A's owner John Fisher to make $1 billion pledge for Las Vegas ballpark

Jason Burke | Nov 2, 2024

May 6, 2023; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Jose Earthquakes and Oakland Athletics owner John Fisher looks towards the pitch after a match against the Los Angeles FC at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images / Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

A's owner John Fisher is reportedly set to make a $1 billion pledge for the construction of his Las Vegas ballpark, according to team executive Sandy Dean. The pledge will be made in the form of four letters to be presented at the December 5 meeting with the Las Vegas Stadium Authority.

Those four letters, according to Jeremy F. Koo, (1) will be a commitment letter from Goldman Sachs and U.S. Bank committing $300 million for a construction term loan; (2) a letter from John Fisher committing the Fisher family to invest $1 billion in the project; (3) a letter from U.S. Bank indicating it has reviewed the Fisher family finances, SEC filings, and states that the Fishers "have the capacity" to pay for the project; (4) a letter from Athletics StadCo stating the letters from debt and equity financiers are sufficient to move forward with the ballpark, subject to customary conditions.

The first letter is one that we have known about for months, basically saying that Fisher is getting a $300 million loan from the bank. The other three letters include a promise from John Fisher, and two more that say they have the ability to pay for the ballpark. Again, this should not be news. Nothing has actually happened yet, and when the letters are presented in December, nothing will happen then, either. These feel more like stall tactics than steps forward.

The entirety of this letter campaign is hinging on the promise letter from the Fisher family, and it's important to remember that the A's owner also ran an entire "Rooted in Oakland" campaign for his ballclub, which was a form of a promise, and has previously had binding agreements in Las Vegas at other sites. How much should people really trust him until he finds his checkbook and a pen?

Two weeks ago we joked that Fisher could show the LVSA a picture of money and they would accept that as proof he's going to pay and move the whole process along, and in a month's time, that essentially what will happen.

John Fisher can have as many promises or pledges or "binding agreements" as he wants, but given his track record, it's incredibly difficult to take what they're saying as completely truthful.

Here is one quick reason why: One of the main goals to building a ballpark is to increase the value of the team, so that when the owner eventually sells the club, they will make more in profit. The other goal of building ballpark is to use as little of your own wealth as possible.

As we mentioned about a year ago, the math doesn't make sense. The A's are worth $1.12 billion according to Forbes, and given the valuation that Fisher is floating out there for a stake in the team based on a $2 billion valuation, we can presume that is similar to what he's expecting the team to be worth after the ballpark is built. If Fisher is putting $1 billion of his own money into the project, which is before any potential cost overruns that he'd also be on the hook for, then why spend a billion to increase the team's value roughly a billion? That just cancels itself out. He could get the same amount of money by just selling the team now and not having to deal with building an entire ballpark.

That is why it's hard to believe that Fisher will invest so much of his own money into the project. If an angel investor comes around for that $500 million investment for 25% of the team, then perhaps that could work out a little better for him. Until he actually starts signing papers and there are shovels in the ground, it's going to be hard to believe.

And to be fair, it was the same in Oakland. A's fans have seen half a dozen renderings from different areas in California and Nevada over the past 15 years, and have witnessed zero shovels in the ground to this point. At some point that will change for this franchise, but is it going to be now, with this project on a nine acre site? That remains to be seen.