The Las Vegas Stadium Authority is set to meet Thursday to discuss Athletics owner John Fisher’s latest paperwork about how he plans to pay for a Las Vegas stadium (spoilers: he probably still won’t explain it), and the big news is that the projected price tag has gone up from $1.5 billion to $1.75 billion, meaning Fisher will need to scrounge up another $250 million from somewhere:
The stadium’s projected $1.5 billion price tag has risen to $1.75 billion because of inflation and the addition of 70,000 square feet of ballpark features. New elements added during the stadium’s design phase include more clubs and suites, upgraded general admission spaces and player amenities. The A’s Las Vegas ballpark will be the first in Major League Baseball to offer under-seat cooling.
“The increase in the budget is due to combination of adding a variety of features to the ballpark along with general increases in construction costs,” A’s executive Sandy Dean told the Review-Journal. “The design process is iterative, and has been allowing us to add elements to the ballpark intended to make this a premier facility for Major League Baseball.”
Uhhh, under-seat a/c ducts have been part of the plan at least since March, so why is that adding $250 million to the cost now? More clubs and suites is nice, I guess, though they’d have to generate around $20 million in extra revenue per year to be worth an added quarter-billion in costs. And while inflation in the construction field is still an issue, a 17% hike in just nine months would be pretty remarkable.
In any case, thanks to the one good thing the Nevada legislature did while approving stadium subsidies in June 2023 — making all cost overruns the responsibility of the team — Fisher is now set to be on the hook for $1.37 billion in construction costs. He’ll get about $220 million of that back via property tax breaks and a ticket tax exemption, but that’s still a hefty price to pay for what would be MLB’s stadium in what the league’s smallest media market. We’ll maybe find out more on Thursday, well, probably not, but one can always hope!
Lisp programmers everywhere appreciate the parentheses around Sacramento
Ah Failson Fisher… maybe the goal all along has been to have his team move into the background so he can be the most entertaining thing around…
70,000ft of features. Wow. That would really be something.
1 Acre = 43,560ft2.
So, the Sacramento Athletics are adding about 1.6 acres of ballpark features to their 8 acre site in Las Vegas?
Granted, much of this could be cantilevered over clubhouses or other structures. But how do you end up with 1.6 acres of heretofore unused space on an 8 acre ballpark site (where the field itself should take up around 3-3.25 acres, depending on foul territory and fence distances)?
Was the original plan to not have any concessions or bathrooms in the building?
I visited my in-laws in Vegas last week and they’re convinced the stadium is a done deal. I tried to tell them it was iffy and that Fisher was terrible but they are true believers.
Also the article doesn’t state that the under seat a/c is new, you may want to correct that part in your post.
It cited the under-seat a/c as a reason for the cost overruns. Or it just tacked it on to that paragraph for no reason at all — either way, it’s an error by the R-J.
It’s very poorly written, I agree about that.
I suspect that, if the stadium is never built, there will be still be a sizeable number of Nevadans who believe it has been built.
That is just how disinformation works these days.
It’ll wind up like the Raiders stadium either way. Every game will be an away game for the Athletics.
No-one should let the fact that the stadium doesn’t exist detract from the tremendous economic benefits building it has/will bring to the region!
This is an indoor stadium. Why do they need seat air conditioning? This seems like a park for only tourists and not for their Las Vegas residents. What a scam. Sell to Joe Lacob!
Have they even figured out what their TV deal will be? That is where the money is and being a small market and a collapsing RSN system that is a major issue that needs to be addressed I think.
So I suspect that if they retain Bay Area viewers when they play in Sactown next year- they’ll try to convince NBC Sports California that those viewers will watch a Vegas team.
My guess would be that the LV MLBs will find that their RSN rights are worth so little it might make sense to sell to an OTA local station… Is there a local in LV that could pay $10-15m for all of the MLB team’s games? I have my doubts… but I don’t know one way or another. He won’t get what he was getting from NBC BA and they won’t be interested in broadcasting a Vegas team’s games anymore than they would be interested in Reno or Colorado Springs games.
The stupidity of this move is mostly down to the shaky financials… and small market. Fisher’s best outcome here is that he makes significantly less money locally (in stadium) and for TV rights, but makes up enough in perpetual MLB welfare that he comes out slightly better off than he would have in Oakland.
I doubt that was possible even with a $1Bn stadium in Vegas and a better subsidy deal than he got. With his share of stadium costs alone now heading for $1.5Bn and general apathy among most residents and MLB itself for the idea, he should be the one looking for an exit, not Sternberg.
The Vegas debacle is an utterly self inflicted wound by both Fisher and MLB. They deserve every single piece of bad news and public disdain they get for this…
I still think it is 4:1 against that they ever get to Vegas. Get used to the Sacramento A’s, folks… they might be around awhile…
I’m pretty sure without the A’s the NBC Sports California doesn’t have enough content to justify its existence. That’s why they’re still getting paid in Sacramento. If Fisher is taking it to the most narcissistic conclusion- maybe they’ll keep paying him to keep the channel going with the Las Vegas A’s!
Why would NBC Sports want to keep NBC Sports California going if it were paying out more to the A’s than it’s getting in revenues from the broadcasts?
Because of territorial rights nbc sports ca won’t be able to broadcast the Las Vegas baseball team into the Bay Area market
The real drama playing out behind the scenes will be what happens when NBC Universal spins off its cable properties. NBCU is going all in on streaming, and they’re now cutting bait with their cable/satellite channels, which remain profitable and generate carriage fee revenues, but are bleeding subscribers.
I have not yet heard anything about what NBCU plans to do with its RSN portfolio, which was basically inherited from the Comcast merger. NBCU shut down NBC Sports Net in 2021 and moved most of its programming over to USA Network. Now, USA Network (along with CNBC, MSNBC, Bravo, E!, and other properties) is getting spun off.
It’s telling that after joining the Big Ten conference’s media contract last year, NBCU is only showing Big Ten games on NBC and Peacock. They never included USA Network or any of the other NBCU networks in the coverage.
NBC Sports Bay Area will continue at least for a while because it’s partly owned by the Giants. But, what will the ownership look like if/when NBCU unloads its cable/satellite channels next year?
MLB has been looking to unify the local broadcast rights under a single umbrella for streaming. The large market teams that own their own RSNs like the Yankees, Red Sox, and Dodgers have so far been able to bury that idea. But, with the collapse of Diamond Sports, MLB has an avenue to begin that process. NBCU spinning off the RSNs would be another step in that direction.
By the time the A’s finally settle on an actual MLB stadium location to call home, the TV contracts might be a moot point.
It will be interesting to see how much mlb takes a hit without carriage fees, they have been floating on a stable money stream for what at least 20 years? They haven’t had to worry about local ratings, I think mlb streaming will be a disaster. The new revenue sharing is good, but i don’t think a national mlb streaming package will be as profitable as the league thinks.
The Golden Knights new TV deal finalized last year might be a useful parrael. They had been on AT&T SportsNet.
The new contract announced in May 2023 is a “multiyear” deal with Scripps Sports, which will broadcast Golden Knights preseason, regular season, and first round playoff games. They’re aired locally on local station KMCC-TV, which apparently has since been rebranded as Vegas 34.
Vegas 34 is available OTA, Cox cable, Rio Virgin Teleco, DirecTV/DirecTV Stream, and Fubo. Games are also freely available to everybody with an antenna in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and N. Nevada.
Unfortunately, I can’t find out exactly what the Golden Knights are getting paid from this deal.
https://lasvegassun.com/news/2023/may/04/vgk-golden-knights-reach-broadcast-deal-with-scrip/
They were making $13 million a year from AT&T prior to scripps.
Agreed, would love to see the financial case that has them breaking even after debt service. Has to be some wild assumptions of perpetual sellouts at high prices. Putting in that much of your own money with no possibilities of ancillary development?