Major League Baseball hopes to be the latest major sports league to enter the Las Vegas market. The Oakland Athletics announced last week that they have agreed to purchase land near the Las Vegas Strip in hopes of building a ballpark by 2027.
The first American League franchise in Philadelphia in 1901 and the fourth home of the A’s, a vagabond club that moved to Kansas City, Missouri in 1955 and Oakland, California in 1968.
Leagues such as the NFL and NHL receive great fanfare (and generous funding) in the Las Vegas market, but baseball struggles to inspire enthusiasm for a project that requires hundreds of millions of dollars in public funding. There is a possibility that Stripped of all recognizable talent, the Athletics entered the action Monday 4-18, winning by an MLB-best 103 runs. It looks like they are facing a loss of 100+ losses for his second straight season.
But commissioner Rob Manfred sat down with a group of sports editors and reporters at MLB’s offices in New York on Monday to discuss issues in the league, including the recent success of the World Baseball Classic and the popularity of baseball’s new rules. There are many reasons why Las Vegas is excited about the team, even though the A’s are struggling.
“I can say John Fischer wants to win and I personally guarantee it,” Manfred said of the Athletics’ main owner. Competitor to Underground Dwellers.
With teams declining on the field and MLB salaries low at $58.2 million this season, attendance at the Oakland Coliseum bottomed out like never before. Fewer than 10,000 fans per home game and this year’s average of 11,025 was inflated by the 26,000 fans who attended on opening day. Many of them came to see his Los Angeles Angels two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani.
Things have gotten so bad that Rooted in Oakland, a fan group dedicated to keeping the A’s in Oakland, turned up in droves for a game on Tuesday in June to give MLB and the franchise a chance to see the team competitive again. If you decide to have one, it will come out in droves. The group is currently trying to: organize a protest This is the A’s first return after a seven-match trip.
Manfred suggested that pieces were in place for the A’s recovery as a team once the stadium issues were resolved.
Commenting on A’s front office, which is headed by General Manager David Forst, Manfred said: His predecessor, Billy Beane, is a special advisor. “We have owners who want to win, and I think Las Vegas offers real revenue growth opportunities.
A appeared to walk away from the spongy and desolate Coliseum several times. A recent endeavor involved working with Auckland to get approval for a new stadium at Howard Terminal. With the team’s land deal announcement in Las Vegas last week, Mayor Shen Tao has publicly withdrawn from talks with the team to stay in Oakland.
“The city has gone above and beyond in our attempt to reach mutually beneficial terms to maintain A in Auckland,” the mayor said in a statement. But it’s clear that A has no intention of staying in Oakland and is simply using this process to try and get a better deal out of Las Vegas.”
Manfred defended Fisher’s attempt to close a deal in California and questioned Oakland’s reaction to the recent news. said it was negotiating exclusively with Oakland, and Fisher claimed to have spent more than $100 million to close the deal. Ability to spend more on payroll.
“I don’t see how you can be accused of negotiating for someone exclusively for seven years and then using him as leverage,” he said. “It doesn’t make much sense to me.”
Manfred admitted there was still “a tree to chop” in terms of completing a deal to relocate the team, saying that both Las Vegas and Oakland have land identified for potential stadiums. pointed out that there is It will no longer negotiate and cities are technically on equal footing.
As for how the A’s will handle the years from now until 2027, even if the Las Vegas stadium deal is approved, Manfred said whether or not the team could share Oracle Park with the San Francisco Giants. He said it was too early to speculate on whether it could. The Las Vegas stadium home to Oakland’s class AAA team, the Aviators. The team’s lease at the Oakland Coliseum ends after the 2024 season.
Manfred said he has yet to attend a game at Aviators Park, which will open in 2019 and seats about 10,000 fans, but plans to visit soon.
Finding a stadium solution for the A’s, which is off to a blistering start to the season, will be a long one, as is finding a solution for the Tampa Bay Rays, who are playing at the overwhelming Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. It was Manfred’s priority for a while.
In a speech on Monday, Manfred said he believes the Rays have shown positive momentum in their stadium search, and cities like Nashville will be under the guidance of former MLB player, coach, agent and executive Dave Stewart. Below, they will be considered candidates for expansion teams, not relocation teams. He said expanding to 32 teams would be good for baseball, and if the league decides to add more teams, many say cities like Nashville without huge metropolitan areas are running. There is a reason.
“I think Nashville is on everybody’s list,” he said. As proof of the small market’s viability, he cited the success of a team that recently moved to Las Vegas.
