If you’ve been waiting patiently for the results of the Nevada teachers union’s lawsuit against the state’s stadium deal for the Oakland A’s, wait no longer: On Friday a judge tossed it, not because of anything about the merits of the case — which claimed that the state legislature illegally passed the stadium subsidy measure with a majority vote when a two-thirds one was needed — but because she ruled that the union didn’t have standing to bring the suit.
“[T]his Court concludes that the Plaintiffs lack standing,” [Carson City District Court Judge Kristin Luis] wrote, noting that because the lawsuit doesn’t affect those who filed it and the law establishing the public financing deal has not yet been fully implemented, the court would not rule on the constitutional questions raised in the lawsuit…
In her ruling, Luis wrote that the law passed by the Legislature “does not mention public education or education funding at all,” pointing out that the word “education” is used only four times in “negligible ways” in the legislation creating the funding deal and there’s no provision of the law that indicates money will be diverted from education in a way that violates the Nevada Constitution.
That’s splitting hairs, certainly: The money has to come from somewhere, and it may well end up being education, even if the Nevada legislature mostly stood there whistling while gesturing toward a guy behind a tree.
But what’s done is done — if still appealable — and the immediate question is: What does this mean for A’s owner John Fisher’s Las Vegas stadium funding push? One of the presumed reasons it’s been going nowhere is that nobody wants to commit to putting private money in when the public money is still up in the air. Now, presumably, we’ll get to see if anybody wants to commit to putting in private money when there’s just the likelihood that they’ll never see it again, because a stadium in Las Vegas is going to have a hell of a time earning back $1 billion in private construction costs. It feels like we’re getting to the end of a chapter of something, anyway, even if it may end up being a cliffhanger.
It’s pretty much a done deal. The casino’s will prop this up as it’ll be another attraction for the Las Vegas Strip. The A’s will need to start winning if they want to win over the public. So good luck with that.
The A’s were a much better team in comparison to last year. They actually were respectable for the better half of the first 100 games.
Still doesn’t fix the issues at hand though. Heard if they make the playoffs there are no guarantees they will get to play in Sacramento for playoff games.
Fisher now fiddling around for his next Lew Wolff, A managing partner, someone to do all the public appearances thus allowing him to slink back into darkness. but Wolff had the advantage of a great employee in the form of Billy Bean, a virtual miracle worker. (Not Brad Pitt, that’s only in Hollywood.)
but…Wolff sold, And Bean probably wants to retire. Billy Bean tried a number of times to hand the reins to someone new, but they just don’t have the knack for pulling gem moves like he does. Expect mediocrity folks!
As an A’s fan Beane and the forward thinking front office led to so many good teams on a shoestring budget, but you have to wonder if they had a middling GM how badly they would of been combined with cheap ownership, it might of forced things to change (stadium and/or ownership) much sooner.
IMO this was always a long shot anyway. My mom works as a litigation secretary; she’s made it clear to me many times over the years that litigation should not be your first-choice strategy, and that you definitely shouldn’t pursue it if you’re running against a deadline.
I would think Fisher having actual cash in his pocket from the Coliseum sale would make more of a difference to his financing prospects. I would love to see him leverage that 10x, if you’re in Vegas you might as well gamble, right?
The A’s half of the land was sold for $125 million. Not nothing but about 10% of what he needs for Vegas.
If they were partnered with one MGM or Caesers this stadium would be under construction by now- but Ballys is a very low end operator. They’re losing their shirt in Chicago. I think eventually they’ll sell their lease on the Tropicana site.
The end game is one of the following: A deep pocketed player like MGM provides the lion’s share (pun intended) of ballpark funding, or Fisher sells at least half the A’s franchise to someone who can finance a Vegas-area ballpark, or a MLB ballpark doesn’t get built in Nevada.
Why would MGM want to spend a billion dollars on a baseball stadium? It could afford to, but what’s the upside for its core business?
I agree, I doubt MGM will spend that much, though maybe Fisher hopes they will.
A ballpark “contribution” of a billion dollars or close to it should require turning over majority ownership of the club — the franchise is worth $1.5 billion at most even if it is playing in a brand new ballpark.
If Fisher’s plan made any sense- a real gaming company would have gotten themselves involved. He only got deals with Stations and Ballys. Stations is successful but has labor issues which caused them to run to Bally’s which is a joke of a company.
The A’s have had meetings with everyone else. The goss is that their presentation was a joke. They were trying to sell 25% at $700 million.
For a company like MGM- funding a baseball stadium doesn’t make much sense. They have 3 competing venues on the strip (Mandalay Bay arena, T-Mobile, MGM grand garden), and they’re the biggest beneficiaries of Allegiant (across the freeway from Mandalay Bay). The DOJ probably wouldn’t be cool with MGM buying out Ballys lease to build a stadium/casino on the site (every casino at that intersection would be an MGM property). That’s all assuming MGM wants to be in the baseball business- which it probably doesn’t.
The same issues exist for caesers. They aren’t a player on that end of the strip, and they don’t have a good site for a stadium (maybe behind the horseshoe? That requires another legislative session though).
If the Las Vegas A’s are happening- a really stupid billionaire needs to give Fisher some money AND Ballys needs to turn things completely around in Chicago and develop a plan for the trop site. The second part seems less likely than the first and Fisher finding a rich stooge doesn’t seem very likely at this point either. My guess is Fisher’s incompetence dominates the winter meetings, and by spring training it’s clear that Vegas isn’t happening.
Correct. It’s not happening because of Fisher. If his own family members won’t help him, what makes him think anyone else would? No respectable gaming company is going to partner with him without having full operational control. The man is cash poor and needs liquidity to unlock everything else. He simply doesn’t have enough and should sell.
This is yet another reason why Manfred is a complete and utter idiot. MLB could get at least a billion in expansion fees in entering the Las Vegas market. Instead, they are content with getting nothing (Fisher isn’t being charged relocation fees). Manfred should talk to his NBA counterpart. Adam Silver put the kibosh on Memphis and New Orleans relocating to Las Vegas. Why settle for only $300 million in relocation fees when you can get billions instead in expansion fees.
I think the calculation, Jay, is that Oakland is worth more as an expansion market than Vegas would be. It is – by mlb’s own admission – an iffy market for baseball.
And they’ve seen other leagues abandon long time homes that weren’t willing to pony up win over the long term by ending up with new owners and new stadia once the team is gone.
I would not say that is a lock in Oakland, in fact in many ways it is unlikely. But it is more likely than anyone being willing to pay $2bn for an expansion franchise in LV in my opinion.
It gets the Fisher/Oakland issue settled (in a horrific way) and may be the simplest way to get Fisher out of the owner’s club (he can’t fund his Vegas dream and no-one else will without gaining control either).
It is a version of a win for MLB. For everyone else it is a loss. The MLB owners’ club does not give two shits about anyone other than themselves (and I mean individually, they don’t care about each other either…)
The A’s are going to win! man are they going to win! they’re one of the best drafting teams in pro sports history! They had a lot of talent and they didn’t win! They’ve drafted some outstanding talent. The A’s ARE one of the best teams in pro sports!
What!? Wha-where Excuse me!? you might be saying!; Well, if you haven’t gotten what I’m trying to say I’ll tell you now!
The A’s have been one of the best farm systems in MLB history and they’ve always been able to build outstanding teams. Yea, sometimes time and incompetence and guys leaving can change that but right now they still do a great job of drafting and can make deals to bring in good players. They still have Billy Bean one of the best GMs’ in MLB.
But what do they do? they trade their best players even their draft picks. A lot in fact all them time!…probably more than any other MLB team.
No, I don’t think so! I think its’ been their goal for years to leave Oakland and they used the same ridiculous excuse others have except they took to a new level! I they’ve been losing for years to move! I think they wanted to use low attendance and being broke as a perfect excuse and t
We can’t win until we are able to afford star free agent players and keep our draft picks and a new stadium in another city would do that!
They can’t win in the ugly old stadium right! they can’t play good baseball and keep good players long enough to make the playoffs because the ugly stadium, and low attendance makes it hard to focus on winning?
Wow! no wonder these pro teams can screw their fans and their old cities
The funny thing is the none sense kind’a started with Al Davis who was in Oakland and then sued to the Raiders to L.A. Now, these billionaire owners use the ideas he and other NFL team owners help ed start.
Al helped start “Franchise free agency” and his style/ part in the scheme motivated other owners to use it too.
Al and other sports people have done a lot of big/ great things for pro sports while in Oakland.
Now, the city has no pro teams at all. Owners are using a guys/ older owners’ idea that they would probably vote against now they make millions off of it. The A’s are doing ridiculous stuff and the condition of the Oakland Coliseum isn’t a big enough excuse to do this things. They should build a new stadium in Oakland.