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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher/Writer
Not a single person is standing in the way of the Oakland Athletics moving to Las Vegas and building a baseball park. In fact, any other businesses have moved from California to Las Vegas to open shop.
But if the Major League Baseball franchise wants free public money from the state of Nevada or Clark County to help fund a new billion-dollar domed stadium, the Athletics will be running into a wall.
Southern Nevada may have contributed $750 million toward building the domed stadium controlled by the NFL Las Vegas Raiders, but new Gov. Joe Lombardo has been clear about his policy regarding the state help finance a new MLB venue for the Athletics.
No new taxes will be created by the state to help build an Athletics stadium, but the Oakland franchise is welcome to apply for any current state economic incentives and financial programs available to any other business looking to re-locate in Nevada.
The Raiders just completed its third season at Allegiant Stadium after playing at the same stadium currently used by the Athletics.
The Athletics are negotiating with the city of Oakland for a proposed baseball park on that city’s waterfront. The billion-dollar ballpark would be part of a $12 billion redevelopment project, with the A’s looking for the city of Oakland to help with infrastructure costs.
The A’s have tried to make relationships in Southern Nevada to gauge the public support for public money to help build a ballpark in the Las Vegas market.
The team’s president, Dave Kaval, announced he was in Las Vegas in a strange way two years ago– by tweeting from a Vegas Golden Knights playoff game in 2021.
Kaval — at one time — was chatty with the Las Vegas media about the Athletics’ interest in the Vegas market. LVSportsBiz.com talked with Kaval in 2021.
Not so lately, though.
Interesting enough, the Oakland Athletics’ Triple-A baseball team, the Las Vegas Aviators, received an $80 million government payment from the local Las Vegas tourism agency in the form of a naming rights deal that was approved by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) on Oct. 10, 2017.
The LVCVA board approved the $80 million payment to Howard Hughes Corporation, the master developer of the Summerlin area and owner of the Aviators. Howard Hughes Corp. used the $80 million to help build its $150 million minor league ballpark in its Downtown Summerlin shopping area.
After saying they looked at 30 potential locations in the Las Vegas market, the A’s have locked in a proposed ballpark site in Las Vegas — the Tropicana hotel-casino at Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue on the Strip.
The A’s have not explained how they plan to build a ballpark at one of the busiest intersections in Las Vegas.
The MLB Athletics have a much different economic reach than the NFL Raiders — a fact that will likely undermine their effort to get a ballpark built in Las Vegas.
The Athletics are very much a regional team in the Bay area in California, while the Raiders games are literally tourist events in Las Vegas where half the stadium at Raiders home games are filled with fans from outside the market and from cities of the opposing teams. The Raiders have a national reach and draw many fans from both Southern and Northern California.
While the Las Vegas market is 2.3 million people and growing, it’s unlikely the Athletics could sell out 81 regular season home dates. All Golden Knights and Raiders home games in Las Vegas are sellouts, with their average ticket prices being in the top five in their respective 32-team leagues. Plus, the Raiders stadium has been used as a venue for non-Raiders games by major concerts and the WWE, drawing events that would have otherwise passed over Las Vegas.
David Carter, founder of the Sports Business Group and adjunct professor of management and organization at USC Marshall School of Business, said public officials must assess how many new events besides MLB games would be created in Las Vegas if public dollars are involved in an Athletics baseball park.
“A large part of the rationale, at least in principle, behind allocating public funds surrounds the true/honest economic impact of doing do. When considering it, public officials need to accurately assess just how many events, beyond baseball games, will take place – and the extent to which these are new events rather than merely events that have moved from one local venue to another,” Carter told LVSportsBiz.com
“For example, will having a baseball team lead to increased gambling and sports tourism in a similar manner as was anticipated with the Raiders – or is such spending just transferred from one team to another? Might having taxpayer dollars allocated to a new NBA arena be a preferred – when and by whom,?” he asked.
“Absent public money, the deal will certainly be far less attractive for the A’s – but that doesn’t necessarily mean they would remain in Oakland as other cities may choose to court them believing their R.O.I. is sufficient,” Carter said.
There are other cities that have been mentioned as potential homes for MLB teams. Nashville, Tennessee and Portland, Oregon are often mentioned.
There’s also another MLB team with ballpark issues — the Tampa Bay Rays, which are playing St. Petersburg vs Tampa for a new ballpark in that market after Major League Baseball canned a Rays idea of playing half their home games in St. Petersburg and half in Montreal.
The Athletics will be in Las Vegas very soon. The team plays two spring training exhibition games against the Cincinnati Reds at Las Vegas Ballpark (the A’s Triple-A team’s ballyard) on March 4 and 5. Without public money to build a ballpark in Las Vegas, the Athletics may have to be content with preseason games at the Triple-A ballpark in Summerlin.