Question of the Day - 18 October 2022

Although the Athletics are contracted to play in the current stadium through 2024, anything but an immediate decision on a new stadium is practically guaranteed to render them homeless.

The A’s and the City of Oakland needed to reach an agreement by the end of September, according to Oakland City Administrator Ed Reiskin. That deadline has come and gone and no pact has been inked. The grand scheme was for a $1 billion waterfront stadium for the A’s to be part of a larger integrated $12 billion development. 

That development is stymied in the Oakland City Council, which means that necessary site reviews that would have been done between October and early December cannot be carried out. Also, Mayor Libby Schaaf is term-limited out of office and November’s elections could produce a City Council shakeup. So the A’s will likely be dealing with a new lineup of political players, with unknown consequences. 

At this point, negotiations are expected to creep forward into next year, but there's no telling when the A’s patience will run out. Team President Rob Kaval has said that talks beyond this year would “doom our efforts in Oakland.” The current party line is that “negotiations on the proposed development are active and positive,” which sounds good for Oakland, but is rife with wiggle room.

Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred has made no secret of his desire to move the A’s to Las Vegas and has been trying to scupper talks in Oakland for years. Nor has A’s ownership been exactly shy about courting Sin City. Top brass have made frequent visits to the Las Vegas Valley to assay possible sites. As for this moment, it has narrowed down to two: the former Rock in Rio festival grounds at Sahara Avenue and the Strip and the acreage currently occupied by the Tropicana.

A not-inconsiderable “but” is who will foot the bill for the billion-dollar ballpark. Circus Circus owner Phil Ruffin, who owns the Sahara Avenue site, has deep pockets, possibly deeper than those of Bally’s Corp, which now owns the Trop. The latter is already into Chicago for $1.7 billion for a casino megaresort in the Windy City and has made it clear that any redevelopment of the Trop site would have to be done with a joint-venture partner. That's a fancy way of saying that Bally’s doesn’t have the dough.

So the A’s will have to put a considerable amount of skin in the game if they go with Bally’s, possibly less so if they partner with Ruffin. A taxpayer subsidy is off the table … at least pending the outcome of Nevada’s elections.