Selig is undermining sports franchises

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | You have to hand it to Bud Selig. As spring training is about ready to start for the Oakland A's, he has already undermined the franchise.

As the A's get ready for the season opener in Japan against Seattle, Selig has already marked them for contraction, although he never specifically named the franchise as a candidate for elimination.

Instead, the baseball commissioner told Bay Area media last week that the Oakland Coliseum could not be renovated and that an old stadium, with limited financial resources in a small market can't work.

Of course, Selig and his fellow owners agreed to keep 30 teams in the loop through the end of the present collective bargaining agreement. So Selig, who apparently has no public relations savvy, has laid down the gauntlet and challenged Oakland, a city that is broke, and California, a state that has a $10 billion budget gap while the country is in a recession and planning a possible war to build a new baseball park or the A's may be gone by 2008.

All of this coming as people get ready for the 2003 season in Oakland. It's typical baseball marketing.

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JWR contributor Evan Weiner is a radio commentator on "The Business of Sports" for Westwood One's Metro Networks. Comment on this column by clicking here.

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