The Oakland Athletics (A’s) franchise could get final approval for its proposed relocation to Las Vegas as soon as November, according to a new report from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The anonymous source quoted by the newspaper suggested that the vote is expected to take place in mid-November, during Major League Baseball (MLB) owners meetings that are scheduled for that time.
Both the team and MLB did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the vote.
In order for the move to be approved, the A’s would need a three-quarters majority vote from the other 29 team owners. The extensive relocation application was officially submitted to the league in August, which was first reported in a Review-Journal interview with team owner John Fisher.
The application must first be reviewed by the league’s relocation committee, which is composed of Kansas City Royals CEO John Sherman, Philadelphia Phillies CEO John Middleton and Milwaukee Brewers Chairman Mark Attanasio, who is serving as the committee chair.
Once the committee is done considering the application, it will pass it on with a recommendation to the league’s eight-member executive committee, headed by Commissioner Rob Manfred.
The executive committee will then repeat the process and make its own recommendation to the rest of the team owners, who will then make the final vote.
The A’s have a plan in place to build a $1.5 billion ballpark on nine of 35 total acres of the plot that currently houses the Tropicana Las Vegas, with the casino resort set to be demolished to make way for the new park.
The team has already secured up to $380 million in public funding from the state of Nevada, and Bally’s Corp. and Gaming and Leisure Properties (GLPI) have both made accommodations to get the park built; the MLB vote is the last remaining hurdle.
Once the stadium is built—ideally in time for the start of the 2028 MLB regular season—Bally’s has plans to build a new casino resort on the remaining acreage, and landlord GLPI has pledged to allocate capital for mutually beneficial developments.
