On a recent third-quarter earnings call, Bally’s Corp. CEO Lee Fenton told investors that the possibility of building a stadium for the Oakland A’s MLB franchise on the site of the Tropicana Las Vegas, which the company just acquired for a cool $308 million back in late September, is still very much alive.
The speculation between the A’s and numerous potential ballpark locations throughout the Las Vegas Valley has gradually risen for months now, with team officials having visited the city multiple times since the start of the year.
The Tropicana has long been at the center of that uncertainty, even before the recent acquisition by Bally’s. Now that Oakland city officials have voted to remove a proposal for a new, billion-dollar waterfront stadium at Howard Terminal from this year’s ballot, the team’s chances of staying in California appear to be slim to none.
Fenton noted that the team has “got to make some decisions and some choices,” but confirmed that “we’ve been in discussions and discussions with other partners as well.”
“We’re very much looking at the long-term plan for the Tropicana property, and that includes whether or not we could put a diamond in the middle,” Fenton added.
Other notable figures have echoed similar sentiments in recent months—in October, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred told sports radio host Chris Russo that as of now, he thinks it “just doesn’t look like” the team will stay in Oakland now that the proposal has been nixed, per USA Today.
Back in April, Peter Carlino, president and CEO of the Penn-affiliated real estate investment trust Gaming & Leisure Properties Inc. (GLPI), which owns the assets of the Tropicana, asserted that the A’s have a “very strong interest” in building a stadium at the Tropicana site.
Aside from the Tropicana, the Las Vegas Festival Grounds has also been named as a high-interest location. The grounds are owned by Phil Ruffin, who also owns Circus Circus and Treasure Island on the Strip, located at Sahara Ave. and the Strip.
Perhaps the biggest sticking point in all of these plans, however, is money—the team has made it clear that it wants public assistance in building a new stadium, but local and state officials, including Governor Steve Sisolak, have been adamant that that is not in the cards.
The state already approved $750 million in public funding for the Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium in 2016, which was sourced by a 0.88 percent tax on hotel rooms in Clark County. The decision was unpopular at the time, but the blow has softened since, as the stadium has done very well for both Raiders home games and other entertainment events.
Nevertheless, Sisolak is firm in his decision, telling the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the state “can’t build any more stadiums. We built one, Allegiant, we contributed to one.” But since Sisolak lost last week’s election to former Las Vegas Sheriff Joe Lombardo, that decision could be revisited.
Local officials, including Clark County Commissioners Tick Segerblom and Michael Naft, have echoed the governor’s opinions. Segerblom told the Review-Journal that in his view, “public money is still not an option.”
Similarly, Naft said that the reason why the Raiders’ funding was approved was because the team came in with a “clear plan” and a “concise vision” about why “they were able to justify that investment on behalf of the community.” The A’s, Naft asserted, have not presented good enough reasons to loosen the public’s purse-strings once again.
