Las Vegas’ Latest Visitors: Athletics And Their Fans At Las Vegas Ballpark For Big League Weekend Games; Stadium Construction On Strip Moving Along
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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.
It was a sellout crowd of more than 10,747 on the cool and breezy day in the western suburb of Summerlin.
A’s radio broadcaster Ken Korach, who lives in Henderson, remembered when more than 15,000 fans packed Cashman Field in downtown Las Vegas where the Cubs and White Sox played a Big League Weekend game in March 1993. Korach said some fans watched the game from the warning track, while Harry Caray was there to broadcast the game back to Chicago.
Today, the Angels blanked the A’s, 3-0.
The Athletics have assembled a lineup of young sluggers and hope to develop pitchers to compete for a playoff spot. The A’s say the future revenue-generating powers of the new stadium on the Strip has financially enabled the franchise to sign some of their young talent to extensions.
Last season, the A’s were 22-20 in May when the team went on a horrendous three-week super-slump when they lost 20 of 21 games from May 14 to June 4 and saw their postseason hopes vanish even before the summer started.
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 this photo, he’s with A’s assistant GM Billy Owens, who has spent more than a quarter-century with the A’s.
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