A's Las Vegas Ballpark Facing New Hurdles
The A's potential relocation to Las Vegas has potentially hit a snag with the NSEA (Nevada State Education Association) filing for a PAC (political action committee) named "Schools Over Stadiums."
An NSEA spokesperson said, "Schools Over Stadiums is committed to pursuing every possible path to stop the use of public funds to subsidize a billionaire's stadium. This includes litigation as well as giving Nevadans the opportunity to vote to stop this misguided project" per Tabitha Mueller of the Nevada Independent.
In order to get SB1 (A's ballpark bill) on the ballot, the group will need to collect a lot of signatures. To get an initiative on the ballot in 2022, it required 140,777 signatures with 35,195 valid signatures needed from each of the four Petition Districts. To collect those signatures, they're going to need to be well organized.
In the online poll that accompanied SB1 on the Nevada Legislature website, 87% of voters have opposed the A's ballpark deal. There has been plenty of talk from the folks of Nevada that they would love a baseball team, but they don't want the A's. They'd prefer an expansion club.
There aren't plans to demolish the Tropicana hotel-casino for another two years, so anything other that getting this on the ballot may not have much of an impact on the A's plans to relocate since they'll be in the planning phases. The team still hasn't hired a design architect, a construction firm and a project manager.
While time isn't necessarily of the essence for the A's franchise to break ground just yet, opposition that could lead to a public vote that ultimately removes the public funding from the project could leave A's owner John Fisher with few options left but to sell.
That is where things could get interesting if this initiative ends up on the ballot. If polling ahead of the election is trending as poorly as the one on the government website, then that could eliminate a Las Vegas buyer from the equation with the public funding no longer lined up, and the lack of desire for a relocated Oakland Athletics club readily apparent.
There is a lot more to this story left to unfold.