Athletics Announce Land Purchase for New Stadium in Las Vegas

The Athletics new land purchase with Las Vegas skyline from left to right: T-Mobile Arena, Hotel and Casinos New York-New York (behind T-Mobile Arena), Tropicana Las Vegas, Excalibur, Luxor, Mandalay Bay, & Delano

April 21, 2023

Oakland Athletics fans awaiting an announcement shall wait no longer as the A’s announced an agreement to purchase land for a new stadium from Station Casinos off Interstate 15, across from the Las Vegas strip. The announcement likely shocked many people in Oakland as the Athletics have been negotiating terms for a new stadium there for the past six years. The stadium was to be a waterfront stadium similar to the A’s neighbors, the San Francisco Giants. Instead, they decide to move from a waterfront option to the desert where the roof of the stadium will be partially retractable. The location of the new stadium will be further east than Allegiant Stadium, where the Las Vegas Raiders play.

Genuine Attempt to Stay in Oakland

Statement from the A’s: pic.twitter.com/kWKWxo8DrG

— Casey Pratt (@CaseyPrattABC7) April 20, 2023

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There were many reasons for the Athletics to move, but they say they made a genuine attempt to stay in Oakland. Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao disagrees with that assessment, however, as she said this about the situation: “The city has gone above and beyond in our attempts to arrive at mutually beneficial terms to keep the A’s in Oakland. In the last three months, we’ve made significant strides to close the deal. Yet, 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 … we are ceasing negotiations and moving forward on alternatives for the redevelopment of Howard Terminal.”

In other words, it seems extremely unlikely that the Athletics will remain in Oakland. But, it ought to be mentioned that real estate agreements fall through frequently and this some questioned whether the A’s could use such an agreement as a bargaining chip with other cities. Right now, it looks like that will not be the case for the city of Oakland. And, the Athletics are running out of time– in fact, there is a decent argument for them already being out of time.

Why Athletics Needed Out of Oakland

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The lease on the Athletics’ current playing facility, at the Oakland Coliseum, expires after the 2024 season. Additionally, Athletics President Dave Kaval said this to MLB.com about negotiating a deal with the city of Oakland: “We put an incredible six-year effort into trying to get this waterfront vision for a stadium approved. At the end of the day … with the lawsuits and referendums and timing challenges … we’re still maybe seven or eight years away.” That would mean a new Oakland stadium would not be ready for the A’s to move in until about 2030-31.

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But the Oakland Coliseum is in disrepair and the A’s need out. The Oakland Coliseum’s first crowd came on September 18, 1966, to see a football game featuring the Oakland Raiders against the Kansas City Chiefs. The Chiefs won that game by a score of 32–10. But since that time, the stadium has gone through serious dilapidation. The walls are not rotting and falling over, but the sewage has been a problem. On June 16, 2013, there was a major sewage backup that caused sewage to leak into showers, offices, storage areas, and even the visitor training room. This took place after a game between the A’s and Seattle Mariners and both teams had to share the Oakland Raiders locker room, which is on the second floor of the Coliseum. Coliseum officials later blamed the backup on a six-game homestand that drew over 171,000 fans.

Seat Reduction in Oakland Coliseum

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Unfortunately, the sewage system is so bad at the Oakland Coliseum that backups reportedly occur even when there are no events at the facility. This could be one of the reasons that the A’s decided to cover 20,878 seats in the upper deck with a tarp and cease them from usage in 2006, which lowered the maximum capacity to 34,077 fans and amounts to the smallest major league ballpark in terms of capacity. However, in 2017, the Athletics removed some of the tarping to increase capacity by 12,103 seats.

Not Enough Attendance in Oakland

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The Athletics are famous for their ability to find players based on statistics other than the old way of thinking with batting average, home runs, and RBI production being the focus. Instead, the A’s are famous for having a small budget and needing to find ways to get good players for cheaper than the other teams — diamonds in the rough, so to speak. The reason they need to find players in this fashion is due to low attendance and fan support. The top ten seasons of attendance for the team all came in Oakland, but all came in 2005 or prior. In 1990, the defending-champion A’s averaged 35,805 fans per home game for the team’s most successful season in terms of attendance.

The highest average attendance in the past 10 seasons was in 2014 when they averaged 24,736 fans per home game, which was good enough for 10th in the AL and 24th in MLB. Last season, the Athletics only averaged 9,849 fans per home game and 787,902 fans all season, which was last place in MLB and about 1,355 fans per game behind the next-worst team (Miami Marlins). And it’s not getting much better in 2023. The Athletics still are in last place in attendance, averaging 11,026 fans per home game, which is 2,118 fewer fans per home game than the next-worst team (Marlins). To put this into perspective, the Los Angeles Dodgers lead MLB with 49,418 fans per home game this season and also led the league in 2022 with 47,672 fans per home game.

Not Much Room for Growth in Oakland

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It’s not like Oakland has much room for growth as a city. There’s no land available for city expansion for Oakland in California. In 2021, Oakland ranked as the 45th largest city in the US with a population of 433,823 but had a negative growth rate of -1.3%. Las Vegas ranked as the 25th largest city in the US in 2021 with a population of 646,790 and a growth rate of 0.5%. But don’t let those numbers fool you — the Las Vegas metro area has a population of over 2.2 million and has an overall growth rate of 14.15% in 2023. The Bay Area is larger, but the Giants are the main team in the Bay Area.

Las Vegas has no second MLB team, which means the bulk of the city’s baseball-viewing population will likely become Athletics fans.

Vegas is One of the Fastest-Growing Cities

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Las Vegas has been one of the fastest-growing cities in the country for decades. And moving to Las Vegas means the A’s will receive a whole new type of fan support where some fans from Oakland still support them and new fans from Las Vegas will support them. Las Vegans will be excited to have their own MLB team when they previously only had teams as high as Triple-A located there. The Athletics Triple-A affiliate, the Las Vegas Aviators, currently plays in Las Vegas, so the A’s are familiar with the area. It is unknown where or if the A’s will relocate the Aviators.

In addition to being one of the fastest-growing cities, Las Vegas is the City of Entertainment, and the Athletics are set to add themselves to the list of attractions for the city. Both January and February 2023 saw 3.28 million and 3.08 million visitors respectively according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. January and February 2022 only brought in 2.47 million and 2.62 million visitors respectively but increased by about a million per month between May and December 2022 as the city increased tourism numbers to 38.83 million for 2022, up 6.6 million from the previous year.

Prior to COVID, 2019 brought 42.52 million tourists to the area. Some of those tourists are baseball fans and they don’t necessarily need to be Athletics fans to attend a game. They could be fans of the team the A’s are playing, or baseball in general. Many international tourists visit Las Vegas, so the Athletics could receive more international attention from baseball fans as a result.

Athletics Raise Status With International Prospects With Move

Additionally, Las Vegas is a city with a big reputation and many people from across the globe, who are not from the US, have heard of the city. That’s going to help the Athletics when they are attempting to sign international free agents. Sometimes when a city is near a larger and more famous city and is recruiting players, the players instead focus on the main team in the area. The Athletics can also no longer argue to potential players that they have the DH while the National League does not. This is what caused Shohei Ohtani to choose the Los Angeles Angels over the Dodgers even though the Dodgers helped Ohtani fall in love with LA. Although the example is a rare extreme, that type of situation is not likely to be replicated now that both leagues utilize a DH.

The Bay Area Was Also a Top Tourist Destination

Oakland itself is not a top tourist destination, but the broader Bay Area is — or was prior to COVID. In 2019, San Francisco alone attracted 26.2 million visitors according to the San Francisco Travel Association. COVID derailed those numbers as it did in many areas. In 2021, San Francisco attracted 17.0 million visitors. In 2022, San Francisco’s visitors grew to 21.9 million, which is an increase of 4.9 million visitors from 2021. That is still 5.3 million fewer than in 2019, but it is undoubtedly trending in the right direction, and San Francisco’s tourism has almost fully recovered.

But what a real estate agent may tell you is that it’s all about location, location, location. Oakland was planning on building a stadium overlooking the waterfront while Las Vegas will be building down the street from the Raiders and across Interstate 15 from the tip of the strip — closer to the bright lights and flashy hotels on the strip than the Raiders and perhaps a 10- or 15-minute drive from Harry Reid International Airport. But Oaklanders may tell you that their city is by the bay while Las Vegas is in the desert — and that’s a good point to make.

Why Leave the Beautiful Bay Behind

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One reason is that some ballplayers are taking future income taxes into account when deciding what team to sign with. This is added into consideration in contract negotiations. California has nine income tax brackets. With the minimum MLB salary being $700,000, all major league players fall into the top income tax bracket in California, which was 13.30% in 2022. Contrast that with Nevada, which does not have any state income tax. That’s $93,000 in income tax annually to play by the bay for a player making the league minimum. That’s a lot of money, and we’re only discussing players and not the tax savings for the Athletics, which will amount to a lot of money for a team that is famous for Moneyball. In 2026, one year before the planned opening of a new Athletics ballpark in Vegas, the MLB minimum is scheduled to be raised to $780,000.

Additionally, players can buy nice houses for less money in Las Vegas than in the Bay Area. There are also large land lots available that are scattered around the residential areas in northern Las Vegas if Athletics players and personnel decide to build their own sprawling homes. The sunsets over the Sierra Nevadas are often spectacular. But there is some wind and dry heat to deal with.

And, of course, there is the MLB franchise relocation fee. The New York Post reported that the speculated relocation fee could be “as high as $1 billion” but that MLB offered to waive the relocation fee if the A’s move to Las Vegas. Why leave you ask? Current and present Athletics fans hope lower costs will lead to an increased budget and payroll. And, hopefully, some postseason excitement.

Athletics New Land Purchase in Las Vegas, Nevada

On Tropicana, facing the extra land available to the Athletics - Photo by Chris Gray / SportRelay — On Tropicana, facing the extra land available to the Athletics – Photo by Chris Gray / SportRelay

The Athletics land deal is 94 acres in the Las Vegas desert at Dean Martin Drive and Tropicana Avenue at the former Wild Wild West property, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. There are another eight acres of land available for the Athletics to the west. Across I-15 is the home of the Las Vegas Golden Knights hockey team. If you’ve driven down the I-15 in Vegas, the new site is next to the In-N-Out Burger with the lit-up sign. Sites across the freeway and near Tropicana Ave include New York-New York Hotel & Casino, Excalibur Hotel & Casino, Hershey’s Chocolate World, MGM Grand, Luxor, Tropicana Las Vegas, Laugh Factory Comedy Club, OYO Hotel & Casino, and the Desert Rose Resort.