Story by Alan Snel Photos by Hugh Byrne
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — One by one they stepped up to the mic to rejoice in the new Major League Baseball A’s stadium on the Strip — from Athletics owner John Fisher, Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred to Congresswoman Dina Titus, Clark County Commissioner Jim Gibson and Nevada Assembly Speaker/sports fan Steve Yeager.
They talked about the journey to build a $1.75 billion fixed-domed baseball stadium, from Fisher meeting Lombardo and Manfred chatting with Yeager and Titus and Gibson enjoying a palatial sports venue in their political districts. LVCVA CEO Steve Hill, who also chairs the Las Vegas Stadium Authority Board and has his LVCVA tourism agency supplying the stadium administrative support, spoke with a gleeful tone. Naturally.
Las Vegas came together Monday morning to celebrate a historic major league franchise that broke the hearts of A’s fans back in Oakland and the Bay area but have already begun putting holes in the ground on a 35-acre site on the Strip at one of the iconic and busiest street corners in the U.S., Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue.
One little truth was missing from the joyful stadium pep rally — Nevada is forking over as much as $380 million in government assistance to the A’s, showing that Las Vegas is content to pay to play when it comes to using precious public resources to help underwrite revenue-generating venues that make hundreds of millions of dollars for team owners and triggers their franchises to see skyrocketing team values. The A’s have said they will use $350 million of the $380 million to help build the swanky $1.75 billion ballyard on the Strip.
Everyone was in a jolly mood and thanking each other, though they just avoided saying specifically what they were thankful for: the $380 million in public assistance that made this stadium groundbreaking happen Monday morning.
After the pomp and event were over, Fisher strolled into a media room where LVSportsBiz.com was the sole person in that area writing this story.
Fisher said Las Vegas showed a can-do attitude to make this baseball stadium happen on the Strip. He pointed to audacious projects like the Sphere as examples that Las Vegas is willing to invest in hosting cutting-edge venue projects.
The only thing he left out was the Sphere was built by MSG with private dollars, while his A’s stadium is getting built on the Strip thanks to government aid.
Teams also benefit greatly when markets come up with public money to help owners build stadiums and sports venues.
Raiders owner Mark Davis knows that best of all, watching his NFL Raiders value skyrocket from $1.4 billion a decade ago in Oakland to more than $7 billion in Las Vegas thanks to a subsidized stadium in the entertainment corridor not too far from the A’s stadium construction site.
This groundbreaking in Las Vegas was a map showing the political relationships that realized the stadium’s public funding. This photo showing Las Vegas consultant Jeremy Aguero and Nevada Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager is a great example.
In 2023 when the Nevada Legislature was considering the Athletics’ stadium subsidy bill, Aguero appeared with LVCVA head Steve Hill before state lawmakers lobbying for the $380 million stadium deal.
Keep in mind Hill was also chairman of the Las Vegas Stadium Authority Board, which reviews stadium plans, while consultant Aguero was paid to provide the stadium board’s administrative support. (When the Athletics stadium SB 1 was passed in Carson City in June 2023, Aguero’s Applied Analysis was still the consultant of record working for the Las Vegas Stadium Authority Board.)
Two years later at today’s A’s stadium groundbreaing, there’s Aguero, who later took a job as an A’s consultant after working for the Las Vegas stadium board, and Yeager, a very big sports fan. Yeager was one of the groundbreaking speakers this morning.
Groundbreakings of this scope in Las Vegas are basically photo-op schmoozefests and these photos bear that out:
And the A’s lined up the Little Leaguers and the kids for a nice PR touch:
The trade unions also love the A’s stadium construction project.
We spoke with Tommy White, business manager-secretry treasurer of Laborers Local 872 in Las Vegas. The man loves pouring concrete and building stadiums. White said he expects more than 1,000 labor union members to be on the A’s construction site.
We also interviewed Ross Edwards, a McCarthy senior VP that is overseeing the construction leadership team of the McCarthy-Mortenson combo that is building A’s stadium. M&M also built the Raiders stadium.
Edwards talked about the challenges of keeping the project on the $1.75 billion budget and getting construction equipment to a site that is on one of Las Vegas’ busiest roads. The stadium is being built on only nine acres of the 35-acre site and Edwards believes the venue can be built on a footprint that small.
The A’s had their expressive and friendly TV broadcaster, Dallas Braden, emcee the groundbreaking. He warned the speakers that baseball is speeding up games thanks to a pitch clock and suggested the speakers keep a pitch clock in mind for their speeches.
Remarkably enough, when the A’s announced they were leaving Oakland for Las Vegas, the team thought it was going to build their stadium at the old Wild Wild West hotel-casino site on Tropicana Avenue on the west side of Interstate 15. The land would have cost in the $250 million range.
But the A’s could not turn down the offer of free land at the former Tropicana hotel-casino site, where Bally’s Corp. is building a new hotel-casino next to the A’s stadium and the site is owned by land invetment company GLPI (Gaming & Leisure Properties, Inc.). Bally’s wants its hotel to open in 2028 when the A’s stadium makes its debut. The A’s, Bally’s and GLPI have a partnership on the land development.
The next meeting of the Las Vegas Stadium Authority Board is Aug. 21 at 3 PM at the LVCVA meeting room at 3150 Paradise Road. Chances are Hill wll open the meeting in two months with pleasant thoughts from Monday’s groundbreaking.
As of Tuesday, the A’s have won 32 games and lost 48, for a winning percentage of 40 percent. They are in last place in their division. The A’s are playing in Sutter Health Park, a Triple-A minor league baseball park in West Sacramento, just over the bridge from the city of Sacramento for the 2025, 2026 and 2027 seasons while their stadium is built in Las Vegas.
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