Report: A's claim financing in Las Vegas "in place"

Jason Burke | Oct 17, 2024

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

The big question on everybody's mind when it comes to the A's and the proposed Las Vegas ballpark is what the funding will look like. Earlier this week, it was revealed that the A's will not be unveiling their finance plan at Thursday's meeting with the Las Vegas Stadium Authority.

In a recent piece in the Nevada Independent, they wrote, "the financing plan covering a $1.5 billion baseball stadium on the Strip “is in place,” according to sources close to the Oakland Athletics, but any public discussion of funding will wait until December."

Well, that solves it. The financing is in place according to someone with an agenda. Time to pack it all in, folks. After 20 years of not getting any ballpark project done, John Fisher has finally done it. This, according to "trust me, bro."

If this were Fisher's first attempt at a ballpark project, maybe we'd be more apt to believe him, but after numerous forays into the ballpark renderings space, it's time to see some actual numbers before we're taking anyone's word for it. As we've said before, this could really be the one that he gets across the finish line, but until the financials are out there and he puts pen to paper, it's hard to believe that it'll ever happen.

Elsewhere in the Indy's article, Steve Hill is once again quoted as saying that the Fisher family, "has the equity to build the stadium." Has the equity and is willing to use said equity are two different sentiments, and only one of them has been used in this process.

Hill is also quoted as saying, "There may be better options than to just use the Fisher family equity to build the stadium,” Hill said. “They'll look for those better options. One may be an investment from local folks in Las Vegas."

Again, this is a talking point that has been circulating for months. They have the equity, but they may take on investors. It has been nearly 18 months since SB 1 was passed, and we are just over a month until the financial report is to be shown to the public, and it still feels as though that funding that is "in place" is still up in the air.

Two quick quotes from Fisher in this piece just struck as odd.

"In a brief interview withThe Nevada Independent following the implosion, Fisher said he has a “good feeling” about the funds he plans to provide." He has a good feeling about the money that he and his family have set aside for this project? What kinds of funds is he excited about? Is he paying for this ballpark in Bitcoin? Just a weird statement.

"“When Steve indicates that he's got confidence that this is all going to happen from a financial point of view, we should all feel good about that,” Fisher said." Steve Hill, financial planner for the stars. What? Shouldn't Fisher be trusting his own financial people to tell him what works for his money?

This whole thing is in an odd space right now, and it's likely to keep getting weirder since there is still over a month until we actually get to see the financial documents.