Nevada Governor Plays Money Ball With Public Assistance For MLB Team: Lombardo Signs Bill For $380 Million Subsidy For Athletics Ballpark In Las Vegas Amid VGK Stanley Cup Title Mania
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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
It’s official. Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo Thursday signed a bill into law that pours nearly $400 million of public aid into the construction of a big league stadium on the Strip in Las Vegas.
Athletics said thanks in this press release.
While Vegas Golden Knights Stanley Cup euphoria washed across Las Vegas, the Nevada Legislature this week voted to authorize $380 million in government assistance for the new MLB Athletics baseball stadium at Tropicana Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard.
On Tuesday before the Golden Knights demolished the Florida Panthers, 9-3, to claim the NHL championship, the Nevada Senate voted, 13-8, to approve Senate Bill 1, which designated the $380 million public subsidy to help build a $1.5 billion, 30,000-seat ballpark at the Tropicana hotel site.
On Wednesday before LVSportsBiz.com broke news about the VGK championship parade on the Strip at 7PM Saturday, the Nevada Assembly voted, 25-15, with two absent, to approve S.B. 1 and cap a stunning and lightning-fast stadium subsidy legislative process that highlighted new heights in naivete among state lawmakers.
“It’s disappointing that another billionaire owner has hoodwinked another community into spending taxpayer dollars to build his private castle,” former Athletics executive and Las Vegas resident Steve Pastorino told LVSportsBiz.com Thursday.
“I love baseball but I would rather my taxpayer dollars go towards public education, community health, roads, safety, food insecurity etc.,” Pastorino said. “It’s devastating for Oakland. The marketing campaign #rootedinOakland was just another lie from a disingenuous ownership group.”
Las Vegas locals wanted an expansion team in a privately-funded baseball park. There was overwhelming opposition among locals to subsidizing a stadium on the Strip to the tune of $380 million for a relocated ballclub, but Nevada lawmakers responded to unions, trades and chamber leaders who focused on stadium construction jobs.
The Athletics did not have much to say after Nevada’s two legislative houses greenlighted $380 million in government aid except to issue a three sentence media release that mentioned neither Las Vegas locals nor their fans in Oakland.
Assuming MLB approves the A’s relocation to Las Vegas, this would be the smallest market in the U.S. to have three of the four big major leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL). It would also be the smallest TV market in Major League Baseball.
The contrast between the A’s — owned by Gap retail store empire heir John Fisher — and the Vegas Golden Knights, a homegrown team owned by universally-loved owner Bill Foley, is startling.
Foley owns 15 percent of privately-built T-Mobile Arena, which is a short 10-minute walk from the Athletics’ proposed ballpark site at Tropicana Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard on the Strip. The arena was originally built by MGM Resorts International and AEG (which, ironically, owns the NHL LA Kings.)
The Golden Knights created a love affair between city and team by being #VegasBorn, the hashtag mantra that explains the team’s revenue-generating success and packed crowds. But the Athletics have focused on the ballpark’s tourism impacts in Las Vegas, with their consultant, Jeremy Aguero, explaining that 40 million annual visitors to Las Vegas set this market apart from others and justify the public stadium subsidy.
The Athletics would be the second Oakland franchise to land in Las Vegas after Raiders owner Mark Davis moved the NFL Raiders from the Coliseum in Oakland to Sin City in 2020.
Davis tried to warn Las Vegas and the media about Fisher and the Athletics. The two teams did not get along well as co-tenants at the Coliseum.
But Davis has planted strong roots in Las Vegas. While the 2016 state legislation designated $750 million in public money for construction of a Raiders stadium in Las Vegas, Davis has bought the WNBA Las Vegas Aces and invested millions of dollars in building an Aces training center next to the Raiders headquarters in Henderson.
You could not find two more contrasting owners in Fisher and Davis. Fisher is rarely seen in public, while Davis sits courtside at Aces games and talks with anyone who approaches the Raiders/Aces owner. Here is Davis with fans at Sunday’s Aces game.
The Athletics’ $380 million gift from the state of Nevada has not received the level of local media attention you would expect this week because of VGK mania sweeping through Las Vegas.
On the day the Nevada Assembly approved the A’s stadium subsidy Wednesday, Las Vegas people were more concerned about finding out the time of the Golden Knights victory parade after VGK won 16 of 22 playoff games.
Major League Baseball still has to approve the A’s re-location to Las Vegas. The franchise wants to start playing in the new stadium on the Strip in 2028.
While a new baseball stadium is being built in Las Vegas, the A’s will likely play their games at their Triple-A team’s ballpark in Summerlin.
The funny thing about 10,000-seat Las Vegas Ballpark is the public LVCVA tourism agency gave $80 million in public dollars to Howard Hughes Corp. for a naming rights deal at a minor league ballpark that draws locals, not tourists. Summerlin’s master developer, Howard Hughes owns the Aviators.
When the Athletics play at Las Vegas Ballpark during the A’s stadium construction on the Strip, they will draw out-of-market fans traveling to see their favorite MLB teams play the A’s. And Las Vegas Ballpark will actually draw tourists while the A’s play there.
News of the Athletics stadium subsidy approval came this week when Oak View Group CEO Tim Lieweke Thursday discussed plans for a privately-funded NBA arena as part of a $10 billion casino-hotel-arena project at Las Vegas Boulevard and Blue Diamond Road, about two miles south of the A’s stadium site.
It was interesting to see the social media responses that focused on the “no public funding” part of Lieweke’s comments at today’s Vegas Perspective event put on by the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance at the M resort.
The Athletics’ move to Las Vegas would be only the third franchise relocation in more than a half century in MLB. The Washington Senators moved to Texas in 1972 and became the Rangers. Then in 2005, the Montreal Expos moved to Washington, D.C. and became the Washington Nationals.
The A’s have already moved three times. They called Philadelphia home until 1954 before moving to Kansas City for 13 years and to Oakland in 1968. The team has an intense, loyal and expressive fan base that matches the underdog persona of a ballclub that made the term, “Moneyball,” famous. The A’s now rely on a league-low $58 million payroll.
