The Oakland A’s have agreed to purchase land for a Las Vegas ballpark, the club said in a statement released overnight Wednesday evening, and the team’s move to Las Vegas now appears imminent.
“We realize this is a difficult day for our Oakland fans and community,” the statement read in part.
The A’s intend to pay for a new $1.5 billion, 30,000 seat ballpark with a partial dome on the land, located just north of Allegiant Stadium, where the NFL’s Raiders play. Considering governmental processes and a construction timeline, the A’s probably won’t be able to relocate for at least three years.
They have a year left after this one on their lease at the Oakland Coliseum, which opened in 1966 and has never been upgraded for baseball.
The 49-acre parcel in Las Vegas is owned by Red Rock Resorts, parent company of Station Casinos, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. The A’s also have rights to purchase another eight acres and build an ancillary entertainment complex.
The A’s had been trying for a number of years to build a ballpark and entertainment complex at the Howard Terminal, a shipping yard west of downtown Oakland on the waterfront. The ball club went through the process of acquiring a myriad number of permits, filing environmental reports and obtaining approval of local agencies, but did not come to terms on a deal with the Oakland City Council.
Dave Kaval, the team’s president, has often said the franchise is on dual tracks, exploring deals in both Oakland and Vegas. Oakland mayor Sheng Thao said in a statement that those negotiations are now over.
“In the last three months, we’ve made significant strides to close the deal,” Thao, who just took over in January as mayor, said. “Yet, it is clear to me the A’s have no intention of staying in Oakland and have been simply using the process to try to extract a better deal out of Las Vegas.
“I’m not interested in continuing to play that game—the fans and our residents deserve better.”
The A’s have had the worst home attendance in Major League Baseball for the last season-plus. Last year, they averaged 9,973 for 79 home games, 787,902 total. Thus far for 11 home games this season they are averaging 10,926 for a total of 120,196. In comparison, the Dodgers have already drawn 549,031 for 11 games at Dodger Stadium, an average of 49,911. Both figures lead the league.
Sportico recently valued the A’s at $1.31 billion with 2022 gross revenues of $205 million, last in the league.
Commissioner Rob Manfred said last December at the Winter Meeting the A’s had a deadline of January 15, 2024, to make a deal. That date is tied to a clause in the new Basic Agreement, which would have effectively ended revenue sharing for the A’s had they failed to make a new ballpark decision by then.
He also said the A’s would not be assessed a relocation fee if they had to move.
“We support the A’s turning their focus on Las Vegas and look forward to them bringing finality to this process by the end of the year,” Manfred said in a statement provided to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
With the A’s leaving, Oakland will have now lost franchises in all of the top four north American sports leagues: The NFL’s Raiders left for Los Angeles then moved to Las Vegas in 2020; the NBA’s Warriors moved to San Francisco in 2019; and the NHL Golden Seals departed for Cleveland in 1976 before ceasing operation in 1978.
MLB has not had a franchise relocate since the Expos left Montreal for Washington, D.C., in 2004 and were rechristened as the Nationals.
The A’s have had a long history of movement; the team relocated from Philadelphia to Kansas City in 1955, then to Oakland in 1968. Since then, they’ve shared the San Francisco Bay Area with the Giants, who will now have the 10th largest media market in the country all to themselves. Las Vegas is the 40th.
Since John Fisher purchased the A’s in 2005, they have sought a new ballpark in Fremont, San Jose and now the Howard Terminal. That process is now seemingly at the end.
“The process to build a new ballpark in Oakland has made little forward progress for some time,” the club’s statement said. “We recognize that this is very hard to hear.”