Oakland A’s Possible Move to Las Vegas May Be Stymied by Democrats Not Wishing to Raise Taxes – Opinion

The Oakland A’s presently sit at .500 on this young season. After dropping two of three to the resurgent Philadelphia Phillies over the weekend, the A’s spent Monday jumping on Tampa Bay Rays reliever Chris Mazza, who replaced injured starter Luis Patiño in the first inning, early and often, en route to a 13-2 victory.

Whatever the A’s accomplish on the field this year — frankly not expected to be much after an off-season spent unloading the team’s best players (Matt Olson, Matt Chapman, and Sean Manaea) in a salary dump — will be thoroughly overshadowed by struggles over which field the A’s will call home in future seasons. With the team’s lease on the rapidly deteriorating Oakland Coliseum ending in 2024, the A’s insistence that building a new park on the Coliseum site is unacceptable, and the effort to build a new ballpark on the Oakland waterfront near Jack London Square facing significant hurdles, the team is making loud noises about moving to Las Vegas where they would, albeit unintentionally, rejoin their former Coliseum co-tenants the Raiders. However, while Las Vegas bent over backward to welcome the Raiders to town, the New York Post has reported possible political and local business opposition to the A’s making Sin City home.

On the political side, Democrat Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak, who’s running for re-election this coming November, is reportedly balking at MLB commissioner Rob Manfred’s demand the state chip in $125M or so for a new A’s stadium as it would probably involve some form of tax increase to cover same. Allow us to pause and marvel at the thought of a Democrat refusing to increase taxes. We’re now ready to move on.

Here at the sports desk, located just below decks on the Good Pirate Ship RedState we get asked a lot of questions about how professional sports can be followed, given the ship’s penchant for wakeitude inane madness. There are two ways to answer this question. We love sports. Two, we’re stubborn plus well versed in ignoring stupidity. The question then becomes how yours truly can remain an Oakland A’s fan with the way the team gets run into the ground year after year. Again, the answer is double. One, it’s my team. Two, I and the 15 or so remaining A’s fans survived Charlie O. Finley as an owner. We can handle anything from the current team owner, John Fisher, who’s spent his business career simultaneously piggybacking off his family of The Gap ownership fame and following the path of least resistance, and are stubborn enough to stick with a team whose own ownership hates it even more than Rob Manfred hates baseball. Which, given he’s the commissioner of said sport, is a problem. But that’s a topic for another post; back to the A’s.

Sisolak is undoubtedly afraid of the real opposition from Las Vegas’ business community.

Sisolak said to Nevada Independent in December that he was against a hotel tax for the funding of a baseball stadium. That’s after he helped raise $750 million with a $2-a-night tax to build the football stadium for the Las Vegas Raiders that opened in 2020.

According to insiders, Sisolak could also hesitate because MGM Resorts is a powerful constituent. This company owns almost 40 percent of Sin City’s hotel rooms and a large collection of entertainment venues that may be endangered by the construction of a domed, 30,000-seat baseball stadium.

Many factors are at work (no pun intended), and these details were not covered in detail in the Post story. Because of Raider Nation’s involvement, a hotel tax was an appropriate way to pay for Raiders Stadium. For Raider Nation, the Silver and Black isn’t a football team; it’s a way of life, and irrelevancy personified is whichever city the team calls home this week. Many fans will make the trip to see the game in Oakland, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Tierra Del Fuego. You can also make a weekend out of the game by visiting one of the local casinos.

The Golden Knights are the city’s first professional team and have been the heart of Las Vegas since the Harvest Festival 2017 shooting. For those who visit Vegas in winter to escape the East Coast, or Canadian snows, hockey games are a good nightcap. As to the NBA, after the unfunny shenanigans that went down during the 2007 NBA All-Star Game in Sin City, don’t bet (again, no pun intended) on the league ever putting a franchise there even with a glittering privately-funded arena serving as bait.

Only the top-tier storied baseball franchises — Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, Cardinals, Dodgers — are destination organizations, the kind of team people plan lengthy trips to see. The A’s, especially in their current state of decades spent occasionally winning despite incessantly devaluing themselves by trading away every established player for budget-priced prospects who subsequently face trading should they ever establish themselves, are not a destination organization. Perhaps they are an unwelcome waystation. The A’s would draw only locals, who avoid the Strip like the plague unless they work there. This would mean that no money from gambling would be brought in and there would not be any high-rollers coming into the city. The MLB team brings nothing into Las Vegas’ gambling market, other than traffic headaches due to stadium locations.

Circling back to Manfred — and no, no one here at the sports desk is auditioning to be the next White House press secretary — in the latest sign he Just. Doesn’t. Get. His brilliant suggestion to ease player-ownership tensions after lockout? All players should have headphones. Although, come to think of it, given how Manfred’s public speaking style is best compared to stale soggy ramen, slapping on a pair of Bose and cranking up the Red Hot Chili Peppers whenever Manfred wishy-washies his way toward a microphone isn’t a bad idea. With the exception of Tampa Bay and the minor leagues, all major league teams are now ballpark-wise. If, quoting the Post story, Manfred “does not want to set a bad precedent for other owners looking to negotiate their own new stadium deals,” the question immediately becomes What deals?

The fervent hope of myself and the other 15 or so remaining A’s fans is one of two possible scenarios. The first is that Fisher has a choice. Two, sufficient pressure is mounted on Manfred and Fisher to put their money where their social justice mouths are by selling the team to an investment group led by former A’s pitcher Dave Stewart, who has made no secret of his desire to both keep the team in Oakland and build a new ballpark on the Coliseum site. While admittedly not in the most fabulous neighborhood, before Mount Davis’ construction the Coliseum was a great place to watch a ballgame, looking out over the bleachers at the genuinely lovely Oakland hills. Meanwhile, political dramas continue. Thrillsville.