Inside The As

A's Las Vegas plans sound like they're going great

Jason Burke

Aug 14, 2022; Paradise, Nevada, USA; The Las Vegas sign on the Las Vegas strip. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
Aug 14, 2022; Paradise, Nevada, USA; The Las Vegas sign on the Las Vegas strip. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
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It's no secret that we here at A's on SI are skeptical of the A's move to Las Vegas, and we have been critical of how the process has shaken out over the past 18 months. All we've been waiting on during this time is how A's owner John Fisher plans to pay for this project, and there have been numerous promises this week that the plan is coming.

On Wednesday, it was reported that the financial plan would be unveiled in December. Yesterday, the Las Vegas Review-Journal said it could be coming in just a couple of weeks at a surprise October 31 meeting. Either then, or the planned meeting on December 5. While there was a LV Stadium Authority meeting on Thursday, it sure felt like the news cycles were working overtime to provide "updates" on the A's proposed ballpark in Sin City, though the updates provided have all been old news.

There has been plenty of coverage on the A's ballpark situation this week, but today let's focus on A's unregistered lobbyist Steve Hill having a tough with words on Thursday.

First off, he provided a lot of quotes for the LVRJ, but it's when he was discussing the trio of documents that were presented yesterday (nonrelocation, lease and development agreements), and basically saying that they'd be approved in December, though the reason they weren't voted on this week was to give people time to look them over and for the public to voice any questions or concerns.

“We’ll respond to those,” Hill said in the LVRJ. “It may be that those concerns have been thought out and addressed already, but if we get that kind of input, we’ll certainly take it seriously. Those changes may need to be made between now and Dec. 5, but that’s the purpose of providing this much time between those documents being published (Thursday) and the date they will be approved.”

Shouldn't it not be a forgone conclusion that these will just be approved to at least give the appearance that Hill is working on behalf of the people?

Immediately after that quote in the RJ piece, there was also this little tidbit which was even more confounding.

"The A’s will present their financing plan, to prove they are able to pay for their $1 billion-plus portion of the project, to the stadium authority at either the Oct. 31 meeting or the Dec.5 meeting, Hill said. That is needed for the stadium authority to approve and sign off on the three remaining agreements."

So they are just going to look to see that he has the money in order to approve the agreements? According to Steve Hill, he's already been assured that Fisher and his family have the equity to pay for this ballpark project, so how is that any different?

Unless of course he means that the financing plan that is presented will dictate the agreement's approval, in which case wouldn't they need more time to look over the financials before making any sort of a declaration? So either they already have the necessary information, or Fisher could show a picture of money and that would be enough to appease the LVSA.

The kicker to the whole day had to be the video recorded by Alan Snel.

Steve Hill says here that the financial documents will not be made public because "they're confidential." This is a billionaire that came into a new city, asking for a huge handout, and he won't even be releasing the financials of the deal? Yikes.

Sounds like things are going great. Catch A's fever, Las Vegas.

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Jason Burke
JASON BURKE

Jason is the host of the Locked on A's podcast, and the managing editor of Inside the A's. He's a new father and can't wait to take his son to his first baseball game at the Coliseum. 

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