Just a fraction of the total cost
With half a season left in Oakland, executives for Major League Baseball’s Athletics have provided clarity on financing for the franchise’s future stadium on the Las Vegas Strip. Of the $380m in public funding that has been approved for the project, A’s exec Sandy Dean told the Las Vegas Stadium authority on Thursday that the team believes it will only use $350m.
That leaves $1.15bn of the $1.5bn budget. $300m, said Dean, will come from debt financing, while the remaining $850m will be private equity from owner John Fisher’s family. The A’s will look for local Las Vegas investors, who would receive minority ownership stakes, to reduce that $850m number the Fisher family would otherwise contribute.
something we’ve been working on for a long time”
While no lenders have been nailed down for the $300m, Dean is confident that the A’s won’t have a problem in that area, saying: “We’ve had strong interest from a number of companies that want to participate in that portion of the project,” adding that it is “something we’ve been working on for a long time.”
Trade the Trop for the stadium
The A’s stadium will be on the site of the former Tropicana on the south end of the Strip. Demolition of the Trop, which closed on April 2, is underway, with implosion of the two hotel towers planned for October.
Bally’s, the owner of the Tropicana, and Gaming and Leisure Properties, Inc. (GLPI), which owns the land, have arranged for the A’s to use nine acres of the site for their 33,000-seat stadium. Where the facility will actually sit on that land is still undetermined.
Construction is expected to begin in April 2025 and completed in early 2028, in time for the 2028 baseball season.
Team without a real home
In the meantime, the A’s will need somewhere to play after this season when they end their 57-year run in Oakland. In April, the organization announced that it will play for three seasons – maybe four if stadium construction runs longer than expected – at Sutter Health Park in Sacramento.
audition for the city if MLB ever expands
Sutter Health Park, which seats between 10,624 and 14,014 depending on lawn and standing room-only usage, is the home of the San Francisco Giants’ Triple-A affiliate, the Sacramento River Cats. The minor league team is owned by Vivek Ranadivé, the owner of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings, and friend of A’s owner John Fisher. Many believe Ranadivé is using the opportunity as an audition for the city if MLB ever expands, or if the A’s move to Las Vegas falls through.
The A’s and the city have a draft 30-year non-relocation agreement, though nothing has been finalized. Part of that agreement would include up to seven “home” games every two years – and no more than four per year – in other countries or at special, one-off locations in the US. The original number set in May was seven games per season.
While playing in Sacramento, the team will simply go by “Athletics” without a geographical prefix.