The Nevada senate did not go back into session yesterday to discuss a Las Vegas stadium bill for the Oakland A’s, and in fact largely did not show up at all, it seems: The Nevada Independent reported that “few lawmakers moved around the building, and only a handful of lobbyists wandered the muted halls.” The real action took place in smoke-filled rooms, or maybe on smoke-filled Zooms, as the bill’s proponents tried to work out compromises that would win over three more votes — the Independent’s Tabitha Mueller reported late into the night that “Legislators told me that the bill as amended is coming,” but was silent on whether that meant today or this week or in our lifetimes.
Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo did sign a bunch of legislation yesterday that Democratic legislators wanted, including bills mandating that health insurance cover gender-affirming care and fully funding the state’s mental health crisis hotline, leading to some speculation that this was part of a quid pro quo. The senate is set to reconvene at 8 am Pacific time today, though lately “reconvene” has just meant an endless blank screen that says “in recess”; at 9:15 am, the assembly is set for an “informational” session on the stadium bill, though there’s no information about who’ll be testifying or what version of the bill they’ll be providing information about.
And that’s it for tea leaves this morning. Meanwhile, in Oakland, A’s fans are planning a “reverse boycott” at tonight’s game where fans plan to show up in droves wearing green t-shirts with the word “SELL” on them, to make the point that there are actually A’s fans in Oakland, there just are no fans of A’s owner John Fisher. Whether this has any influence on Fisher or MLB or the Nevada legislature remains to be seen, but “remains to be seen” is the theme of the month, so it all checks out.
Also, if you were wondering if there are any details on how Fisher plans to pay for his $1.1 billion share of a stadium, the answer is we’ll figure that out later. “It would seem premature to have the financing in place as required by the legislation,” said A’s consultant Jeremy Aguero, indicating that private financing will be finalized once the legislature approves public money. This certainly leaves open the possibility that regardless of what the Nevada legislature does, private lenders may balk at the idea that a 30,000-seat stadium on 9 acres of land in a small market can earn enough to pay off more than a billion dollars, even if tax kickbacks cover the rest. The list of things that remain to be seen just keeps growing; we can only hope for some answers surely tomorrow.
UPDATE, 2:40 pm ET: Some amendments have arrived! Part 1 and part 2.
Quick analysis: Making sure homelessness prevention gets funded first from tax revenues and that a stadium practices diverse hiring practices are nice and all, but this doesn't move the needle much on "ginormous piles of cash diverted from state treasury to A's owner's pockets." https://t.co/XOIbD5tPx2
— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes) June 13, 2023
And one of the erstwhile stadium supporters already hates it!
And it looks like the amendments designed to sway three Dems to vote yes have just kicked one Rep into the "no" column. https://t.co/U8cCXVlkrl
— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes) June 13, 2023
UPDATE, 4:07 pm:
Amendments flipped 8 Dems (Cannizzaro, Daly, Doñate, Dondero Loop, Flores, Lange, Ohrenschall, Pazina) and one Rep (Stone) flipped the other way. A's stadium bill passes, should head to assembly. https://t.co/8e2eLrNBrr
— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes) June 13, 2023
Goicoechea (R) also flipped to nay, sorry to leave him out.
— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes) June 13, 2023
It’s probably long odds, but I would bet that the Nevada legislature passes something. Fisher and Kaval don’t particularly like it, but it is an acceptable funding proposal to MLB. Fisher and Kaval try one last go to squeeze something more out of Oakland.
Vegas stays in the discussion for an expansion team. The A’s ownership continue to be a clown show.
The stupidity of all of this is just astounding.
Remember. Most of the people involved in this think of themselves as “leaders” and get invited to conferences where they sit up on stage in an expensive suit – but no tie, because they want to be of-the-people – and tell other people how to be smart important people like they are.
Hey! No giving away the Golden Baseball League’s proprietary business plan…
And the Chicago Bears are using the “playbook” (or are the Chicagoland suburbs just stupid?) of bidding against each other in throwing money and land at the Bears to give them a stadium…Waukegan is now joining Arlington Heights & Naperville, and let’s not forget Chicago’s new Mayor has reached out to the organization as well.
Any public money for a Bears’ stadium is stupid because the Bears are not going to leave the area. The Bears were worth 50-60% more than the St Louis Rams, according to Forbes. There is no way they will take that much of a decrease in value to move. At least the Bills could plausibly threaten to move if they didn’t get money from New York. Media in Chicago are not smart enough to realize they are being used for publicity by local politicians.
They aren’t going to leave the area but all of these different suburban towns within the are are competing with each other and trading political favors to bring the stadium to their town.
Or at least to get their names mentioned on the telly.
That seems to be what it’s all about.
None of these suburbs, especially Waukegan, have the $$$ to subsidize a $2 billion football stadium. Hopefully Lake and DuPage Counties won’t get into a bidding war. These suburbs can also be used to blackmail Chicago into a huge giveaway renovating stupid Soldier Field.
I assume this means no bars with video poker, no sports betting stations. Kind of a disaster for if there was any room for year round bars on the property.
https://twitter.com/tabitha_mueller/status/1668688624974700544?s=20
The “stadium district” is literally just the 9 acres the ballpark itself will sit on. There won’t be room for hotels anyway. (No video poker at the concession stands will be a hit to Fisher, I suppose.)
From a long distance, this stadium deal looks worse than usual for Nevada’s citizens especially in Clark County. It reads as though current A’s ownership has roughly four years to sell the team before it blows up financially. Am I missing something?
MLB teams don’t “blow up financially,” there’s too much shared revenue. What’s the nightmare scenario you’re envisioning?
Worst case, the league would buy the team out of bankruptcy and find another owner, possibly just as bad as this one or maybe not.
But I’m not sure even the A’s could ever go bankrupt.
Overnight ratings for Game 5 are out- the greatest sports event in Las Vegas history got 127,000 households in the market tuning in- not sure how you extrapolate this to regular season baseball but it seems like they’re going to have a minuscule tv audience.
https://twitter.com/SportsTVRatings/status/1669101893937758209?s=20