Lots of people may think the Oakland A’s proposed relocation to Las Vegas is a half-baked plan that owner John Fisher is trying desperately to keep alive, but that’s not the case for Vegas area officials. For example, here’s Mayor Carolyn Goodman in a recent interview with Front Office Sports:
I know in the back there of both of [Fisher and Dave Kaval’s] minds is “If we could just get Oakland to go ahead and build this what we need here.” Because certainly you have the fan base there, we already have the Raiders, and it just — each city needs to have that spirit of sports.
Sorry, what?
To come here and take down an old hotel and put it right at the heart of the strip and more congestion — we have more congestion right now, which we just experienced with Formula 1.
What are you saying exactly, mayor?
I keep thinking there’s something wrong here. And maybe just waiting it out — it’s not a vote, because the people, I’m not sure the funds are there, so how do you find and make the funds happen? … I personally think they’ve got to figure out a way to stay in Oakland and make their dream come true.
Reading a little bit between the lines, it sounds like Goodman is cranky that Fisher rejected a previous proposal to build on the site of Cashman Field, the city’s old minor-league baseball stadium. (It was also within city limits, which the current Tropicana Hotel site is not.) What she thinks she’s going to get out of this — encouraging Fisher to revisit that plan if he can’t come up with funding for his preferred site on the Strip, pushing the A’s back to Oakland to make them (and Fisher) somebody else’s problem, something else entirely — isn’t clear, but then, pretty much everything she says isn’t clear, can some Vegas residents chime in on whether she was more coherent when she wasn’t approaching her 85th birthday?
Goodman’s statements overshadowed a bit the other A’s news today, which is that the Nevada teachers union PAC finally filed its lawsuit to block the use of public money for a Vegas stadium, on the grounds that it needed two-thirds approval in the state legislature as a project to create public revenue, among other things. There’s still also the possibility of a public referendum to overturn the funding, if the teachers union wins its appeal and then can collect 100,000 signatures by June to put it on the November ballot. Or maybe Fisher’s funds really aren’t there, who knows? I would say this is the strangest baseball relocation plot ever, but my 1974 Johnny Grubb card says otherwise, so let’s just say it’s awfully strange and see where things end up by the season finale.
UPDATE 2:49 pm ET:
https://twitter.com/jc_bradbury/status/1754943397729542592
🤣🤣🤣 indeed.
Hmmm…
I’ll take THINGS AN OUTGOING MAYOR SAYS for $400
Goodman’s Razor: “Figure out a way”
It’s not the moving, its’ the corruption and shadiness! the A’s seem to want to ruin every chance for a great stadium and seems to want to show how corrupt, shady and dishonest they can be!
Oakland is an easy punching bag and teams can just point to being desperate to find a decent, safe and profitable place to play in. But this is really about powerful groups not wanting any pro sports in it.
These teams want that sponsor,public and corporate money and I guess these owners really wanted to move(except the Raiders) but it seems more of a hostile, grudge and mean motivated plan to see all Oakland’s teams move away. IMO….powerful people and league people were trying to talk the owners into moving to places not just for more money but mean attitude toward Oakland.
The mayor may be playing with the A’s/ playing both sides. She may be hoping A’s move there with new plans or just stay in Oakland.
Whatever Goodman says is completely irrelevant, since the Tropicana site is in Paradise, Nevada (where the majority of The Strip is located), not Vegas proper. All that matters is what the State and powerful Clark County Commission has to say about this whole matter.
And would be irrelevant from a funding perspective even if it were in Vegas proper, because the county and state are the ones footing the public bill. But it’s not great optics to have the mayor of your central city telling the team to stay away — whoever Fisher is going to for loan money can presumably read Twitter as well as the rest of us.
Last summer after the funding bill passed in the special session- tick Segerblom was interviewed on this show called Nevada Newsmakers. He said “if the A’s come here…” People in the know don’t think Ballys is a serious gaming company, they don’t think Fisher is a serious person.
The mayor does serve on the LVCA, while she’s a bit goofy, she certainly is aware of what’s going on regarding development along the resorts corridor.
While Mrs. Goodman was talking about Fisher’s funding and Kaval’s hideously unworkable “plan”, all I could hear was Red Foreman saying “Dumbass!”
When the even the Goodmans think your plan is so shady that it is non-viable, well….
Does this mean there is still a chance the A’s stay in Oakland? Or does Fisher turn his attention to other cities, the thought being his pride would take a beating if he stayed in Oakland…
If he goes to another city, he’d have to start the process over: scoping out land, choosing a site, getting a binding agreement, and most importantly, begging for public funding. After seeing the clown show unfold in Vegas, you would think any halfway sane individual would have second thoughts about entering into this process with Fisher. My hope is, if/when this falls through, he sells to a local Oakland ownership group (Joe Lacob?).
That’s a good question Dean.
Logically, if even the LV people he’s dealt with feel “like he would prefer to have stayed in Oakland” and “aren’t sure the funding is there” one has to wonder.
After reading her slightly more in depth interview itself, I found her choice of words interesting.
She could be just thinking out loud, though politicans (octagenarian or otherwise) tend not to do that without reason – namely that they want people to think they are just thinking out loud.
Or perhaps there’s something else going on and she is actually trying to help them save face if they do have to abandon Vegas/crawl back to Oakland.
If the next step in this process is for Manfred to come out and say that “MLB would not under any circumstances allow the A’s not to move to LV unless Oakland builds a new stadium/renovates the coliseum/buys John Fisher a golden pony” then I think the jig is up and Fisher officially wants to back out of his own bigly genius plan.
If the current ‘plan’ is not executable (and I believe that is still very much a question) I would say they are probably going to be in Oakland for another 4-5 years (assuming Oakland will offer them a new lease at the coliseum) while they come up with another bigly genius plan.
Temporary host cities or temporary stadia might be fine if they have a concrete long term plan in that destination, but I don’t think MLB is going to be happy with a ‘move’ to LV that doesn’t involve a permanent stadium (with an actual roof and air conditioning).
At this point would anyone really be surprised if the next step is that the A’s ‘braintrust’ ask MLB if it would be ok if they just moved to Sacramento’s AAA stadium full time?
Of course, at 10-14k it’s waaaaay too big for the kind of crowd a team owned by Fisher will ever draw…
Her Honor may be 84, but she can walk backwards pretty well, no?