With Oakland Athletics executives heading to Las Vegas this week, Sin City seems likely to soon be home to a Major League Baseball team.
According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, A’s owner John Fisher and president Dave Kaval will meet with resort operations along the Strip. Previous discussions have been held about a potential site for a retractable dome stadium in Vegas that would serve as home to the A’s.
Those talks cooled but appear to be heating up again.
Oakland A’s officials have long clamored for a new stadium to replace decrepit RingCentral Coliseum, which opened in 1966. The A’s blame the bedraggled stadium for the team’s lack of funds, inability to sign free agents and fan apathy.
Proposals for new stadiums failed to gain enough support from Oakland and California elected officials over the decades. There is a proposal for a waterfront park in Oakland, but that recently hit a snag when grant funding was not recommended by federal leaders, according to KTVU.
Late last year, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said that the A’s would have a relocation fee waived if they moved. That sparked a round of speculation that the team would depart Oakland.
“We’re past any reasonable timeline for the situation in Oakland to be resolved,” Manfred said in December, according to CBS News.
Las Vegas is the only city considered by the A’s for relocation, according to the Review-Journal.
It appears the Vegas stadium proposal is down to two sites, both near the Strip. A Vegas move isn’t without its headaches because Nevada officials said no new taxes would be created to help build the stadium. Other economic programs, however, reportedly are available for relocation.
In 2016, Las Vegas enticed the NFL’s Raiders to move with $750 million in public financing to construct a stadium near the Strip (h/t: New York Times). It appears the state doesn’t want a repeat of that effort to lure a team.
Las Vegas, however, can offer a fresh start for the franchise and an infusion of cash so the team isn’t ranked among the smallest MLB payrolls.
A move would keep the team in the AL West without schedule changes.
The A’s stadium issues have dragged on long enough. It’s time for the team that once called Philadelphia, Kansas City and Oakland home to be on the move again.
