How to tell real sports team move threats from fake ones (or not)

Oakland A’s president Dave Kaval just won’t shut up about how much he likes Las Vegas, which maybe is not so much a surprise given that he’s in Las Vegas specifically to talk up how great an option the place would be if Oakland doesn’t meet his boss’s $855 million stadium subsidy demands. Among Kaval’s latest utterances:

  • There are 20 different sites in and around Vegas that “have a lot of positive attributes” and are being considered for an A’s stadium.
  • Summerlin, which is home to the new Las Vegas Aviators minor-league baseball stadium and the Vegas Golden Knights practice facility, is “really spectacular” and potentially an “iconic” site for a ballpark, which mostly goes to show that Kaval hasn’t been keeping up with the most-overused words lists.
  • Kaval will be back in Vegas the week after next, at which point he will meet with officials at UNLV (which owns one of the 20 target sites), casino owner Phil Ruffin (likewise), and “again with area elected officials,” though it still isn’t clear which pols he met with on his first trip beyond that it was a “handful.”

With this much smoke, it’s tempting to think there must be fire, right? Unless, of course, Kaval is just in Las Vegas to spread smoke in advance of the Oakland city council’s July 20 mega-meeting on both A’s owner John Fisher’s tax-kickback plan and the sale of the city’s half of the Oakland Coliseum. (Which Kaval insists the Fisher doesn’t want to build a stadium on, but also insists Fisher really wants to own, because reasons.) This is hard! People pretending look just like people being sincere!

Past move-threat tour guides have tended to less loquacious than Kaval, certainly. When Pittsburgh Penguins owners Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle jetted off to Kansas City in 2007 amid an arena-funding squabble back at home, they limited themselves to a brief statement about how “we have heard many great things about their new building,” leaving it to Kansas City arena operator Tim Leiweke to talk up how he was offering free arena rent and had been promised an answer within 30 days. When then-Florida Marlins president David Samson visited San Antonio in 2005, he said only that “they are a city that showed great interest in having a Major League Baseball team.”

But then, Twitter didn’t even exist in 2005, so maybe Kaval is just playing to the modern viral news cycle by running his mouth off. Or he could be feeling the heat to make something happen and happen now: The mood among Oakland-area elected officials toward the $855 million subsidy plan isn’t great, especially among Alameda County leaders whose tax money will be needed to make this thing happen. Possibly the best comparable for the A’s current scenario is when Minnesota Vikings owner Zygi Wilf was running into roadblocks in the Minnesota state legislature for his stadium-funding demands, and NFL leaders started talking up the possibility of the team leaving town, while Wilf sent one of his planes to sit on the tarmac in Los Angeles. Would the Vikings really have moved if Minnesota hadn’t come through with $500 million at the last second? Vikings officials later said no, but Lemieux later said that about K.C. as well, while other Penguins execs said they were serious about moving, or at least serious about “exploring” a move, which isn’t exactly the same thing.

Unfortunately, barring an obvious tell that someone is lying, there’s no sure way to know whether A’s execs are genuinely excited about moving to Las Vegas, or Kaval is just really good at his job of pretending that they are. The best we can say is that Vegas remains a teensy market with no obvious appetite for fronting $855 million, so Fisher would need to be a little crazy to seriously consider it — but sports team owners can certainly do things for crazy reasons, so you can’t entirely rule it out. You can safely assume, though, that Fisher and Kaval’s #1 goal remains to shake loose money in Oakland; if that doesn’t work on July 20, they can decide how serious they are about sticking to that deadline, or if they’ll just move the goalposts a few more times before deciding whether they’re serious about those move threats.

Other Recent Posts:

Share this post:

24 comments on “How to tell real sports team move threats from fake ones (or not)

  1. Re Bears

    NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell Confirmed on sport talk radio the Bears have made a bid and sought approval to purchase the Arlington Heights race track.

    1. Yep, covered that last week:

      https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2021/06/18/17537/friday-roundup-bears-owner-bids-to-buy-arlington-park-plus-do-you-really-need-anything-else/

  2. Another angle to consider is Dave has a gambling problem, hence all the trips to Vegas.

      1. Name: Dave Kaval
        Profession: Professional Athletic Performance Location Services Facilitator that Desires Special Attention in Las Vegas.

        George Carlin’s not going to like this!

        https://youtu.be/o25I2fzFGoY

  3. Neil

    The level of seriousness of whether they move depends on how soon a site is decided on and what location. If they stick with 20 locations for the next couple months after the July 20th deadline, then there truly is a dog and pony show going on. If they choose Cashman field say in short order as part of a large development deal, HT is a dog and pony show and Vegas had been negotiated for some time.

    My question to you is how do they go back to the Coliseum after HT fails especially since they are likely to lose development rights on the city? Another East Bay location? Table a new ballpark a la New Orleans Saints after Katrina? The scenario in staying at the Coliseum doesn’t seem plausible unless Vegas tries to get cute in the negotiations

    1. The Coliseum is plausible (already entitled for new stadium construction) and viable (the A’s themselves have admitted this publicly).

      1. The only way they get the Coliseum is with public subsidy or Vegas plays hardball

        1. What does this mean? They already bought Alameda County’s stake in the Coliseum site. They already have gone on record as wanting to redevelop the Coliseum site, which is the admission that the site is viable.

          1. Redevelop without a ballpark. Big difference. They were to use whatever revenues came with the developments rights to fund the ballpark. The ballpark was to be at a different location.

            But to your point the original plan was Laney College, then HT, and then the Coliseum. I don’t know why the Coliseum plan ended I think because they don’t have full ownership. My spidey-senses tell me after Laney College failed that is when they approached LV. Now they have something from them. Lew Wolf hated HT and so did previous owners. I remember reading about it in 1998 or so

          2. And the Coliseum site could generate vastly more development revenue and tax receipts than Howard Terminal, even with a ballpark and a generous amount of surface parking included (the surface parking part isn’t even conceptually guaranteed or necessarily preferable). This is because the site and the adjacent properties are far larger than the Howard Terminal site.

          3. Wolff and Fisher bought the A’s in 2005… and so far as I can tell Hoffman and Schott had never considered HT or JLS prior to selling the club (they were focused on “uptown” or major renovations iirc).

            The “timeline” section of the stadium/saga wikipedia page has a pretty accurate summary of the proceedings.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_Ballpark

            HT is just a subsidy farming exercise, and Vegas is just a stalking horse. When the City or Clark County comes up with a funding mechanism and actually schedules a vote on same, there might be something meaningful to talk about.

            They haven’t done that and they’ve got just 4 weeks to get that done before the so called “July 20th deadline” (which is about as artificial as any other ‘give me tax dollars or I shoot this team’ deadline).

            The GAP heir is too proud to fish for subsidies himself, so he hired Kaval to do it for him. It’s not complicated.

          4. John Bladen,

            The 7/20 “deadline” only applies to Oakland/HT, not Vegas (I believe, unless I missed that part of the news cycle). And as mentioned previously, the 7/20 vote for approving the NON-BINDING term sheet isn’t the end all for this ballpark drama; LOT’S of hoops to jump through before HT even comes close to becoming reality.

          5. July 20th is not even a hard deadline. Oakland City Council may take numerous actions on the Agenda Item including but not limited to deferring action upon it until a subsequent Council Meeting (as the Alameda County Board of Supervisors did in their meeting in June 15, 2021).

            An intelligent political leader, Mayor Libby Schaaf is no idiot, will ensure the room is properly filled (colleagues and constituents alike) before a decision is made (one of two Council members who dissented on sale of land to Angels owner Arte Moreno, Denise Barnes, was voted out of office on December 3, 2020. Any smart Oakland Councilperson will reach out to their constituents to find how they feel on the issue, their views, so as the avoid a similar fate). Pol 101. The difference between a “trustee” and a “delegate” of the people.

          6. The A’s on the other hand are complete idiots. Instead of flying off to Las Vegas at every opportunity, as well as tweeting (a former president used social media, Twitter, to constantly relay his message. Look how well that turned out for him), Dave should be attending, listening and speaking at every meeting in Oakland, whether it be a local organization or a School Board Meeting (and not only to A’s fans). Yes, campaign. It’s how you successfully build trust and support for your position in a community. Allowing anyone else to shape your narrative is sure fire method for defeat. Pol 102. How to run a successful campaign.

            Threats may or may not work. It will certainly harden the position of your opponents, as well as turn away any who maybe on the fence as to the issue.

          7. Antonio: The point was not that Las Vegas is bound by anything that happens in an Oakland council meeting. If (as we’ve been told) there has been something cooking in Vegas for ‘years’ then they’d better get busy on a financing model (you know, assuming they don’t have one already completed that they have managed to keep completely under wraps for two years or more). Oakland council meets to discuss this a month from now (more or less). If they vote against the subsidy demand (they don’t have to make a choice, of course, they could simply not address the matter at the first meeting, request more information, pretend the whole thing doesn’t exist, find a microphone and start crying into it etc), then what we’ve been told may be “cookin” in Vegas ought to be ready.

            Hey, if you’re going to steal a team from another city, you can’t dilly dally….

  4. Just for the record NdM the July 20 vote is only for the A’s NON BINDING term sheet (emphasis on NON BINDING); the actual project would not be approved on that date. Even if Oakland votes yes on 7/20, would still be a LONG way to go for a fantasy HT ballpark, mega-development to come to fruition. Expect Vegas (and perhaps other locations) to still be alive after 7/20, regardless of how Oakland votes.

  5. Apologies for not digging back, but weren’t Kaval/A’s poo-poo’ing the Coliseum property (despite all of the logical upside) because it lacked the “urban” environment or “cool” factor (my words) that Howard Terminal has or could have (despite all of its downside)?

    I get the idea to create leverage, but neither Summerlin nor Henderson nor the area around UNLV create much atmosphere for baseball (unless you don’t need it due to the dome thing–what’s the point of seeing what’s outside when you desperately need the shade and A/C. Looks like a breezy 109F at first pitch this Saturday. It is a dry heat tho’).

    I don’t frequent Vegas (although coincidentally, the last time I was there I caught a Cubs spring game as Cashman), but there have to be better places in LV to create leverage that match what the A’s perceive in HT. This looks like a silly mad scramble. “Look! Land!”

    On google maps, I see a big plot of land open kitty corner to the Wynn and next to the Trump Hotel at the north end of the Strip. I am sure the owner of the latter wouldn’t mind making a few bucks on a land sale given the brand’s trouble’s elsewhere.

    1. That big plot of land kitty corner to Wynn and north of Trump is already spoken for and up and running.
      https://www.rwlasvegas.com/
      I’m sure the price tag for that plot would have been out of range for a ballpark anyhow.

    2. I say the large truck parking lot (13-14 acres) adjacent/NE of The Rio/soon-to-be-Hyatt. Easy walking distance to The Strip in the vicinity of Caesars, The Mirage.

  6. This whole thing started because Fisher wants to own Wayne Newton’s house and Wayne Newton won’t sell. Never take your eye off the ball, people.

  7. I only recall 2 instances in which someone said they would have actually moved if they didn’t get the stadium they wanted. Mike Brown in Cincinnati and the Milwaukee Brewers. It would seem like bad way to make amends after long negotiations to say “yep we were gone. We didn’t care about the fans” saying “we never really wanted to go but we had to say that to get the government to act”

Comments are closed.