(New York) Major League Baseball has laid out a detailed procedure for approving the move of the Oakland Athletics to Las Vegas, which appears to pave the way for the franchise’s second move in the last 50 years.
“I feel so sorry for the Oakland fans. I don’t like the way this story ends. I understand how they feel,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said after a meeting of team owners held 24 hours after Nevada officials approved partial funding for a new baseball stadium.
Manfred added that Oakland would file a relocation application and form a relocation committee, which would establish operating and broadcast territories. This group will make its recommendations that will be submitted to the executive board and later to the team owners.
“Owners understand that for nearly 10 years, most of the effort (to find a solution to the A’s stadium problems) has been predominantly focused on a solution in Oakland,” Manfred said. What was Oakland really prepared to do? There is no offer from Oakland. »
Las Vegas would become the fourth home of this franchise that began its history in Philadelphia from 1901 to 1954 before moving to Kansas City for 13 seasons, then to Oakland in 1968.
OA’s would become only the second MLB team to move cities in over half a century. Since the Washington Senators became the Texas Rangers in 1972, only the Montreal Expos have changed, becoming the Washington Nationals in 2005.
After announcing stadium plans for Fremont (2006), San Jose (2012) and Port of Oakland (2018), the A’s said on April 19 that it had agreed to an interim agreement to acquire land on the edge of the Strip in Vegas. That deal was superseded on May 15 by another that called for the construction of a stadium on the Tropicana site on the Strip.
Nevada officials on Wednesday approved $380 million in public funding to build a 30,000-seat stadium with a retractable roof at a cost of $1.5 billion. State Governor Joe Lombardo is expected to sign the executive order soon. The new stadium would be located near Allegiant Stadium, where the Oakland Raiders moved in 2020, as well as T-Mobile Arena, home of the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights since 2017.
The team, whose contract with the Oakland Coliseum expires after the 2024 season, would leave 10It is biggest television market of the 1940sIt is. Their stadium would also have the lowest seating capacity in all of MLB.
PHOTO SCOTT STRAZZANTE, ASSOCIATED PRESS
The new stadium would likely open for the 2028 season at the earliest. Prior to that, the team can play at the Las Vegas Ballpark, the 10,000-seat home of its AAA farm club, the Las Vegas Aviators.
Oakland averages 9,076 spectators per home game, the lowest average of the 30 Major League teams and one-third of the average attendance of 27,203. After trading top players, the team has the lowest payroll in the league at 58 million. The A’s are the second-worst MLB record at 19-51 going into Thursday’s games.
Manfred has said in the past that the Tampa Bay A’s and Rays need to acquire new stadiums before the MLB considers an expansion. The last additions were made in 1998 and would be considered the cities of Charlotte (North Carolina), Montreal, Nashville (Tennessee) and Portland (Oregon).
Le Groupe Baseball Montreal, which was looking to share a team with the Tampa Bay market, has not expressed interest in an expansion club since the sister city project was shelved by Major League Baseball in January 2022.
With the Canadian press
