One of the ongoing themes of the Oakland A’s stadium saga — at least the latest iteration — is that team officials keep on insisting they’re seriously considering moving to Las Vegas, even while nobody in Las Vegas shows much interest in building an MLB stadium. Team president Dave Kaval has been banging the move threat drum incessantly for a couple of years now, but the most that’s actually taken place in terms of discussing an MLB-size stadium in Las Vegas, which doesn’t currently have one, is some “ancillary conversations” with the state of Nevada, which is about seven steps short of a firm offer.
So it was surprising, to say the least, when ESPN popped up on Saturday with an article titled “Las Vegas makes pitch to Athletics with ‘a better opportunity.’” What is this pitch, pray tell?
“Las Vegas had always been a unique sports market, a really good sports market,” Don Logan, president and COO of the Triple-A Aviators, told ESPN on Saturday. “It makes sense. My perspective, make the best deal you can in Vegas and start to turn this community on.”
Okay, so the owner of the A’s local minor-league affiliate thinks Las Vegas is a good sports market, or at least is trying to push that narrative; that’s not exactly a surprise. But what’s with that “better opportunity” quote?
Logan, who acknowledged a retractable-roof stadium would be needed for the summer, when temperatures regularly hit 110 degrees, said Las Vegas first looked at the A’s in a “quiet examination” for potential relocation in 2004.
“It’s a better opportunity here [for the A’s] in the long term.”
Wait, it’s the Aviators owner who said Vegas would be a better opportunity for the A’s? That’s not really a pitch, and it’s certainly not a pitch from “Las Vegas,” but rather from a guy in Las Vegas. Did ESPN talk to anyone else?
Asked if he preferred a new stadium in Oakland or Las Vegas, A’s general manager David Forst said, “I’m hoping the A’s get a stadium. I don’t take sides. The only thing that affects the way we operate in baseball operations is actually having a facility.
“We really can’t spend a lot of time thinking about the where right now.”
“Having a facility” is, in fact, a thing the A’s do right now: It’s called the Oakland Coliseum, and it may not be the facility that team owner John Fisher wants, but it’s far more of a facility than the currently imaginary stadiums in either Oakland’s Howard Terminal or Las Vegas, neither of which have anyone willing to pony up the money for them at the moment. So this is just Forst giving the company line of “We want a new stadium,” which has been the case for a couple of decades and a couple of owners now, and so also isn’t really news. (ESPN also spoke to former A’s first baseman Jason Giambi, as did the San Francisco Chronicle, along with a Vegas casino owner and a county official who was at an A’s spring training game to throw out the first pitch.)
I spend a lot of time on this site dragging news outlets for bad journalism, part of which is a legacy of my long history critiquing media coverage, but it’s also because it’s a crucial element in how move threats are created from nothing. Could the A’s move to Las Vegas? Sure, someday, maybe. Could they move to Portland, or Nashville, or Montreal, or Greensboro? In theory. Are they more likely to hang around the Coliseum for a while longer, trying to use the threat of Las Vegas to shake loose more public funds for the stadium plan they’ve put the most work into in Oakland? History says yes, probably, but that’s not what the media is reporting.
The main problem here is biased sourcing: If you’re only talking to advocates for public spending on a new stadium, and not anyone who can say whether this is likely to happen or worth it if it does — Vegas or Oakland officials, sports economists, development experts, anyone — you’re presenting readers with a skewed view. Just because your sportswriters are at spring training and the A’s are playing a couple of spring training games in Las Vegas and the owner of the team’s Las Vegas affiliate happens to be standing right there doesn’t make that news. And even if there are reasons for this kind of coverage, like cutback-ravaged reporting staffs not having time to do real reporting or editors being afraid of losing clubhouse access or team ad revenue, and even if this is a longstanding problem in areas other than sports as well, the end result is not great for informed democracy.
Democracy doesn’t just die in darkness.
It dies on the pages of a bean counters ledger…..
But think about how this prepares “journalists” for a stenographic future covering company PR statements and Pentago press releases without any of the hassle of questioning.
I do have to say as a former Las Vegas, Don Logan has had to put up with a lot to see baseball succeed in LV. Having to deal with Cashman especially. Which makes it so funny to see the XFL playing there.
So….Giambi…GIAMBI, is now a point man for the Kavalcade of Horrors?
Note To Self: Need new BINGO card
Nice!
My favourite (ok, it’s a small list…) Giambi memory is when he was asked about being named in the ‘steroid’ report… he mumbled something about the fans deserving answers as to who was responsible… presumably for his own apparent behaviour…
And then he peeled out on his Harley !
Are sportswriters (particularly beat writers) actually journalists though?
I’m not trying to insult them, but when your job is basically covering a single sports team in the local market it isn’t like you are going to do a deep dive into bad clubhouse behaviour, questionable financial dealings among the ownership group, or other non-rah-rah stories.
I would think this is the case for both local sports pages and places like USA today or SI.
I don’t think there is even the presumption of neutrality on the part of any sportswriters. The ones I have contacted about bad stadium deals (usually when the deals are still under development and being crowed about by said sportswriter) typically are not interested in discussing details or financial risks or any possible negative consequences. It’s more like “the owner wants a new stadium and my job is to cover the team so I need one too, DUH!!!”
The job really is much more like writing press releases for a corporation (ok it’s exactly like that) than investigative journalism. I have always considered the journalistic ‘wall’ between corporate ownership and sports media to essentially not exist.
The fact that this is the case for most national news outlets as well today is a separate – and much more serious – failure.
We can blame the writers/non investigators and in truth they do bear some responsibility. But we also have multiple layers of politicians and civil servants who seem pretty dedicated to making sure that the voters don’t get a chance to vote on these issues, and also to make sure that they wouldn’t have enough information to make an informed choice even if they could force a public vote on the matter.
Well said, John. The only thing I would add (and this is implied in your remarks) is that back in the good old days before news staffs were ravaged by cutbacks, they weren’t a whole lot better at asking tough questions to the owners on this topic.
Which is why the Washington Post Metro desk staff took down Nixon 50 years ago and not the WP White House reporters…..
Love to see the A’s back on the east coast. Restore rivalry w/ Yanks, Red Sox and O’s.
Put Jays in central, KC in west the Texas teams.
Check out the Philadelphia Athletics Historical Society
The O’s only played the Philadelphia A’s for 1 season (1954) and both were bottom dwellers in the AL. I doubt there was much of a rivalry. just a shorter train ride.
I think the media is reporting this the way it is because, in the past few years, we’ve seen a team (Raiders) make the exact same relocation voyage from the East Bay to Vegas that the A’s are proposing to make, another team (Warriors) leave the East Bay, a league (NHL) expand to Vegas, and another league (NBA) clearly indicate that they plan to expand to Vegas in the relative near future.
So, in light of all that, an MLB team relocating from the East Bay to Vegas seems realistic in a way that expansion to Greensboro does not.
There are also specific sites being discussed, which are all sites where a major mixed-use development makes sense in light of land value. A mixed-use stadium/hotel/casino hybrid on the Strip doesn’t sound that unrealistic to me, when you consider the kinds of mega-developments that exist on the Strip, the foot traffic that already exists and the kinds of projects that are currently being built (stuff like the MSG Sphere). In contrast, building a stadium in downtown Portland or even downtown Nashville seems far more speculative in nature and I don’t know if you have potential business partners like Phil Ruffin, Caesars, MGM, Apollo, Vici Properties, etc. like you do in Vegas to potentially help offset costs.
That’s not news; it’s propaganda.
If the A’s had been serious about moving to Vegas they would have worked out a deal with the Raiders to share the stadium like that did in Oakland. With the moveable field they could have had good surfaces for both during the overlap. Will they build a basketball only arena if the NBA moves there? So 4 buildings for 4 sports that could have just gone with 2.
Hi Neal:
Thought this might be of interest– a little off the journalistic beaten path, but relevant both specifically and generally:
https://www.latitude38.com/lectronic/oakland-ball-park-turning-basin/