After nearly two years of speculation, hearsay and rumors, the Oakland Athletics (A’s) are in fact headed to Las Vegas, with plans for a new, $1.5 billion stadium with a partially retractable roof.
The news broke late April 19 that the team had entered into a binding agreement with Red Rock Resorts to purchase 49 acres of the plot where the Wild Wild West casino once stood near the intersection of Tropicana Avenue and Dean Martin Drive. The deal also includes an option for the team to purchase an additional eight acres on the site at a future date.
Shortly after the deal was announced, A’s President Dave Kaval told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the team had tried its best to work out a deal to stay in Oakland, but in the end, “we have turned our attention to Las Vegas to get a deal here for the A’s and find a long-term home.”
“Oakland has been a great home for us for over 50 years, but we really need this 20-year saga completed and we feel there’s a path here in southern Nevada to do that,” Kaval added.
All told, it was not surprising that the team was able to work out a deal to move to Las Vegas; the chosen location, however, was a bit of a surprise, as it was not among the three sites that were heavily reported to be the finalists.
The other prospective locations were said to have included the site of the Tropicana, the site of the Rio and the Las Vegas Festival Grounds.
Kaval told the Review-Journal that the Wild Wild West site is “a great location not only for tourists, because it’s in the Resort Corridor, but it’s easy to get to for locals.About 70 percent of our fans are going to be locals, so we want to make sure we cater to them, to have a great experience at the ballpark. And this location will do that.”
The total size of the plot is 100 acres, with Red Red retaining control of the remaining acreage once the deal is finalized. No price has been disclosed as of writing and Red Rock has not commented on the deal. Kaval indicated to the Review-Journal that additional development outside of the ballpark could include retail shopping, dining and more.
Once completed, the new ballpark will form a triangle of sorts with nearby Allegiant Stadium and T-Mobile Arena, with each located about a mile from the others. There is also a possibility that a pedestrian bridge could connect T-Mobile and the new park, but that has not yet been confirmed.
Now that the location has been chosen, the team can begin the official relocation process with Major League Baseball (MLB), but that is mostly a formality, as the league has long been supportive of the A’s finding a new park.
“We support the A’s turning their focus on Las Vegas and look forward to them bringing finality to this process by the end of the year,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement to the Review-Journal.
According to guidelines issued by the league, the team now has until January 2024 to finalize the deal.
The team will also have to work out a legislative plan with state and local officials, which will be a discussion of great interest—when former governor Steve Sisolak was still in office late last year, he was adamant that no public money would be granted for a new stadium after the Allegiant Stadium project was given $750 million in public funding in 2016, which is still being repaid through a hotel room tax in Clark County.
Ever since current Governor Joe Lombardo took office in January, however, he has been largely noncommittal about whether he shares the same sentiment.
In a statement to the Review-Journal, Lombardo said that an A’s relocation to Las Vegas “would be great news for Southern Nevada as well as our entire state. The prospect of bringing new jobs, more economic development and a historic MLB franchise to Las Vegas is exciting on many levels. As we continue to navigate this opportunity, I’m in regular communication with the A’s, Major League Baseball, legislative leadership and local and state stakeholders.”
Before the recent deal was announced, it was believed that the team was in fact seeking public assistance for the 30,000-seat park, which is projected to cost somewhere around $1.5 billion.
Jeremy Aguero, an economist with Applied Analysis, worked with the team leading up to the deal, and estimated that the new park would generate approximately 400,000 incremental visitors to the city each year.
“That brings a lot of tax dollars that helps the community pay for social services and benefits and really creates a positive return on yield for the whole project,” Kaval asserted to the Review-Journal.
If the team were to become successful and garner a lot of local interest, the revenue opportunities could potentially surpass that of the other existing venues, given that MLB teams play at least 81 home games per season, substantially more than the other sports leagues. The venue could also be used for concerts and other baseball events, such as the World Baseball Classic and the MLB All-Star game.
Despite this, the team will have to work hard to convince state lawmakers to open public purse strings just seven years after the Allegiant Stadium allotment, which represented the highest public sum ever put toward a stadium project in U.S. history.
Per the Review-Journal, the team has already enlisted a large number of lobbyists for the task, with Kaval among them.
“To put a package together that hopefully can work for all parties and that can be a positive return on investment,” Kaval told the newspaper. “That’s the next step in the process.”
If all goes according to plan, construction would begin in 2024, and finish in time for the 2027 season. It is not clear at this time where the team will play in the interim, as the team’s current lease with RingCentral Coliseum expires after the 2024 season.
