Friday roundup: How fast is the A’s Vegas stadium going nowhere, and other questions

Another week down! Have you been enjoying the Olympics so far? Did you even remember the Olympics were happening, other than to make sure you weren’t going anywhere near Paris during them? I, for one, cannot wait for the 2028 flag football competition.

Meanwhile, here’s what’s been happening:

  • Until now Oakland A’s owner John Fisher’s lack of any options for funding a Las Vegas stadium has just been widespread conjecture, but now a research note by JMP Securities analyst Mitch Germain confirms it: “The Oakland A’s new stadium currently remains in a holding pattern. The last piece of the puzzle was private financing obtained by the owner for the remaining cost of the stadium. Chatter suggests this may have hit a roadblock.” Oh wait, “chatter” could just mean Germain is reading the same conjecture? We can upgrade it to extremely widespread conjecture, at least.
  • Oakland has officially signed a deal to sell its half of the Oakland Coliseum site to the African American Sports & Entertainment Group for $105 million, paid out between now and June 2026. If AASEG fails to make the payments, then … that part didn’t make it into the San Francisco Chronicle story, it’s okay, they had bigger fish to fry.
  • The Massachusetts legislature adjourned this week without rezoning industrial land in Everett for a new New England Revolution stadium, and team owner Robert Kraft said he’s “deeply disappointed,” then threw some passive-aggressive shade by adding, “Massachusetts’ political landscape is one of the only places where creating opportunities in environmental justice communities and rehabilitation is dictated by the needs and bargaining of political leaders with outside influences.” Outside influences, eh? Were they … agitators?
  • Cleveland councilmembers want the Cleveland Browns to keep playing in Cleveland, not so sure about the whole “giving them hundreds of millions of dollars” thing, film at 11.
  • There are two competing proposals to put a sales tax increase back on the ballot to raise money for a Kansas City Chiefs stadiums, and the Jackson County legislature just voted down the one for a 0.125% hike over 25 years but is still working on the one for a 0.375% hike for 40 years.
  • Chicago Bears president/CEO Kevin Warren says he still prefers a new stadium on the Chicago lakefront that would come with billions of dollars in public money, but if that doesn’t work, Arlington Heights is nice, too.
  • Turns out someone did do a more robust analysis than the one by the Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office of the number of hotel room stays attributable to Philadelphia Phillies fans, and the finding was “not statistically significant.” I know Springer books are pricey, but the fiscal office really couldn’t afford $180?
  • The Atlanta Braves owners’ decision to build their stadium in the middle of the woods in the suburbs has prompted much debate, but until now it didn’t have its own Tracey Ullman parody song.

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36 comments on “Friday roundup: How fast is the A’s Vegas stadium going nowhere, and other questions

  1. Someone went to an Oakland A’s game a few months ago so you didn’t have to.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5KNNUo8q1c&pp=ygURb2FrbGFuZCBhdGhsZXRpY3M%3D

    Yes, a combination of John Fisher and Ticketmaster… pretty much sums up the world we live in.

  2. Cleveland City Council never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Let them go to Brook Park (literally a few feet from the city line). You get the all the intangible benefits of having an NFL team and you’ll get a lot of the financial benefits of tourism without having to tie up what should be valuable real estate and paying for the stadium

    1. This would be the best outcome for a great many host cities with NFL teams (in particular).

      The down side would be that ‘somebody’ is going to pay for the stadium anyway, and if you live in the (outside city limits) community that ends up being ‘selected’, you lose.

      And that’s before we even get into the details of whether there are any legitimate ‘intangible’ benefits to hosting an NFL, MLB, NBA or NHL team… or whether any that may exist outweigh the benefits the same amount of spending on another type of tourist or other attraction might bring.

      Isn’t the “great benefit” of the Cobb County stadium/development literally costing the people of Cobb county a net $15m a year?

      1. Have you seen the income and housing values for Brook Park? There is no way Brook Park can afford to subsidize a billion dollar football stadium. The population of Brook Park has plunged from over 30,000 in 1970 to 18,000 today. Brook Park and Cleveland are prime examples of how having 3, and for a few years, all 4 major sports does nothing for a cities economy. Closing factories and the inability of Cleveland to attract and maintain frequent air service are the major factors contributing to Cleveland’s decline. Building 2 stadiums and an arena did nothing to slow Cleveland’s decline. Sorry Governor Hochul, the same applies to Buffalo. And da Bears can walk over to the beach on Northerly Island and pound sand.

        1. Disagree with the baseball and basketball arenas not slowing Cleveland’s decline. It brought a lot of activity and residents downtown.
          As far as Brook Park goes, yeah the city itself won’t be able to kick in much if anything. At most they will be able to offer TIF or something like that. The funding would have to come from the County and/or State. Now Cuyahoga is a very Democratic area while the state government is Republican. However, Cuyahoga voters are very apathetic the state kicking in funding will keep it that way. Making it look like they aren’t helping may fire up Cuyahoga voters.

          1. The thing is, increasing that activity is a zero sum game. If Downtown gained economic activity, someplace else lost it. And since Cleveland isn’t exactly a boomtown, most of that activity came from elsewhere in the Cleveland area. It’s just moving the same money from one pocket to another.

            Also, downtown areas all over the country have undergone increases in activity, even without new arenas to drive it, and chances are good that the money and land that went to the Guardians and Cavs could have been spent more effectively toward higher and better uses. In other words, the G’s and Cavs have been beneficiaries, not drivers, of that Downtown growth.

        2. In 2024, any reference to “all 4 major sports” is similar to “clear channel radio station” or “big 3 auto makers”. Ancient History.

          1. Even the NHL has more than triple the revenue of MLS, so “four major U.S. sports leagues” is still going to be valid for a while yet:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_professional_sports_leagues_by_revenue

  3. It was nice of Kevin Warren to say exactly why the Bears shouldn’t build a giant dome on the Chicago lakefront: “I still think that’s the most beautiful piece of property in the country, where lake meets architecture.”

    1. The faster da Bears move to Arlington Heights, Naperville, Aurora, Waukegan or better yet, Pleasant Prarie, the sooner that hideous flying saucer can be sent back to outer space.

  4. The best scenario for Chicago would be for Lake County, and the subsidy loving state government of Indiana to put together a package for a dome adjacent to one of the Gary casinos.

  5. I don’t live in Oakland, I live in Chicago and from all I’ve read about John Fisher, I don’t see the A’s ever moving to Vegas. He doesn’t have the cash nor can he raise it. I believe MLB will get fed up with this and in a year or two will force him to sell, perhaps to the owner of Golden State who would keep the team in the Bay Area, but not necessarily in Oakland

    1. If Fisher is ever forced to sell, there will be pressure to sell to Las Vegas interests committed to moving the team to Las Vegas. I have a hard time believing Manfred and team owners want to look like even bigger fools by rescinding a relocation vote. It would undermine the whole enterprise of “fuck you, pay me” for new stadiums.

      1. If there were interest from Vegas parties, why the reporting a couple weeks ago that Manfred was using threats of exclusion to gag interested A’s buyers? Just sour grapes… from a Bay Area media complex that really hasn’t given a squat about the A’s during FIsher’s tenure? If there was somebody willing to step in and take over the Vegas project from Fisher, letting that leak would only build confidence that it’s going to happen, not take away from it. Instead, all the Vegas-local media is at best studiously neutral, and at worst leaking that Vegas insiders think the A’s are a complete clown show.

        On top of the highly questionable economics of local support, if the league insists on Vegas, they run the risk of their most viable partners being gambling operators. MLB is inextricably tied to the most notable gambling scandals in American sports history, and getting in bed with the casinos when there’s a growing public awareness of the downsides of widespread sports betting is not a great strategy for climbing back out of the #3 spot in American sports consciousness that baseball has fallen into.

        Like Neil said below, the Vegas team would be on permanent life support just to have an outpost in the gambling capitol of the country, a position which has as many downsides as upsides. Don’t fool yourself, Vegas is a nice-to-have, not a must-have.

        1. The big leagues don’t care about being associated with gamblers. What happened in 1919 is neither here nor there.

          They figure that the gambling is happening whether they sanction it or not, so they might as well get a piece of the action. And since it is happening, it is better for everyone involved that it not be crooked. It is less likely to be crooked if the bookies can openly work with the leagues to ensure that it is not.

          I’m not a fan of gambling or major league owners, but we must stop with the argument that it is somehow hypocrisy to advertise gambling while preventing players from gambling. It’s a terrible argument that does not help anyone.

          Whether gambling is a good idea or not (it’s not), fans gambling on a sport is very very different from *participants* gambling on a sport.
          The players – most of them, at least – are adults. If they can’t resist gambling just because it is advertised, then maybe they just need to find a new line of work.

          But we cannot count on kids resisting the lure of advertising, which is why advertising is usually regulated in the US and Canada.
          Right now, there are a lot of gambling ads on sports broadcasts and that annoys a lot of people. I really don’t care, but legislatures might.

          As such, I suspect the movement to regulate advertising for casinos and gambling sites will grow. As I understand it, that is a state by state/province by province issue, which will create a lot of headaches for leagues.

          I don’t think they’d be too upset if all of them, at the same time, were prohibited from advertise gambling during their sports. They got over the loss of tobacco ads. They’d get over this. But owners will not tolerate letting their rival teams have a revenue stream that they cannot have.

          So that will be the important issue to follow in the coming years.

    2. Nah, MLB wants access to that Vegas market. If they force him to sell, it would be to a Vegas interest or an owner who agrees to keep pursuing Vegas.

      1. The Vegas market is tiny in TV footprint, and would be a guaranteed revenue-sharing recipient forever. There’s no indication MLB was interested in it until Fisher decided to move there. And any new owner would have the same problem as Fisher in figuring out how to pay for a domed stadium.

        Not saying there will never be an MLB team in Vegas, but I don’t see any sign that it’s a priority for the league.

        1. Also if you look at these subsidies other cities are giving- what the state of Nevada has offered $350 million plus some tax credits is a pittance. Whoever buys the team I assume would have more cash on hand and better financing available than Fisher. They could try to work something out to build on the coliseum site OR open up the team to whatever city offers a Buffalo/St Pete size bag.

          1. I don’t think Fisher’s financing problems are because he’s John Fisher. It’s that he’s trying to borrow a billion dollars to be repaid with “build stadium > ??? > PROFIT!!!”

      2. Nashville
        Charlotte
        Salt Lake City
        are all better baseball markets for MLB than Vegas. And have corporate sponsors that aren’t called MGM, Caesars, Wynn or Venetian.
        And add Sacramento to that list.

        1. People sleep on Sac, but the A’s are a hometown team there. Yeah, behind the Giants, but not as far behind as you’d think, especially if they are good. Sac has zero issue supporting both. BUT, considering when the Kings came, a lot of Warriors fans switched allegiance, the A’s coming to town could flip the whole area hard for the A’s. Sac has really,really good fans in general.

        2. Nashville, where white supremacists are marching in the streets?
          Salt Lake City, situated in what amounts to a theocracy?

  6. In the end (and we are still quite some way from “the end”) there could be nothing more fitting than Fisher and his lapdog going through all this to “get out” of Oakland and then being stuck in a AAA stadium in Sacramento and forced to sell the team because he actually can’t afford to be an MLB owner (anywhere).

    Well, there’s one thing… that would be if he was forced to sell for about half the money he could have gotten if he had stayed in the ancient coliseum in Oakland (which, it must be said, could be renovated for $100-150m and all the actual problems fixed).

    Sadly, the latter basically cannot happen in an environment where the number of dimwit billionaire failsons vastly outstrips the number of professional sports franchise playtoys. He will get $1bn+ for the A’s no matter where they call home when he finally, mercifully, has to sell. Or even if they don’t actually have a home.

    It’s just too bad so many people have been hurt along the way.

    Hey Selig: Was it worth all this just to get your college buddy a managing partnership with Fisher for a few years? If you’d done your actual homework, none of this would have happened. But naaaah, like the used car dealer you are, you saw the pile of cash and insisted on taking it regardless of who it was attached to.

    This is your MLB legacy. Congratulations.

    1. That Scott Ostler article in the SF Chronicle claiming that Manfred is enforcing a strong-arm gag order on potential A’s buyers now has me thinking that if Vegas falls through and the A’s are sold, that’s the beginning of the end of Manfred’s tenure as commissioner. He’ll have to deal with a new ownership that has no reason to assent to keeping him around, since he only made it harder to get into business and start rebuilding the team. On top of that, there’s no definitive solution to the regional sports network struggles, and they will have wasted multiple years farting around in the desert on the promise that it will somehow, nebulously, grow the league. Sure, Sternberg got his new digs in Florida, but it will likely be no net change in that team’s situation. KC made clear that there’s no guarantee of a free lunch going forward. Not a good look all around, certainly not a legacy any better than Selig’s.

      If you remember Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the running gag on that show was that Captain Sisko was a huge baseball fanatic, even though professional baseball had started disappearing in the mid-21st century. That show was eerily prophetic with their two-parter about homelessness in San Francisco, and if MLB wants to dodge the baseball prophecy coming true, it’s probably going to take a generational turnover in ownership and operations.

      1. FWIW I put zero stock in the Ostler article. In my view it is just an effort to sell column inches (ok, pixels, whatever…)

        Prospective owners rarely limit their interest to just one team. More often than not, they approach the league offices (of any league) to express a desire to join the club either as an investor in an existing team, an outright purchase, or via expansion.

        Some have limited interest outside of wherever they call home, but it is unusual for them to specify they would only be interested in one team should it become available.

        Lacob has “kinda” done that I guess, though he has been fairly generic in the statements I’ve read. I’m just not convinced that there are an army of people who want to buy the Athletics. I’m sure there are some, but I don’t know where Ostler gets the ‘strong arm tactics to keep them quiet’ stuff from.

        Once Fisher has vacated the coliseum for good, Oakland will become neutral territory to sell to somebody else. I can see why MLB might not want to see a bunch of stories about someone potentially buying the A’s to undo Fisher’s move while that is still (kinda sorta in a typically Fisheresque kinda way, if someone else will pay for some or all of it, somehow, at some time, and figure out a way to put stadium on that tiny parcel of land, somehow, someway…) in progress… but at the end of this season that’s all over.

        To me the talk of Manfred cracking the whip on potential buyers smacks of the “reason for their being no evidence of aliens is that it is a government coverup”.

        Isn’t it more likely that there is no coverup and there are no alien bodies either?

        It would take a degree of competence that neither the government or MLB has to pull this sort of thing off.

    2. Selig’s allowing his friends into the owners ranks is a bigger stain then steroids. McCourt trading a Boston parking garage for the Dodgers was insane. Fisher, Monfort, reinsdorf, Dolan et al really have no business owning MLB teams. With all the billionaires out there spending money on teams in Italian lower division soccer- it’s wild that MLB has so many cash poor owners. I think it was kind of by design. It gave Bud more power, uniting the owners in their hatred for the players.

  7. Reinsdorf made so much money from the state subsidy his ultra honest buddy Michael Madigan arranged for him by stopping the clock in 1988 that the decrepit POS hobbled down to Springfield to beg for a billion or two from another state subsidy. Starting with that monstrosity at 35th and Dan Ryan, many of the stadiums built with taxpayer subsidies are worthless the day they open. Reinsdorf would have made alot more money in the long run by scraping $100 million out of his own pocket back in the 80s and building a ballpark in Addison or Schaumburg.

    1. Jerry, your White Sux are already down 8-0 to Minnesota in the 3rd inning, on their way to a 20 game losing streak. Will your White Sux even be able to win a game in Oakland against John Fishers mighty A’s? We have a legendary contest for who can unseat Charles Comiskey as the worst MLB owner ever. Alex Meruelo already clinched the worst sports owner ever, evicted from Glendale and then chased out of the entire State of Arizona.

  8. According to ESPN the A’s have sold their interest in the Oakland Coliseum to AASEG in a joint accouncement. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/40736935/oakland-athletics-agree-sell-their-stake-coliseum.

    1. The sale price was $125M which means Fisher has come up with about 12% of the necessary cash (unless he’s going to use some of that cash to actually pay the County of Alameda for his half of the coliseum)

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