Anaheim

The words “Anaheim Angels” are now enshrined in California law.

Whether the baseball team that calls Angel Stadium home reverts to its hometown name remains to be seen. On Thursday, however, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law the “Home Run for Anaheim Act,” a step that elected officials in Orange County consider a significant step in that direction.

The new law, introduced by Assemblyman Avelino Valencia (D-Anaheim), cleared the state legislature without a single vote against it.

The law does not mandate the Angels — playing under a Los Angeles name in Anaheim’s city-owned stadium — revert to the Anaheim Angels name.

For now, in fact, the law does absolutely nothing. On Friday, the Los Angeles Angels play at Angel Stadium.

Instead, the law provides the city with an incentive to dangle before the team. If the Angels — whether under current owner Arte Moreno or a future owner — wish to develop the 150-acre Angel Stadium property, state law would prioritize affordable housing within the site.

In an era where team owners covet the profits from development around stadiums and arenas — including places for fans to eat, drink and shop 365 days a year, not just on game days — the city of Anaheim could seek an exemption from the affordable housing law. That wouldn’t rule out housing on the site, but it would give a team more flexibility to build whatever project might be considered most profitable.

If the city obtains the exemption, the new law says, “then any materials, including, but not limited to, a lease, deed of sale, and promotional or marketing materials, shall refer to that team as the Anaheim Angels.”

Moreno has twice reached deals with the city to develop the land, only to see the city walk away both times. In the last deal, he rejected the city’s request to rename the team the Anaheim Angels.

“We are proud to call Angel Stadium of Anaheim our home,” Angels spokeswoman Marie Garvey said, “and any other comment about the future would be premature.”

Moreno, 80, has shown no public interest in a third negotiation with the city. The Angels’ current stadium lease extends through 2032, and the team has options to extend the lease through 2038.

By year’s end, the city has said it anticipates the release of a long-awaited property assessment, which is expected to show Angel Stadium needs hundreds of millions of dollars in upgrades to remain viable for the long-term. The city and team may not agree on who should pay for them, and real estate development around the stadium could be part of the solution for funding a new or renovated stadium.

The city could use the exemption as leverage in discussions with Moreno or a new owner, although leverage could work both ways.

When Anaheim sued the Angels over the 2005 name change, city-commissioned experts testified in court that the Anaheim name was worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the city over the life of the lease. That could compel an owner to ask the city to contribute to the cost of building a new stadium in exchange for the return of the Anaheim name.

An almost vacant large urban site — an aging stadium surrounded by 130 acres of parking lots, sitting between three freeways and a train station — is rare in Southern California and surely would attract development interest among potential bidders for the Angels.

But any new owner would have one more bit of leverage: Once the Angel Stadium lease expires, the owner would be free to move out of Anaheim.

In a push toward returning Anaheim to the name of his hometown Angels, Assemblyman Avelino Valencia (D-Anaheim) last March introduced what he called the “Home Run for Anaheim Act.”

Five months later, the bill has cleared both houses of the state legislature without a single vote against it. Gov. Gavin Newsom has two months to sign the bill into law, barring a veto that would be surprising because of the lack of opposition.

The bill does not mandate the Angels — playing under a Los Angeles name in Anaheim’s city-owned stadium — revert to the Anaheim Angels name.

However, at a time teams in all sports seek to boost profits by surrounding venues with shops, restaurants, hotels, and other attractions, the bill provides Anaheim with an inducement for the Angels: If the city obtains an exemption from a state law requiring affordable housing to be prioritized in any such development — potentially maximizing revenue for the team — then the team must be called the Anaheim Angels.

Angels owner Arte Moreno has twice reached deals with the city to develop the land, only to see the city walk away both times. In the last deal, he rejected the city’s request to rename the team the Anaheim Angels.

Moreno has shown no public interest in a third negotiation with the city, and the Angels’ current stadium lease extends through 2032, with the team having options to extend the lease through 2038.

By year’s end, the city has said it anticipates the release of a long-awaited property assessment, which is expected to show Angel Stadium needs hundreds of millions of dollars in upgrades to remain viable for the long-term. The city and team may not agree on who should pay for them, and real estate development around the stadium could be part of the solution for funding a new or renovated stadium.

Moreno turns 80 this week. Should he decide to sell the Angels, the city could use the exemption as leverage in discussions with a new owner. Any new owner could have leverage of his own: Once the Angel Stadium lease expires, the owner would be free to move out of Anaheim.

The bill required five votes between the Assembly and Senate. The final vote came on Monday on a consent calendar, the place for matters considered so routine that no legislator even wishes to discuss them.

Disneyland Resort is rolling out the red carpet for its closest neighbors with a limited-time $71 ticket deal exclusive to Anaheim residents.

The one-day, one-park promotion runs from July 20 through October 8, a timeframe that includes Halloween celebrations at Disneyland. Anaheim residents over age 10 can also purchase discounted one-day Park Hopper tickets during this time for $104. Children ages 3 to 9 can get either one-day, one-park tickets or one-day Park Hopper passes for $50. Park reservations are required.

Disneyland has offered deals for Anaheim residents in the past. But this promotion comes less than a week after the theme park announced a limited-time $59 evening ticket offer. Already, that deal has sold out for all dates.

Together, the two promotions highlight the importance of local visitors for Disneyland. Earlier this year, an executive said the theme park’s high volume of California attendees helped mitigate a dip in international tourism. More than 50% of the Anaheim theme park’s audience typically has been from California.

The Burbank media and entertainment company previously signaled that it would pivot its marketing and promotional efforts toward domestic visitors as it monitored the headwinds affecting international attendance.

In May, Disney executives said its U.S. theme parks had a 1% drop in attendance compared with the previous year, which the company attributed to “continued softness” in international visitors. However, during a second-quarter earnings call, Disney leaders said the park was starting to move past those headwinds.

Defenseman Pavel Mintyukov has agreed to five-year contract extension worth $36 million with the Ducks, a person with knowledge of the negotiations told the Associated Press.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity Sunday because the Ducks didn’t announce the financial terms of their deal through the 2030-31 season with the 22-year-old Mintyukov. The promising Russian blueliner was a restricted free agent this summer after recording 17 goals and 52 assists over 204 games in his first three NHL seasons.

The Ducks belatedly got this pricier-than-expected deal done with one of their most important young players only two days after they blundered into a precarious situation with their cornerstone center.

Leo Carlsson signed a five-year, $90-million offer sheet with Philadelphia last Friday, which means the 21-year-old Swede is likely to be the NHL’s highest-paid player next season for the Flyers or for the Ducks, who can match the offer or receive four first-round draft picks as compensation. Anaheim must decide by Friday.

Either way, the development is a public embarrassment for Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek, whose antagonistic, foot-dragging attitude in negotiations with his young core finally cost him dearly.

Either he will lose one of the NHL’s top young centers, or Carlsson will eat up much more of his salary cap room than would have been necessary if Verbeek had done a deal at any point in the past year. Carlsson’s front-loaded, $18-million-per-year offer from the Flyers is much more than he was expected to receive, and more than Carlsson had already said he would accept.

Mason McTavish, Trevor Zegras and Jamie Drysdale all held out in recent years when Verbeek’s hardline tactics dragged the negotiations into training camp — and while they all eventually signed, Verbeek has since traded all three young players.

Mintyukov’s deal was worth more than he was expected to get by most NHL observers, but the Ducks didn’t say whether another team had signed Mintyukov to an offer sheet. No NHL team immediately announced it had used the same tactic with Mintyukov that Flyers general manager Daniel Briere is using to attempt to sign Carlsson.

Verbeek also must still sign breakout star Cutter Gauthier, who scored 41 goals for the Ducks last season before reaching restricted free agency.

Anaheim still has enough cap room to do a deal with Gauthier, who isn’t eligible to receive an offer sheet from another team. But the combined size of these now-inflated deals for Mintyukov, Gauthier and likely Carlsson means Verbeek won’t have any room to make additional improvements to his roster, and will almost certainly have to offload salary.

Verbeek also has lost four key defensemen — captain Radko Gudas, Jacob Trouba, John Carlson and Olen Zellweger — in the past month while adding only journeyman Nick Jensen as a probable replacement.

Verbeek’s mistakes have dampened the good feelings coming off an impressive season by the Ducks, who ended their seven-year playoff drought and then eliminated the back-to-back Western Conference champion Edmonton Oilers in the first round with an exciting young core under coach Joel Quenneville.

Mintyukov was the 10th overall pick in the 2022 NHL draft. While he has the potential to become an elite two-way defenseman, he hasn’t yet developed the consistency or the scoring acumen to match the size of his contract extension.

Beacham writes for the Associated Press.

Civic pride, sure. But what is it really worth to the city of Anaheim to have its name on the hometown baseball team?

Hundreds of millions of dollars, the city has said. As the Angels’ stadium lease approaches its end, and as Anaheim prepares for negotiations either with Arte Moreno or a potential new owner, it’s worth keeping in mind.

So too is a concept floating around City Hall in Anaheim: What if we could put a new stadium and a youth sports complex next to one another?

Nothing is imminent, and even a bill winding its way through the state legislature would not necessarily require the Angels to return Anaheim to the team name.

It’s leverage: If the Angels’ owner wants to build atop the stadium parking lots, the city can pursue an exemption to a state law that currently restricts what can be built there, which could mean more money for the team and its development partners. In exchange for the exemption, the team name would revert to the Anaheim Angels.

If that’s the carrot, this is the stick: The city would have to approve the zoning changes that could make the land “two to three times more valuable than it is as a parking lot,” Anaheim Mayor Ashleigh Aitken said.

Said Aitken: “There are no gifts. For an ownership to truly be a partner to the city in what that property could be, there is going to have to be some realization that Anaheim is not Los Angeles.”

The Angels’ stadium lease expires in 2032, and the team can extend it through 2038. A new owner could move the Angels — or at least leverage the threat of a move — but Anaheim offers a 150-acre site with what every owner in pro sports covets: land around the venue to turn the property into a year-round money-making operation.

The standard ballpark villages include restaurants, shops, hotels, homes, offices and entertainment venues. The Ducks are launching one, called OC Vibe, around Honda Center, and within walking distance of Angel Stadium.

What intrigues the city, for at least part of the parking lots around Angel Stadium: a youth sports park for all those travel ball teams. Ontario is building a 199-acre one around a minor league ballpark; Irvine has a 194-acre one up and running at its Great Park.

Katie Wright, who books sports events for Anaheim’s tourism bureau, said there would be a market if her city built a sports park.

“The demand for, specifically, soccer, baseball and softball is tremendous,” Wright told the Anaheim City Council in April. “They would be filled every single weekend, I think.”

What Anaheim has that Ontario and Irvine do not: Disneyland down the street for visiting families, a variety of restaurants within walking distance, and hotel rooms aplenty. In Anaheim, 40% of the city’s general fund comes from taxes on hotel rooms.

“With Angels baseball right next to a youth sports facility, to have the synergy of hotels and restaurants, and players interacting with the Little League kids and soccer fields,” Aitken said, “I just think it’s a unique opportunity.”

Everything old is new again: In 1996, Anaheim pitched a youth sports center called the “Little A” in part of the stadium parking lots as part of a ballpark village that never materialized.

What might be in the best interest of the city now might not be in that of the developer, whether that turns out to be the Angels or a real estate partner. While a sports park might drive tax revenues to the city, a developer might pay the most for land used for hotel and retail properties, said Louis Tomaselli, the Irvine-based executive managing director at JLL, a nationally prominent commercial real estate brokerage.

“A youth sports complex would likely be at or near the bottom from a land value perspective,” Tomaselli said.

That’s all part of the negotiation, and for now the city of Anaheim has no party with which to negotiate. That leaves room for all sorts of brainstorming, including Aitken’s curiosity about flanking the development with high-rise residential buildings, similar to the condominiums that have risen next to Petco Park in San Diego. In some of them, you can watch the game from your balcony.

But let’s get back to the value of the Anaheim name on the baseball team.

“A lot of times, we get the question, ‘Exactly where is Anaheim?’” Wright, the Anaheim tourism official, told the City Council. “We’re always fighting to say, ‘We’re not L.A.’”

In 2005, when Anaheim sued the Angels after Moreno slapped the Los Angeles label on the team, the city commissioned experts that testified the name change would cost Anaheim nearly $200 million over the following decade and close to $400 million through 2029. The Angels dismissed both numbers as wildly high, but that is what the city presented in court.

I asked Sean Moran of Los Angeles-based Innovative Partnerships Group for an update. Moran estimated the worth of the Anaheim name at $26.5 million per year — or more than $500 million over the life of a 20-year deal — based on the value of references to the city on game broadcasts, digital and social media, highlight clips, betting sites, in fantasy leagues, and more.

“I don’t think you can put a monetary value on civic pride and respecting your fan base,” Aitken said. “So, if a new owner wants to come in and start fresh and really respect the fan base in Orange County, the name should not even be a negotiating point.

“It should be the first thing you do, out of respect for where this team is located, and the fan base that is so loyal in good times and bad.”

Perhaps. But, if I’m the new owner of the Angels and the city is on record saying its name on the team is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, the first thing I say to the city in negotiations is: You can get your name on the team for that $500 million, which would help me build a new ballpark that could cost $1.5 billion.

Who else could benefit from that? Moreno, as the need for a new owner to pay for a ballpark could lower the sale price.

Even without that exemption from state law, a new owner could pursue a fair amount of development on land Anaheim has failed to develop for 60 years, on a site the city’s own land use plan envisions as “an exciting mix of high energy uses while providing additional housing.” Or a new owner could simply inherit the existing lease and deal with potential development later.

You can start to get the shape of what the bargaining might look like. Avelino Valencia (D-Anaheim), the assembly member who introduced the bill in Sacramento intended to spur the return of the Anaheim Angels name, included a provision that says resolution would take precedence over legislation.

“If there is another outcome that takes place, in negotiations or deal-wise, there would be no need for this, right?” Valencia said.

All of that could be years down the road, so no sense arguing all the finer points now. Aitken promises a series of community meetings first, so that Anaheim residents can share how they envision the future of the Angel Stadium property, with or without a baseball stadium.

This should come up for discussion too: The Anaheim Angels name might be ideal for the city, but what, if anything, should the city give up to get it? The last time the city asked, Moreno just said no. If a new owner would be willing, should the taxpayers of Anaheim consider subsidizing the name?