By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
Good grief, reading the zany public comments about Oakland and Las Vegas and a proposed baseball park last week was the literary equivalent of watching a Little League home run after the batter hit a three-hop ground ball to the shortstop.
It all began with Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf chatting about environmental issues on the Oakland Athletics’ proposed ballpark in her city and she thought she was cracking a joke when she threw in a reference about the “gross desert” of Las Vegas.
Well, Las Vegas didn’t think much of the comment said in jest, with Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman firing back on Twitter, offering to take Schaaf to a Las Vegas Raiders game: ouch! And Clark County Commissioner Michael Naft chimed in on Twitter: “this ignorant and elitist comment may be one reason why so many people, companies, and teams want to get the heck out of your jurisdiction.
All this because the Oakland Athletics say they are looking at Las Vegas as a potential home — even though not a single elected official from Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak to any Clark Count Commissioners has publicly backed public dollars for an Athletics ballpark here in Las Vegas.
Sisolak loves sports. It was a common sight for Sisolak to don Raiders and Golden Knights jerseys when he was Clark County Commission chairman and then governor.
Sisolak enjoyed telling people he has more sports venue groundbreaking shovels than Home Depot and he was 100 percent behind the public’s $750 million contribution to building the NFL stadium for the Las Vegas Raiders.
But Sisolak has never publicly said he backs public money for an Oakland Athletics baseball park in Las Vegas and neither has anyone on the Clark County Commission.
Here’s Sisolak’s statement:
Governor Sisolak knows the great economic opportunity offered to Nevada by bringing in more professional sports franchises. And there’s no better city than Las Vegas for sporting events – as evidenced by the great success of the Vegas Golden Knights, the Las Vegas Raiders and the recent announcement regarding the Formula One Las Vegas Grand Prix.
The Governor has been clear from the start that he would not consider a room tax package for this potential move, and that has not been an issue in his conversations with the Commissioner or the Athletics leadership. The Governor and his team will continue to pursue bringing business opportunities to Nevada to further cement our status as the sports and entertainment capital of the world. — Gov. Steve Sisolak’s office statement
If the Athletics want to come to Las Vegas to play, they can pick a site and build their own privately-funded $1 billion retractable roof baseball park. When is not giving public money for a sports venue equal to “blocking” a sports venue?
It’s downright bizarre that because Sisolak has not designated public money for an MLB ballpark, a newspaper account from New York said he might be blocking the Athletics ballyard in Las Vegas. Sisolak isn’t blocking anything. Since when are governments required to hand over free money to billionaire team owners to build palatial sports venues?
News flash to the Oakland Athletics: metro Las Vegas hitched its wagon carrying $750 million in public dollars to the Las Vegas Raiders for an NFL stadium that is also driving tourist traffic to Las Vegas thanks to live music performances at the domed, 62,000-seat stadium run by the Raiders.
Sorry Athletics, the public till for stadiums is empty because Las Vegas has married the Raiders and metro Vegas is not looking for a threesome.
There is a pretty rendering for a new Oakland Athletics ballpark in Oakland.
Go finish your job with negotiating with the city of Oakland.
Las Vegas is a growing market of 2.3 million — good for 27th in population size in the United States.
As of now, it’s probably too small to sell out 81 Athletics home games in this market, though fans would clamor to watch the Yankees, Dodgers or Cubs if they came to Las Vegas. But what happens when the Rays, Marlins or Brewers come to town during a three-game set during the week?
If you’re a baseball fan in metro Las Vegas, you have a gorgeous Triple-A baseball park with free parking in Summerlin. The LVCVA public tourism agency gave Howard Hughes gave $80 million in public money for that ballpark in the form of a naming rights deal. In effect, it functioned as public subsidy — whoever heard of a minor league baseball park getting an $80 million naming rights deal? That covered more than half of the $150 million construction bill for the 10,000-seat ballyard in Downtown Summerlin.
Let’s stop the Twitter feuds, Oakland and Las Vegas, and sorry Athletics, metro Las Vegas doesn’t have free money right now for sports venues.
PSA