The A’s took their biggest step yet toward realizing their long-explored departure from Oakland in a stunning late-night announcement that broke the hearts of their fans and knocked the city’s leaders on their heels.
Despite decades of relocation threats, it was nonetheless surprising when A’s president Dave Kaval revealed late Wednesday that the team has signed a binding agreement to purchase land in Las Vegas, where they plan to move.
Kaval announced that the A’s finalized a deal last week to buy a 49-acre site near the Vegas Strip, where they plan to construct a 35,000-seat stadium with a retractable roof hopefully in time for the 2027 season. Coincidentally, the parcel of land near Tropicana Boulevard and Interstate 15 is just down the road from Allegiant Stadium, where a former Oakland team — the Raiders — plays its games.
Stunned Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, who said she’d been negotiating daily with the A’s on a deal to bring the $12 billion Howard Terminal project to fruition, basically said “good riddance” to the team that’s called Oakland home for the past 55 years. She said any negotiations for a deal at Howard Terminal are now dead.
“It is clear to me that the A’s have no intention of staying in Oakland and have simply been using this process to try to extract a better deal out of Las Vegas,” Thao said. “I am not interested in continuing to play that game — the fans and our residents deserve better.”
Thao was hoping for a positive resolution to the city’s negotiations on team owner John Fisher’s vision of a development near Jack London Square, featuring a 35,000-seat waterfront ballpark, 3,000 new homes, massive retail and other commercial space, hotel units and more. The ambitious project divided residents who didn’t want to lose their hometown baseball team but worried that the city would be on the hook to invest millions in the site.
So now what?
Howard Terminal can probably now be added to the pile of the A’s other failed new-ballpark efforts in the Bay Area since Fisher and former partner Lew Wolff bought the team nearly 20 years ago. Beginning with a proposed downtown Oakland stadium in 2005 to multiple ballpark pursuits in Fremont, San Jose and Oakland’s “Victory Court,” “Coliseum City” and the “Peralta Site,” ownership’s ballpark strikeout rate would make all-time A’s strikeout leader Reggie Jackson blush.
However, Kaval said after so many years of stadium deals falling through, the A’s had to do something to meet a January 15, 2024, ballpark deadline set by baseball commissioner Rob Manfred. The A’s receive revenue shares — subsidies from MLB’s other teams that measure in the tens of millions — and Manfred warned that those payments will cease if the A’s don’t have a concrete plan by then.
While the A’s will now work with Nevada and Clark County on the public-private partnership for stadium funding, the fact remains there’s not yet a deal. The A’s are reportedly seeking $500 million in tax credits toward the construction of the ballpark. Once a land deal and ballpark financing are completed, there will be more steps in the process of leaving Oakland.
Thursday, Nevada legislative leaders told the Associated Press that they had little information about the A’s plans, beyond that a land purchase deal is in place, a funding bill is coming and there is no timeline for action.
The stadium and other developments are projected to cost about $1.5 billion, per The Nevada Independent, while the A’s are asking for $500 million in public assistance, said Clark County Commissioner Michael Naft, who has been in talks with A’s leadership and whose district includes the potential stadium site.
“That’s something that they’ve come up with,” said Naft of the A’s funding ask. “You don’t always get what you want. And I think that’s probably going to be the case with the $500 million.”
Even with the land purchase, he has unanswered questions about how the new stadium will affect year-round Las Vegas residents.
“I think the fact that Oakland is no longer an option as of last night means that we can have a more serious conversation about what would be involved with the relocation to our community,” he said.
Several officials in state leadership expressed optimism, but would not comment further until more details come out. A spokesperson for state Senate majority leader, Democrat Nicole Cannizzaro, said she “has not committed to supporting any deal, nor would she without seeing detailed legislative language and discussing it with her caucus.”
If Nevada lawmakers and the A’s can come to a signed agreement, one of the final steps would be 75 percent of MLB owners approving the deal — or 22 of the league’s other 29 owners. Would the A’s moving from the country’s No. 10 market (Oakland) to the No. 29 market (Vegas) be cause for concern? Possibly, but the relocation has the support of Manfred, and that has always carried a lot of weight in such votes. Even so, the owners have only approved one team in more than 50 years to move to a different city — Montreal to Washington in 2005.
The commissioner reiterated Major League Baseball is on board with the A’s efforts in Vegas, telling the Las Vegas Review-Journal, “We support the A’s turning their focus on Las Vegas and look forward to them bringing finality to this process by the end of the year.”
Nonetheless, Kaval admitted that the A’s are still a long way away from ordering the moving trucks.
“The reality is there’s still a lot of work to do in Nevada, but we are turning our full focus to getting that deal complete with the blessing and support of MLB,” Kaval told this news organization Thursday. “So that road, the parallel path is over.
“We know it’s hard for fans to hear that,” Kaval said. “We’ve been here over 50 years. We know it’s a bittersweet day. It’s a tough thing to hear that the team could be relocating. But by the same token, the current situation is untenable.”
Speaking of untenable, it doesn’t seem possible that the A’s on-field product can get much worse. For a franchise that has made 21 postseason appearances in 54 years, including 17 division titles, six World Series appearances and four championships, this year’s team has been an abject failure. The bumbling A’s and their MLB-worst 3-16 record through Thursday is a failure by any measure.
The A’s have been trending straight into the ground for the past two years — including losing 100 games for the second time in Oakland history last season — while in the midst of completing a full teardown of a team that went to the playoffs in three straight seasons (2018-2020). They’ve traded away All-Stars and most other contributors before they could reach free agency. The buildup and teardown is a sad, familiar cycle under Fisher’s ownership, which has kept team payroll to embarrassingly low totals. Their 2023 payroll of $60.2 million, according to SpoTrac.com, is dead last in MLB.
Even the most diehard of the A’s fans had a pretty good idea this day was coming. Longtime fan Ryan Thibodaux certainly did.
“This has seemed to be inevitable for a year or so, at least,” the 41-year-old Thibodaux told the Associated Press on Thursday. “I’m still more saddened than I thought I would be.”
Former A’s manager Bob Melvin, now managing the San Diego Padres, grew up in the Bay Area and said news of the relocation to Vegas was sad, “but you could see this coming.”
As dire as the Vegas news may be, longtime A’s followers have certainly been down this road before.
The A’s were indeed at a crossroads in 1978 when then-owner Charlie Finley agreed to sell the team to Denver oilman Marvin Davis. Upon leaving spring training, the A’s moving trucks were instructed to stop in Las Vegas to await further instructions. Depending on whether the A’s sale went through or not, they’d either be turning right on I-15 toward Denver or going left toward Oakland.
Now, 45 years later, the direction of the A’s franchise is again hanging in the balance. For his part, Kaval isn’t ready to say for sure where the team is headed.
“There’s always the possibility of discussions in Oakland, and we’re always open to discussions. But the focus now is on Las Vegas.“
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
