Latest on A's proposed move to Las Vegas

Jason Burke | Oct 3, 2024

Nov 26, 2023; Paradise, Nevada, USA; The Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign on the Las Vegas strip. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

Whether or not the A's ever wind up in Las Vegas should have an answer here in the coming weeks and months. The team is expected to unveil "near final" versions of their agreements with the Las Vegas Stadium Authority concerning the development, non-relocation and lease agreements on October 17.

By early December, the team is expected to also detail their financing plan for the proposed ballpark. Those are two pretty big times for the A's to show some actual progress in Las Vegas. Without some real answers, even the biggest supporters of the project may begin to question what's going on.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal wrote yesterday that they had recently been told by A's president Dave Kaval that the ballpark is "50 percent designed," so they have concepts of a ballpark.

It's also worth noting that Clark County Commissioner Jim Gibson is also quoted in the piece, and he says in the section titled "certainty in project" that he believes this project will happen.

"We’re confident that the stadium is going to be built, even though in the media there has been a lot of attention that they’re playing here and playing there,” Gibson said. “We are certain that we’re going to have a stadium.”

Now, this could be wild speculation, but in this quote Gibson talks about the confidence in the stadium getting built, but doesn't include the A's coming to town under that umbrella. "We are certain that we're going to have a stadium" is an interesting way to phrase that, since the funding at the Tropicana site is team agnostic, meaning that any MLB team could theoretically use it, not just the A's.

Also, the confidence of the Clark County Commissioner in the project doesn't mean a whole lot here if we're being honest. This is because the San Francisco Chronicle also had an article drop yesterday about how quiet everything has been in Las Vegas with regard to the A's. The assumption here is that it's quiet because not much is going on, yet with the timelines that are coming up and only 50% of a ballpark designed, you'd think there would be more chatter happening.

The Chronicle even spoke with Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis about why he thinks the A's have been so quiet, and what he said was quite telling. "They’re either being very stealth and they’re going to come out at some point in time with a great marketing plan, and a stadium and the financing and all that, have a big parade, which is fine,” Davis said, “or they’re actually stumbling over themselves, which is what they’ve been doing for the last 20 to 25 years."

Which option do you think Davis believes is happening here? For fans of the team for any length of time, which option do you think is happening here?

As we have said numerous times over the past year or so, until we see the actual financial plan for the proposed Las Vegas ballpark, there is no guarantee of anything happening in Sin City. These next couple of months should tell us all we need to know in regard to how seriously the A's are taking Vegas.