Even though much of the region’s fanbase is done with him, John Fisher isn’t quite done with the Bay Area.
Two months after the Athletics played their final game at the Oakland Coliseum, the team’s hated billionaire owner is again seeking help from a local government to build a sports facility.
This time his sights are set 40 miles south of Oakland, in San Jose, where he owns a Major League Soccer team.
The Earthquakes, which finished dead last this season, aim to build a 14-acre private training facility on undeveloped county land, which will need to be leased to the team. As part of the project, the team would turn an additional 12 acres into four rentable public soccer fields.
The San Jose City Council voted unanimously this month to pitch in $6 million to help pay for construction of the public portion of the project. Alongside Santa Clara County, which owns the land, the city would also be on the hook for infrastructure improvements, estimated to be in the eight figures, to the surrounding area.
In exchange, the Earthquakes have agreed to operate and maintain the property while taking home all revenue it generates. San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said in a statement to The Standard that the deal “absolutely makes sense” since it would transform an unused dirt lot into a place where kids can play alongside professional athletes.
Fisher will fund more than $50 million to develop the team’s facility and $12 million for the public fields, which will cover most of the project’s cost.
With the city already in support of it, the deal was expected to be rubber-stamped by the Santa Clara Board of Supervisors. But outgoing Supervisor Joe Simitian, who unsuccessfully ran for Rep. Anna Eshoo’s congressional seat in May, took to the dais and slammed the brakes during a Nov. 5 meeting.
“I am not convinced [the Earthquakes] would be a good-faith partner,” Simitian told colleagues, citing several news reports, including The Standard’s, detailing or maligning Fisher’s role in the A’s leaving Oakland for Sacramento and Las Vegas.
“This is essentially a $100 million giveaway to a private enterprise,” he said, referring to nonpublic appraisals his staff reviewed that valued the land higher than what the Earthquakes would pay in rent. Moreover, he argued, the 250 hours annually of free public access the team promised would amount to less than an hour a day.
“They will be converting 1% of the land back to the public while getting 100% of the revenue,” Simitian said, turning to the other four members of the board. “Next year, I won’t be here. You’ll be making hard budget decisions where you’ll have to tell some people [in the community] that ‘We can’t be there.’ One of those reasons cannot be because we gave away $100 million in public benefits.”
Despite the city and county negotiating the terms with the Earthquakes for nearly two years, the supervisor’s diatribe was enough to punt the vote needed to break ground on the project.
When reached for comment, Earthquakes President Jared Shawlee confirmed that the team will re-engage with the county in 2025, which is when two new supervisors will be sworn into office.
It is not immediately clear if either side wants to reopen negotiations on key terms of the deal. For example, a proposal to swap out the proposed artificial turf for real grass would greatly increase the cost burden of maintaining the property.
Simitian, for his part, told The Standard he’s concerned some of his colleagues were not adequately informed of Fisher’s history, given their reactions to public benefits he described as “laughable.”
“Not everyone reads the sports pages, but I do,” Simitian said. “Anyone who has glanced at the news knows that there is universal frustration with the way A’s ownership dealt with the community and government partners.”
Keeping the A’s in Oakland was contingent on the city partially subsidizing a proposed $12 billion redevelopment of Howard Terminal, including a new 35,000-seat ballpark, 3,000 new homes, hotels, a performing arts center, retail, and office space. Although the two sides negotiated for years on terms, there was skepticism that Oakland could provide what Fisher wanted, given its current budget woes.
The Earthquakes have not made the practice facility key to their continued presence in San Jose. Shawlee told supervisors at the Nov. 5 meeting that the team still has land near its stadium, PayPal Park (constructed in 2015 and shared with Bay FC), that it could develop instead but pursued the public project at the county’s behest since the property had been neglected for so long.
Although the county is poised to receive none of the project’s revenue, renting out soccer fields to weekend hobbyists and youth teams isn’t likely to produce anywhere near the amount of, say, concerts at Levi’s Stadium. Land-use experts polled by The Standard say the Earthquakes, after paying for operating costs and maintenance, may lose money on the project, depending on the year.
Therefore, the risk for the San Jose project lies almost entirely with Fisher — as opposed to his steep asks of Oakland and, more recently, Las Vegas, where the Nevada governor last year signed a $380 million public financing package to develop a new stadium.
Fair or not, the specter of Fisher still casts a long shadow that spans all across the Bay Area.
Correction: A previous version of this story understated the Earthquake’s total investment in the project.