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Story by Alan Snel Photos by Hugh Byrne
A 26-year-old second baseman for the Oakland Athletics by the name of Ernie Clement leaned over the dugout’s protective screen and glanced at the green baseball field that spread out in front of him at Las Vegas Ballpark in Summerlin Saturday morning.
It sure was a beautiful baseball field, observed Clement, trying to make the Athletics regular-season roster. He and the rest of the spring training A’s were in town playing the Cincinnati Reds during day one of the two-day Big League Weekend when major league teams visit Las Vegas for spring training games.
But this was no routine spring training game.
Not only were the Athletics playing at the home field of their Triple-A affiliate, the Las Vegas Aviators, their billionaire owner, John Fisher, was at the ballpark in the Aviators suite with Aviators president Don “Donnie Baseball” Logan.
This $150 million baseball venue owned by Howard Hughes Corporation, the Summerlin master developer that owns the Aviators, was paid for thanks to $80 million in public dollars. Las Vegas’ local public tourism agency, the LVCVA (Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority), gave $80 million in public tourism dollars to Howard Hughes in the form of a 20-year ballpark naming rights deal to pay for more than half of the 10,000-fan, 22-suite, one-pool ballpark in Downtown Summerlin.
While Fisher has a waterfront baseball park proposal in front of the Oakland City Council, he’s also working the Las Vegas angle to see if the state of Nevada or any public agency would provide public money to help him build a $1 billion, domed ballpark at one of three sites along the Strip Corridor at the festival grounds across from the Sahara, the Tropicana or the Rio.
LVSportsBiz.com tried to approach the Aviators suite to ask about the Athletics stadium subsidy, but two team workers refused to give us media access.
Clark County Commissioner Jim Gibson, who bounced the first pitch across home plate before the A’s-Reds preseason game, said he plans to follow Gov. Joe Lombardo’s lead on the state not creating new taxes to help fund a new Athletics ballpark in Las Vegas.
“Governor Lombardo make it pretty clear,” Gibson told LVSportsBiz.com before the A’s spring game.
But Lombardo also made it clear that the Athletics are free to explore the state’s current economic development options.
And don’t forget — the Athletics have enlisted lobbyists to work Carson City in an effort to find free public money to help build a ballpark in Las Vegas.
One man who thinks the Athletics have a good crack at moving to Las Vegas is former Clark County Commissioner Larry Brown, a very pro-sports advocate who works as the Aviators director of business development/public relations.
Brown said there are always options like tax districts, and he noted if Las Vegas wants to have Major League Baseball, the A’s will be here.
As Brown put it, “We’re Las Vegas.”
While the NFL Raiders had powerful Strip multi-billionaire tycoons like Sheldon Adelson running political interference and paying for lobbyists to push through a $750 million Raiders stadium construction subsidy, there’s no powerful leaders in Las Vegas speaking out for a subsidized MLB ballpark. In fact, there’s no even a grassroots movement for MLB in Las Vegas or even a business advocacy group that has spoken out for a ballpark subsidy.
The Athletics won only 60 of 162 games in 2022, finishing 46 games behind the division-leading Houston Astros.
If the A’s want to move to Las Vegas, nobody is stopping them. But if they want free government money to help build a ballpark in Las Vegas, that might be harder than finishing ahead of the World Series-winning Astros in 2023.
And for those keeping score, the Reds defeated the Athletics, 10-9, in the spring game, with attendance announced at 8,805. The two teams play again at 1 PM Sunday.