Why the Oakland Coliseum lot could be a lifeline for A’s chances in Las Vegas
It’s hard not to be cynical whenever the A’s do anything public these days.
On Wednesday, A’s president Dave Kaval sent out a tone-deaf tweet, with pictures of the zero-effort mural that has replaced the massive Rooted In Oakland banner outside the Oakland Coliseum.
After months of dumping on Oakland and the franchise’s fan base, Kaval has been tweeting like everything is back to normal ever since the A’s started their spring training schedule on Feb. 19. But it’s hard to take anything at face value from Kaval.
So, why is he trying to fake make nice with Oakland and the fanbase, even though he turned off his replies? Well, the Coliseum lot could be a lifeline for the A’s as they try to get funding together for their $1.5 billion stadium vision on the Las Vegas Strip.
While it’s widely been reported that the A’s will receive up to $380 million in public funding for the project, Field Of Schemes – who I view as a trusted authority this subject matter – reports that it’s closer to $600 million when you consider the tax breaks and mechanics that Nevada lawmakers approved in June 2023.
Given that information, let’s consider that John Fisher and the A’s are looking for about $900 million in funding to get this project going. Meanwhile, Utah lawmakers just approved a $900 million bill for bonds to fund an MLB stadium. Unless Salt Lake City swoops in at the 11th hour and makes this a three-city race, Fisher is really backed into a corner (of the Tropicana parking lot).
It turns out that the Coliseum plot could be the A’s ticket out of Oakland.
Back in 2019, the A’s swindled Oakland with false promises in order to buy half of the Coliseum lot for $85 million. In September, a $115 million bid for the land from the African American Sports and Entertainment Group (AASEG) was immediately rejected by the team, according to the San Francisco Chronicle’s Scott Ostler.
So, the A’s are potentially sitting on $120-plus million of capital with their half of the Coliseum lot, which is a nice chunk of the $900 million that Fisher could be looking to scrape together. According to Mick Akers of the Las Vegas Journal-Review, the A’s and AASEG are set to meet this week to negotiate a possible sale of the franchise’s half of the 112-acre Coliseum site.
On the latest episode of The Rickey Henderson of Podcasts, co-host (and economist) Dr. Hal Gordon and Casey Pratt of ABC7 explained why AASEG could ultimately end up bailing out Fisher and the A’s.
“My pessimism still lies in the fact that this really is the end of the road for John Fisher,” Gordon said. “I don’t really see any sort of any other option for him. There’s no other place he can go. He’s struggling to get the prices that he wanted, he’s struggling to get the loan terms that he wanted, he’s struggling to sell the equity that he wanted.
“The Forbes estimate of the A’s value ($1.18 billion) is the same as the amount of money he needs to pay for the stadium – and I’m sure that’s killing him. I’m sure he thought he’d be able to sell 20 or 30 percent and then use that to build the thing, but at the end of the day, he and his family still have billions of dollars of other things. … I’m happy to know that he’s gonna have to pay a lot more than he wanted to and he’s very sad about that, but I’m still pessimistic. Otherwise, he’s pretty much gotta sell and I don’t think he wants to do that.”
Likewise, Pratt thinks Fisher needs to make a deal one way or another – with the stadium or selling the team.
“I really do think we’re close to that point,” Pratt said. “It’s now or never for him. If they demo The Trop and the A’s don’t have serious plans … it’s now or never, man. MGM’s waiting on them, Bally’s is gonna be waiting on them. It’s now or never. The one thing that could bail him out is selling his half of the Coliseum property to AASEG and that is the one thing that I fear the City will see as a reasonable concession, like, ‘OK this all sucks, but at least we get the Coliseum land back.’
“I can tell you the mayor’s office doesn’t see it that way at all, but I feel like some other Oakland politicians might. That worries me, because then that would give him the influx of cash he needs to finally get this thing over the finish line. It would give the City the opportunity to get that land back, but it’s not a win-win – it would mean pro sports are dead in Oakland.”
So, when I see Kaval send out these tweets celebrating the very A’s culture and tradition he’s trying to destroy – it’s hard not to see an ulterior motive. These fake good faith efforts always come back to money, don’t they?
