Oakland A’s billionaire owner John Fisher and his right-hand man, Dave Kaval, were back in Las Vegas for further discussions about relocating the MLB team to Southern Nevada. Oakland A’s sent a relocation survey to Las Vegas baseball fans days after a positive Alameda County vote. Oakland Athletics Executives wasted no time resuming their search for a ballpark location in Southern Nevada, meeting this week with members of The Howard Hughes Corp. at a site of interest to the A’s in the Summerlin area. Team owner John Fisher, president Dave Kaval and executive vice president Billy Beane were in the valley this week, arriving on Wednesday and returning to the Bay Area on Friday, as they work with their final four potential sites in the Greater Las Vegas Area. Team Owner John Fisher is seeking a Las Vegas Pot of Gold, similar to what Raiders Owner Mark Davis was able to acquire.
A's Waterfront Ballpark Plan Gets Nod from Alameda County
For months, city officials have implored Alameda County to participate in the financing plan, which they said is crucial to keeping the A’s in Oakland because the team has flatly stated it doesn’t intend to remain at the Coliseum site after its lease there expires in three years unless a deal is reached. The team has been threatening to move to another area, possibly Las Vegas, if it’s not reimbursed for project infrastructure costs. Though described as “historic” by Oakland’s Mayor, the plan the Alameda County Board of Supervisors opted into to pave the way for a new waterfront ballpark is no guarantee that bulldozers will start digging up the dirt at Howard Terminal anytime soon — or that the team will stay put and stop flirting with Las Vegas. Significant as it was in giving a much needed boost to ongoing negotiations between the A’s and the city of Oakland, the supervisors’ 4-1 vote late on October 27, is non-binding and can be rescinded if efforts to hammer out a public financing plan and a development agreement with the baseball team unravel in the coming months. But in the aftermath of a seven-hour meeting that focused heavily on various analyses of the financial risks and rewards of the county joining the city in forming a tax assessment district to pay for the project’s infrastructure, Oakland leaders were glowing. Don't get to excited.
