Pittsburgh Pirates… the NEXT Oakland A’s?

Here’s Brody Brazil. Well, the voicemail line is open globally, as in anywhere in the world. You can call in to 8334 Brody. Let me know what’s on your mind. A question, a comment, or any type of contribution to this YouTube channel. I do listen to every single call. Then I get to play back and respond to the very best ones. Hi Brady, my name’s Mike from Columbus, Ohio. I’m actually a lifelong Pittsburgh Pirates fan and I really liked your uh video that you just put out wrapping up the past season for the Pirates and all the things that have been happening and you know knowing that Ben Sherington’s been retained and that they’re probably not going to increase the payroll next year after all these years of being angry about what’s going on with the Pirates. I’m just sad at this point and I’m also very scared. And what I’m scared about is that the lease at PNC Park comes up in 2030. That’s right. And I hate to say this, but a lot of the actions that Bob Nutting has been taking is very reminiscent of the ownership of the Oakland A’s. So, it makes me wonder, are they thinking about maybe moving the Pirates? Are they thinking about, you know, after the um inevitable lockout after next season, especially if for some reason the owners do not get a salary cap? Um, I’d love to hear your opinion on this. And once again, I really do enjoy your YouTube videos. Thank you very much. Goodbye, Mike. Thank you very much for the heartfelt call. I can tell you’re totally invested in this situation and conversation. And I just want to say one thing I recently saw was Pirates fans going out to the old site of Forbes Field doesn’t exist anymore where they still every year on the anniversary of what game seven of the 1960 World Series, they play out the audible radio call of Bill Mazeroski’s walk-off homer to win what I think was the Pirates third World Series ever. Like they have that tradition. Pirates fans are great. Pirates fans don’t deserve to be in this situation where now all of a sudden frustration is turning into nervousness about the way the franchise has been run. How political leaders in the city of Pittsburgh or the state of Pennsylvania, how they might butt heads over a lease that does expire, I think in 2030 or is it after the 2030 season? But the bottom line is that it’s coming up. And Mike, you also bring up the situation of the Oakland A’s. I’m pretty sure you mention that and reference it because, you know, I was entrenched in in that as pretty much anybody else. So, I’m not here to say that I’m the default expert on it, but I can look at this with some experience on both sides and tell you the similarities and the differences. I think there are some things that are are scary in terms of how similar they are, but there are also some differences here. I don’t know that the differences are actually that reassuring. Let me explain this here. Pirates being like the A’s. Are they going to end up in a similar fate? Well, the similarities can start at the basic level of the team and a lack of spending and a lack of committing to players and just like it was a Matt Olsen and a Matt Chapman and a Marcus Semian and a Shawn Murphy and we can go back over all the years. Um, it’s a Paul Skins right now in Pittsburgh. What are you going to do with Paul Skins? No other major league baseball team that’s serious about winning looks at Paul Skins and says, “All right, well, we’ll get a trade piece in free agency.” No, no, no. They look or sorry, a trade piece to boost the team. They look at Paul Skins and say, “No, this is our backbone. This is our foundation. This is our anchor. This is the player and the starting pitcher that we absolutely want here.” So again, there is that similarity. Lack of commitment, lack of spending. There’s the whole cell movement of the fan base. Did you see opening day 2025 at PNC Park? There was a plane flying over the stadium. Sell the team, Bob. There were people with shirts. There were people with bags over their heads. There’s already that movement among the fan base and that show of displeasure for the ownership. Like that is a huge similarity. That’s also very much not a good thing. The difference here is that the A’s in between all of this, right? The stadium situation with the coliseum and the fans being super upset at ownership. The A’s found a way to win in between like 12, 13, 14, uh, 18, 19, 20. Like, they had some streaks in recent times to like maybe distract you from all of the rough stuff that was going on with team ownership and how they handled the franchise. Like, the Pirates literally have three winning seasons since Barry Bonds was on the Pirates in was that 92 or 93. And those three seasons were I think 13, 14, 15, 14, 15, 16. There were three seasons in a row. Those are the only three winning seasons, winning record seasons by the Pirates. Unbelievable. So, there is a difference there. Like politicians in Pittsburgh and in the state of Pennsylvania, they can point at the Pirates and say, “Well, you don’t even do well on the baseball field, let alone off it.” At least the A’s had the the distraction factor of, “Well, they win games. They find a way. See, it’s not that bad.” But in reality, the baseball and the business sides are two different things. The bigger difference here is that the Pirates have beautiful PNC Park, which is only what, 25, 30 years old. The years always get forgotten in my head on specifics of stadiums, but it’s around the 30-year mark. It’s regarded as honestly, I can say this, easily top five, probably even top three in Major League Baseball. The scenery, the setting, the location, the design, everything is great about it. And it does probably need some upgrades coming up. And it does probably need uh some funding for infrastructure. I don’t know how that’s going to go as part of this lease. I think the Pirates have been getting a pretty good uh lease deal on what they pay. Now, who’s going to pay for the stadium upgrades? Pittsburgh says they’re already strapped for things like that. They’re probably not going to be able to fund it. So, who will? The biggest X factor here, it’s not the stadium, right? Like the A’s could always point at the Coliseum and say, “Well, we got to get away from this. We got to get away from this.” The Pirates can’t really say, “We got to get away from this.” And that’s why I don’t think they’ll be using any leverage to try and get away from Pittsburgh. I think what’s going to happen is that the city of Pittsburgh and local politicians like Councilwoman Terresa Kale Smith, she wants to meet with the team. I want to be fair, she’s not putting pressure on them. She literally said in some quotes, I want to work with them to try and figure out like how can we do better? How can you win games? How can we help you win games so that our fans are happy, our taxpayers are happy? We can get a deal here. like she’s trying to see it from the most optimistic angle. I fear that as 2030 gets closer and when this lease expires that politicians are going to say, “Yeah, you don’t run a good baseball team. You don’t run a good business. We don’t even want to do a lease with you.” And then it starts. So the point is probably, yeah, in the 27, 28, 29 calendar year, we start to get into this weird situation where I don’t think the pirates are going to say, “Well, this park is terrible. We need a new one.” or we’re trying to move to Nashville, but they’re not stupid. They’ve seen the playbook by other teams. They know how they get what they want. They use that threat. Now, nobody has used a threat yet. Nor should you honestly be able to like literally just look at one photo of PNC Park and tell me you want to leave that. It’s ridiculous. Or the fan bases of respective Pittsburgh teams like the Pirates and Steelers. They’re well established. We know what Pittsburgh is as a sports city. It’s not that. I just worry about the collision that’s impending here. I don’t think the pirates are going to force this, but I don’t think the pirates are going to help this by being and continuing to be who they are and who they’ve been. Zebras don’t change their stripes. I think that’s what’s to worry about here. They don’t change. Pittsburgh gets fed up with this. There’s a date of expiration here and that’s going to make a new lease agreement very sticky at the very least. Let me know what you think about all this in the comments section below. Am I right? Am I wrong? Am I close? Am I far? I appreciate the call and this conversation. Honestly, it’s why I’ve been covering a lot of the pirate situation. I do in the back of my mind worry a little bit that it’s not going to go identically the same as what happened in Oakland, but there are enough similarities. Comments down below, thumbs up there, too. I appreciate that. Don’t forget to subscribe to the channel. I would love to see you back here next time.

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It was another losing season for the Pittsburgh Pirates. With continued frustration from fans, a city council member wants to sit down with leadership to see what is going on. They want the city of champions to have champions.

It’s another October and playoff baseball is in full swing. But PNC Park sits empty. Councilwoman Theresa Kail Smith wants that to change.

“I think there’s a lot of discussion. The Pirates’ agreement with the stadium authority is up in a few years and it’d be a great time to have a conversation,” Kail Smith said.

Despite calls from fans to sell the team, Kail Smith said she’s not pounding the table for an ownership change.

“There’s a group of people that want to have this meeting that have that theory. That’s not me. What I can tell you is I’m grateful for what the Pirates have done for the city of Pittsburgh,” Kail Smith said.

Read More: https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/pittsburgh-city-council-member-meet-pirates-leadership/

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20 comments

  2. If only Oakland had a beautiful downtown park like Pittsburgh, things would have been a little better. I think they'd draw well even with Fisher gutting the team every 3 years.

  3. If there is a full-blown lockout you can bet, there will be some serious contraction. I can see teams disappearing despite how new or great their stadium may be. Here's my guesses: Diamondbacks, Pirates, Marlins, Rays, and White Sox.

  4. A salary cap should also have a salary floor and index both to inflation so it adjusts (actually all wages should do that, but that’s “controversial” depending on your politics.)

  6. The Cubs and Pirates have played more games against each other than any other combination of teams in MLB history. The Pirates are one of the most historic and legendary franchises in baseball.

  8. PNC Park is personally my favorite stadium

    Not only is it beautiful, walking across the bridge to a game is a breeze and Pirates fans are absolutely awesome.

  10. The fans actually watch the projection of the entire game on the old Forbes Field wall, at first it was a radio recording, as NO video was known to exist. However years ago it was learned that former owner, Bing Crosby had a show in Europe to perform that day and actually arranged to have a movie camera positioned in front of his television to "record" the game for him to watch. That video was recently discovered and distributed and available for viewing. That is the only game with a surviving video of it. As for politicians convincing taxpayers to pay for stadium upgrades, they lost 2 referendums in 1990s, where the voters refused funding for the stadiums, and McClatchy promised a WINNER if they built him a new stadium. Originally the county Stadium Authority, which funds the stadiums, proposed renovating 3 Rivers as a football only stadium and building a new baseball only stadium. As they still owed tens of millions on 3 Rivers from renovations they'd performed over the years. To build PNC, HEINZ Fields and a new Convention Center cost over a BILLION dollars, the taxpayers balked, and city and county politicians went hat in hand to Harrisburg to fund the projects. Subsequently every politician who backed "PLAN A" lost their elections and were kicked out of office. It's forgotten that only about 1% of the local population ever sees the inside of the stadium. Oh they can claim 1 million attendance by virtually all of those are season ticket holders (who come to dozens of games) or out of town fans who buy tickets season ticket fans don't intend to use or come to see THEIR team play one and down (same with the Steelers and Pens). Actual locals paying to see a game are probably in the 250k range in an area claiming about 3 million in regional residents. But those 250k people see dozens of games and are thus not enough voters to swing an election, especially one where they are voting to increase taxes on themselves. Pittsburgh is a region of retirees, they still remember going to Forbes Field for a $3 seat on the 3rd base line, or me, now 68 and living 400 miles away but watched many games above right field for $1 and getting there early to get a first row seat. The same friend I used to go to these games in the 70s happened to be in Northside on game day and thought it would be neat to see another game togetherhe as 50 yos, we were stopped by the $20 cost for a parking spot, if a parking spot cost $20 we didnt want to know what tickets cost. and went to dinner and home.

  11. One other difference between the As and Pirates not mentioned in the story is that with the Giants across the bay, the Bay Area still has a team with Oakland moving. The closest team to Pittsburgh is the Guardians which are a good distance from Pittsburgh. So the As moving didn’t void the market of a team, but the Pirates moving would.

  13. Now that stadiums cost BILLIONS these days, it's time that government got out of the sports business, the leagues make tens of billions of dollars in profits and each league build their teams their own stadiums. The NFL has $30 billion in profits THIS YEAR and could easily build each of its 30 teams(28 stadiums) a new $3 billion stadium every 28 years, and take another BILLION of their profits to renovate different stadiums that need enhancements and dam still jhave almost $1 billion per team to split as the spoils. If the Pirates, Pens or Steelers decide they don't like Pittsburgh anymore, 99% of the fans watch on TV (including fans like me watching 400 miles away in Norfolk Va.) and thus could care less where the games are played, the Steelers often travel well as well, to the point where some teams restrict 412 area code phones from buying tickets. I could care less where they play. And certainly do not pay anything to watch those games. Luckily there are enough Steeler fans down here that our CBS affiliate shows virtually every Steeler game on their schedule, unless the Redskins are on CBS at the time. Only fools would continue to give billionaires billions of tax dollars to their bottom line.

  14. Once again, NO ONE wants to move or live in your SH*THOLE city of Oakland. It has high crime, high taxation, high cost of living, and no vibrant downtown. Pittsburgh is a MUCH BETTER city any way you look at it.

  16. With the exception of a horrible owner, Pittsburgh is not Oakland. The Pirates are one of the oldest franchises in American professional sports founded in 1881. As mentioned, they have one of the best ballparks in MLB. If Bob Nutting would move to Nashville, or any other city, his business philosophy would not change. He never spends a dollar which he doesn't already have in his hand. And worse than his cheapness, he's a complete incompetent at running a MLB franchise.

  19. Here are the list of teams that will not win the World Series next year, and not be competitive enough to even sniff the playoffs:

    Pittsburgh Pirates
    Oakland A's
    Miami Marlins
    Tampa Bay Rays
    Minnesota Twins
    Baltimore Orioles
    Cincinnati Reds
    Kansas City Royals
    Chicago White Sox
    Colorado Rockies
    Arizona Diamondbacks

    Not very good, but have the money teams:
    Washington Nationals
    California Angels
    San Francisco Giants
    Atlanta Braves
    St Louis Cardinals

    That's over half the league that basically is a minor league feeder system to the Yankees, Dodgers, Mets, Phillies of the world.

    One more year until the lock out. They need a salary floor first and foremost, and then a salary cap or something to make things competitive on the field. The league is broken beyond repair in it's current state of affairs.

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