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Say It Aint So
San Jose's only major professional sports franchise should not partner with the San Francisco Giants
3/2/14 - By Paul Krill -

Well, I guess it may be our turn soon. The Sharks apparently are on the short list to host one of these outdoor games that have become so popular in the NHL. But where would the game be held?

According to local news reports, the Sharks and the NHL are looking at AT&T Park in San Francisco, Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara and Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto. I believe Levi's would be the best option while AT&T Park should not even be considered.

Levi's is a brand new football stadium, almost within view of the current arena, just a few minutes from downtown San Jose. The football configuration makes it more suitable for hockey than a baseball stadium like AT&T Park, which is about an hour's drive from the current Sharks arena.

Do I have any other objections to AT&T Park? Well, yes.

The Sharks have no business partnering on an event like this with the AT&T Park owners, the San Francisco Giants. For years and years, the Giants have used their bogus, archaic "territorial rights" claims to prevent San Jose from ever acquiring a Major League Baseball team (in this case, the Oakland A's). In MLB's eyes, San Jose is not treated like the 10th-largest city in the country, with lots of corporations and high per-capita income.

It is treated as just a suburb of San Francisco, part of the Giants' "territory" even though San Francisco is 40+ miles away. (Should Oakland be able to finally, at long last, get a new ballpark done for the A's, that would be great. I already go to A's games in Oakland so it would be business as usual. But the issue here is San Jose being shut out from even pursuing the team, undermining the city's own right of self determination.)

Holding the game at AT&T Park would serve to reinforce the Giants' bogus claims to San Jose . (Did I tell you already that the Giants' territorial rights claims to San Jose were bogus?) It's not the message we want to send to Major League Baseball. By the way, the city of San Jose, owner of the Sharks' arena, is suing MLB over this whole thing. Hopefully, San Jose will win big time.

FWIW, I fear that the NHL, eager to broadcast from glamorous San Francisco for just one day, will schedule the game at AT&T Park anyway, inconveniencing South Bay Sharks fans and effectively giving a thumbs-up to the Giants' claims on San Jose.

But my plea to the Sharks is, based on principle and the long distance of AT&T Park from San Jose, please don't do this. Hold the outdoor game at Levi's Stadium. Hopefully, we won't have a big wind-and-rainstorm that day.



Contact Paul at at paulkrill@letsgosharks.com



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