MLB commish confirms Oakland A’s will be moving to Las Vegas (Update: $1.5B park on Vegas strip on the way)

[King Poetic]

Warriors back to frisco

A’s and Raiders in Vegas

City of Oakland got hosed by Al Davis

At least unlike other cities, u can root for the 49ers and Giants like many do anyway

So Oakland is good

 

[Dipsey Doo]

Cheap equaled 11 playoff appearances since 2000

A’s model works

 

[pete clemenza]

Vegas metro has a population of around 2.8 million which puts it around St. Louis and San Diego. It's a viable market.

A 35,000 seat stadium is perfect for Vegas. Probably could average around 20k a game.

I'm sure the stadium will have all the latest bells and whistles which will make it attractive to tourists.

They are the only games in their towns basically. St. Louis pulls from the entire state and is a foundation traditional franchise. San Diego even has Tijuana next door which is an additional 2 million people. Outside of a weekend game I can't see that many tourist going to Vegas just for a weeknight game to see their team which they probably don't even go to the park to see locally. But I could be wrong. We'll see

 

[pete clemenza]

And the Knights and Raiders have no problem drawing visiting fans

Raiders are only 8-10 home games a season and play on Sundays and maybe Monday night. That's easy. Hockey is a surprise tho

 

[focusloco]

There is a population outside Vegas people don't know about.... southern Utah and northern Arizona folks will travel to Vegas to watch MLB games.....them seats will be filled

 

[MikelArteta]

They are the only games in their towns basically. St. Louis pulls from the entire state and is a foundation traditional franchise. San Diego even has Tijuana next door which is an additional 2 million people. Outside of a weekend game I can't see that many tourist going to Vegas just for a weeknight game to see their team which they probably don't even go to the park to see locally. But I could be wrong. We'll see

They said the same thing how hockey wouldn’t work and it did

 

[dakidblu]

I hate where they plan on building the park. There are so many better places here. I'm gonna hate driving to work on the strip.

At least they are doing it right by putting in a retractable roof. Now they just need to put players on the field. They have a few years to get pieces and save money for payroll. If you make a good first impression like the knights did, they should do well in terms of local support.

Game day traffic already crazy as it is. As long as they dont fukk with frank sinatra so I can get to work. I wonder if its gonna have parking unlike the raiders

 

[ROFL_GUY]

They are the only games in their towns basically. St. Louis pulls from the entire state and is a foundation traditional franchise. San Diego even has Tijuana next door which is an additional 2 Tmillion people. Outside of a weekend game I can't see that many tourist going to Vegas just for a weeknight game to see their team which they probably don't even go to the park to see locally. But I could be wrong. We'll see

THe Vegas Hockey team sells out 20k regularly

 

[Sunalmighty]

Pathetic man. East Oakland is my home man.

Grew up on 103rd
Lived down the street in the dubs from manzanita park
Lived on Ritchie street
Went to parker
Elmhurst
Castlemont

Been watching all 3 teams all my life and all 3 dipped like that

Ridiculous

 

[FakeNews]

If I'm Vegas I want an expansion team I dont want anything to do with the A's bozo ownership. I forgot the bozo owner wanted to move to Fremont and Laney College and couldn't get it done. We'll see what happens with Vegas but this isn't done yet the author below is right



If we go by the very reliable formula of concluding that the actual result will be the opposite of whatever John Fisher says is happening, there’s a better chance of keeping the A’s in Oakland now that Fisher is announcing plans to move the team than there was while he was theoretically committed to staying.

I mean, do you ever bet on the sun not to come up? Or there not to be afternoon traffic on the Bay Bridge? In the same way, you probably shouldn’t wager too much on Fisher and lieutenant David Kaval avoiding one last failure. If they say they’ve finalized a stadium site, well, let’s just stipulate that they’ve got a winless streak on this issue and nothing about their latest endeavor feels like they’re due to end it quickly.

Now, it’s supposedly 100 percent to Las Vegas, backed up by a “binding” land deal just off The Strip and, in a late-night announcement last week that apparently surprised a few of the Nevada politicians who must approve such a thing, all of this is based on getting access to $500 million in public money.

Hmm. Wasn’t Fisher committed to Fremont not that long ago? Then to San Jose? Then to rebuilding at the Coliseum? Then to the Laney College site? Then to Howard Terminal until, well, just last week? This is the Death Lineup of squandered and blundering stadium efforts.

Basically, you can almost never go wrong presuming that Fisher is going to be wrong. And the louder his lieutenants bellow, the fudgier the details always seem to be. Can you imagine how annoying it is to negotiate with Fisher and Kaval? The smart and less aggravating way to play this is to disengage, step back and watch him fail. Which is what new Oakland mayor Sheng Thao is doing, and I salute her.

Because the Las Vegas plan, too, will run into problems; the early evidence, no surprise, is that it has been put together with the same haphazard desperation that marked all previous A’s stadium plans. And getting to the finish line likely will take the same kind of cash and commitment that Fisher and Kaval have failed to produce time and again during this adventure.

Could this be Fisher’s final failure? Maybe so, especially with an MLB countdown hanging over Fisher’s head — get a stadium deal done before 2024 or else you’re in trouble! Could messing up in Las Vegas lead to Fisher selling the team to somebody who wants to and can build a stadium somewhere, maybe Oakland? Yes, I think so, mostly because I think the A’s should be in Oakland and I believe there are very rich people who agree.

That’s how Oakland can get the ultimate win that local A’s fans deserve. But this is still a long way from a full Fisher surrender, of course. He might get this done in Las Vegas. It’s not impossible. Public money is definitely more accessible in Nevada. And even if things get delayed or stopped, Fisher might get stubborn. He’s already refused to sell the team well past the time everybody else in the universe figured out that he should. But I think he knows that Las Vegas is his last option, the last time MLB will patiently let him try to get this done and Fisher’s last chance to end the stadium losing streak.

This goes back many years and many other announcements, of course, but there are two moments I want to circle to add full context to the full fruitlessness of Fisher’s vision.

First one: Remember when Kaval’s predecessor claimed less than a decade ago that the Coliseum was the only viable East Bay site? Yes, that really happened. Back then, Lew Wolff emailed the Associated Press to say that “Howard Terminal as a potential ballpark site has been and is totally rejected by MLB and the A’s,” so they were setting all emphasis on rebuilding at the Coliseum.

Then a few years later, after a couple of other failures, Fisher and Kaval were saying only Howard Terminal could work and they needed total governmental backing for a multibillion-dollar project; that’s how much they loved Howard Terminal and how silly it was for anybody to think they’d ever want to build anywhere else.

By the way, this was the era when the A’s essentially blocked the Raiders from building themselves a new stadium on the Coliseum site, as Mark Davis vividly recalled in these scathing comments about Fisher and the A’s this week to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

“I won’t forget what they did to us in Oakland,” Davis said of the prospect of the A’s joining the Raiders in Las Vegas. “They squatted on a lease for 10 years and made it impossible for us to build on that stadium.”

Later, Davis said: “They marketed the team as ‘Rooted in Oakland,’ that’s been their mantra through the whole thing. The slogans they’ve been using have been a slap to the face of the Raiders, and they were trying to win over that type of mentality in the Bay Area. Well, all they did was f— the Bay Area.”

You can judge Davis however you want for moving the Raiders out of Oakland, but he was always very transparent that all he wanted was a new stadium. He tried it in Carson, Calif., he tried it at the Coliseum. He authentically had affection for the Coliseum site. But he didn’t have the money to build a stadium himself and he couldn’t make a deal in Oakland as long as the A’s were blocking it.

And now Fisher wants to follow the Raiders to Las Vegas? Because Fisher failed in Oakland even though the A’s are the only major pro team in town? Yeah, I understand what Davis is saying. I think everybody who has to deal with Fisher understands.

Second one: Remember in 2017, when the A’s announced their intention to build on the Laney College site adjacent to downtown Oakland before it was crushed just a few months later by Peralta Community College District?

Fisher and Kaval announced the site but didn’t have the land. They didn’t have the agreement to negotiate for the land. They didn’t have the votes on a community college district’s board of trustees. They just opened their mouths, made proclamations and hoped.

Sound familiar to the events of last week? It’s desperation that drove this Las Vegas announcement and desperation usually makes for bad plans.

Let’s wind this back a little bit: I think the A’s did a lot of genuine work on the Howard Terminal plan. Fisher wanted to build there. Kaval wanted to build there. Oakland politicians were amenable, for the right deal. But ultimately, Fisher didn’t have the stomach for the bottom line. He wanted this massive project to come as risk-free as possible. And it’s not possible to do this risk-free.

Fisher, I’m told, kept demanding that all the retail, housing and commercial development construction occur simultaneously to the stadium construction. That’s how he was going to raise money to fund his part of the stadium costs. He wasn’t going to dig far into his own cash. He needed this massive project to partially fund itself.

But that’s not how these things tend to work. The stadium itself is complicated to build. You need to put full concentration on the stadium just to make sure your team has a nice place to play ASAP. You fill in the rest of the stuff later. The stadium is by far the most important thing. But it wasn’t to Fisher, who always was as much or more interested in the real-estate deal than he ever was in a stadium.

 

[FakeNews]

That’s not how the Warriors built Chase Center. Or the 49ers built Levi’s Stadium. Or the Giants built Oracle Park.

Somebody should’ve told Fisher this. Somebody very close to him. But then again, David Kaval ain’t Rick Welts, Gideon Yu or Larry Baer. And Fisher, one of the richest owners in baseball, isn’t the guy who’s willing to just keep writing checks until the thing gets done.

So what happens if he doesn’t get everything he wants in Nevada? If the $500 million isn’t made available to him, I don’t think there is a deal to be made. Frankly, he walked away from the Howard Terminal negotiations for less than that. And even if Clark County and the Nevada legislature are good with this number, who pays for potential overruns? Who pays for infrastructure around the stadium (roads, parking lots, etc.)? What happens if the A’s don’t draw huge crowds to the stadium every year? Will Fisher commit to a top-10 payroll if he gets all this money to move to Las Vegas? Or will he happily continue to keep it at the bottom rung just as embarrassingly as he’s doing now and just stuff the profits in his pockets?

I don’t know the answers to those questions and I would guess that Fisher doesn’t want the Nevada politicians to ask any of them. But it wasn’t that long ago that Nevada gifted $750 million to help Davis build Allegiant Stadium for the Raiders. That’s working out, but even in Nevada the coffers run dry sometimes. And I suspect a few Nevadans will be wondering why they have to fund the cheapest billionaire in North American sports.

If I’m the city of Oakland or an A’s fan in the Bay Area, I’m guessing that the Las Vegas effort, just like all previous Fisher/Kaval efforts, will run into trouble at some point. If it gets bad enough, Fisher might have to sell the team. And if you’re the city of Oakland or an A’s fan in the Bay Area, you absolutely know that it’s better to be rooting against John Fisher than to be trying to build a stadium with him.

 

[Tony D'Amato]

That’s not how the Warriors built Chase Center. Or the 49ers built Levi’s Stadium. Or the Giants built Oracle Park.

Somebody should’ve told Fisher this. Somebody very close to him. But then again, David Kaval ain’t Rick Welts, Gideon Yu or Larry Baer. And Fisher, one of the richest owners in baseball, isn’t the guy who’s willing to just keep writing checks until the thing gets done.

So what happens if he doesn’t get everything he wants in Nevada? If the $500 million isn’t made available to him, I don’t think there is a deal to be made. Frankly, he walked away from the Howard Terminal negotiations for less than that. And even if Clark County and the Nevada legislature are good with this number, who pays for potential overruns? Who pays for infrastructure around the stadium (roads, parking lots, etc.)? What happens if the A’s don’t draw huge crowds to the stadium every year? Will Fisher commit to a top-10 payroll if he gets all this money to move to Las Vegas? Or will he happily continue to keep it at the bottom rung just as embarrassingly as he’s doing now and just stuff the profits in his pockets?

I don’t know the answers to those questions and I would guess that Fisher doesn’t want the Nevada politicians to ask any of them. But it wasn’t that long ago that Nevada gifted $750 million to help Davis build Allegiant Stadium for the Raiders. That’s working out, but even in Nevada the coffers run dry sometimes. And I suspect a few Nevadans will be wondering why they have to fund the cheapest billionaire in North American sports.

If I’m the city of Oakland or an A’s fan in the Bay Area, I’m guessing that the Las Vegas effort, just like all previous Fisher/Kaval efforts, will run into trouble at some point. If it gets bad enough, Fisher might have to sell the team. And if you’re the city of Oakland or an A’s fan in the Bay Area, you absolutely know that it’s better to be rooting against John Fisher than to be trying to build a stadium with him.

If u own a team and can't finance your own sh1t or get financing on your own, then u need to sell. Chargers owners shoulda been forced to sell. LA don't need them or want them. It becomes detrimental to the rest of the league to pet these broke b1tches run teams.

 

[Dipsey Doo]

If u own a team and can't finance your own sh1t or get financing on your own, then u need to sell. Chargers owners shoulda been forced to sell. LA don't need them or want them. It becomes detrimental to the rest of the league to pet these broke b1tches run teams.

That eliminates almost every pro sports owner

 

[focusloco]

That’s not how the Warriors built Chase Center. Or the 49ers built Levi’s Stadium. Or the Giants built Oracle Park.

Somebody should’ve told Fisher this. Somebody very close to him. But then again, David Kaval ain’t Rick Welts, Gideon Yu or Larry Baer. And Fisher, one of the richest owners in baseball, isn’t the guy who’s willing to just keep writing checks until the thing gets done.

So what happens if he doesn’t get everything he wants in Nevada? If the $500 million isn’t made available to him, I don’t think there is a deal to be made. Frankly, he walked away from the Howard Terminal negotiations for less than that. And even if Clark County and the Nevada legislature are good with this number, who pays for potential overruns? Who pays for infrastructure around the stadium (roads, parking lots, etc.)? What happens if the A’s don’t draw huge crowds to the stadium every year? Will Fisher commit to a top-10 payroll if he gets all this money to move to Las Vegas? Or will he happily continue to keep it at the bottom rung just as embarrassingly as he’s doing now and just stuff the profits in his pockets?

I don’t know the answers to those questions and I would guess that Fisher doesn’t want the Nevada politicians to ask any of them. But it wasn’t that long ago that Nevada gifted $750 million to help Davis build Allegiant Stadium for the Raiders. That’s working out, but even in Nevada the coffers run dry sometimes. And I suspect a few Nevadans will be wondering why they have to fund the cheapest billionaire in North American sports.

If I’m the city of Oakland or an A’s fan in the Bay Area, I’m guessing that the Las Vegas effort, just like all previous Fisher/Kaval efforts, will run into trouble at some point. If it gets bad enough, Fisher might have to sell the team. And if you’re the city of Oakland or an A’s fan in the Bay Area, you absolutely know that it’s better to be rooting against John Fisher than to be trying to build a stadium with him.

The author is correct on a number of issues. The owner has been a cheap b*stard and they been fronting to their fans about wanting to stay in the O and build a stadium

But I don't think he realizes that the major players in Nevada get shyt done especially when it comes to sports and entertainment. If you can dream it they will build it here. Raiders were looking for a stadium for 40 years...they got a land deal, financing, and a stadium design in less than a year.

The A's MLB and the politicians in Nevada will make sure this happens. There is too much money involved for this not to happen

 

[Tony D'Amato]

That eliminates almost every pro sports owner

Its enough billionaires now to get in there. Especially in the top 3 sports. Chargers shoulda never been allowed to leave