Las Vegas’ Latest Visitors: Athletics And Their Fans At Las Vegas Ballpark For Big League Weekend Games; Stadium Construction On Strip Moving Along
ADVERTISEMENTS
ADVERTISEMENTS
Story by Alan Snel Photos by Hugh Byrne
Las Vegas, Nevada — When you first heard the words, “The A’s are building a baseball stadium on the Strip,” the thought did come off initially at both whimsical and bizarre.
But then when you start thinking about it, the stuff that happens in Las Vegas just does not happen in other U.S. cities.
Lifelong resident and Las Vegas consultant Jeremy Aguero of Applied Analysis, who is a consultant for the A’s, said the same thing was said about other Strip projects from MGM Grand to the Bellagio — that it couldn’t be done.
But Vegas and the Strip simply march to a different planning drummer and a different economic model than most markets.
The A’s are already about nine months into a 31-month stadium construction project, shoehorning a 33,000-fan ballpark on nine acres at a 35-acre site at the southeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue where the former Tropicana hotel-casino used to stand. The $2 billion domed stadium is rising out of the Tropicana dust and has already been used as a backdrop for photo opps for the contract extension signings of A’s players Jacob Wilson and Tyler Soderstrom.
The A’s are planting roots in Las Vegas these days, with the historic American League franchise releasing news about a swanky restaurant to be developed behind home plate for premium seat season ticketholders and advising fans to visit its new welcome center in the UnCommons business development off the 215 beltway in the southwest valley if they want to buy season tickets.
And team was in full Las Vegas mode Saturday when the A’s prepared to play the Angels in the first of two Big League Weekend spring training games at the Aviators’ Las Vegas Ballpark in Downtown Summerlin.
A’s radio broadcaster Ken Korach, who lives in the Las Vegas, remembered when 13,000 fans packed Cashman Field in downtown Las Vegas where the Cubs and White Sox played a Big League Weekend game in March 1993.
A’s team president Marc Badain was on the scene.
He’s in the unique position of opening two major league sports stadiums in the same market — the Raiders stadium here in 2020 and the A’s stadium in 2028.
In theis photo, he’s woth A’s assistant GM Billy Owens, who has spent more than a quarter-centuy with the A’s.
PSA
