The Oakland Athletics of Sacramento have announced a June 23 groundbreaking for their new Las Vegas stadium, and the gambling news site Casino.org doesn’t pull any punches with its subheds:
The Athletics have set a groundbreaking ceremony date for their new Las Vegas Strip stadium
Which may not get built because the large majority of its funding is still not in place after nearly two years of soliciting shares in the team
But there’s nothing to see here
A’s owner John Fisher has been promising for a while now that he would hold a groundbreaking in June, and this will get in under the gun by a week. This isn’t the start of actual work on the site — that arguably was last month when workers started drilling some holes and building a perimeter fence — and doesn’t seem to represent any ramping up of construction, either: The Las Vegas Review-Journal calls it “more of a celebration for the A’s and state and local politicians to celebrate the work they put into the project leading up to construction beginning.”
Once the celebration is celebrated, it’s unclear what happens next. The plan is to open the stadium by Opening Day 2028, which is maybe possible in a less-than-three-year timespan even with the stadium’s unique engineering challenges, but, as Casino.org and everyone else paying even the slightest attention notes, somebody still needs to cut a $1.75 billion check to the construction company first. Fisher is still hoping to raise $550 million by shopping around chunks of team ownership to potential “investors,” and while concessionaire Aramark is reportedly in for $100 million, that still leaves a sizable funding gap. Fisher could always start spending his own money while waiting to see if any more suckers are willing to buy into the team at an inflated $2 billion value — we’ll see if anyone picks up real shovels after the ceremonial ones get put down on June 23.
There’s no real reason Fisher has to do anything immediately. The state can declare the project abandoned and back out of it if no work has been done in a 180-day span, so expect at least some work before Christmas to keep that clock running, but otherwise he can continue to slow-walk this if he wants to — or needs to, if he really doesn’t have the cash himself. That would likely mean extending his stay in Sacramento, and how’s that going, anyway?
- “As soon as we got to the ballpark and walked on the field, the first thing we noticed was this warning track is massive,” Minnesota Twins announcer Trevor Plouffe said. “It is not a typical warning track, and it is giving outfielders fits.”
- “The first thing I thought of was [Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Zack] Wheeler saying, ‘I was all arm when I was here,'” Twins pitcher Joe Ryan said after teammate Pablo Lopez went down with an arm injury after throwing off the Sacramento mound. “We’re in the big leagues, and we have these amenities for a reason. It’s to get prepared and go inside if you need to for a second. Whatever your routine is, you can’t do that here. You can’t do that in Tampa. As his teammate, it makes it sting a little bit more. I don’t think Pablo is the kind of guy that’s going to say it, but I’ll say it.”
- A’s pitcher Luis Severino on the Sacramento clubhouses being in the outfield, so pitchers can’t go relax there between innings: “This just is not a big league park.”
Or the A’s could always try to decamp temporarily for another location, like Salt Lake City, which just opened its new minor-league ballpark and where attendance is … oh. Oh dear.
There’s no construction cam set up yet for the alleged Vegas A’s stadium, so we’ll just have to continue to follow this through news reports. Tune back in on June 24, and see what’s happening, or isn’t!
Ken Rosenthal recently said on a podcast that the Twins owners are set on getting $1.7 billion for the team. The twins have a nice functional 15 year old stadium, they’re in a top 15 market, and have an established fanbase. They can’t get $1.7 billion. Part of this is the lockout happening after the 2026 season, but if the Twins can’t get $1.7 billion- are the A’s even worth $1 billion at this point? You figure you’re on the hook for a new stadium wherever you end up, no fanbase, no tv deal unless it’s in Sacramento or Bay Area. Fisher’s $2 billion valuation is bananas
Great question. It’s saying something that investment groups aren’t lining up to get a piece of the action, and I’m sure Fisher would have taken their money by now.
It’s been clear for a while now that Fisher is on the hunt for people willing to overpay for A’s stock. The big question is whether he *needs* those people, or is just looking for a cheaper option than using his family’s own money. One would think that if he has the money, he would have stopped beating his head against the investor wall by now and started actual construction, but we don’t really know for sure.
Im not a finance wiz but for him to pay for it himself he would have to sell gap stock and/or borrow against that stock at a pretty interest rate. Either of those options seem bad from his perspective.
This is also a huge reason why I’m deeply skeptical of any expansion talk on the horizon, even if the Rays and A’s situations magically resolve themselves by this time next year.
Existing teams with mid-market billings and established fanbases are already struggling to attract bids near a $2 billion valuation. What could possibly be the upside for would-be franchisees spending that much on an expansion fee, on top of however much their own contributions would be toward a new ballpark, to put a team in even rapidly-growing small markets that wouldn’t reach “middle” level for at least a generation (and even then, much of that growth would be based on transplants who bring their own rooting interests with them)… and in a league where there’s a high degree of uncertainty about how some teams will make their media revenue in the coming years?
Expansion prospects are about the same as relocation. Contingent on either a city willing to wildly overpay on a facility contribution and/or a potential owner willing to go all Ballmer/Keoenke to get what they want.
Doesn’t seem likely…
A $2 billion expansion plus another billion or so in stadium /marketing/other costs for a team in a relatively small North American city.
Someone could spend $700 million to buy a football club like Lazio, commit an additional $300 million for transfer market/new salaries over the next 5-6 years and count that sweet UEFA cash and be a hero to half of Rome.
$3 billion for a middling to bad MLB team is insane (and the 4 modern expansion teams have all kind of been disasters in their own way, there’s no real track record of success).
I mean there are a lot of problems with the 4 most recent expansion teams, but they also have 3 World Series titles and 7 league pennants between them.
Weirdly all 3 World Series were won in a 7 year stretch.
Marlins haven’t been relevant in 20 years, Diamondbacks are the mid-est of teams, the Rockies are probably the worst franchise the last 40years.
The D-Backs won a pennant recently and have been fairly well-managed with a good following in their area, especially with Latino fans. They used salary deferrals to win a title quickly that wrecked them for the rest of the aughts but have otherwise been fairly consistent. They’re probably the blueprint for the modern expansion franchise.
The Marlins bought a title and then won another in a flukey year, but have otherwise been deep-sixed by bad ownership and South Florida being a generally terrible pro sports market. The Rays have mostly been a disaster in fan support despite getting their act together. The Rox are the opposite, where they still get great attendance despite being horrible. That’s on ownership, but also there seems to be a very firm ceiling to what an MLB team at altitude can accomplish.
If there’s any through-line between those clubs, it’s that ownership and market location matter the most. Places that are big into baseball as a sport but don’t have a strong track record of supporting pro team sports (Charlotte, maybe Nashville) should be cautioned. SLC would have all of the exact same problems as Denver but in a smaller and poorer market. Portland or Montreal could work out, but bad ownership would sink them as there’d be no margin for error. And that’s assuming the future economics of baseball actually works for smaller market teams.
Theres nothing wrong with being perpetually mid. Thats just what the DBacks are. That pennant season was pretty flukey- they got hot at the right time. I went to game there the beginning of that September- upper deck was empty, I walked around the lower bowl and counted- there was maybe 1100 people.
I’ve wondered this, too. Unless the owners plan on using the 2026 CBA to hammer out a new economic model that will it more lucrative for the 22-ish teams that don’t have fat local broadcasting deals and somehow pass union muster, the math doesn’t math. I’ve yet to see any kind of economic analysis proving that an expansion team owner will come out in the black in their smaller market, even if there’s a massive stadium subsidy involved.
The only plausible thing I’ve heard about streaming is that sometime in the next 3-4 years MLB will have the ability to offer a streamer every game- even the Dodgers and Yankees. Not sure if the blackout rules would still be in effect. Those teams would still collect from their local broadcaster but all games would also be available on Amazon or Apple+, in a deal similar to the Apple+ MLS deal. To get this done though you’d need the owners on the same page and there’s really just too many owners that put out a worthless product.
From what I’ve heard that MLS deal is kind of a disaster- only Inter Miami gets viewers.
I’m just stunned that someone built a Triple-A park that only has 6,500 seats.
I know Salt Lake only averaged like 4800 at the old place last year, but Triple-A? Indianapolis’ park is twice that size.
A plausible explanation might be that they downscaled the stadium to that degree with a view toward building a larger (read: Major League) ballpark somewhere else in the metro area. Some MLB clubs do keep their Triple-A team in the same region — I was able to watch Mariners and the Tacoma Rainiers games on the same weekend a few years back, though in that case, Tacoma is just far enough from Seattle that it’s basically its own, smaller orbit.
If they can’t even fill triple A, why would they expect Major League to come to town?
When it comes to actual fixed seats- most AAA teams are in that 7000-9000 area. The idea that they can count a grass berm is silly to me. Those tickets should basically be giveaways. This is 2025, what kind of weirdo wants to willingly pay money to sit on the ground to watch minor league baseball?
The Bees have been terrible at promoting the club for years. None of the fun, innovative or wacky promotions that minor-league teams are known for have been done by the Bees – they’ll do vanilla crap like “Princess Night” and call it good. The booze selection sucks because they’re owned by an uber-Mormon local billionaire family who are obsessed with being “family friendly.” It also doesn’t help that the Angels have been trash, do nothing to build up local fans in Utah, and have spent years shuttling their best prospects up ASAP, giving little for the fans to look forward to.
Smith’s Ballpark was a great venue with stunning views of the mountains and a short hop on Trax to downtown or the east side of the city. But the Millers decided the ballpark was the problem and idiotically thought they could recreate a minor league version of the Battery at their weirdo Mormon Stepford planned “new urbanist” community in Daybreak. It was all a real estate scam, with baseball being a secondary objective at best.
If Aramark is a partner, that seems to rule out any chance of generating money with a bidding war selling concession rights.
Right, there’s a concessions contract that goes along with this: $175m/20 years. I’m not sure how that compares to market rate for such things.
It’s all about the details- what % of sales is Aramark getting? How protected are their ownership shares of the team?
It’s funny to read players complaints about the A’s & Rays minor league stadiums…because I can’t help but wonder where was the player’s union when it was announced that the A’s & Rays would be playing in minor league stadiums with their lack of player amenities for years! You’d think the union would have balked at million dollar players having to “slum” it again in minor league stadiums.
What option did MLBPA have? They couldn’t have forced the A’s to stay in Oakland or the Rays to play in Miami. There aren’t many empty MLB-quality stadiums. Without veto power, all they can do it make sure the conditions and facilities comply with terms in their labor agreement.
They actually did force them to play on grass in Sacramento. I’m sure after this season they can bring up other issues.
Here is a video of the construction from 2 days ago.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRyZVYx-91A?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=640&h=360]
Neil: Fisher is leasing the land the stadium is going to sit on isn’t he? Is it still owned by CasinoCorp?
I agree that neither Fisher nor Vegas need to be worried about the total lack of progress so far, but I wonder if the land owner isn’t feeling anxious about this.
Their asset is just sitting there unused while Fisher plays with giant construction toys to make it look like he is actually doing something.
They may not have expected a tremendous windfall/spinoff, but I’m sure they didn’t expect a ten year planning phase and maybe nothing built at all in the end.
Yes Fisher is leasing the land from a casino REIT that was spun off from Penn National Gaming. Fisher has been trying multiple schemes here in Vegas to try and raise money. None of them has worked. The first one was selling stakes in some company called StadCo. Once it came to light StadCo is nothing more than a management company that scheme fell apart. The next scheme was selling stakes in a development company. Of course that wasn’t going to work because the value of said company would be nil once the development is completed. The over-valuation of the team itself is the latest scheme. Fisher thinks the franchise will skyrocket in value like the Raiders did, not realizing the NFL is unique insomuch a town will barely 100k people (Green Bay) can be worth billions.
No one wants the A’s. We wouldn’t mind having a baseball team, but prefer it to be homegrown and not a transplant, especially when the owner is broke. Furthermore, if the Orioles sold for $1.7 billion and the Twins have yet to be sold for the same amount while residing in a much larger media market and an established fan base and pretty modern ballpark; how in the hell is Fisher think he’s going to sell stakes with a valuation of $2 billion? The A’s have no home.
Penn Gaming doesn’t care if the A’s are on the land or not. They will just expand their development efforts to include all 35 acres instead of 26. The land will be developed with or without Fisher.
Las Vegas Athletics??? Are you serious??? Let the taxpayers decide!!!
Well, looks like Fisher’s going to try to raise money by selling a controlling stake in his MLS team, the San Jose Earthquakes.
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2025/06/17/john-fisher-is-trying-to-sell-his-team-the-san-jose-earthquakes/?share=lontsys5sesnethsrjtm
There must be a rule against it somewhere, but I’m surprised that MLB hasn’t gone into the crypto scheme yet. Seems like a real money maker given fan loyalties. Heck, even the president has given up real estate development for crypto schemes.
I attended a Sacramento Rivercat game a few weeks ago and was astonished at the public address system they’ve installed. They had the volume set at “profoundly deaf.” It was crazy loud. The seat attendants reported that the PA was recently installed and were also complaining about it. I listened to the radio broadcast of the Giants visiting Sacramento on July 4th and I could hear the blasting PA in the background. I’ve been to a lot of loud MLB parks, but Sacramento was the worst by far. Not going to any more of those games.