The city that was banned from getting an MLB team

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]The city of San Jose has long angled for a Major League Baseball team. Their efforts, however, have always come up short, reaching a point where the city has been practically banned from receiving a franchise due to territory rights disputes with San Francisco. This video will focus on the history of San Jose's MLB ambitions, along with their current and future chances of ever receiving a team. Around the time of the 1980s, San Jose was looked at a city with untapped potential for professional sports. At this time, the San Francisco Giants were flirting with the idea of relocation to the eastern side of the United States due to Candlestick Park's old age. By the late 1980s, the ownership believed a new stadium located closer to Silicon Valley would make the team more valuable. The original territorial rights deal happened around 1990. This allowed the Giants to control the area in which San Jose was located, agreed upon by the Oakland Athletics, who were within the vicinity of the region. Originally a territorial rights move that seemed harmless considering the Giants desperate need for a new stadium, possibly in San Jose. The problem for the city was that the Giants of course never ended up coming. There was one major push that happened in 1992, complete with a ballpark drawing depicting a open air stadium located in San Jose. There was a reported principal agreement for the Giants to move from San Francisco to San Jose. But in June of 1992, a failed referendum caused the Giants to remain in San Francisco. They ended up building Packbell Park, which is now Oracle Park. The Bay Area Stadium has turned into one of MLB's best. They also were able to keep the rights to Santa Clara County. In the early 2000s, Silicon Valley saw a major tech boom, elevating the city as an extremely attractive option for an expansion or relocation team. At the time, the Oakland Athletics were dealing with a stadium issue of their own. playing at the multi-purpose Oakland Coliseum. They looked at Silicon Valley and saw the ultimate option for a potential semi- relocation, staying in California, but moving cities into a better, younger, wealthier county. There was one key ballpark proposal, complete with renderings called Cisco Field. The original Cisco Field concept, which was pitched in 2006, called for a ballpark to be located in Fremont, California.

[00:02:29]However, the pitch was renewed in 2010.

[00:02:32]this time for the athletics to move to San Jose, directly in the heart of Silicon Valley. The territorial rights became a major dispute with the Giants, who were heavily invested in preventing the Athletics move to San Jose due to fear of losing a vital exclusive market.

[00:02:48]Ironically, Oakland, who had agreed to give San Jose's territorial rights to the Giants, now needed the Giants to relinquish the same rights a decade later. Lou Wolf, who became an athletics owner in the 2000s, became a major player in the pursuit of moving the team to San Jose. San Jose city officials also becoming fully invested. The city began designing redevelopment options for where the stadium would be located in downtown. When the Giants denied giving over the territorial rights, they said that their private investment into a new ballpark was made primarily with the expectation of the territorial rights being adhered to, giving them greater access to an emerging market.

[00:03:32]Exclusivity to this specific territory had given the Giants a major revenue source, especially with the emergence of Oracle Park as one of MLB's top revenue generating stadiums. Beginning in 2009, MLB created a special committee to analyze a potential relocation, specifically in regards to the Oakland Athletics possible move to San Jose. The committee, however, was largely inactive. As years went by, San Jose city officials grew annoyed with the inactiveness of the supposed relocation committee, eventually in 2013, leading San Jose to file a lawsuit against Major League Baseball. This lawsuit accused the league of illegally blocking the athletics potential move to San Jose, claiming that they were losing billions of dollars in economic activity without a baseball team. The lawsuit faced very intricate problems centered around antirust laws in relation specifically to Major League Baseball only. Unlike other sports, MLB specifically has special legal protections based on a 1922 Supreme Court ruling, which basically ruled that MLB can regulate relocation and control teams territorial rights. San Jose lost the lawsuit, ending their chances of receiving the athletics. The Oakland athletic situation ended up reaching a boiling point in the early 2020s, getting extremely ugly. The A's eventually announced their move to Las Vegas, playing in Sacramento for three years as their new stadium is constructed. The city of San Jose, due to its growth and immense wealth, remains an attractive option for an MLB team. However, due to that 1922 Supreme Court ruling and the Giants territorial rights control over the area, it makes a potential franchise in San Jose extremely difficult. In summary, this is a very unique situation that you could say is based on antirust laws only applicable to Major League Baseball. Had MLB not had this extensive hands-on ability to control relocation along with San Francisco's ability to control territory rights, San Jose may have received the athletics well over a decade ago. Due to how rare MLB expansion and relocation is, the odds of San Jose ever receiving a baseball team is very low. The Athletics were by far their best shot. This story can be described as a series of unfortunate events for potentially both Oakland and obviously San Jose in relation to trying to retain the athletics within California. The situation is also a bit perplexing for MLB considering they slowplayed potential relocation of the Athletics after setting up a committee causing the Athletics to flounder in Oakland playing in a dilapidated stadium for a prolonged period. Their reasoning was mainly to protect the Giants territorial rights. However, they also didn't want to upset Oakland's ownership brass, which was extremely optimistic about a potential move to San Jose. They tried balancing both situations by delaying them indefinitely. It is impossible to say the exact overall hit the Giants would have taken had San Jose been awarded a franchise. They have obviously undoubtedly come out of this scenario on top. Not only did Oakland not move to San Jose, the Oakland Athletics do not exist anymore, giving the Giants free reign over the Bay Area and anything close within its proximity.

[00:06:59]To make matters more interesting, the original 1922 Supreme Court ruling that decided San Jose's fate was originally not about relocation at all. The ruling was more broadly assigned, giving MLB antirust leverage in general situations not specific to relocation. However, this did give MLB the ability to use the ruling during the lawsuit against San Jose in 2013, saying the Supreme Court gave them the ability to defend territorial rights and control franchise movement. Territorial rights are extremely powerful. These rights can be used by MLB teams to prevent other teams from being created or relocated within their justifiable proximity. These rights may be challenged in coming years with MLB likely to expand from 30 to 32 teams. Incoming territorial rights disputes may arise in Charlotte or Nashville relative to the Atlanta Braves claiming the territory. The Athletics multi-deade stadium saga was in part extended due to the San Jose Mess leaving the team in limbo for an extended period. Poor ownership was also at fault. Cisco Field, the potential San Jose stadium, gives off Petco Park vibes, almost a more subdued version fitting into a smaller downtown metro San Jose area. The stadium is lower in capacity, consistent with more modern building styles, valuing surrounding neighborhood buildings with views of the field. When the original MLB expansion committee formed in 2009, many people thought the San Jose athletics were a formality when in reality it was just the beginning to a neverending Oakland Stadium debacle.