MLB to vote on Oakland Athletic relocation to Las Vegas on Nov 14, Oakland mayor pleas them to vote No

• Daniel Horvat
• November 11, 2023

MLB team owners are set to vote on Oakland Athletics relocation from Oakland to Las Vegas on November 14, with a 75% approval needed for the plan to go through. While the vote is expected to be a formality as the owners will vote Yes, the Oakland major Sheng Tao decided to send letters and boxes to 15 of the 30 owners, pleading them to vote No instead.

Only days before the fateful vote on relocating the Oakland Athletics to Las Vegas, Oakland mayor Sheng Thao sent letters to MLB owners in a plea to keep the team where it is. The next owners’ meeting is scheduled for November 14 in Arlington, Texas, and a 75% approval is required for the relocation of the team to Las Vegas to be approved. 23 of 30 owners must say yes.

In the letter, obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle, Thao wrote, among other things, that it would be a “big mistake” for the owners to approve the move. Thao urged the owners to reject this proposal and reconsider keeping it where it is, in Oakland, and to build a 35,000-seater stadium on 55 acres of land at Howard Terminal in Oakland as opposed to building it on 9 acres on the Las Vegas Strip on the site of Tropicana Las Vegas that is owned by Ballys.

“The City of Oakland has now procured $428m in public funding for offsite infrastructure surrounding the Howard Terminal development. This funding is in addition to another approximately $500M for on-site infrastructure the City and Alameda County would contribute through tax increment financing. The proposed funding assistance for a new stadium development in Oakland is thus nearly triple the $380M the A’s have reportedly secured in Las Vegas”, Thao argues in the letter.

The letters, acompanied with “Stay in Oakland” boxes of items to represent the desire of the local fans for the team to stay where it is, were sent to 15 of 30 baseball team owners. The letters were not sent to the A’s or the Giants, as the latter team would greatly benefit from being the only team in the Bay Area.

The letters were sent to the owners of the Dodgers, Padres, Angels, Mariners, Yankees, Mets, Red Sox, Cubs, Rangers, Astros, Rockies, Phillies, Diamondbacks, Braves and Tigers. Thao only needs 8 of the owners to vote No for the proposal to be rejected.

It is believed that the proposal will easily pass, if for nothing else then for the fact that baseball commissioners usually don’t tend to put the matters into the voters’ hands unless the outcome is known in advance without fail. Furthermore, a No vote would undermine the years of MLB Commisioner Rob Manfred’s lobbying for the relocation of A’s to Las Vegas.

It is still not known how would the new site in Las Vegas be paid for, how would it look like, and how would it fit on only 9 acres in the first place. The new site is expected to get $380m in public funding from the state of Nevada, but this has been put in question by the ballot initiative created by Schools over Stadiums.

That particular effort suffered a courtroom setback earlier this week as Judge James Russel in the 1st District Court in Carson City deemed the language of the petition “legally deficient” and “confusing” and therefore rejected the ballot initiative.

However, if the petition does go forth and is placed on the November 2024 ballot, it would give Nevada voters the opportunity to reject spending public money on the A’s stadium. In June this year, Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo signed the bill into law and therefore approved public funding for a ballpark.

The proposed construction of a $1.5bn, 30,000-seat ballpark with a retractableroof would take place at the present site of Tropicana Las Vegas, a casino resort owned by Ballys as their only Las Vegas property. The 66-year-old casino is to be torn down and the representatives of the A’s said that the construction of the new stadium is expected to start around April 2025 and end some time in 2028.

Ballys acquired the operations of the Tropicana from real estate investment trust Gaming and Leisure Properties (GLPI) last September for an initial fee of $150m in cash, and pays $10.5m in rent annually under a 50-year deal.

Until the new stadium in Las Vegas is completed, the A’s would possibly play their home games in the 10,000-seat Las Vegas Ballpark, which is home to the Triple-A Las Vegas Aviators. Oakland is averaging only 9,076 fans per home game, which is the lowest figure among the 30 teams, and one-third of the league average of 27,203. The A’s also have the second-worst record in MLB at 19-51.

The Moneyball philosophy of MLB roster building was made popular by the Oakland Athletics during the 2000s, but this year, with a $62.2m payroll that is the smallest in MLB, the A’s were expected to get a positive overall net value on a roster made up of spare parts. However, the total net value stands at -$24.3m, which is the fourth-worst mark in the league.

The MLB is considering an expansion, but not before the A’s and Tampa Bay Rays get new ballpark agreements. The top candidates are considered to be Charlotte, North Carolina; Montreal; Nashville, Tennessee; and Portland, Oregon. MLB last added teams in 1998.