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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher/Writer
Dear Oakland Athletics,
You want to come to Las Vegas?
Sure, go for it.
Come on over.
Though, you won’t get a big hug from Mark Davis, your old stadium roommate who still doesn’t like you from his coliseum days in Oakland.
You won’t get free public money to help build your billion-dollar retractable roof ballpark like the Raiders did. The new governor said so. (Besides, the Raiders got it all.)
And remind us where you’re building your ballpark again? Is the Tropicana site? The Rio location? Or is the festival land across from the Sahara? Oh, that’s right. You’re still working on it.
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Nobody is trying to stop you from moving from Oakland to Las Vegas. Even the Lord of MLB himself, Commish Rob Manfred, said if your boss, John Fisher, wants to move to Las Vegas, yeah, sure, go right ahead and there won’t be any MLB moving fees.
If you want to build your ballpark here in Vegas with your own money and maybe get some tax breaks or incentives just like any other company moving from California, knock yourself out.
It seems like you were getting your team ready last year for a move by slashing your player payroll to $50.2 million (after it was $103 million in 2019), which might explain why the Athletics lost 102 games and drew a measly 787,902 fans, or 9,849/game in 2022. It’s OK, you can admit it — you tanked to make it easier to move to Las Vegas if you didn’t get the infrastructure costs for your Oakland ballpark proposal. It’s sad. You drew more than 2 million fans in 2014 and made the playoffs six times between 2012-20.
So, let’s say you do move to Las Vegas. You’ll easily outdraw your 2022 Oakland attendance numbers out of the sheer novelty act of it all. The honeymoon might last a few years and you will compete against your own Triple-A team in Summerlin. Thing is, Las Vegas (tourism agency LVCVA) already invested $80 million in the Aviators’ snazzy ballpark owned Summerlin master developer Howard Hughes Corporation.
The fact is your team is not one of the nation’s glamor, brand-name MLB teams like the Yankees, Dodgers or Cardinals. And the Las Vegas market is balkanized in terms of followers of other teams like the Padres, Angels, Giants, Dodgers, Yankees, Phillies and Astros. Good luck getting your fans from Oakland to travel here for some of the 81 home games, which are far too many for Vegas’ 2.3 million-person market. Raiders football games are tourist attractions that sell out. Athletics games would be novel oddities attended by your foes’ fans.
You’ll be joining a crowded field of teams here in Las Vegas. You’ll remind me of the Marlins in South Florida, where there are also a lot of big-league teams that compete against a lot of entertainment options. The Marlins have a gorgeous ballpark in Miami and they drew a whopping 907,487 fans in 2022 — good for 15th place in the 15-team National League.
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Time is working against you,
You’ve played at the Coliseum since 1968 and your 10-year lease expires in 2024. I get it. It’s a baseball park in name only because it’s not the palatial baseball playgrounds you see in San Diego, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Denver or Atlanta. The Tampa Bay Rays’ domed stadium in St. Petersburg, Florida rivals the Coliseum for worst MLB venue.
Your proposed 35,000-seat open-air ballpark proposal for the Howard Terminal waterfront is still kicking around. Oakland’s new mayor, Sheng Thao, said she’d like you to stick around.
So, it’s the Howard Terminal ballpark site vs unknown Las Vegas site. Here’s one fella’s look at it all:
Hire all the lobbyists you want in Las Vegas.
The public dollars have dried up for stadiums. I’m not sure they could squeeze free money for your ballpark.
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And good luck carving out a local fan base here. As the Raiders and, to a lesser degree, the Golden Knights have learned they can fill seats selling tickets to opponents’ fans and visitors.
Sports consultants are easily romanced by the 40 million annual visitors to the Vegas market.
The problem for Las Vegas is that the tourist numbers are dependent on a national economy, which falls and rises in a cyclical fashion.
Sure, come to Las Vegas. But tell Mr. Fisher to bring his checkbook.
See you in Summerlin for Big League Weekend in two weeks.