Marc Badain, the new A’s president back in action at a Las Vegas Stadium Board meeting Thursday March 6, 2025
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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Today is Marc Badain’s second day on the job as new team president for the MLB Athletics, scheduled to stage a media event at the Las Vegas Convention Center Friday before the A’s play spring training games at Las Vegas Ballpark in Downtown Summerlin Saturday and Sunday.
Badain, the former Raiders team president who helmed the NFL team’s efforts to build its stadium in Las Vegas, will have the job of overseeing the monetizing of the A’s new stadium slated to open at the former Tropicana hotel-casino site on the Strip in 2028 after a construction period estimated at 31 months. A ground breaking is supposed to be held in either April, May or June.
It’s unknown whether the A’s will charge personal seat licenses to fans to buy season tickets at the $1.75 billion domed stadium at the southeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue. Badain found personal seat licenses — or PSLs as they are called — to be quite lucrative to help the Raiders fund their share of the stadium construction costs. The PSLs generated an impressive $549 million for the Raiders.
A’s Vice Chairman Sandy Dean said the team is still developing its ticket cost methods and did not rule out PSLs.
The Raiders stadium construction budget was $1.4 billion, the biggest expense of the overall $2 billion stadium project. Southern Nevada contributed $750 million in public dollars toward the construction cost of the Raiders stadium under a 2016 Nevada state bill.
What is known is that the A’s are expected to generate several hundred millions of dollars in stadium founding partnerships — lucrative corporate sponsorships — if the Raiders stadium is a guide.
When reporting on the Raiders trying to sign up the Southern Nevada Water Authority as a founding reporter in 2019, LVSportsBiz.com learned the Raiders stadium founding partner deal was ten years for $30 million. With the Raiders attracting 12 founding sponsors, that’s 12 times $30 million — or $360 million in revenue for a stadium managed and controlled by Raiders owner Mark Davis.
Besides generating revenues from founding partner money and possible PSLs, Badain can also negotiate and sell a naming rights deal for the A’s stadium that can easily add more than $100 million to the MLB Athletics bank account.
These are all stadium money makers for A’s owner John Fisher, who has pledged to spend more than $1 billion on building the A’s stadium in Las Vegas.
The public stadium construction contribution is $380 million under a state bill approved in 2023, slightly more than half of the public’s $750 million toward the Raiders stadium. But Dean, who was representing the MLB team at Las Vegas Stadium Board meetings, said the A’s are on board to use $350 million of the $380 million in public assistance to help build their ballpark on the Strip.
Badain 2.0 in Las Vegas is expected to bring revenue creation associated with the construction and opening of a new stadium here in the Strip corridor. The A’s have already hired Raiders stadium construction builders Mortensen and McCarthy, who worked with Badain on Allegiant Stadium. The band is back together.
The A’s are scheduled to stage a media event Friday at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Steve Hill, the LVCVA public tourism agency CEO, will inevitably be part of the activities.
Hill has been a big backer of using public money for sports stadiums and events in Las Vegas. His role in the A’s stadium public subsidy has the signs of a conflict of interest:
— In 2023, Hill spoke on behalf of the A’s efforts to win a public stadium construction subsidy from the state of Nevada to build the stadium. The state approved the bill.
— Hill chairs the Las Vegas Stadium Board, which reviews the A’s stadium plans.
— Hill also is the CEO of the LVCVA and as stadium board chairman he was able to hire the LVCVA to work as the administrative support consultant for the stadium board. The LVCVA also backs the A’s while LVCVA CEO Hill chairs the public board charged with evaluating the A’s stadium plan on behalf of the public.
— He is good friends with Las Vegas consultant Jeremy Aguero, who has work contracts with both the LVCVA and the A’s and generates economic reports that are used by sports promoters to justify receiving public money and LVCVA sponsorship dollars. Aguero joined Hill in front of the Nevada state legislative committees in 2023 to argue for the A’s stadium construction subsidy.
Hill is looked at as a marketing booster for the hotel company owners on the Strip.
There are two Clark County commissioners who serve on the 14-member LVCVA board, which officially approves Hill’s budget spending requests. The two county commissioners are Jim Gibson and Michael Naft and they have not said a word about Hill’s conflicts of interest.
That’s how Las Vegas rolls in this one-trick pony tourism economy.