It’s hard to tell if the Oakland Athletics are a massive farce on and off the field.
On the field, the Athletics are on pace to lose 127 games. No major league team in the 20th century has lost so many games in one season.
Off the field, the Athletics could be 0-for-4 in the candidate cities soon, targeting new ballparks in Oakland, Fremont, San Jose and possibly Las Vegas.
The question is not where A’s owner John Fisher and team president Dave Caval will look next. The question is, with Fisher and Caval proving they can’t get a deal, why would Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred put together a Las Vegas deal, let alone find another stadium deal? It’s about trusting them.
MLB wants a Vegas deal done.
For 20 years, the Athletics have built new ballparks as a panacea. In 2009, long before Fischer, Kaval and Manfred became the faces of this story, then-Commissioner Bud Selig said: “The A-Team cannot and will not allow the current situation to continue indefinitely.” (Narrator: They can and they do.)
His successor Mr Manfred said in 2021: “The Oakland process is over.”
These are the words of Mr. Manfred in July 2022. it needs to be done. ”
These are Manfred’s words for December 2022. “A reasonable deadline for the Auckland situation to be resolved has passed.”
Perhaps Auckland was the problem. Or maybe not, after all.
In April, Mr. Fisher and Mr. Kaval announced that they would reach an agreement in Las Vegas. The deal was supposed to be completed by Monday. Or Tuesday. Or Wednesday.
At least before the major league owners meet next Tuesday.
now? They are still working on that plan, but the process has been so lengthy and so public that Oakland MP Barbara Lee found time this week to write to Manfred, It was characterized by incompetence in threatening baseball with an antitrust exemption.
There are a small number of professional groups that negotiate stadium contracts around the country. We spoke to someone who has worked on MLB deals for years. While he wasn’t involved in the Las Vegas deal, he’s amazed at how Fisher and Kaval have failed at the basic give-and-take that comes with negotiations.
Some lawmakers will vote yes no matter what. Some will vote against it. But at Wednesday’s hearing, several lawmakers effectively begged Mr. Fisher and Mr. Kaval to help them win a yes vote — a vote they could defend.
Oakland Athletics fans protested the team’s possible move to Las Vegas, demanding team owner John Fisher sell the team during a game at the Oakland Coliseum in April.
(Jeff Chiu/Associated Press)
One legislator asked Company A to consider a 9% ticket tax, the same tax levied on tickets to concerts and shows in Las Vegas.
Another lawmaker called on the Athletics to guarantee its promise of community benefits by writing it into the stadium bill.
Stadium negotiators were stunned that the A’s dodged both demands. He wondered how Mr. and Mrs. A would not at least offer to discuss air ticket tax relief. This could be a way to vote yes, as lawmakers can say they made A pay taxes that the Raiders and Golden Knights didn’t. Perhaps Mr. and Mrs. A will even negotiate a mechanism to recover the money in later years.
And when hearings last week revealed public anguish over whether baseball stadiums were a higher funding priority than public schools, it was no wonder Fisher and Kaval said, It should be. A solution, not part of the problem. If we are lucky enough to be part of this community, Mr. and Mrs. A will donate $1 million annually to public education in Las Vegas. ”
Here’s what the Athletics get in Las Vegas. In addition to the $380 million in taxpayer money to build the new stadium, free land for the stadium donated by private companies, plus no property taxes because the Athletics will donate the land to the public sector. In addition, the agency exempts you from rent, so you don’t have to pay rent. In addition, there is also income from naming rights. That means there’s $500 million worth of goodies out there.
Congress returned home over the weekend, tired of waiting for the A’s to get enough votes.
If a deal does, and it does, Manfred should send one of his stadium negotiating experts to Las Vegas this weekend to handle the negotiations. Fisher and Kaval have pledged to build four new ballparks in the last six years and two in the last six weeks. Their track record speaks for itself.
If Fisher really draws the line on donating $1.1 billion to the stadium, so be it. However, his team’s contract with Oakland expires next year.
The Athletics may still pull a win out of the mouth of their loss in Las Vegas. Or you could be homeless like a banana in Savannah after the 2024 season.
