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Thoughts on Cal Playing at the San Francisco Giants’ AT&T Park

The big college football news yesterday was Cal announcing it will play its 2011 home football games at AT&T Park in San Francisco, home of the San Francisco Giants. My initial reaction was excitement as I’ve always wanted to go to the Emerald Bowl (particularly in 2008) to see what a football game is in San Francisco. As I thought about it further, however, I have a few concerns:

  • Location
    • While AT&T Park does have public transportation (BART, Ferry, etc.) available nearby its not quite as easy as the Oakland Coliseum particularly for a large contingent of students coming from Berkeley. Cal will provide buses for students (which works for UCLA & the Rose Bowl) but in my experience getting to the Oakland Coliseum is more convenient.
  • AT&T Park is built for baseball
    • I’ve never seen a football game at AT&T Park, but from a few comments on Twitter the setup has been a bit awkward at the Emerald Bowl.  While it’s only one season, it seems that a venue that currently supports football would be better, although Candlestick Park & Oakland Coliseum have both had baseball teams play there as well.
  • Capacity of AT&T Park is 45,000
    • Cal’s average attendance for the 2009 season was about 59,000.  The largest crowd was 71,799 for USC and smallest was 53,347 for Arizona. The 2011 schedule will be the same in terms of Pac-10 home and away matchups which means USC will play at AT&T Park. Cal also finished 6th in the Pac-10 and presumably would have larger crowds if they are in the hunt for a Pac-10 title or BCS berth. Athletic Director Sandy Barbour indicated most of the season ticket holders could be accommodated and visiting allotments would be reduced at AT&T Park but that is still a lot of fans that won’t be able to see the team play.
  • AT&T Park might ruin the allure/excitement of a refurbished Memorial Stadium
    • AT&T Park is a world class facility and one of the nicest venues in all of sports.  My concern is that after playing a season at AT&T Park, the excitement and reaction to the newly refurbished Memorial Stadium will be lost.  I’d equate it to a consumer trading in a Lexus for another Lexus, as opposed to a lesser name car for a Lexus. While they are both exciting, transitioning from a lesser quality to higher quality generally results in a more positive reaction from consumers.

My biggest concerns are the latter two. I recognize the biggest problem with the Oakland Coliseum is scheduling given the Oakland A’s and Oakland Raiders currently play there. Presumably it was too difficult to schedule a third team and Candlestick Park is even further away from Berkeley  which presents problems as well.  What are your thoughts on the partnership? What do you see as the biggest benefit, or biggest concern?

Disclaimer: I’m a Cal alum, who completed my MBA at ASU, and will be pursuing a PhD at the University of Oregon in the fall. As I told Jeff Tedford in the Phoenix airport last week, I’m a Cal Bear fan at heart. I love AT&T Park too so I am excited to see Cal play there but do have a few concerns.  Giants president (and Cal alum) Larry Baer called it a “neighborly act” so I certainly wish Cal and AT&T Park the best in their partnership.


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Have you registered your personal name as a domain name?

I recently had a conversation with a sports executive (whose name is easily recognizable), and was surprised to learn he hadn’t registered his own name as a domain name.  In its simplest form, a domain is a web address like sportsologist.com, or espn.com.  Whether you are an executive in a sports organization, entry level worker trying to advance their career, professor at a university, or a student, registering a domain name is an easy way to control your identity online.

Here are a couple of reasons to own your yourname.com in addition to any business domain you may own:

  • Use For A Consulting Business
    • You have a full time job but have developed a following due to your name and want to start consulting.
  • Develop A Resume or Portfolio Site For Career Advancement
    • Whether you’re a student looking for a job, or entry level worker looking to move up in the world owning your personal name is a start.
  • Forward To A Social Media Site
    • If you’re active on Twitter or Facebook, simply register yourname.com and have it forward to your Twitter or Facebook account, until you are ready to develop a personal site
  • Protect For Future Use
    • Even if you don’t see a need now, it’s possible that down the road you’ll want a personal blog, personal website, and it will be too late.

A few more tips:

  • Buy the .com.  Other domain extensions such as .org, .net, .info don’t garner the same respect as a .com domain.
  • If your name is really popular (like mine) consider variations such as first initial/last name, or first/middle/last name.
  • I recommend GoDaddy (especially for beginners) to register your domain because of reasonable prices and great customer service.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in comments!  I do quite a bit of work with domains and websites particularly in sports so I’m happy to help.  I anticipate having more posts in the future regarding domain names as well so stay tuned.

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Welcome to Sportsologist.com!

Welcome to Sportsologist.com!  The goal of the site is to (as the title suggests) study sports.  From educating, to asking questions, to educate the goal is to study all aspects of sports.  While the site will predominantly focus on team operations (ex. batting average, rbi, etc.), there will also be discussion about marketing, sponsorship, etc.  In order to make this site educational, it needs input from you.  Whether you work in sports or a fan of sports, any input will help facilitate learning and make the site a success!

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