A's are Working Overtime to Spin Their Las Vegas Narrative

Jason Burke | Jun 14, 2024

Nov 26, 2023; Paradise, Nevada, USA; A Las Vegas Blvd. and the strip sign. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports / Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Last week's news that the A's are looking to play as many as seven games per season away from their proposed shiny new ballpark in Las Vegas started getting locals to second-guess what the team's motives are for relocating to their city--and whether they could end up on the hook if there is a shortfall from the bonds that are issued to the A's. Suffice it to say, the A's terrible planning skills followed them to Las Vegas, and have come back to bite them yet again.

So this week, the Las Vegas Review-Journal--the team's favorite place to drop stories about the team's "progress"-- has been busy.

On Tuesday, there was huge breaking news that the A's have decided to possibly think about a potential jersey design that could happen when they relocate to Las Vegas. The entire article boiled down to this quote: ""We’re starting that with Nike and with the league, because it takes a couple of years to get that figured out,” A’s President Dave Kaval told the Las Vegas Review-Journal last week. “Our marketing team is working on that.""

Everything else was talking about how new jerseys would be needed that no longer said Oakland, and repeating details about the proposed ballpark. It definitely could have been an e-mail.

Just in case that wasn't juicy enough, the LVRJ decided to keep adding on. Yesterday they had a piece on this provision that MLB is having teams put into their nonrelocation agreements that leaves the option for MLB to have some games played at a neutral site. The article argues that Vegas would be a great fit for that provision, because they just hosted the Super Bowl and it's a destination city.

This is part of a standardization process that MLB is undertaking with all nonrelocation agreements as they come up.

One issue for the Vegas folks could be that the proposed park is only expected to seat 33,000 fans, which would be the smallest in Baseball. That would mean higher ticket prices, which the owners would love, but also not as many tickets to sell for a game that is already marked up considerably. Dodger Stadium holds 56,000. Heck, the Coliseum fits 56,782 if MLB wants to fix it up. Not like anyone is going to be using it, so they wouldn't have to worry about a surprise team making the postseason and throwing a wrench into a planned neutral site's availability.

Also, why would Vegas be at the top of the list as a neutral site for postseason games? The league and the groups of owners have seemingly done A's owner John Fisher enough favors while he drags the reputation of baseball down. They've waived the relocation fee and let him make a mockery of the sport for years. Maybe they keep those postseason games out of Vegas until their recoup that waived fee.

The way that the neutral site provision could also be read is that MLB wants something in there just in case they have another scenario like in 2020, where teams did not play their home games in their own ballparks. The A's notably lost to the Astros at Dodger Stadium in the ALDS that year.

Finally, the LVRJ had what must have felt like their biggest "no really, the A's are serious" piece go up on Thursday afternoon. In this one, they talk about how the team will be hosting meetings with "invitation-only focus groups" to get a sense of what needs to go into the ballpark they're planning to build.

This is absolutely bonkers. The A's are supposed to break ground in under a year, and they're still fidgeting with some pretty large pieces of the puzzle. The blueprint is not something that can be figured out as they go. That has to be locked in, and fairly soon. Haven't the A's been speaking with the community for years now? Shouldn't they know what needs to go in the ballpark by now?

Feels like some fluff from the RJ in order to create some positive spin. We saw this constantly when Oakland and Vegas were both considered options for the future of the club. Something positive would happen in Oakland, and then the LVRJ would disclose that Fisher would be including an art gallery at the ballpark in Vegas or some other random piece of news. Yes, the timeline of those statements is a little off, with the art wing being announced last December, well after the team had pivoted to Vegas, but it's a favorite ridiculous headline of many fans. The point stands that this has been common practice throughout the process.

All three of these pieces are meant to distract the public from what is really going on. Notice how none of these pieces have locked in details. The jerseys are a concept that won't be seen for years. The playoff games could potentially happen, but way down the road, and maybe not even in Vegas. And the fact that the A's are set to speak to exclusive members of the public doesn't mean that anything that is mentioned will be included in the design.

It should also be noted that they did the same thing with Oakland residents back in 2017.

They did the same in Oakland in 2017. John Fisher is a swindler. pic.twitter.com/mgnvovg2ZZ

— Oaklandfans (@oaklandfans) June 14, 2024

The real takeaway here is that there are no takeaways from these pieces. Nothing matters until Fisher has funding locked up and there is a development plan that has been agreed to and signed.