Construction on the new ballpark is “scheduled to begin in April 2025”Negativ
The A’s could “play some regular-season games in Las Vegas” before moving to their new ballpark along the Las Vegas Strip in 2028, according to Mick Akers of the LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL. The team “plans to continue participating in Big League Weekend,” the annual pair of spring training games at Las Vegas Ballpark. The club is also “hoping to play games that count in the MLB standings” at the Triple-A stadium. A’s President Dave Kaval said the team is “looking at adding one or two series here in the regular season. So that could be part of the interim play plan.” Akers noted the A’s could “play up to 10 games per season in Southern Nevada” before moving into their planned $1.5B ballpark, which is set to have a capacity of 33,000. However, it is “still being determined” where the team will play the three seasons before the stadium opens (LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL, 3/14).
VITAL PERIOD: The WALL STREET JOURNAL’s Lindsey Adler wrote the “grandiosity” of the team’s latest stadium renderings, and the “signs of progress they are meant to convey, sit atop a pair of fundamental questions about the A’s plan to leave Oakland and settle in Vegas.” Adler: “Where, exactly, will the team play between next season and the day that their new ballpark opens? And how will team owner John Fisher produce the estimated $1 billion in private financing to pull this off?” Adler wrote the “hasty nature” of Fisher’s plan to relocate has “created a new problem for the team: it currently has nowhere to play for at least three seasons.” Construction on the new ballpark is “scheduled to begin in April 2025” and the A’s current lease at the Coliseum expires at the end of 2024. But the team is “exploring alternate interim venues.” Fisher “sees all this as only a temporary inconvenience.” He said his focus is “on making sure that it does get done. And then we open with a new ballpark, which is something that the Athletics have been needing and working on for literally the past 20 years.” The Fisher family’s ability to complete the relocation project is “essential, since the A’s currently have no Plan B.” The team’s relocation is a “top priority” for MLB, which “wants the team to finally move out of the Coliseum and is eager to follow the NHL and NFL to Las Vegas.” It is “essential” to the league that this team relocation process is completed (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 3/14).
