A potentially monumental change to the MLB landscape was announced late last night. A’s team president Dave Kaval confirmed the club was firmly turning its attention to Las Vegas in its stadium search after months of parallel discussions with both Vegas and Oakland.
The A’s entered into an agreement to purchase 49 acres in Las Vegas for what they hope to be the location of their next stadium. That led Oakland mayor Sheng Thao to announce the end of negotiations between the city and the franchise regarding a potential new Howard Terminal ballpark in Oakland.
Given yesterday’s events, it now seems very likely the A’s will relocate to Vegas within the next few years. Nothing has yet been finalized, however; the franchise’s land purchase is not the same as a binding stadium agreement, which involves many more hurdles at the government level. A’s leadership and Nevada politicians have both expressed general optimism about a stadium agreement getting done, though there’s still plenty of work to be done in sorting out the details.
Howard Stutz, Tabitha Mueller and Sean Golonka of the Nevada Independent shed more light on the proposal the A’s are likely to put in front of the state legislature within the next couple months. The A’s would invest around $1 billion for the construction of the new ballpark. The organization is seeking the creation of what Kaval calls an “incentives package” for half a billion dollars in public funding. According to the Nevada Independent, the general idea would be to use tax dollars created by the stadium project itself — primarily sales taxes of consumers at the new stadium and its surrounding area (Kaval suggested the end goal would be to create a mixed use development reminiscent of Atlanta’s Battery) — to pay off $500MM worth of bonds issued by the county.
According to the Independent’s report, Nevada legislators have been generally briefed on the proposal. They haven’t yet received concrete details nor made any firm commitments on the project. Various reports have suggested Nevada governor Joe Lombardo is generally supportive of the project, though a spokeswoman tells the Independent that “(t)here is no set timeline (for an official stadium agreement). The financial elements of the concept are still being discussed.” Stutz, Mueller and Golonka note that the legislature remains in session through June 5. If no agreement is in place by then, the legislature could call a special session to continue negotiations into the summer.
The A’s lease at RingCentral Coliseum in Oakland runs through the end of next season. Kaval has pegged 2027 as a target date for a new facility in Las Vegas. He told reporters last night the organization was hopeful of having a binding stadium contract in place by the end of this year and breaking ground on the stadium in 2024. (Under the terms of the collective bargaining agreement, the A’s need to have a stadium agreement signed by next January 15 or they’d forfeit their status as revenue sharing recipients.)
Obviously, there’d be a two-year gap between the end of the A’s lease at the Coliseum and the target date for the new facility in Vegas. Kaval addressed that this afternoon, telling the media the organization was open to both extending their lease at the Coliseum by two years or finding a temporary home in Las Vegas (as relayed by Shayna Rubin of the Bay Area News Group). The A’s Triple-A club, the Aviators, play in Vegas and could potentially house the MLB team while ballpark construction is ongoing.
Kaval made clear the club has no plans to displace the Triple-A team over the long term (link via Mick Akers of the Las Vegas Review-Journal). “The Aviators are going to stay as part of this,” Kaval said. “Kind of like how there’s the Golden Knights and Silver Knights, we’re going to have the A’s and Aviators both in the community. We’re going to have our major league team and our Triple-A team co-located.” He pointed out the Astros (Houston to Sugar Land) and Twins (Minneapolis to St. Paul) both have their top affiliates in close proximity to the major league club.
While there’s obvious optimism on the part of A’s leadership about their next steps in Las Vegas, there’s predictably disappointment and anger among some in Oakland. The Oakland mayor was critical of the A’s negotiating tactics in announcing the end of discussions regarding the Howard Terminal project last night. Thao doubled down this morning, accusing the franchise of pulling the rug out from under talks at a time when city officials perceived they were making progress.
“Based on the A’s desire to achieve certainty in 2023, we laid out a detailed and specific plan to bring the project forward to a City Council vote this summer,” she told reporters (link via Rachel Swan and Sarah Ravani of the San Francisco Chronicle). “But it has become clear that we are not able to reach acceptable terms and that the A’s are not good partners in the effort.” She added the city had recently hired a mediator to shepherd daily negotiations throughout this week, saying the sides “were the closest we had ever been to making a deal” until Kaval informed the city about the land deal in Vegas yesterday evening.
Swan and Ravani note that Thao has left open the possibility of reopening negotiations. That’d presumably require a major setback in the A’s efforts in Las Vegas at this point. For now, the organization’s focus is clearly on getting a stadium agreement hammered out in the Nevada legislature, which would then allow the A’s to petition MLB for relocation. Commissioner Rob Manfred has already expressed his support for the A’s efforts in Las Vegas, announcing last year the league would waive the A’s relocation fee if they went there. Formal relocation requires approval from 75% of the league’s ownership groups.
Pretty obvious move to Vegas. A’s ownership was never keen staying in Oakland, pure and simple…
Good go to Vegas, and get out of that dump you play in now.
Oakland is the only city in America where you have to tell people, hey that’s mine, don’t piss on that! Ahahaha!
I’m pretty sure at a time they were wanting to stay in Oakland. But, I mean, they’ve needed a new stadium forever and the city really never gave them much progress. Even with the city saying they were “closer than ever before”. Yeah, sure, but look how long it took to get there.
Same situation in Tampa. Those two cities have had every honest opportunity to get something done and keep the teams in their respective cities, but have both just been more or less dragging their feet. When it comes to the point where both of those cities are without teams, the cities will be every bit as responsible for why the teams left. It’s a two way street. When nothing gets done, it’s because both sides failed to compromise.
The city righty said we are not spending taxpayer dollars to build a billionaire a stadium.
And they’ll rightly be left with no major sports teams. Hope it was worth it.
And yet those other cities still have professional sports franchises. Can’t have it both ways.
Amen. Let these billionaires build their own houses. The Giants put several proposals before voters and were repeatedly shot down when requesting public funding. So the Giants built their own park with their own money — as it should be. Oakland is a shithole that should spend its money elsewhere.
Amen. Let these billionaires build their own houses. The Giants put several proposals before voters and were repeatedly shot down when requesting public funding. So the Giants built their own park with their own money — as it should be. Oakland is a cesspool that should spend its money elsewhere.
I love these short sighted comments.
The reason cities fund stadiums isn’t because sports teams somehow hold cities hostage, it’s because teams bring in so much money for the city and state.
The A’s are not a profit powerhouse but just imagine the amount of money Oakland is going to lose with them leaving. The city is losing all the ticket sale taxes, all the merchandise, food and beverage, all the personal income taxes from employees, taxes on hotel stays for visiting teams, transportation costs, entertainment taxes, the list goes on and on. All those nickels and dimes add up fast and the city is going to feel it badly.
So you say, “money that is best spent elsewhere” well, where is that money coming from now? Without the Raiders, Warriors and A’s, a huge amount of tax revenue has vanished (or will vanish). The Warriors just moved across the bridge so not too detrimental but all those houses, luxury apartments are all going to be up for sale and who’s moving to Oakland?
The city gambled and it’s going to lose. Is what it is. Their city council should have really considered the scope and long term repercussions, just how massive a footprint sport teams carry.
“teams bring in so much money for the city and state.” Except that isn’t true. Entertainment spending is fungible. Local people spending locally earned wealth has a minimal multiplier effect. It doesn’t really represent new wealth to that economic region. Unless a team draws a substantial number of fans from outside the metro area, all sports-related spending is doing is shuffling money from one pile to another.
It is true, actually.
Even if you take away the team as a whole and the fact they are all wealthy and taxed at a ridiculous tax rate. Your upper level executives also wealthy, also taxed at a ridiculous tax rate. You have the “entertainment tax” which means every single away player that plays gets their game check taxed, then you have away team staying at hotels, premier hotels and hotels get taxed at a higher rate. You have every one that comes with the team, not just the players, managers and coaches but all the strap hangers as well. All those people find the local economy, for 81 games a year.
@drasco Pretty much every study done on this has suggested that the benefits you’re lauding are at best overstated and often just nonexistant. At most what a stadium does is concentrate entertainment dollars to one place. Cities almost never break even compared to the costs they’re asked to back.
MLB Commissioner’s Office and SF Giants have been blocking the A’s efforts for financial success in the SF Bay Area for DECADES.
Bud Selig was a TERRIBLE COMMISSIONER who, allegedly, was part of the sandbagging of the A’s and pushing them out of the SF Bay Area.
The A’s would be viable in the SF Bay Area by building their New Stadium
in Santa Clara County and/or San Jose.
(The 49ers built their new stadium in Santa Clara County after the SF voters rejected multiple tax payer subsidized ballot proposals for a new stadium in SF).
Former A’s Ownership helped save the SF Giants for SF Bay Area.
Weak leadership in MLB Commissioners’ office and SF Giants
wanting to create a baseball monopoly in SF Bay Area
has pushed the A’s out of the SF Bay Area.
And ,the territory issue is complete BS.
The A’s promised to give the Giants their 50% share of Santa Clara County if and only if the Giants built their new stadium in Santa Clara County.
SF Giants built their new stadium in downtown SF.
So, the 50/50 shared territory of Santa Clara County
should revert back to the A’s.
Do those “studies” factor in the complete loss of the team to a different state? Inquiring minds what to know.
saluelthpops-Lots of places without sports teams.It’s not the end of the world,It’s not like they have to go far with Giants there.
Who funds those studies? Usually you get the result you pay for in most “studies”. The proof will be in 10 years when Oakland is more of a wasteland than it already is.
How about in Richmond? I used to have an office there and I thought it would be a great place for a ballpark.
I have had an office in the Oakland area for more than 25 years now. 1st in Richmond and now in Hayward. It is far from a wasteland.
A cruise line has said they will take over the Howard Terminal. That will bring in a larger influx of tax revenue that comes from outside the metro area than a ballpark.
Plus a ton of hospitality businesses and tourist focused retail will pop up around there without the need for the city to spend hundreds of millions on infrastructure or to sign over development rights to Fisher.
I am far more leery of studies funded by the teams trying to show that a ballpark would bring in enough money to pay for itself. All a ballpark does is move entertainment dollars from one area of town to another. It doesn’t increase the total tax revenue a city receives. It may spur growth in terms of hospitality businesses in that area where it is built, but that does not mean more hospitality businesses in the area as a whole. They are just more concentrated around the ballpark.
And what a stadium it is. I was in San Diego last month and it’s a beautiful park, but Oracle is every bit as wonderful even with a few more years on it. Giants really did a fine job building their home.
Are kidding? The ownership begged and pleaded with Oakland for 2 decades and got no where.
FALSE…COMMISSIONER’S OFFICE AND SF GIANTS BURNED THE A’S WHO WERE BLOCKED FROM MOVING TO LUCRATIVE SANTA CLARA COUNTY WHERE WHERE THE 49ERS MOVED.
The A’s never asked for a penny from Oakland!
“The Oakland City Council is scheduled to take a nonbinding vote on a draft of the financial terms it will offer to the A’s, but the two sides remain at odds. Team executives said Friday the city’s offer was about $350 million short in funding for “off-site infrastructure.”
This sounds a lot like asking for a lot more than a penny.
Yes and no. The funding comes in the way of grants, such as the $182 million Oakland applied for from the federal Transportation Department’s Megaprojects grant program. So in this case, it’s more of the city needing to apply for the available state and federal grants and getting those applications approved. Therefore, no local tax dollars would be taken away from other areas such as schools, parks/recs, etc.
@aquasox: Except that every city receives funds that trickle down from the federal level, so you’re really just semantically splitting hairs.
The total the team is asking for is $600 million from the city of Oakland.
Transportation that would only benefit the A’s.
The city applied for and was denied on $350 million in grants.
Who do you think pays for those grants? Federal, state, or local? Taxpayers. If it’s federal that means someone like me that is across the continent is paying for A’s stadium infrastructure.
@BaseballisLife Unfortunately we’re all paying for federally funded projects across the country that we’ll never see or stand to benefit from.
If the city of Oakland still intends to develop the land at Howard Terminal, they’ll likely apply for similar grants from the state and federal level. It just won’t make headlines like it does when a sports team benefits.
All except for land and hundreds of millions of infrastructure. The A’s didn’t buy the land and they are requiring that they get to develop around the stadium and provide infrastructure.
All the years of negotiations between the city and the team says otherwise. If the A’s get a good deal for themselves, they stay. If not, they leave.
On that score, an “agreement to purchase” the land isn’t the same thing as an actual purchase. Big land developments like this often move forward on contingency agreements. The A’s aren’t going to own that land unless and until the new stadium construction is approved.
So… the timing suggests the A’s are using this to pressure the city of Oakland to fish or cut bait. It will be interesting to see if the city comes back with another proposal.
Thao is going to do what the law requires. The A’s made a new proposal at the 11th hour asking for the city of Oakland to come up with $350 million more dollars. She is required to take that to a vote of the ccity council.
I am hoping they tell Fisher to F off, because I sincerely want to see him lose hundreds of millions by moving. The man is the lowest form of life. The kind you scrape off the bottom of your shoes.
Mayor needs some whine along with her Mao
A’s ownership has never been keen on anything they don’t put a dollar back into their team and saying “Oakland has to pay for our stadium or we walk” is not much of a threat when you are a dump of a team and not even an attraction for fans. They should have sold to Joe Lacob of the Warriors.
Why not, 4 reported A’s fans in attendance hit by bullet fragments, 3500 attendance and a Communists city and state. Oh, good luck to the new group getting a NFL approved franchise even if black owned. I think the NFL approved the Oakland Raiders move to Las Vegas. California is dieing on the vine but it’s people are too dumb to realize it.
Will they change their team name to “Aces”?? That’s the big question.
I heard it was the Las Vegas Z-Jobs
Vegas Hookers & Blow. Cause when you think Vegas you think hookers and blow.
Whars a Z-job?
If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.
Already the name of the WNBA team
Name swiping is no big deal to same name local MLB teams, after all.. look at that team in Cleveland now squatting around as the “Guardians”. They stole the name of a local women’s roller derby team. lol
What’s a WNBA? Is that a radio call-sign?
Is it KNBA west of the Rockies?
The AAA team in Reno is already called the Aces.
I think there’s too much history of the name to change it. From the Philadelphia Athletics, to Kansas City, to Oakland, I think it’d be a foolish move to change now.
I just want a color change. Raiders are black and silver, Golden Knights are black and gold. A’s should be black and copper. or brass. or some other metal
@lasershow45: Why do colors matter to you?
I don’t like the yellow and green combo?
I love the way all Pittsburg teams are black and yellow?
Does it matter why the colors matter to me?
Why don’t colors matter to you?
Because I have a life with more immediate concerns.
Yes. So immediate that you’re here.
I honestly don’t care about the colors or the team name. but if I got to choose between the two, I’d say keep the name and change the colors.
That’s what I was responding to in the first place.
Hard disagree. The Athletics have some of the most distinct and iconic colors in the sport. Uni-Watch literally models the aesthetic of their website after them. Nobody else in MLB has those colors.
We need like half of the teams that currently use Red/White/Blue to change their colors.
Just because something is distinct, doesn’t mean it’s good….
But I do agree with the red/white/blue thing.
Las Vegas has been one of the leaders in water conservation. I wonder how these moves will affect them. Adding three sports teams in a very short amount of time and maintaining facilities like this requires large amounts of water.
Las Vegas would recycle water into lake mead in the past, but with the way things are going that lake is projected to dry up in 15-20 years.
This will probably force water restrictions on the residents of Las Vegas before businesses get hit.
Sucks to suck (up water) Las Vegas.
Going after the cities popping up in the middle of the desert is one of the scenarios in the Colorado river negotiations. Government will probably have to mediate and I doubt they’ll choose the scenario where farmers take the major hit, national food supply is more important than a person’s desire to live in Phoenix.
@case that’s my thinking. Farmers have the govt backing them and they use a ton of water. Colorado has a ton of garbage people living in desert developments taking them to court because they thought they could have a libertarian oasis then they started crying when their water was cut per development agreements.
they can always switch the field from grass to a rock lawn
Move aside Rogers Centre, there’s a new locale to tear up the knees of players.
The all-new rock turf As field
I’d say it’s best to be astro turf in Vegas saves too much water and maybe a fully inclosed stadium aswell. If now when would u ever open it? All of April and then September/October?
Vegas has like the best recycled water system in the world! Cool documentaries on YouTube about it.
Vegas has done an amazing job with water conservation. But, that system was not designed for what Vegas is now. Stadiums use a lot of water that doesn’t get returned to the system. The amount of water to maintain these fields is not insignificant.
You could definitely see residential water disputes as the local govt bends over backwards to attract these tourist dollars
@BeansforJesus: Did your beans make Jesus H Christ fart?
I feel sorry for Oakland’s fan.
Both of us?
Now let’s get Lolmets to move to Utah. Worst fan base in baseball and only 1 team in New York is necessary
@Stevie. I support your proposal. Just because I want see the Mormon Church and their 40 billion stock portfolio fight against having a Jew worth 30 billion set up shop in SLC.
The maybe Scientology could get involved with whatever currency Xenu accepts.
I live in Utah (for the next month or two) and baseball here……If you think the Rays and As have it bad….it would bring fans for about a year.
They’re already moving the Salt Lake Bees out to Daybreak which means I’d never go to another game.
At least the Ogden Raptors are still here, even if they are an independent team
@Little Stevie Janowsky: Then move the Yankees.
Best fans in the game here. The worst are in the Bronx. And wherever you are.
They should start playing in those minor league facilities next year, give the viewers a more accurate representation of how the organization has been run.
how about they start playing there last week
The A’s are already playing in a minor league facility. The Coliseum is a dump and every team that travels through there knows it.
Even as bad as that place is, it holds 5k for baseball and it used to fill up on weekends before Fisher bought the team.
Bud Selig was college buddies with Lewis Wolff who was the Kaval for the Schott/Hofmann era with ties to John Fisher and now the A’s are gone. Everything in life is Bud Selig’s fault
Don’t forget it was Bud Selig also who brought in Frank McCourt and supported Jeffrey Loria in his attempt to ruin baseball in multiple cities. Thanks, Bud!
Oakland fans only have the waste management team to root for now. If they go on strike again it’s gonna be ugly.
So, Oakland can play games and drag their feet and play politics but the A’s have to sit there and take whatever is given to them? And Oak town mayor, ONE PERSON, can say we’re done, it’s over.
Does anyone else recognize the disparity here? Just because the A’s bought some land doesn’t mean they’re leaving. It’s just leverage. And the mayor walking away from the bargaining table says she never wanted the A’s in the first place. Wouldn’t it have been refreshing if she put up a fight for her city to keep the A’s? Walking away is easy. Putting up a fight, that’s the challenge.
The A’s staying in Oakland would be great. But they have to fight, they have to want it. And it doesn’t look like THEY do. But They could only be one person. We’ll see.
You sound like my crazy ex-girlfriend.
The mayor walking away says the city spent several million in taxpayer dollars to get where they are in the negotiations and if at the 11th hour the A’s are going to pull this BS again, they can just go.
A cruise line has already said that they will take over the Howard Terminal and hundreds of millions is already lined up to renovate the area the ballpark would have went into. Oakland will pivot to tourism instead of baseball. Sad for fans in the area and what few fans are left are some of the best in the country. Possibly better for the taxpayers.
The A’s will be forced after this season to go play in a minor league park in a minor league city for the next 3-4 seasons and lose $30+ million in TV rights a year by leaving the 6th largest TV market in the US.
Then Fisher will continue to suck at the teat of the big market teams by taking in millions in revenue sharing while not trying to put a good team on the field.
I’m sure tourists will be falling over each other for the opportunity to go get car jacked in Oakland.
Less of a chance of that in Oakland than in St Louis, Detroit, Baltimore, Kansas City, Milwaukee, or Kansas City.
If a cruise line terminal comes in, there will be money from outside of Oakland flowing to that area and the city will not have to spend anywhere near as much taxpayer money, nor give away valuable land. .
It takes a lot more strength to walk away than it does to keep fighting a pointless battle. I think the mayor and the city realized that they probably wouldn’t be making any progress no matter what, so it was pointless to keep funneling resources into a useless project.
In Florida cruise ship terminals have been a huge benefit to areas. A lot more hotels, restaurants and other businesses around the cruise ship terminals out here than the Marlins stadium, that is for sure.
I had not read that a cruise line had said said they would take over that freight shipping facility. Guess the basic infrastructure they need is already there.
The A’s should move to Santa Clara County and San Jose Area
Capital of the Silicon Valley.
It is loaded with the richest tech companies in the World.
sponsorship opportunities, endorsements, high paid tech workers and executives and millions of fans.
SF Giants and Commish’s office have been blocking this logical move for decades after former A’s Ownership helped save the Giants for SF Bay Area
and blocked them from moving to Tampa
(with an assist from Dodgers ownership).
Depressing day, congrats to the owner I guess he got what he wanted. Sucks for baseball fans in NorCal still. I guess with the lines being blurred between American and National leagues they can still watch the Al brand of baseball at oracle but, I grew up rooting for both teams and have taught my sons to root for them and it’s just disgusting to see the owner migrate the team especially when Selig gave him the team over people like Lacob who have proven to have a formula to success in the Bay Area. I have been planning my last pilgrimage to coliseum it’s a crappy place but still holds so many memories I’ll miss it. The neighborhood surrounding it not so much.
5TUNT1N-I’ve never been to the A’s stadium like you but realize it’s not the best stadium in MLB,I realize it wasn’t helped by renovations made for Raiders and the fact it is a multi-purpose stadium however is it as bad as people say.Looks ok on tv and i still would visit it if i could.The stadium was pretty much the same in the A’s glory days so not sure it’s considered crap now.I attended 718 Mlb games at a former stadium that was 80+ years old.A’s stadium while old is still not as old as one i attended and i loved it.Lot of fans are super spoiled with these new stadiums.I just went for the ballgames,Had no problem just watching whole game without needing anything else,
In less than 10 years Oakland lost every historical franchise it had. That cities government really hates sports.
You’re an idiot. Oakland residents chose not to hand billionaires millions of extra dollars they don’t need so they can build single-use sports arenas on the taxpayer’s dime. Other cities that have accepted those deals are the idiots.
On the bright side, Oakland has another right across the bay they can go watch. Not as bad as the Expos moving to DC.
Cincyfan85-Yes it never makes sense no matter how big a population is for an area to have 2 or more teams.Even more so now with all teams playing each other and in every city every other year.
You obviously are not from the Bay. You have no idea what you are talking about.
The Coliseum said prior to the season that they were not interested in extending the A’s lease beyond this season if they were planning on leaving Oakland.
Looks like Fisher and his lapdog Kaval will give up $30+ million in annual TV rights and will move into a 15k stadium in Las Vegas for the next 3 seasons.
Or maybe this was like the last time they said they bought land in Vegas when all they did was take out an option on the land and never bought it.
15K average attendance would be higher than they’ve had the last two-plus years.
Would you pay to see the A’s play?
BaseballisLife-Right now i wish i had the health and money to attend games like i used to from 1988-2005.So yes i would.My team sucked during most of the time i saw them for almost 800 games.One year they lost 100 games and i attended 80 of the 81 home games not to mention other years where i went to most of their games and they sucked.Diehard fans love their teams and more importantly the sport.No bad owner is going to matter,
This season they are just over 11k average. Before Fisher bought the team they were often top 10 in baseball even though they play in that dump.
I was guessing at 15k, because other top AAA ballparks are around 15k. Las Vegas Ballpark has a max capacity of 10k. .
Las Vegas Cocaine Bears!
Such an absurd concept. Taking cocaine wouldn’t make him invincible. PCP Bear would be more interesting.
nottinghamforest13-The concept of that movie may of been absurd but it was funny as hell to watch..
Oakland had more than enough time to come to an agreement with the A’s. Time for this saga to come to an end.
No!
The current A’s ownership has been blocked by current Giants ownership
from moving to Santa Clara County (like the 49ers moved)
for decades.
The city has had decades to get this sorted out. Pearl clutching that one party has finally defecated rather than continuing to hang out in the bathroom seems rather naive. This inexperienced mayor who ran on a platform of being more woke than her opponents will be saddled with the loss, but it’s been long overdue.
1st off, the A’s brought the city an 11th hour change to the agreed upon proposal that asked the city to spend an additional $350 million of taxpayer dollars. The law requires her to take any changes to the city council and it also requires open, public meetings to discuss the changes. Do you really think that Fisher didn’t realize what was required when he asked for those changes at the last second?
2nd, that mayor will now get to spend less taxpayer dollars and get a cruise line terminal instead of a ball park. Something that will bring in more outside dollars into the community and do more to upgrade that area of town without city investment.
The A’s will get to go play in a minor league park that seats 10k max outdoors in the summer heat for 3-4 years while losing tens of millions every season on media rights.
That would be AFTER spending the millions it will take to upgrade the LAs Vegas Ballpark up to major league standards. They are now saying it would take upwards of $10 million and that will be on Fisher since the Howard Hughes Corporation certainly isn’t going to pay for them knowing that the A’s will be gone in 3-4 years and they likely will also lose their current tenant. .
Yes, we know
And now Oakland will be rolling in cruise ship money because there are less car jackings there than in Milwaukee
It’s funny how cities always say they will be better off once the team leaves and then ten years later are begging for an expansion team
Inevitable. In every one of these debates, local governance has to decide how much free public goods they need to give to private investors to maintain a team. It’s a subsidy that has to come from taxpayer funds, one way or another. Some places have the resources to do it, others don’t. Oakland apparently doesn’t, Vegas does. It’s ownership’s right, after their lease is up, to look for something more lucrative. But before we completely trash Oakland’s local governance, let’s also acknowledge that ownership isn’t exactly committed to fielding a competitive team or a watchable product.
Mikenmn-The sad fact is a huge amount of these teams aren’t committed to winning,Nowadays it’s fashionable to tank and go years without actually fielding a decent team,A few teams throw their fans a bone every few decades then suck for another few decades and us passionate fans let them do it,
“The sad fact is a huge amount of these teams aren’t committed to winning:
GCB;
This is nonsense.
Every team wants to win.
But with the outrageous disparity in revenues, small and many medium market teams need to “rebuild” for 5 years to get a 2 year “window of contention” – IF their rebuild is successful. Then at least half of their good players that their fans supported through their formative years leave to sign a contract for a large market team which their team cannot possibly afford.
If you’ve been following MLB for even 2 years and can’t figure this out…..
The A’s want to win? With that lineup? They trade away their best player every single year. Even guys with multiple years of control.
Every team wants to win, from the players perspective.
John Fisher’s net worth is 2.4 billion dollars. He could easily spend more money on contracts that keep the core players, but he doesn’t
lasershow45;
The A’s do NOT “trade away their away their best player every single year”. That’s as ridiculous as everything else you and others write here – and I don’t particular.ly care for John Fisher…and know that Billy Beane was ridiculously overrated long ago .
An owners net worth has nothing to do with his business. If your net worth says you can buy a bigger home and a new car each year, would you do it?
John Fisher’s net worth is what it is because he doesn’t throw money away on things where he won’t get his money back.
P.S. Why don’t you and your friends that complaining about the A’s buy 4 season tickets each, and give them away to underprivileged children to see live MLB games? You could write them off your taxes. You all have the money (if not you can take out a loan). Get a measly 10,000 people in the Oakland area to do that, and the A’s would have enough money to spend on a higher payroll (not that that would guarantee winning). And how about all the rich people in Silicon Valley purchasing hundreds of season tickets to give away to their employees? Where have they been on this?
Gio Gonzalez, Josh Donaldson, Josh Reddick, Sonny Gray, Marcus Semien, Jed Lowrie, Matt Chapman, Chris Bassit, Matt Olson, Sean Murphy.
Every one of those players ranked as the best player on the A’s each year from 2011 until 2022. Semien and Donaldson were the only players to be ranked as the best player on the team twice. (These rankings are all by WAR)
Every single one of those players was traded, except Semien.
Laureano is the current team leader, and everyone already knows he’ll be on the trading block this summer.
Also. I don’t live in Oakland, or CA for that matter. And I wouldn’t give the Oakland A’s a penny of my money, Tax deductible or not.
I have been to every other CA stadium though, multiple times.
And to answer the silicon valley question…They’ve been in San Francisco at a much nicer stadium.
Samuel-It’s you that can’t see facts right in front of your face.All teams generate huge amount of revenue without even trying,You can easily find out all the sources they get this money from and the amounts,I’m not some newcomer to baseball.Checkout some of these teams payrolls for decades like the Pirates and compare that with all this money they get.The owner is definetly pocketing most of revenue.This is the 1st year in a long time Pirates have shown a pulse.5 years isn’t even close to how long lot of teams have continued to suck.You oviously don’t pay attention.
Why would anyone support John Fisher. I will buy Giants tickets and donate them to underprivileged kids.
Fisher’s hired slime ball Kaval told A’s fans not to come to the games. Since then they have traded away 8 All Star players. 8 in 3 years.
During that Fisher raised ticket prices. Think about that. He purposely tanked the team, told fans not to come to games, and then raised prices for them to see a team guaranteed to lose in an awful stadium.
As someone else already said, they are averaging 11k this season and before COVID were putting 40-50k in the stands for big draws like the Giants.
As many have said, Fisher is the problem. Other owners feel the same because they are threatening to take away his revenue sharing.
Why would anyone want to stay in that area of California? Good for them.
Joe Sweetnich-There’s lot of bad areas in the U.S. and many where mlb teams are located.If they moved all teams based on area they play you would see lots of teams move and it doesn’t happen.
Why would anyone want to go to Las Vegas?
See how that works?
BlueSkies-LA–The Thing about Vegas is its a tourist destination so the team will draw plenty of fans even if lot of them aren’t A’s fans.Go Gamble watch your team play on the road as a bonus,
I realize. This was was a facetious response to the question of why anyone would go to Oakland. It’s a hour and a half or less away from San Francisco, San Jose, and Sacramento. So, plenty of reasons. The problem with Oakland isn’t the location, it’s the crummy stadium.
BlueSkies_LA–It’s not the geatest stadium but pretty sure it’s not anywhere as bad as people say.People are so spoiled by what’s at new parks most younger people think anything that’s old and with not all the things modern stadium’s have that it’s crap.I’d go there for a game if i could,Doesn’t look on tv the few people there aren’y enjoing themselves,If it was that horrible noone would go.I went to a 80 year old stadium from 1982-1999.It was awesome to go there,Today’s fans would probably describe it as horrible,But They’re spoiled.Most spend half the time on their phones or not even sitting in seats.
BlueSkies_LA-You hear different people with different reasons-Some say it’s stadium like you,Others say it’s in a bad neighborhood,Stadium not much different except renovations for Raiders blocking nice view,People weren’t calling it names when Rickey Henderson,Mark Mcguire and Jose Canseco played there.
If that worked, the Raiders would be at the top of the NFL in attendance.
Is as bad as people say, maybe worse because most people that say something about it have never been there. Its the worst stadium in baseball by a fairly large margin.
If you thought A’s attendance was bad before…
Yeah I’m curious to see the effect of this. I wouldn’t be surprised if people just boycotted their games altogether. I had heard something about A’s fans planning a reverse boycott in June and packing the stadium to prove they weren’t the issue, but I don’t know if that will still happen.
The real diehard fans aren’t gonna boycott games,Boycotts change nothing and real fans want to treasure the few times left to see their team,My team isn’t moving and have sucked for 7 0r 8 years but i still follow the team regardless and wouldn’t do anything stupid like a boycott,
I honestly don’t know but it wouldn’t surprise me. I get the impression that most A’s fans have been fed up with ownership for a while now, so they might not want to spend any more money supporting the team. They actually have good fans so I’d imagine a lot of them have been boycotting for a while now anyway.
Granted, I’m from near Cleveland and Browns fans were still cherishing the few times left they had to see the team before they moved so it could go that way too, but that was just before my time. I don’t think it makes you any less of a diehard fan whether you choose to go or not though.
In 2021 the A’s President Kaval told A’s fans that they had no intention of contending and that upgrades to the Coliseum they promised to make were not coming.. He told fans that they should not come to games. He is getting what he asked for. They are not coming. 11k a game this season. 9.8k last season.
That is sad because Oakland has passionate fans. As recently as 2018-2019 I attended games they played against the Angels and Giants that they played in the Coliseum that drew 40-50k fans. In 2018 they drew 56k to one game. Now that is a full week of attendance. Its ALL because of Fisher.
Fisher and Kaval wanted to create the very worst situation they could to make sure they could justify moving out of Oakland. I hope they get their wish. Good riddance.
Once Fisher is gone an expansion team can move back into the Bay area in a couple of years with Lacob or someone else as the owner that is committed to winning.
And you can bet that with the A’s gone that an expansion team will come. Its the 6th largest media market in the US and has over 12 million in population within a 100 mile stretch from SF to Sacramento east/west and Vallejo to Los Gatos north/south.
Damn, this really sucks for fans in Oakland. Sending my condolences.
I was far too young to remember the Colts leaving Baltimore for Indianapolis, but it wasn’t difficult to see how deeply it affected those that were, even after we got a new team in the Ravens. Sorry for your loss, bros.
King Floch-I agree a million percent with your comment.Only thing that matters in this situation are the true diehard fans being screwed in this situation.Some people will side with team owners other with city but fans the most important are the afterthought for lot of commenters,I’m not an A’s fan but followed Expos for decades before their move to Washington so i’ve dealth with this situation,
If the A’s can pull this off, generate enough revenue to field a competitive MLB ball club and create revenue for Las Vegas, everybody (except for the city of Oakland) wins. There are too many ambitious cities who would love to support an MLB team to keep the team in Oakland.
So the council wants to keep the area intact rather than give the A’s license to change it for their benefit but expect the team to pay for infrastructure changes that are required?
I’m sure I am ignorant of facets and details but it seems to me:
2 issues: how much change is made around the new ballpark and what percentage each side pays fir it.
This feels like it should have been negotiable and they should have been able to make an agreement
They had an agreement. At the last minute the A’s tried to change it. They asked the city for $350 million more dollars.
There are laws that govern what happens. #1, the city has to hold open and public meeting for a period of time to get public input. /They cannot legally bypass that step. Then the city council has to vote on the changes. That takes months, but Thao had already said that she would get a vote done by this summer.
Instead of allowing that legally required process to happen, Fisher decided to be an a hole and pull this BS about Las Vegas. Of course, the last minute changes that require $350 million more taxpayer dollars to be spent by the city was an a hole thing to do too.
This is the thing about sports i hate.So many sports owners and leagues caring absolutely nothing about fans who help them make more & More money.It makes me want to absolutely not care about my fav teams anymore so as to not be continually manipulated by sports leagues and owners taking advantage of people’s love for their teams.
I kinda think of it like putting a dying dog to sleep. I’m local and knew a new stadium in Oakland would never happen because the city wasn’t really into it, and the owner really wanted to leave. As such, the stadium was falling apart, the team trades their best players year after year, and ticket prices actually got more expensive. IIRC they even lost their radio broadcasting rights and were doing it over the Internet. True A’s fans had to be seeing the writing on the wall and this is just ripping the band-aid off.
Pretty sure even if fans of team knew this would be the outcome doesn’t make things easier for them.We all know we’re gonna die,Doesn’t make it any easier when we get close to that inevitabilty
I support the Umpires and I support the Owners.
See now we know you never played
Thats the stupidest thing I have read here. And that is really saying something.
This is such an awesome thing for MLB. The A’s franchise needs a reboot. That being said I just googled the location for the new stadium. It is right across the street from Harry Reid airport. As a native New Yorker who grew up going to games at Shea Stadium I can tell you first hand how annoying it is to have the sound of airplanes landing every 3 minutes, drowning out the sound of anything going on down on the field. Still a great move by the A’s!
not to sound all nit-picky, but the property is to the west of the T-Mobile arena across the I-15. it’s a few miles from the airport runways.
closer to the runways are the excalibur, luxor, and mandalay bay hotels/casinos. i’ve stayed in those hotels dozens of times over the decades and i was never awaken or disturbed by airport noise. pretty sure they’ll figure out sound abatement at the new ballpark in the next four years (if needed).
saw an interview with kaval recently after the announcement and he mentioned that (most likely) a pedestrian thoroughfare on park ave (just north of new york-new york) will ferry fans from the strip directly to the outfield entrance. so, sounds like straightaway center field will be on the northeast corner of the site and home plate will be just off of tropicana. nice.
feel bad for the a’s fan base but some will still wear the green and gold and some will still be forever fans who’ll make it down to vegas for a few games. hopefully the a’s adopt standing room areas like the sf giants at the willie mays wall and the dallas cowboys where groups can watch the game for free for a short period of time and then get rotated out for the next group.
The only reboot that would help is getting rid of John Fisher as the owner. He makes Jeffrey Loria look like a good team owner.
For anyone interested, the proposed stadium site is on the north side of Tropicana Blvd., just east of the I-15. Close to the Strip, but with the freeway in between they’d have to build some sort of people mover to make the connection.
In this context, I assume “they” means taxpayers. During the A’s negotiations with Oakland, they repeatedly made clear that all infrastructure costs for this “private” development, over $600m to make an inaccessible, toxic site usable, are taxpayer responsibilities. Kaval already has said that Nevada taxpayers have to ante up $500m in infrastructure costs for this real-estate-development-masquerading-as-a-baseball-park.
Probably. According to the source article, the state and county are also incentivising the stadium by giving up 30 years in tax receipts on it.
More taxpayer dollars.
Correction, just west of the I-5.
The A’s are always the grifters and MLB is all in on encouraging the grift.
Turns out the Vegas proposal, like the one in Oakland, is just a real estate development that uses a baseball stadium as a carrot. Once again, it’s a development scheme that would allow Fisher, baseball’s least-engaged owner, to sell the team and just be a landlord after the project is funded by the taxpayers and completed.
MLB is turning its focus away from baseball and towards using baseball stadiums as carrots for taxpayer-supported real estate developments. Baseball had perfectly acceptable venues in Arlington, TX, and Atlanta Metro, but helped owners pressure state and local governments into abandoning successful, modern ballparks in favor of massive real estate projects that just happen to include ballparks. It is funny that baseball whines about the need for accessible downtown ballparks but muscles the development of suburban projects when they line the owners’ pocketbooks just right.
The grift has just relocated.
Couldn’t this “grift” happen in Oakland. Don’t see why they have to relocate the team to a different city in order to do what you are proposing.
They have been trying for several years to accomplish this.
It would require $600m in public money to create the infrastructure not only for a stadium, but, also, the shopping mall, office buildings, rental apartments condominiums, mandated affordable housing, and performance arena that Fisher and MLB insist be part of the ballpark project.
The City of Oakland, with lots of legitimate governance reasons to spend its money in other ways, so it hasn’t been on board with the $600m worth of welfare for a private developer who is using a ballpark as the carrot for a largely unrelated real estate development.
That being the case, Fisher now is asking Nevada taxpayers to subsidize not only the ballpark, but, also, the infrastructure for the retail space, restaurants, and amphitheater that are supposed to be part of that complex. The ballpark again is just a carrot, to the point that I would bet, regardless of where the project ends up being built, that, as soon as the ballpark is ready, Fisher sells the team to someone who claims to give a hoot about baseball and remains in the picture only as the team’s landlord.
Shame on MLB for enabling this Welfare Queen stunt.
I understand what you are saying. I live in Seattle and watched a similar thing happen when the government/citizens pushed back on building a new arena for the Sonics. It sucks that the team is gone, but also the city made its choice. I am not saying this $600 million dollar ask is reasonable or ok, but the city is making a choice. I think, looking back at what the ask was to keep the Sonics in town and what it will take to bring them back (if ever) that the city should have paid the shakedown.
I was raised in Cleveland. Municipal Stadium deteriorated for decades, and was no place to watch a baseball game. New owners that were construction people came in and agreed to buy the faltering Indians franchise provided they get help from the city in constructing a new park. A plan was worked out called ‘The Gateway Project’. The baseball park was only a part of a revitalized area, which would include an new area for the Cavs basketball team. Primarily it was financed by floating bonds and adding a tax on liquor in the downtown area. I had long ago left the area, but my father was still there. He told me about it and along with others were upset at the tax along with the city issuing bonds (many of which were paid off from taxing each ticket sold at the park). As I understand there was a great uproar about it.
That Gateway Project led to not just revitalizing that small area, but the entire downtown for miles was built up. I had to go to the Cleveland Clinic last year. Driving around the downtown area was unbelievable to me. In what had been a dump for decades there were people living in the area, walking around 20 hours a day, thriving businesses all over, and still massive construction going on all over the area. No different than most other American cities. The City of Cleveland is getting a stream of revenues they could only dream about before that project was approved
The area around the Oakland Coliseum is pretty much run down. The Warriors left the area to move to downtown SF. That area can be revitalized the same as happened in Cleveland (and years before in downtown Pittsburgh). But that area lost the Raider twice and the Warriors. What the A’s owner is proposing will work.
The A’s (and their fans) would be better served by turning their attention to putting a competitive lineup on the field. Or finding a new owner who wants to compete.
Question A’s triple A team is in Vegas if they still have that affiliate in 2027 will players get called up or send down from Vegas to Vegas?
Lots of A’s fans will not support the Giants.
SF Giants ownership has burned the A’s and blocked them from moving to Santa Clara County/San Jose area (like the 49ers)
after former A’s Owners helped save the SF Giants franchise for SF
(and stopped Giants move to Tampa).
IM SO HAPPY . I can follow my A’s anywhere except some southern state . Plus I lose all the annoying A’s fans . Who wants to listen to some W male dork yell Let’s Go Oakland for 3hrs straight while they’re losing 10 – 0 . Goodbye losers
I’m not sure Vegas is the cure for W male dorks?!
See past lawsuit by the City of San Jose
charging Commission Bud Selig and the SF Giants
will uncompetitive business practices in blocking the
A’s from moving to a New Baseball Stadium in downtown San Jose
in Santa Clara County.
sfgate.com/athletics/article/San-Jose-sues-MLB-ove…
BOYCOTT THE SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS!
PROPOSED A’S STADIUM IN DOWNTOWN SAN JOSE