The San Francisco Chronicle has a long article by John Shea today about the Oakland A’s finances, which comes down to:
- Nobody is going to A’s games.
- The A’s are still earning money from national and local TV deals, as well as other shared league revenue, though whether that’s enough to turn a profit is in dispute: Forbes says yes, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred says no.
- The A’s would do better in Las Vegas, according to sports finance experts, because they could bring in more money from stadium ad sponsorships.
Let’s take these one at a time:
It’s indisputable that A’s attendance is godawful: After they drew an almost respectable 27,000 fans on opening day, that quickly fell off to less than 4,000 fans per game for a weeknight series vs. the Cleveland Guardians. But then, the A’s themselves are godawful: So far this season they’ve only won two games out of 10, each of those by a mere one run, amid getting themselves pummeled 13-1 and (twice) 11-0. This is by design, as before last season team owner John Fisher traded every credible major league on his roster for spare parts, some of whom have already been sent packing, while simultaneously raising ticket prices and offering as a perk free jerseys of the players he was about to trade.
Shea does an admirable job of running the numbers for A’s revenue, totaling up all the income figures that are public knowledge — $60 million a year from national TV deals, another $30 million from things like leaguewide sponsorships and gambling revenue, and $53-60 million a year in local TV money — all of which is right in line with both Forbes’ team revenue estimates for the A’s ($212 million) and the A’s own claims (“closer to $190 million”). That discrepancy is most of the difference between Forbes’ estimate that the A’s turned a $29 million profit last year and the team owners’ claims they suffered a $9 million loss — though as Shea notes, the A’s haven’t actually opened their books, so it’s hard to tell. (This is perhaps an opportune time to remind everyone of then-Toronto Blue Jays exec and future MLB COO Paul Beeston’s 1979 remark that “Under generally accepted accounting principles, I can turn a $4 million profit into a $2 million loss and get every national accounting firm to agree with me.”)
Anyway, the real question for the future of the A’s isn’t whether team ownership is turning a small profit or losing a small amount while asking fans to pay big-league ticket prices to watch a minor-league team; it’s whether they would do better by moving to Las Vegas. At this point, Shea puts down his calculator and turns the floor over to two sports business experts:
If the A’s flee to Las Vegas, it’s highly likely they’d get an inferior regional sports network contract. … But that would not deter the A’s from moving.
“What the A’s would get from stadium sponsorships would more than offset any decline in the RSN fees,” [Forbes editor Michael] Ozanian said.
[USC sports business professor David] Carter added, “While the future of RSNs appears cloudy at best, the upside in Las Vegas with ticketing and control of venue with the ability to generate money from other events hosted there, there’s a lot of other areas where there is financial upside relative to the uncertainty of Oakland.”
Yes, that’s probably true that selling ad signage and controlling ticket revenue for a Las Vegas baseball stadium would bring in more money than the A’s currently do in Oakland — though Fisher might also have to shell out some additional expense on major-league salaries if he wants anyone to go to the games.
But there’s a bigger problem, which you may have already noticed: Las Vegas doesn’t have a baseball stadium. Or rather, it does, but it seats only 10,000 people, which would pretty seriously limit how much more revenue Fisher could bring in by selling tickets there. A new stadium would likely cost $1 billion or more, especially since Fisher would undoubtedly want a dome of some kind, Las Vegas being broiling hot in the summer and only getting hotter.
So while the Chronicle article does a decent job of answering the question “Would the A’s make more money in a new stadium in Las Vegas?”, it doesn’t address the actual question the A’s face, which is: “Would John Fisher be best off building a new Vegas stadium, building a new Oakland stadium, or just staying put and fielding a team anyone would want to watch?” The math there gets way hairier, because we have no idea how much of a Vegas stadium’s construction cost Fisher would be asked to pay, or whether he would truly be able to get a lease on one with “the ability to generate money from other events hosted there”; nor do we know exactly how the cash flow would work if he accepted Oakland’s current offer on the table of $775 million in city and state infrastructure spending for a new stadium-and-housing-development district at Howard Terminal. (Or built a new stadium on the Oakland Coliseum land Fisher bought half of in 2020, though no one seems to talk about that anymore.) All we know is that Fisher keeps trying to get Oakland to up its ante while sending his team president to Vegas to play increasingly elaborate games of public footsie without actually negotiating anything substantive with local elected officials — which certainly could be a sign that he is genuinely ready to move, or could just be a sign that he’s a savvy negotiator creating leverage.
Looked at in that light, the Chronicle piece is a noble attempt to put some hard numbers on the A’s situation, but ends up just furthering Fisher’s goal of getting the media to pressure Oakland officials to do something for the A’s, or else. Could the A’s move to Las Vegas? Maybe! Could the A’s do better by staying in Oakland, even without the extra few hundred million in infrastructure cash they want and Oakland hasn’t been able to come up with? Also maybe! This is not a very satisfying answer, admittedly, but until the nation’s sports business media starts asking both team execs and city elected officials hard questions about the actual projected finances of new stadiums in Oakland or Las Vegas, we’re going to be left with lots of articles showing empty seats at the Coliseum and cries of “When will this change?” And we do know the answer to that: When John Fisher decides he’s good and ready for it to.
Not sure what other events a baseball stadium could host in Las Vegas. Especially with about 1/3 of the dates blacked out for baseball. And they’d be in competition with the Raiders stadium. There aren’t that many stadium filling acts out there, and Vegas is knee deep in middle and small venues.
Exactly. Why Ozanian would discuss the upside of “non baseball income” in Vegas without noticing/mentioning that there are multiple other venues and other year round attractions in Vegas that the A’s would have to compete with… vs being essentially the only game in town in Oakland. Yes, obviously there are attractions in San Francisco just across the bay and in other places in the region… but not right in their “new” home city of Vegas.
With all the dedicated performance venues that actually suit music or other acts, and a giant shiny new football stadium I would say it’s likely that any new or upgraded baseball stadium in LV would get zero non-baseball events…
Actually, the football stadium, Allegiant (at 65,000) and the hockey arena, T-Mobile (at 18,000) are both leaders in events over the past year for their size. A baseball stadium in Las Vegas at 30,000 would fill a venue need in the mid-size area.
For example, here is a cite from the Las Vegas Review Journal, “The 15 concerts at Allegiant Stadium last year (2022) attracted 654,993 fans. Raiders games accounted for 496,437 fans. Sporting events such as soccer friendlies (exhibition games) and non-UNLV college football games, including Notre Dame-BYU, drew 337,765 attendees. The 157 private events held at the stadium brought in 88,757 people, while six UNLV football games drew 80,419 people.
Why would there be a ‘venue need’ in the 30,000 range (a number that MLB will not accept, btw) when the Raiders stadium has hosted all of the events you describe?
Are there dozens (or hundreds) of events that DIDN’T come to Vegas because one of the arenas was too small and the football stadium was too big? It sure doesn’t sound like it based on the totals you provide.
Allegiant was, after all, designed for multiple uses (just as most hockey/basketball arenas these days are designed to be used for concerts with end stage, centre stage etc)
An A’s stadium would basically replace the Las Vegas Festival Grounds in terms of concerts concerts. It would be an ideal venue for events like the When We Were Young festival. That festival experienced issues with high winds and would benefit from a fixed or retractable roof climate-controlled venue, one bigger than an arena but not as big as Allegiant. I could also see them hosting EDC splinter events as that event continues to grow. Those are the types of events that this venue would book. It likely wouldn’t be enough in other cities, but there are so many festivals of that kind in Vegas, I think it would work for them.
Hopefully Oakland stands strong (well as strong as you can stand when you’re already offering $775 million). There’s next to zero chance that the state or county will offer the A’s a dime. Davis struck while the iron was hot, he had a strong NFL brand and a state and LV market that was desperate for big time sports (Knights were on the way but not there yet). With the Knights, Raiders, and a likely NBA team in a privately funded (Oak View) arena within a decade, the landscape is totally different now. Maybe he can get the city of LV to pitch in for a downtown stadium or one of the suburbs but that’s going to be very different than being on the Strip.
I am not surprised that a San Francisco guy would go “Hey, wouldn’t it be better if Oakland’s last team bailed to Vegas?” But, honestly, what would the Athletics gain from a move to Las Vegas?
Ten years ago, they would’ve been effectively pioneers, being the first pro sports team to plant their feet in the den of sin and show that, yes, you CAN play sports here! Major league sports, at that! But now that they have two professional sports teams, multiple minor league teams (the Las Vegas Aviators, who have been there for decades, three teams playing out in Henderson including the NBA’s G League development team, and a lacrosse team on the Strip) and the usual entertainment bric-a-brac, that novelty isn’t exactly there. But, Oakland has its fair share of problems and doesn’t want to just throw money around to keep a team that isn’t trying right now happy.
Weren’t pro leagues still afraid of
Las Vegas and it’s gambling influence 10 years ago?
My, how money changes things…..
Ten years ago, pro leagues were afraid of gambling. Now there’s a dozen gambling apps advertised on college campuses alone.
They were. Also of Pacman Jones…
I think they are still a bit wary of gambling’s potential influence, but they all realized that since it’s going to happen anyway, they might as well make money off of it.
Also, now that sports gambling is legal pretty much everywhere, avoiding Vegas doesn’t do much to keep its influence away from the players.
What if someone else builds a billion$++ stadium for the A’s in LV and then gives them all of the revenue generated from that stadium, would that be better than the status quo? Let’s ask some “experts.”
[This is where all those folks from Portland will claim that the A’s are idiots for not moving to Portland, where they would draw bigger crowds than in Oakland. Portland, of course, also does not have a stadium. And little likelihood that any government will build them one. Never mind that there are 50 places that would draw more than Oakland does right now, none of which have an MLB stadium. Should they move to Boise? Spokane? Santa Fe? Do any of those places have a media market or corporate ad revenue market anywhere near the size of the Bay Area’s? Of course not.]
The A’s realize that inserting any other city name for Las Vegas’ exposes the hollowness of their threats. But, unlike anywhere else, LV has sizzle. And, most importantly, they have the Raiders.
The A’s love it when the media does their work for them.
I miss the Portland Beavers.
That name on a t-shirt was
a definite conversation
starter…..
What, “Portland Pickles” isn’t good enough for ya ?!
The only hope in Vegas is a casino or oddball local municipality pays for the stadium. The gaming corporation would probably want a cut of the team, the oddball municipality would be in a weird location (henderson, North Vegas, City of Las vegas, personally, I would love new development at the cashman field site or anywhere just east of the LV Blvd downtown, I think I’m in the minority on this issue though).
Neither of those options seem better then taking Oaklands $775 million and finishing the Howard terminal deal.
I would love to see an analysis of how much energy it would take to cool down an entire baseball stadium from 110 degrees (regularly seen in LV summers) to a reasonable temperature (80 degrees?). The amount of energy wasted on such an endeavor, let alone its cost, would be obscene.
Allegiant was built to be super efficient. Vegas overall uses more renewable energy sources than similar cities. HVAC systems for large buildings here are not particularly wasteful. I do think that the climate would require a domed stadium, a retractable roof would be a complete waste.
I agree that Vegas – particularly the casinos – work hard to minimize energy and water use.
That said, an arena or stadium in Vegas is still trying to maintain an indoor temp 40 degrees below outdoor temps in the summer. Other locations only have to maintain a temperature delta of 20-30 degrees. That is going to take more energy in most cases regardless of how efficient the systems in use are (and, obviously, most new or newish facilities use the best technology available and many older ones are routinely retrofitted – with public money – to use the best technology available).
Fisher couldn’t borrow more adroitly from Charles Finley’s playbook. Alienate fans, fire sale, screw over players, run the team on the cheap, cry poverty when your team made $62 million in 2022. The league used the best interests of baseball clause against Finley in the 70’s, there’s reason to do it for Fisher now.
I remember back in the early 70’s Finley had one guy (!) selling tickets for World Series home games.
One guy!!!
The media would poo-poo the partially empty seats and how Oakland couldn’t sell out a World Series home game.
The fans were there! It was one guy trying to sell tickets to several thousand people!
That takes awhile…..
Fisher doesn’t want to be in Oakland. (That was easy!)
Then buying an MLB team tied to the city (and with, by any objective evaluation, nowhere better they can obtain permission to move to) would seem to have been a mistake wouldn’t it?
I mean, if he’d wanted to own the Giants, Dodgers or Cubs… he could have bid on any of them in the last decade or two.
Reminds me of that time I really wanted a ’66 Shelby Cobra (original, not replica) but bought a Honda Civic instead…
Seems to me that the A’s have hinted at expecting a Raiders sized taxpayer funded gift.
Nobody at any level of government has agreed to this, they’ve said “no.”
Is a casino willing to invest a billion dollars into a loss leader? I don’t see it.
I’ve yet to see how moving into HT, a ballpark with exponentially less parking, no direct BART, Amtrak or freeway access, and more expensive tickets and concessions, is going to entice non fans who already aren’t going to the Coliseum, to go to HT.
Sure, the new stadium attendance bump is a legitimate point, but after that…
And, if you say “the gondola,” well…
Fans aren’t going to the Coliseum because Fisher has, by design, made it a miserable experience. Mount Davis turned what was once a great baseball stadium into a dump that was a horrible experience for both teams that played there. Even if that never happened, the Coliseum is showing its age, and would never be a “history” destination like Fenway or Wrigley. I live in the North Bay, so BART and other public transit are irrelevant for me (though if they get ferry service at HT like Oracle, that would help), and I’m sure this is true for a lot of fans.
The difference between the Coliseum and HT is Candlestick vs. Oracle. Three Rivers vs. PNC. Baltimore Memorial Stadium vs. Camden Yards. People want an experience when they go to a sporting event, even if it costs more. Of course, the onus will be on ownership to put some effort into a winning product and retaining players, and the honeymoon will wear off if they pull the same crap they are doing now. But a top notch facility and surrounding amenities rather than just a concrete bowl surrounded by a vast parking lot will do a lot more for the fanbase.
That sounds more like a Shelbyville idea.
I think it’s very simple …
The Howard Terminal site is very speculative. The A’s would not only be betting, so to speak, on the stadium itself attracting fans, but also on the waterfront area being redeveloped and the appropriate transportation infrastructure being built. We have idealized visuals of ferry stops and gondolas taking people to a fully redeveloped waterfront. However, if any of that falls through, if there are any budget cuts and the like that take away from that vision, the A’s could end up tied to a new stadium that is hard to get to and located in a post-industrial blighted part of the city.
The Marlins’ experience has to weigh on MLB’s thinking. For years, a new stadium was touted as the solution to their attendance and fan support woes. They got one and, obviously, it has not panned out as desired. MLB probably doesn’t want to double down and end up with another Marlins-like situation.
A stadium on or near the LV Strip offers MLB a lot of reassurances. You’re guaranteed to be near an international airport that punches above its weight in terms of national and international connections and over 100,000 hotel rooms. You’re near a tourist zone that attracts millions of visitors, almost all of them with an entertainment budget that puts MLB tickets within their spending range.
At one time, LV was seen as a risky market. I remember when people mocked the formation of the Golden Knights and predicted they’d ended up a bust, like the Coyotes, in terms of fan support. Not only were the Golden Knights far more successful than expected, but you also have the success of the Raiders and, I think perhaps more importantly, the huge investment made by F1 racing. The sports market there is more of a known quantity and is perceived as being far stronger than it was, say, 10 years ago.
All that adds up to it being inevitable that the A’s move to LV, in my view.
Miami is an interesting comp for Vegas, because it likewise has NFL and NHL teams that draw well, but that hasn’t translated to attendance for a baseball team that has to try to sell 81 games worth of tickets each year. Miami likewise has lots of tourists and lots of other things for those tourists to do — and also three times as many residents as Vegas.
If Nevada offered to pay for a stadium, I agree that Fisher would probably make the leap. But spending over $1 billion for a domed stadium in a small market in a possibly permanent megadrought would be significantly more risky than gambling on building housing in the Bay Area — even if Howard Terminal isn’t an ideal location, plenty of people pay lots of money to live in dumber places in the East Bay.
Your first paragraph says it all. It’s a huge risk that area would pay off, one that’s not worth the public’s billions.
Miami is also a market that screwed up the stadium experience. It’s a fortress with no connection to the neighborhood. You drive into a parking garage, and in most cases walk across a little pedestrian bridge to the stadium. There’s nothing fun about going to games there.
I will say that like vegas south Florida sports fans bring their prior loyalties with them. What I don’t understand is why the Marlins never branded themselves as “the Caribbean’s team” run old school junket style trips from DR, PR etc for baseball fans to come to Miami for a weekend series. This was a huge marketing push by the Twins in the metrodome- they had bus parking lot full of fans coming from Iowa and the Dakotas.
The perennial best-attended team in baseball is the Dodgers, who play in the middle of a parking lot. Not saying the Marlins stadium was a good idea, but there’s a lot more to getting people to go to games than “integration with the neighborhood.” (Cleveland got tons of props for good neighborhood integration when the team was drawing well, but you don’t hear about that so much anymore.)
Dodger stadium is freeway adjacent with relatively easy egress and enough parking for everyone, they also have the dodger bus system which does a good enough job getting people to Union Station.
The marlins park closest freeway is a toll road going east/west, when most South Floridians need to get to 95 to head north/south, and there’s limited parking at the stadium. There’s basically no reliable public transportation and it’s smack dab in a residential neighborhood. I sat in just stupid long traffic pre/post game when there was a reported 15,000 people at the game (I counted less than half that). On-site parking with the team is less then 6000 spaces, lots of people pay to park in people’s front yards (which is charming in an old school kinda way, but not something you’d really expect or want with a brand new ballpark).
They should stay away from a place
that’s soon to suffer severe cut backs
in water…..
You mean California?
Not this year at least. California reservoirs are full. Next year, that’s another story. Although California needs the Colorado River, it does have a bit more river flexibility than Nevada and Arizona.
https://cdec.water.ca.gov/resapp/RescondMain
Is there a non-LV market out there than an existing team wouldn’t raise several levels of Hell about? I was gonna say Nashville or Raleigh but the Braves would have a cow, same goes for the Texas teams and Austin/San Antonio.
Every part of the Lower 48 is in some existing team’s designated TV market. (This is different from *territorial* market, which is where teams can veto other teams from relocating.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball_blackout_policy#/media/File:MLB_Blackout_Areas.svg
Right now, Vegas is shared by the five California teams and the D-Backs. The Giants would probably be happy to see the A’s go, and the A’s obviously wouldn’t demand compensation from themselves. But it’s certainly possible that the Dodgers, Angels, Padres, and Diamondbacks would seek some kind of Nats/MASN-style payoff for allowing a Vegas team.
And a regular reminder that Iowa is just another circle of hell if you’re a baseball fan.
I see no reason why John Fisher wouldn’t demand compensation from himself/his own franchise for such a relocation. He would just insist on someone else covering that obligation.
When it suits them, the owners will claim they operate in a free market, but they protect their exclusive territories like the Mob.
https://www.si.com/mlb/athletics/news/oakland-athletics-made-over-60-million-in-2023
Forbes previously corrected that number to $29m:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mlb/correction-correction-oakland-as-2022-revenue-and-profit/ar-AA19h6Je