Btw baseball has anti-trust exemption. It only takes 1 team saying no and the whole thing is dead. Oakland a's wanted to move to SJ but the gaints said hell no. Courts says it requires congress to get rid of the anti-trust trust exemption when it wasn't even legal to begin with. It was the courts that gave MLB anti-trust exemption to begin with.
That whole debacle could be a 30 for 30. The Giants only have exclusive rights due to a cocktail napkin deal and a clerical error...
1989 - Giants want a new stadium and can't find a location in SF, eye San Jose. Bay Area earthquake hits. California was passing a earthquake rebuild financing plan. Giants tried to get a new stadium out of it, but they needed MLB approval for San Jose before the government deadline.
MLB was only really only a "working agreement" between AL/NL: If a team wants to move into a market, it needs to be approved by two-thirds majority of the OTHER LEAGUE so there weren't AL/NL turf wars. San Jose wasn't in the Giants designated area. The MLB commissioner had JUST died, so the Giants got the A's permission so they didn't have to do a full vote.
The San Jose deal fell apart, the Giants were sold to Tampa in 1992, but NL owners nixed the sale; new owner was found, they ended up building the new stadium downtown.
1999 - The NL and AL are operationally consolidated into MLB. They took the two league constitutions and the working agreement and combined them. That process changed the meaning of "The Giants have permission to put their stadium San Jose; but no THIRD team can move into Santa Clara county" to "no one but the Giants can be in Santa Clara county."
Both SF/OAK had new owners when Oakland wanted to go to San Jose. The Giants new owner said the league constitution gave them exclusive rights to San Jose, and Oakland ratified those documents multiple times as part of CBAs. Everyone knew it was "wrong" but there was no legal grounds to undo the clerical error.