There is a new stumbling block in the potential move of the Oakland A’s to Las Vegas, and before going into details, I need to warn you that it is very, very dumb. I know that the entire history of this saga is filled with incredibly stupid things, so you may be saying to yourself right now, “Is this really dumber than the time A’s owner John Fisher delayed releasing stadium details for three months in order to honor two state troopers who were killed by a drunk driver, then accidentally released them a day early because his staff forgot to embargo the images, then had his own architect say the design looked like a ‘spherical armadillo,’ apparently without irony or cracking a smile?” And the answer is, I am happysad to say, yes, it is even dumber than all that:
The Oakland Athletics are requesting to play up to eight home games a season away from the team’s future $1.5 billion Las Vegas ballpark, a move that could significantly undercut the financial projections presented last year when the team sought $380 million in public financing for the project.
You surely already have questions, so let’s take them one at a time:
Requesting what where now? In their proposed non-relocation agreement with Clark County, A’s officials are demanding an allowance that “no more than [seven (7)] MLB Home Games may be played outside the Stadium in any single Championship Season.”
That’s seven (7) games. You said eight. Beats me, man, take it up with Nevada Independent reporter Howard Stutz.
Why are the A’s even asking for this? “A’s President David Kaval said the idea of holding eight games outside of Las Vegas was a way to build the team’s brand, promote the club and attract players and sponsors.”
Huh? Maybe the A’s are planning on getting free agents to sign with them by promising to play one game a year in their hometown? Going on a barnstorming tour of world cities whose residents might be encouraged to visit Las Vegas and see this “baseball” that the A’s allegedly play? Again, Stutz does not seem to have investigated further.
What does any of this have to do with the public money for the project? Nothing, really: The county’s $120 million in bonds (along with $420 million in other public subsidies) were approved based on kicking back sales, income, ticket, liquor, and property taxes from the district around the stadium, but if that money falls short, the county will just pay the difference out of its general fund. Yes, the A’s and their fake economist did promise that all the new stadium spending would make the project pay for itself, but that was always nonsense — if there are fewer A’s games in Las Vegas, it’ll just mean people in Las Vegas will spend their money on something else those nights, so it shouldn’t have much effect on the county’s overall tax receipts.
Did Jeremy Aguero have something stupid to say on all this? “Aguero suggested the 65,000-seat Allegiant Stadium exceeded its preliminary projections by filling dates with different ticketed events, including international soccer matches, rugby tournaments and concerts.”
Rugby tournaments? Rugby tournaments.
Why is this even a controversy? Because Stutz found the relevant clause in the non-relocation agreement, presumably, and decided it made a good gotcha on the tax revenue implications. It makes a better gotcha on “Why does John Fisher want to be able to play 10% of his home games outside of Las Vegas if he loves the city so much?” but that maybe isn’t as juicy a headline, especially when one considers how many A’s games one person would really want to go to in a season anyway.
Can I go now? To an A’s game? Why would you — oh, you mean stop reading this post? Absolutely, I’m not sure why you’re even still here. If anything else entertainingly dumb happens, I’ll be sure to post an update.
I think Fisher is setting the bar too low. I would suggest the A’s play [eighty-one (81] games per season outside of Las Vegas. They can still demand a free stadium, obviously.
Play 7 home games @ the Oakland Colleseum, with Oakland on the uniforms.
Nah, the Ballers will have veto rights on any other league playing in the stadium (if it still exists) by then.
In all seriousness, I’m pretty sure Oakland city council would respond to any approach from Fisher to play games in the coliseum with something like:
“$5m per game, paid in full ($35-40m) on opening day for the full season. This is not a negotiating position – it’s the only offer you will get and it’s open until 4pm today only”.
“An additional fee will be applied for any extra inning games on a pro rated basis. So try your best to lose in 9 innings, it will save you money… and it’s pretty clear you don’t have much”
Probably not worth keeping the Coliseum standing for 7 games. Better value in using the site for something else at that point.
Stutz’s quotes from Kaval and some “economists” suggest that part of it is to keep the stadium open for other revenue generating events in the middle of the season (so the A’s volunteer for every foreign trip/field of dreams type game so they can make more money renting out the stadium for concerts or tractor pulls).
Even if that were the concept behind this craziness, why would you want to volunteer additional open dates? You have roughly 81 days already for tractor pulls, a Duran Duran residency, World Cup matches, the Olympics, HarryPotterCon, dog shows and the XGames to fill out your calendar in-season. Not to mention off-season.
Isn’t that basically an admission that the site/stadium could make more money if there wasn’t a team there? If they’re admitting that they want to effectively forfeit home games for other events, that seems to indicate that baseball games are a less lucrative deal for that site. That’s kinda wild to admit, not that any power brokers will care.
That’s my read on it too. Kaval and Fisher do not value their own product at all (remember when they floated playing afternoon games so tourists could make it to cirque shows at night?)
Baby Gap has no clue how this will finish. I believe he will eventually sell the team and it will stay in Sacramento.
Me too (no hashtag).
I think you’re right.
Per Rivercats employee, there is no contract for the Athletics to move to Vegas and the MLB HAS ZERO Authority on this issue, the plan is to stay at Sutter Health Park as their new home. Anybody in Vegas purchasing Athletics merchandise or putting money down on season tickets is being scammed, this team will never play in Clark County( It never was going to). Sutter Health Park has sold out for the season in 2025. Why the Las VegaS Journal puts the Athletics section on their sports page is to scam the dumb. Vegas is the San Antonio of Baseball.
First of all…. I want to give the A’s players full credit for the way they have been battling of late.
They were awful at the beginning of the season, and their ownership and exec management were clearly counting on them being as bad all year long. But a funny thing happened… they started playing better. Well done guys.
They are still more than 10 games under .500 and won’t worry any playoff teams, but for what this team has in terms of talent, they are doing very very well. Absolutely ALL of that is to the credit of the players giving it their best despite the obvious and significant obstacles they face.
Not least of which is that their owner is just a fucking clown.
This wouldn’t be the first time Fishkaval has dreamed up a wild and totally unworkable plan and then backed out of it. But I have to hand it to him – err, them – they’ve never been this far down the path when they undercut their own (and only) plan before.
What’s next? GAPman and Robbin’ decide to tell MLB that they don’t think they want to be an MLB franchise anymore and will immediately try to join the NFL as an expansion team (for no money down, naturally…) or maybe the SacraVegas Athletics could become a professional pickleball team? Surely the players union won’t balk at the pay cuts because the players won’t be part of the MLBPA anymore…
These two idiots are already in a one car parade… and they are well on their way to fucking that up as well.
The Roving Athletics saga/saca is becoming it’s own Monty Python sketch…
Mark Kotsay is a far better manager than the A’s organization deserves.
Speaking of fake economists, The Economist had a pretty good piece about the stadium building craze in the US. It doesn’t cover anything new and shares the same chart you did from JC Bradbury a while ago on rising spending. It does make a fallacious assumption that elected officials continuously falling for the stadium ruse is a sign of popular support, not that voters often don’t get to have a say in such matters.
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/06/03/a-new-wave-of-stadium-building-is-busting-budgets-in-america
The Economist tends to assume that everyone operates with rational self-interest, etc.
Are there many examples where a stadium deal swung a local election? My sense is that they don’t very often. Even if a stadium giveaway is unpopular, there are many other issues people care about more.
Yeah, the Economist definitely subscribes to the public choice theory that voters are entirely autonomous and rational actors who weigh all issues equally when selecting candidates, which Daniel Kahneman and the behavioral school of economists have demonstrated was always a laughable farce.
There are some instances of where unpopular stadium deals have swung elections: Cobb County and Miami voters booted the officials behind their terrible ballpark deals. Those were also couched in the context of a bad economy though, which further pissed off voters. But as you’ve pointed out, there are lots of issues on voters’ minds and stadiums are typically only tangentially connected.
George Petak also got recalled from office after casting the deciding vote for Brewers stadium subsidies. Maybe a handful of other cases, but yeah, it’s rare that elections are decided on a single issue like this.
It’s unfortunate, because urban planning and public expenditure on development are among the few things local politicians can directly control.
Most of the chronic urban problems – housing, employment, pollution, crime, substance addiction – cannot be adequately addressed on the local level. They will require coordination and innovation with all levels government over many decades, at least.
But local governments can decide not to give away their limited resources to billionaires.
But mayors, especially, want to be seen to be doing *something.* Not building a new arena is not as impressive to the easily impressed as building one.
I stopped counting factual errors in that Economist article when I got past 10 or 20. If I have time tomorrow, I may do an annotation.
I assume the request is so they can play international games (Japan/Mexico/England/etc).
MLB currently has two games in Japan and two in London a year, and it rotates.
I don’t know where Fisher came up with seven(7) or eight(8), but presumably it was the most he thought he could sneak into the agreement without raising eyebrows. Whoops.
The Tampa bray Times articles on the Rays stadium agreements implied that MLB now requires teams to be able to play at least 6 home games away from home (!?!?!?). Is this a thing, and if so wtf?
Link? I’m not seeing this anywhere.
Under “Homes Away From Home”
https://www.tampabay.com/news/st-petersburg/2024/05/30/some-rays-stadium-agreements-are-ready-here-are-big-takeaways/
Thanks. That’s some really evasive language (“must be willing to play up to six home games per year, or nine over a three-year span, at a neutral site” according to whom?) — I’m not aware of any league bylaws requiring this, nor are any of the baseball experts I’ve contacted. It’s always possible this is some unwritten “rule” that Rob Manfred made up for the occasion, but if so he hasn’t said it out loud to my knowledge.
The A’s saga may never run out of eye-rollers. It’ll be the all time record holder for dumbass ideas. And the justifications for said dumbass ideas just drag it all lower. Does anyone with a functioning brain cell possibly believe the “build the team’s brand, promote the club and attract players and sponsors” line?
The A’s can fill the other half of the season that the Rays aren’t playing in Montreal.
The A’s should play as the home team for one series per season in Oakland, one in Kansas City, one in Philadelphia, and one in Guam.
Even better… play 27 home games in each of the franchise’s former cities, Oakland, Kansas City, and Philadelphia. Change the name of the team to “United States Athletics”. USA! USA! USA!
This whole OAK/SAC/LV makes no sense. Do the A’s have the $$$ to build the stadium and move to Vegas or not, YES or NO? Did MLB really give the A’s owner a green light for all of this BS that is going on?
How embarrassing for MLB, they absolutely look like FOOLS.
The 8 “home” games away from Vegas is probably part of a handshake deal to keep their NBC California tv money by playing some games in Sacramento until that deal runs out.
The Vegas tv rights are worthless, it’s the only way the franchise would be able to function in a much too small stadium.
Agreed, local TV money in Vegas for the A’s will be microscopic. The Vegas NHL team has a low-money over-the-air local TV deal, and the A’s will do no better.