They don’t have a major league team. Just an AAAA team.

But the Giants essentially want to drive the A’s out of the Bay Area altogether to create a monopoly.

Here again is the leap that I can’t follow. The Giants definitely want to keep to themselves what is already theirs, assigned to them under the MLB constitution. How does that imply that the Giants are looking to gain what belongs to the A’s as well? As often as this is asserted here and elsewhere, I’ve never been able to understand that.

If its Vancouver…well it should be the The Vancouver Beavers if there was any justice in this world.

Anyway, Wolff is just facing reality here. As we have discussed previously, there are no good landing spots for the A’s outside of San Jose and Oakland. To summarize, there is way more revenue potential in San Jose, some of which would have to go to the Giants. But the Giants essentially want to drive the A’s out of the Bay Area altogether to create a monopoly. Selig doesn’t have the votes to force a move. So nothing happens. My guess is that, in the end, the A’s and some mythical, improved future leadership in Oakland do a remodeling deal at the Mausoleum a la KC and the A’s derive a fair share of revenues (the current stadium revenue structure heavily favors the Raiders). With greater TV revenue and more revenue sharing, the A’s will never be a large market team, but they may trend towards medium revenue, especially as the CA economy improves (now under 10% unemployment!).

1. The base plan. paperlions explained this. Every club kicks in 34% of their net local revenues, every club gets an equal share back. Except maybe the Dodgers, who may be limited as to how much they can contribute by the actions of the bankruptcy court.

2. Big revenue clubs contribute up to an extra 14% of their net local revenues, based on a sliding scale called a “Performance Factor,” which is a proxy for revenues. Small revenue clubs split up this pot based on their performance factors. The Nats are a small revenue club.

3. Starting in 2013, big market clubs will contribute an annually increasing percentage of their revenue sharing income which will be split among the big revenue clubs, again according to their performance factors. By 2016, this percentage will be 100%. At present, the Braves, Nationals, and Blue Jays are big market, low revenue clubs, and they will lose all of their revenue sharing income in 2016. So natslady is also right. The A’s will join this unfortunate group if they move to San Jose, as this post suggests they won’t, and become a big market club and don’t significantly increase their revenue.

4. And then there are the “Luxury Tax” (I really dislike this term. Players are not “luxuries,” they ARE the product. I really don’t care how much Miguel Cabrera or Mike Trout get paid; I just like to watch them play baseball.) implications. Clubs which exceed the luxury tax threshold will get less income from the big market/big income redistribution. The Yankees have the highest performance factor and therefore have the most to lose by exceeding the threshold. Besides the tax itself, exceeding the threshold cuts revenue sharing income. This is why the Yankees are working to get under it.