep receiving MLB welfare checks from other owners who are actually trying to win. Given that Fisher is at least five years away from moving into a new stadium, he’s banking on taking a total of HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of dollars in free money from his fellow MLB owners. That’s his only goal. And he doesn’t care what he has to do to receive it. That’s pathetic, revealing Fisher as lacking in pride, brains, character and, oh yeah, any kind of business acumen. No matter. Fisher doesn’t want to earn his keep, of course. He just wants the river of multimillion-dollar freebies to keep flowing into his bank account each year. Fisher, who inherited billions, has the most but wants to give the least. It’s nauseating.  

4. Fisher says he wants a great new ballpark for A’s fans. Should we believe him?
Here’s what Fisher told Keown: "To be able to attract the 2.4 million fans that we were hoping to attract here for our stadium, it had to be great. It had to be at least as good, if not better, than Oracle field in San Francisco. And I also felt like, why should our fans settle for anything else? Our fans deserve a great ballpark, and that was always my North Star."

Sorry, but how will shoehorning a lifeless dome in the desert capture the spirit of the summer game of baseball? That type of soulless, antiseptic environment is the opposite of Oracle Park in San Francisco, which is the standard by which Fisher is measuring his stadium dreams. To want what the Giants have and then go out and build a roof-covered dome with artificial turf in the Nevada desert is the very definition of cognitive dissonance – with a sprig of madness tossed in for flavor.

5. The A’s didn’t try earnestly in Oakland for very long.
Fisher said: "At the end of four years of negotiations, we were nowhere."

This is a lie. And it’s one of Fisher’s most obvious and brazen lies.

First, Fisher is making it sound like they negotiated nonstop over four years for Howard Terminal. That’s not true. They spent the first year – 2017 – on Laney College. That was a great site but Kaval screwed up the execution by not getting the approval of the college’s board members before going public with the plan. The slightest bit of research would have revealed to Kaval and Fisher that Laney teachers and board trustees were clashing with then-Laney president Jowel Laguerre. But Kaval rushed the execution and didn’t consult the board and other Laney stakeholders before striking a deal with Laguerre. When Laguerre couldn’t sell the deal to his foes on the board, it all fell apart. The deal’s collapse was a harbinger of the arrogance and clumsy incompetence we’d see from Fisher and Kaval all throughout the Vegas deal.

Then, in 2018, Kaval and Fisher turned to Howard Terminal. The complicated $12 billion project was only two years into its progression when the world was struck by Covid, effectively wiping out all of 2020. In early 2021, Kaval shocked Oakland fans by announcing that the A’s were going to pursue “parallel paths” in Vegas, destroying all trust between local officials and Fisher and freezing Oaklanders who otherwise might have gone to bat for the A’s on the project.   

So, when Fisher said they spent “four years of negotiations,” it’s an obvious lie. I mean, most of what Fisher and Kaval say these days are lies. But that one’s a doozy.

6. The ‘No Proposal’ accusation is not true.
In another part of the story, Fisher said Oakland had “no proposal” for the A’s. That’s another lie. As Keown reported, Fisher and Mayor Thao were just $36 million apart from reaching agreement on the $12 billion Howard Terminal project. In such a gargantuan development, $36 million is akin to the coins you find in your sofa each spring cleaning. That’s how close they were to an Oakland deal before Fisher and Kaval blew it up. So there most definitely was a viable Oakland proposal and they were far from “being nowhere” after negotiations – contrary to Fisher’s lies.

Keown says it best when he talks to Oakland officials: This contention mystifies those who worked to put together the financing on a project that was a source of both torment and delight; torment because the project was vast and unwieldy and expensive, delight because it was universally seen as having the potential to transform the city. The public infrastructure money Oakland was asked to raise dwarfed the $380 million in Las Vegas, and city officials say everyone understood it would take time. "To say we were nowhere is BS," Mayor Thao says. "To say there was no proposal is total BS. Let's be very clear: we did have a proposal. But maybe it wasn't a proposal John Fisher could afford."

7. Fisher is billionaire broke.
When Thao says perhaps Fisher no longer “could afford” the Oakland deal, she’s referring to what has become an open secret about Fisher, whose personal wealth has decreased because it is so reliant on the plummeting stock of The GAP clothing empire founded by his parents. As Keown explains:

An (MLB) industry source with knowledge of the situation says that the relocation fee was waived because the stadium project in Las Vegas would not have been economically feasible for Fisher if he had been forced to pay “an appropriately valued relocation fee.”

Which begs the question: Why should Oakland lose its beloved team just because the A’s owner can’t afford to own the team anymore? In reality, Commissioner Rob Manfred should force Fisher to sell the team. Hence, the A’s fans chanting “Sell the team!” all summer.

8. Fisher did not try to make it work in Oakland.
“I truly empathize with the fans.” Fisher said. … “Look, I did absolutely everything, more than any other sports team owner has tried, to make it work in Oakland."

Yet another lie. Fisher didn’t even try making it work in Oakland until early 2017, after he replaced Lew Wolff with Dave Kaval. That move came after Fisher and Wolff wasted 12 years – yes, 12 years wasted – on their pipe dream of moving the A’s to San Jose – a goal that the Giants would never allow and had the power to legally block. In fact, during much of those 12 years, Wolff repeatedly dumped on Oakland and its viability as a sports town. Where was Fisher?

After 12 long years of failing in San Jose, Fisher finally turned his attention to Oakland. But only half-heartedly Even then, Fisher spent little more than three years on two Oakland sites before Covid interrupted the momentum. In his 18 years as owner, Fisher has certainly not tried “absolutely everything” to make it work in The Town. Not even close.

9. Fisher talks about ‘history’ but he’s destroying the team’s legacy and team history.
Fisher told Keown: “With baseball teams and other sports teams, you're really a kind of a caretaker for creating a legacy of additional history for your club. And that's what I hope to create for us in Las Vegas."

Just as with Mark Davis and the Raiders, Fisher talks a good game about the A’s franchise’s history and legacy. But, in fact, he would be destroying the franchise’s legacy and history in Oakland, causing irreparable damage to the community that has informed the team’s image and spirit for more than a half-century.

10. Nobody goes there anymore – it’s too crowded.
Dave Kaval breathlesly touts the Tropicana site in Vegas as: “the busiest intersection in the West. There are more people there -- cars, people, eyeballs. If you go to Vegas, you end up there. And so, it's quintessential Vegas. It's right on The Strip. And so, I think it will, in many ways, be one of the most exciting and iconic locations for a sports venue in the world ..."

Oh, brother. Dave’s a one-man hype machine, I’ll give him that. But in reality, lots of critics in Vegas say it’s a bad site precisely for those same reasons. The intersection already suffers from traffic gridlock, which will discourage Vegas residents from going to A’s games because driving is their only option at the overstuffed site.

Yogi Berra once said, “Nobody goes there anymore – it’s too crowded.” In this case, Berra’s malapropism will actually be true.

Also, because the Strip is desirable to developers, Vegas can attract others investors to that site without giving them all that free tax money, according to critics.

So there are lots of reasons why nobody should believe Kaval. Speaking of nobody believing Kaval anymore …

11. Dave Kaval has a credibility gap.
As Keown mentions, Coliseum fans all summer have hung a banner that says “Kaval = Lies.”

At the Nevada state session that approved $380 million in tax money to the A’s in June, state Sen. Fabian Doñate called Kaval “disingenuous” to his face.

That same night, Nevada resident Steve Pastorino – an ex-A’s employee – went to the state chamber and called Kaval “a walking, talking bobblehead” – to the delight of A’s fans on Twitter who had tired of his act. Kaval has not been seen on camera ever since.

Those critics are not alone.

When Kaval replaced Lew Wolff as the face of the A’s in late 2016, former A’s pitcher Greg Cadaret immediately took to Twitter to lament Kaval’s promotion.

“Kaval is a mistake. Wrong move!” Cadaret tweeted the night of Nov. 17, 2016.

When asked why, Cadaret tweeted again: “around him in the Golden Baseball League, a lot of hot air, it’s about him and his success not the fans”

At this point, does anybody have anything positive to say about Dave Kaval? If not, how long can Fisher employ him as the face of the franchise?

12. Who’s lying?
Fisher told Keown that the A’s lost $40 million last season and will lose another $40 million this season. 

Hmmmm.

Forbes Magazine reports the opposite, saying the A’s in fact turned a $29 million profit last season.

Who’s lying? Is it the magazine that reports every day about American business or John Fisher, the guy who has been caught lying again and again in just the few recent interviews he’s given?

Hmmm, not really a mystery, is it?

13. Questions for which there should be answers … but aren’t.
Keown asks a great question that only MLB owners can answer: Why should Fisher, with the lowest payroll in baseball and a Forbes estimated franchise valuation of $1.2 billion before the relocation, cost every team more than $10 million and get the Las Vegas market, which has long been considered perfect for an expansion team?

Keown asks a reasonable question. By any metric, MLB owners should reject Fisher’s move to Vegas.

That’s because it will cost them millions of dollars in at least two different ways:

First, with the relocation fees that Manfred has waived for Fisher.

Second, with the revenue sharing welfare that Fisher will keep collecting because he’s moving from a large market to the much smaller Vegas market.

The whole point of getting a new stadium was to get Fisher off “MLB welfare,” but he is very intent on continuing to receive that free money. He’s made that clear.

Fisher is a right-wing ideologue who hates taxes and touts the benefits of free market capitalism. Except when it comes to him and his baseball team. In that case, he wants socialism by the millions for him – and only him.

Calling Fisher a hypocrite feels like an understatement in this case.

14. The A’s have tried the “Major League” strategy
Keown writes: While knowingly fielding a depleted, non-competitive roster, the team doubled season-ticket prices before this season while doing nothing to improve the fan experience, once Kaval's priority. "By the time we reopened [from COVID] in 2021, we were on parallel paths with Nevada," Kaval admits. "That colored our thinking." The shift in strategy became a self-fulfilling prophecy: raising prices, gutting the team and keeping attendance down as a means of proving the need for a new stadium.

In Keown’s post-article YouTube interview with Casey Pratt, he described Kaval’s answer as “the Major League scenario,” named after the movie Major League, where the team owner loses on purpose so she can move the team. That type of deceitful ploy is what Kaval admitted to in the ESPN article. Here’s what Keown said to Pratt:

“I asked Kaval about that … and he admitted to me that when they reopened after the Covid shutdown, ‘We were on parallel paths and that colored our thinking.’ I mean, that’s an admission that basically, ‘We are not doing anything for the fans in Oakland. We’re not trying anymore.’”

15. Fisher now is whining about the cost of draft pick bonuses.
When you pull a ‘Major League’ strategy , you lose a lot of games. And when you lose a lot of games, you get a high draft pick. And when you get a high draft pick, you have to pay a more expensive bonus to an unproven minor-league player.

Apparently, John Fisher hates doing that, too. Even after slashing payroll costs, gutting the A’s roster, and losing more than 100 games, he whined to Keown about draft pick costs.

“We ended up with a much higher draft pick,” Fisher says. “And, you know, it’s an opportunity, but it’s an expensive opportunity to sign high draft picks.”

Sigh.

16. Fisher is ideologically opposed to paying employees a fair market wage
Keown writes: They will spend in Las Vegas, though. Fisher and Kaval are in lockstep on that point.

After everything you’ve read above, does that sound plausible? Like, at all? Nope and nope.

Fisher was the guy who had to be publicly shamed into paying his minor league players their tiny, paltry salaries during the Covid lockdown. He was the only MLB owner who tried not to.

A year later, in 2021, A’s minor league players complained that Fisher was providing awful food to the team’s farm club players. And the minor leaguers provided photographic proof, drawing darkly funny comparisons to the infamous Fyre Festival.

17. Fisher won’t spend. Just ask San Jose soccer fans
There’s more proof that Fisher won’t ever spend what it takes to be a winner. Keown writes about Fisher’s San Jose soccer stadium:

There, the promise was the same: A new stadium will provide the team with the revenue stream to bolster the roster and compete for championships. That promise has not been kept. In a league where 18 of the 29 teams make the playoffs, the Earthquakes have not won a postseason game since 2012 and have qualified for the playoffs just twice since the stadium opened, losing in the first round both times. This season, the Earthquakes' payroll ranks 21st of 29 MLS teams.

18. Fisher’s own 8-year-old soccer stadium is a failure – according to Fisher.
Keown writes: According to Fisher, the eight-year-old PayPal Stadium in San Jose is already outdated compared to newer MLS stadiums -- he mentions LAFC, St. Louis and Austin -- and lacks the capacity and premium seating that drives the kind of revenue needed to compete for championships.

Yes, you read that right. The soccer stadium that Fisher helped plan is already outdated, according to Fisher. The San Jose stadium is hurting Fisher’s ability to spend and win, according to Fisher.

Is anyone in Vegas getting nervous that Fisher will pull the same “logic” on Sin City after just 8 years, as he’s done in San Jose. This bit of Fisher nonsense has not gone unnoticed by Quakes fans and MLS reporters across the nation. It even has some Quakes fans wondering if Fisher will next move the soccer team to Vegas, too. Yikes.

19. Fisher won’t talk about possible new A’s owners because that won’t boost his bottom line.
Keown writes: When I asked Fisher if any local groups, driven by similar civic pride, have approached him with an offer to purchase the team and keep it in Oakland, he shook his head and seemed to dismiss the question. "I'm not going to comment on whether I've received inquiries into the team or anything like that," he says.

Several groups, of course, have approached Fisher about buying the A’s to keep them in Oakland. But he won’t answer Keown’s question because Fisher doesn’t like the answer, as it threatens the only thing he cares about: Holding onto to the team to get more revenue sharing checks from MLB owners.

20. Fisher didn’t give it his all in Oakland because he doesn’t care.
Fisher told Keown: "Like I said, I'm a local, right? Bay Area native. And so I think if there was anyone who was going to give it their all to try and make it work, it was going to be me."

Just one problem. Fisher didn’t give it his all – certainly not in Oakland. After 18 years of failure, nobody on God’s green earth thinks it’s possible for Fisher to be a successful sports owner.

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Shout to the Top

All summer long this is what Oakland fans have been doing. I trust they will keep up the great work.