On Wednesday, a day after Athletics fans rallied at the Oakland Coliseum for a long-planned reverse boycott of the team’s ownership and plans to relocate the team out of the city, the Nevada state legislature approved a bill that would open the public Would provide funds for a stadium major league ballpark on the Las Vegas Strip.
The bill, which would provide up to $380 million in funding for a stadium, passed the state Senate on Tuesday and the state assembly on Wednesday. After the Senate approved an assembly amendment, the next step was to send the bill to Gov. Joe Lombardo for signature. With his approval, the A’s will have cleared their biggest hurdle yet when trying to leave the Coliseum, the run-down multi-purpose stadium in Oakland, California, which they’ve called home since 1968.
The A’s, who have been unhappy with their stadium situations in three different cities over the franchise’s 123-year history, hope to use the incentives provided in the bill to help them build a $1.5 billion stadium on the site of the Tropicana Las Vegas to help casino and hotel.
Once funding is secured, the A’s will seek approval from the other 29 MLB owners for a move — a process Commissioner Rob Manfred said could happen quickly when asked about it last month. In the past, Manfred has cited finding new stadiums for the A’s and the Tampa Bay Rays as priorities for the league, as expanding beyond 30 teams cannot be considered until those clubs are determined.
The A’s, whose roster has been stripped of all recognizable players in recent seasons, were expected to do terribly this year. They spent more than two months breaking the Mets’ modern-era record for single-season losses, set in 1962. However, their game has improved: On Tuesday night they won their seventh straight game and second straight against the Rays, baseball’s best team, defeating them 2-1.
It was a rare sight that the Colosseum, which averaged 8,555 fans per game on Tuesday, was packed with a season-best 27,759 spectators, many of whom wore green T-shirts with the words “Sell” on their chests as part of protest. The fans, believing they are being unfairly blamed for the team’s viewing difficulties, came back for an evening to prove they’re still around and would return to the games if team owner John Fisher sold the team .
“I’ve only been to one game this year,” Scott Finney, a Sacramento resident, told The Associated Press. “I saw this game and I knew I had to come because I knew it was going to be very monumental and it was going to send a message to the owner that that’s what the fan base wants.” They want that owner sold the team so they could stay in Oakland.”
But after Nevada approved public funds for a new stadium, hopes of building a new park in Oakland, at Howard Terminal or elsewhere have most likely faded, even as the City of Oakland has worked to keep the door open.
While Tuesday was deliberately chosen for the Colosseum protest to make it clear that fans would also come to an everyday midweek game against a visiting side not known for attracting fans, it ultimately fell with the special session of the legislature of Nevada, who was called up by Lombardo, has to settle the stadium bill after the regular session on June 5 was adjourned.
The team’s questioning has been intense at times over the past two weeks as the state Senate and Assembly, both controlled by Democrats, attempted to finalize the details of a deal brokered with help from the state’s Republican governor. The plan calls for the A’s to commit $1.1 billion to development while agreeing to certain stipulations about how the team will interact with the community and how revenue will be generated and distributed in the years to come.
The Senate added two amendments to the bill ahead of Tuesday’s vote that banned the Tropicana as a venue and incorporated language from other bills previously vetoed by Lombardo regarding wage laws and family leave. The assembly on Wednesday added an amendment that increases the community contributions the team must make each year and changes some wording in other parts of the bill.
“I assure every Nevada resident, including those of you who have concerns about this bill — I assure you, if you see where the bill began and where it is now, there is not a single Nevada resident who would not say that this bill was much better,” State Senator Edgar Flores, a Democrat, told reporters Tuesday as he discussed the changes added by the Senate.
Whilst A’s representatives have not provided any details as to how their portion of the funding would come about, they consistently take the line that the project will create jobs and tax revenue for the state while allowing major events to be held at the venue in excess of the 81 Every year the A’s play their regular season home games there.
Several issues related to the Nevada project remain to be resolved, including whether the stadium poses problems for the Federal Aviation Administration due to its proximity to Harry Reid International Airport. And lawsuits could potentially delay the deal, too. But all indications from the team and the state are that the stadium could be ready for the 2027 season with a retractable roof and easy access to some of Las Vegas’ most famous casinos. The team’s lease at the Oakland Coliseum runs through the 2024 season, leaving two seasons when the A’s may need a temporary home.
The team and the league commissioner have suggested that the Las Vegas Ballpark, home of the Class AAA Aviators – the Athletics’ top minor league affiliate – could be the solution. The venue, which can seat around 9,000 fans, would most likely need some upgrades to host MLB games, similar to the process the Toronto Blue Jays went through when they renovated their AAA-class ballpark in Buffalo to include on their trip to Canada for major league games has been restricted by the coronavirus pandemic.
Should the A’s leave Oakland, the city would have lost all of its major professional sports franchises over the course of a few years, with the NFL Raiders moving to Las Vegas and the NBA’s Golden State Warriors moving to San Francisco.
At least on Tuesday, the fans of A did not leave the stadium calmly.