MLB owners approve Athletics’ planned move to Las Vegas, sources say،
ARLINGTON, Texas — Major League Baseball owners voted Thursday to allow the Oakland Athletics to move to Las Vegas, paving the way for the second relocation of a baseball team in the last half-century, they said. sources at ESPN.
The potential move, which comes after more than two decades of failed efforts to get a new stadium in the city to replace the aging Oakland Coliseum, needed the support of three-quarters of the teams at quarterly owners’ meetings. It received unanimous support despite unanswered questions about the team’s short-term future and stadium plans.
A Nevada teachers union’s legal challenges to the $380 million the state has committed to building a $1.5 billion stadium on the Las Vegas Strip could yet derail the project , but getting approval from owners marks a significant step toward Oakland losing its last major tournament. men’s professional sports team.
Before the Montreal Expos moved to Washington in 2005, the last MLB team to move was the Washington Senators, who became the Texas Rangers in 1972. The A’s moved from Kansas City to Oakland in 1968 and won four Series world titles during their 56 seasons. in the city.
After announcing plans in 2021 to pursue a “parallel path” in which it would evaluate stadium deals in Oakland and Las Vegas, the team chose Vegas in April 2023, with commissioner Rob Manfred saying MLB would forgo his moving expenses, estimated at around $300. million.
The reaction from A’s fans was immediate and constant. Chants of “sell the team” directed at owner John Fisher — a Gap heir who bought the franchise in 2005 — served as background noise during most of the worst-scoring A’s home games of 50-112 in MLB in 2023 and had the lowest payroll in the league. More than 27,000 fans showed up in June for a so-called “reverse boycott,” in which they implored Fisher to sell out. In a letter sent to half of MLB’s owners last week, Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao said the city had secured $928 million in funding for a stadium and surrounding development and wanted to keep the ‘team.
The Athletics’ lease with the Oakland Coliseum expires after the 2024 season, and the team has not yet solidified plans for where it will play before the Las Vegas stadium is ready in 2028.
Being away from home for three seasons is far from the only reservation regarding the Athletics transfer. Not only would they leave for a smaller media market, but the team would also remain a revenue-sharing beneficiary, a point of contention in recent years. The new stadium, located on the site of the former Tropicana Hotel, is planned to be built on a 9-acre parcel, which would be one of the smallest in MLB. While the A’s released renderings of a Las Vegas stadium, they did not include a dome or retractable roof, which would be necessary to combat the city’s summer heat. While Las Vegas has long been seen as a candidate for MLB’s inevitable expansion from 30 to 32 teams, leaving behind a market the size of Oakland’s, one owner said this week, “that doesn’t doesn’t make much sense.”
Nonetheless, the vote received wholehearted support after the league’s relocation committee defended it.
Uncertainty over the Athletics’ future had hung over the league since 2001, when the team first sought to build a new stadium. A 2005 attempt to move to nearby Fremont failed, and efforts to get a stadium in San Jose were blocked by the San Francisco Giants, whose territorial rights extend to the southern part of the Bay Area .
Potential plans for a stadium in Oakland have stalled, with the team and league blaming politicians and vice versa. The most promising deal involved a massive reimagining of Howard Terminal in the Port of Oakland, a 55-acre parcel that would have developed 6 million square feet of commercial buildings, residential units and a 35,000-seat stadium. The $12 billion price tag proved too high, however, and Las Vegas — which had already taken the Oakland Raiders in 2020 — rushed to do the same to the A’s.
Obtaining public funding was not easy. The A’s were initially seeking $500 million in public money. On June 14, the Nevada Senate passed a $380 million bill after the A’s agreed to allow use of a suite at the stadium for community groups, promised an annual donation of $1, $5 million to the community and offered resources to help alleviate homelessness in Las Vegas. . Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo signed the bill two days later.
A political action committee, Schools Over Stadiums, is holding a referendum allowing the public to vote on funding for the stadium in November 2024. A judge recently threw out the referendum, saying the wording of the petition submitted by Schools Over Stadiums was ” legally deficient”. The PAC plans to appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court, and if that effort fails, it could file a new petition. If successful, Schools Over Stadiums would need to collect 102,568 signatures – 25,647 from each of Nevada’s four congressional districts – by July to ensure the referendum is placed on the ballot.
Meanwhile, the A’s have yet to finalize plans to build a 33,000-seat stadium in Las Vegas, which would be the smallest in MLB at nearly 2,000 seats, and rely heavily on tourism to fill the stadium. The lack of plans did not deter the owners, nor did objections from supporters groups who pressured them to reject the move.
On Tuesday evening, two days before the vote, three A’s fans wearing T-shirts reading “SELL” sat near Fisher at the restaurant at Live! Near the Loews Hotel where the owners’ meetings were held. As Fisher got up to leave a few minutes later, a fan said, loud enough for Fisher to hear: “Keep the A’s in Oakland. Do the right thing.”
As he walked away, Fisher muttered under his breath, “I’m doing the right thing.”
