An Emerson College poll conducted last week revealed that 52% of Las Vegas voters oppose public money going towards the A’s ballpark, while only 32% support and 17% remain undecided.

But the issue might not make it to the voters, depending on a ruling by the Nevada Supreme Court.

Judges in Carson City, Nevada, heard oral arguments on Tuesday, when lobbyists for the Oakland A’s sided against Schools Over Stadiums, a political action group formed by school teachers who have been trying to start a petition to get a referendum on the ballot in November.

The issue: the petition didn’t include the entirety of Senate Bill 1, the bill signed last year that will give the A’s $380 million in tax credits and bonds to build their new ballpark.

The teachers are willing to amend the petition, but are awaiting a ruling from the court.

“Hopefully we’ll hear a decision in a week,” said Schools Over Stadiums spokesperson Alex Marks.

Lobbyists for the A’s first sued the teachers last November. A district judge ruled in favor of the A’s, but the teachers appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court. They had to wait almost six months for a court date. Waiting much longer could be a costly blow in their attempt to collect more than 100,000 signatures by June 26.

If the judges rule in favor of the teachers, they can begin collecting signatures immediately.

However, the judges could throw out the petition altogether. And if they take too long to make a ruling, it’d make it difficult for the teachers to collect the signatures in time.

“It shouldn’t be this hard” to get a petition on the ballot, Marks said. “The hard part should be gathering the signatures. But this is the mechanism we’re seeing now, ‘We’ll just sue you until the deadline is done.’”

If the referendum doesn’t get on the ballot in November, it’s possible it could get there in 2026, Marks said.

Just last week, more than 58% of voters in Jackson County, Missouri, voted down a sales tax measure that would’ve helped fund a new ballpark for the Kansas City Royals and provide upgrades to the Kansas City Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium.

“Billionaires know if this stuff actually gets vetted, if voters hear it, if the courts get it, it’s going down,” Marks said.

The teachers are also pursuing another avenue to stop the public funding from getting to the A’s with a lawsuit arguing that Senate Bill 1 is unconstitutional because it was passed by Nevada lawmakers without a supermajority.

The lawsuit was filed against the lawmakers, not the A’s, but the team’s lawyers are now trying to get involved, Marks said.

“They don’t need to be in this lawsuit,” he said. “Their game plan is the same thing as it is with the referendum: spend our money in court.”

Meanwhile, A’s fan group Last Dive Bar has helped Schools Over Stadiums raise thousands of dollars to help fund the operation.

The fan group, which also helped organize last year’s reverse boycott, February’s Fans Fest in Jack London Square and the Opening Day boycott in the Coliseum parking lot, sold enough Last Dive Bar bracelets to donate $10,000 to Schools Over Stadiums this week.

The teachers had already raised $45,000 at the Opening Day boycott, while all that money was matched by an anonymous Bay Area donor.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has been paying attention to the teacher’s efforts. He said in October that if anything were to happen with regards to the referendum, that’d be a “significant development” in the A’s move to Las Vegas.

The A’s expect to begin building their new ballpark next April. Last week, they agreed to move the team to Sacramento, where they’ll play in a minor league ballpark until their new stadium is ready.

MLB owners have approved the A’s planned relocation to Las Vegas, where they aim to open a new stadium four years from now on the site of the Tropicana casino, which closed Tuesday for demolition. The A’s believe the two sides aren’t close to an agreement on extending the team’s stay in Oakland before a planned relocation to Las Vegas for the 2028 season.

“We appreciate Oakland’s engagement and also we are far apart on the terms needed to agree on an extension,” the club said in a statement. The A’s will reportedly meet with Sacramento officials on Wednesday to discuss a temporary residency there.

Tuesday’s morning meeting took place at the A’s offices in Jack London Square, where there was some hope that progress could be made on extending the A’s lease that expires after this season.

The city has lowered its demands and is no longer requesting the guarantee of an expansion MLB team, nor demanding the A’s leave their name and colors behind, a spokesperson for the City of Oakland said on Tuesday.

Oakland officials presented a five-year offer in which the A’s would pay $97 million to stay at the Coliseum through 2029 and could opt out of the deal after three years, though they’d have to pay the total sum regardless. The A’s planned to counter with a two-year deal worth $17 million, according to ESPN.

It’s a steep rent hike for a team that had been paying around $1.5 million in rent each year.

The city is also asking the A’s to pay for the cost of turning the Coliseum into a soccer field for the Oakland Roots and to sell their 50% stake in the Coliseum. Oakland also wants MLB to provide at least one of the following demands: a one-year window with exclusive negotiating rights for an expansion team in Oakland, voting to leave the A’s branding and colors in Oakland, or aiding in the sale of the team to a local ownership group.

“Oakland made a fair and reasonable offer to the A’s,” Mayor Sheng Thao said in a statement. “We await their response and look forward to continuing discussions as necessary.”

MLB cannot guarantee anything related to expansion because all 30 owners would need to vote on expansion, which isn’t expected to happen for several years.

Warriors owner Joe Lacob said last October that he might be interested in buying the A’s if they were for sale, but A’s owner John Fisher has said repeatedly he’s not interested in selling the team. No ownership groups have signaled an interest in piloting an expansion team in Oakland.

A source familiar with Tuesday’s negotiations indicated that Oakland and Alameda County were not unified in their offer to the A’s.

If the A’s cannot come to an agreement to stay at the Coliseum, a temporary move to Sacramento’s Sutter Health Park, the Triple-A home of the San Francisco Giants, has been floated as the most likely scenario. A move out of the Bay Area would cost the A’s $67 million in annual local broadcast revenue.

“It’s important for me to express my sincere hope that the A’s remain in Oakland,” Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg told CBS Sacramento on Monday. “I have been consistent in my support for this from the very beginning. However, I believe that Sacramento has so much to offer and would be a fantastic temporary landing spot for the A’s. Our city and region have a rich history in baseball and a deep love for sports. Sacramento would wholeheartedly welcome Major League Baseball, as we have shown with the Sacramento Kings. Second to Oakland, Sacramento is the best choice.”

As for the team on the field, the A’s have struggled in the first week of the season: Entering Tuesday night, they are 1-4 and have been outscored 38-11 over five games against the Cleveland Guardians and Boston Red Sox.

In front of just 6,618 fans at the Coliseum on Monday, the A’s made five errors in the first three innings of their 9-0 loss to the Red Sox, giving them 13 errors in their first five games, the most by any team since the 1995 Chicago White Sox.

Their pending departure to Las Vegas seems imminent, though their ballpark isn’t expected to be ready until 2028 and the $380 million in public funding by Nevada taxpayers isn’t guaranteed.

Schools Over Stadiums, a political action group made up of a Nevada teachers’ union, has a court date in Carson City on April 9 to finalize their petition that, with enough signatures, would give voters a say in November.

According to ESPN and ABC7, officials are prepared to offer the team a five-year, $97-million extension on the A’s lease at the Coliseum that would keep them in Oakland for at least three years, with the option to opt out after 2028, when the A’s ballpark in Las Vegas is expected to be ready for play.

It represents a huge rent increase for the A’s, who have paid about $1.5 million in rent and would start paying $19.4 million per year next year. If the team opts out after three years, it still has to pay the full amount, bringing the average rent to $32.3 million per year.

ESPN reported that the A’s wanted a two-year deal worth $17 million to remain at the Coliseum.

In addition, Oakland officials are hoping to agree with MLB on at least one of three stipulations: getting a one-year window with exclusive negotiating rights for an expansion team in Oakland; voting to leave the A’s branding and colors in Oakland; or aiding in the sale of the team to a local ownership group.

And perhaps most notably, Oakland is asking the A’s to sell their 50% share of the Coliseum to allow for redevelopment on the property.

Aiding in the difficulty is MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, who has said repeatedly that he cannot grant any guarantees as it relates to expansion, seeing as the 30 owners would first need to vote on expansion. That vote isn’t expected to take place for years, not until the A’s and Tampa Bay Rays start playing in new ballparks. And Oakland would have to join a competitive pool of cities who are also hoping for an expansion team, among them: Nashville, Portland, Salt Lake City, Charlotte, San Antonio, Montreal and perhaps Sacramento.

Sacramento officials have talked openly about their desire to add another pro sports team. Kings owner Vivek Ranadive said last week he’s friends with A’s owner John Fisher and is hoping, if the A’s come to Sacramento, it would prove to MLB that Sacramento is a viable option for expansion. Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said recently that he’s hoping the A’s remain in Oakland, but if they don’t, Sacramento would welcome the A’s on a temporary basis.

Neither the A’s nor the Oakland mayor’s office responded for comment on Monday, but both sides have offered amicable remarks over the last two months as they’ve come back to the bargaining table to see if they can keep the team in Oakland a little while longer.

For the A’s, it’s simple: They need a temporary home.

Staying in Oakland would be the easiest move. It’d require no new negotiations with the A’s broadcasting partners, NBC Sports, and they would retain their reported $67 million in local media rights compensation by keeping the team at the Coliseum.

If they move to Sacramento’s Sutter Health Park, the Triple-A home of the San Francisco Giants, the A’s would have to renegotiate a media rights deal that could see their annual compensation take a big cut. Sacramento is the 20th-ranked media market in the country, according to Nielsen, making it the largest one-team media market in the country.

Sutter Health Park, built in 2000, has one of the largest capacities of any minor league ballpark. It seats just more than 10,000, then fits another 4,000-plus people in standing areas and grass berms in the outfield.

Of course, it’s uncertain whether or not the A’s would need that much seating.

They averaged just 6,680 during their first homestand of the season against the Cleveland Guardians, when they went 1-3 while being outscored 29-11.

They had fewer fans show up for the entire series (26,722) than they had at their Opening Day game last year (26,805).

A’s fans have clearly become disenchanted with a team that only recently took down its “Rooted in Oakland” signage that had been up since 2017, when the team announced its “commitment to building a ballpark in its longtime home city.”

Fisher ended that idea last spring, when the team announced it was moving to Las Vegas after the city promised $380 million in public funding for a new ballpark. At least some of that money is in question, though, as the Schools Over Stadiums political action group will find out April 9 if it can begin collecting signatures for a referendum that would give voters a say in November.

Schools Over Stadiums spokesman Alex Marks believes the group has raised enough money — largely thanks to A’s fans in Oakland — and signed up enough volunteers to collect the necessary signatures in time.

Marks said if they’re able to get any of the $380 million in public money revoked via a vote in November, or via a lawsuit that ruled Senate Bill 1 as unconstitutional for raising taxes without a two-thirds supermajority, Fisher’s deal with Las Vegas would fall apart.

“It’s a house of cards,” Marks said.

To protect themselves, the A’s could sign a long-term lease with the Coliseum that would give them time to figure out a next step.

In the meantime, they’re off to another horrible start on the field and in the ticket office.

MLB is hoping the A’s will figure out where they intend to play next season as soon as possible so the league can release its 2025 schedule sometime in the early summer.

The 33,000-seat park will be enclosed by a roof but will feature “the world’s largest cable-net glass window” to allow for natural light and views of the strip.

The architects, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) and HNTB, are calling the stadium a “spherical armadillo” because of the roof’s overlapping layers.

In a press release, A’s owner John Fisher called it a “truly innovative and bold design while ensuring an unmatched fan experience. We hope to add to the dynamic atmosphere and liveliness of the Las Vegas Strip, creating a welcoming environment for all of Southern Nevada.”

The $1.5-billion project will be built on 9 acres of the 35-acre Tropicana site. The small space doesn’t allow for a retractable roof, but the A’s are hoping to counteract that with the large window facing the strip beyond the outfield. The roof will limit direct sunlight and heat.

“Our design for the new Vegas home for the A’s is conceived in response to the unique culture and climate of the city,’” said Bjarke Ingels, founder and creative director of BIG. “Five pennant arches enclose the ballpark-shading from the Nevada sun while opening to the soft daylight from the north. A giant window frames a majestic view of the life of the Strip and the iconic New York New York hotel skyline. All direct sunlight is blocked, while all the soft daylight is allowed to wash the field in natural light.

“The resultant architecture is like a spherical armadillo – shaped by the local climate – while opening and inviting the life of the strip to enter and explore. In the city of spectacle, the A’s ‘armadillo’ is designed for passive shading and natural light – the architectural response to the Nevada climate generating a new kind of vernacular icon in Vegas.”

The stadium will be tiered into upper and lower seating bowls with no restricted views. The club also hopes to build an 18,000-square-foot jumbotron, which would be the largest in MLB.

One big question is the parking. The plan only supports 2,500 on-site parking spots, fewer than one spot per 10 fans if the ballpark is at capacity. For comparison, NFL stadiums tend to require one spot per three fans. The 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium has 31,000 parking spots for 69,000 capacity.

The A’s are hoping to work with the county on traffic and transportation plans and are considering an express bus service like the ones used for T-Mobile Arena and Allegiant Stadium.

The ballpark is scheduled to open in 2028.

The announcement of the renderings comes a few days before the A’s travel to Las Vegas for a pair of exhibition games against the Milwaukee Brewers at Las Vegas Ballpark, the 10,000-capacity home of the Triple-A Aviators. The A’s and Brewers will play there on Friday and Saturday.

“Like a bird, finally let loose to fly,” May said Saturday at Fans Fest, a celebration of Oakland sports fans at Jack London Square. “Last year was very hard. I just had a lot of stuff I was worrying about.”

Last season, May was the highest-paid player on the A’s and one of the team’s veteran leaders who was trying to keep things positive in a difficult year for him personally, having stepped away for about a month to deal with mental health issues, and for the franchise, which announced its plans to leave for Las Vegas.

It felt impossible for May to speak honestly about playing for a team that ended up with the 10th-most losses in MLB history while using an MLB-low payroll.

There was plenty he wanted to say, but couldn’t.

Like on that Tuesday night in June, when more than 27,000 A’s fans showed up for a reverse boycott to protest Fisher’s decision to move the team to Vegas.

Fans chanted “sell the team.” They were vocal and angry towards Fisher, but were incredibly supportive any time the A’s did something well on the field.

“That’s a connection with the fans that only exists here,” May said. “If you’re an underdog, these fans are there for you. It’s why I’ve always gravitated to it.”

The A’s won a spectacular game over the Tampa Bay Rays, 2-1, and May recorded the final out while pumping his fist and screaming as he walked off the mound.

Earlier that day, the only negative thing May could say about Fisher was this: “It is about money for John. It is. There’s no dancing around it.”

What did he really want to say?

He said it at the end of the season, when he announced his retirement on his YouTube show and slammed Fisher on the way out, calling him a “greedy (expletive).”

Saturday, he again sounded off on Fisher and the A’s, who have yet to publicly release any renderings of their new ballpark, announce a financing plan or determine where they’ll play until their Vegas ballpark is ready in 2028. There are also several legal proceedings in Nevada that could stop some or all of the $380 million in public funding that’s supposed to help pay for it.

“It’s predictable,” May said. “I just don’t think they’re very good at this. I try to search track records for John’s business record and he really hasn’t done anything successfully. Not truly. He hasn’t really hit anything well. Most of it is because of his status. He gets a return to a level because of who he is but there’s nothing being added.”

In Oakland, Mayor Sheng Thao has been just as frustrated with Fisher, who she predicted will do “John Fisher things” when he gets to Las Vegas. Thao thought the city was close to a deal with the A’s for a new ballpark at Howard Terminal, but she never heard from Fisher until he called to say the team was focused on moving to Vegas.

Said May: “Everyone is realizing he’s not bringing anything to us. We’re not going to get anything. We’re only going to give. He’s not going to give us anything. So what’s the point of being in business with this person?”

May’s problem is that the other 29 MLB owners, commissioner Rob Manfred and lawmakers in Las Vegas are going along with it. The owners voted 30-0 to approve Fisher’s planned relocation to Las Vegas, despite several owners who voiced their concerns privately, as reported in The Athletic last November.

May said he wanted to speak out while he was still a player, but it was difficult. So when he announced his retirement, he found himself no longer holding back.

“It’s important that the fans know that we (the players) know,” May said. “We know. Everyone knows. I don’t know why we can’t acknowledge things.”

May said the Vegas deal is obviously flawed, “but this is easy, to shrug and let someone else deal with it. There’s a lot of people who could shut it down in Vegas who won’t because they don’t want to put the wrench in the machine.

“I have no idea how this got green-lit when there was no plan. I think we’d know about the plan because they’d put it out immediately if they had one. It’s kind of predictable.”

The players on the A’s “just want an answer,” May said. They don’t know where they’ll be playing after the team’s lease at the Coliseum expires following the 2024 season. The team is negotiating with the city on an extension, but those talks don’t seem promising.

“The Coliseum has been old since it was been built,” May said.

And playing in a Triple-A ballpark in Sacramento or Salt Lake City would be unfavorable for the players, who have to sign off on such a move before the A’s could do it.

“That sucks,” May said. “But the guys are so good at just being like, ‘When have we ever had any control over anything?’ So they just go along with it. They have to if you want to keep your job. And I would too.”

The only A’s free agent additions of note this winter were lefty Alex Wood, who signed a one-year, $8.5-million deal, and reliever Trevor Gott, who signed a one-year, $1.5-million deal.

At this point, why would anybody sign a two-year contract to play in Oakland?

“There won’t be anyone who signs a two-year contract,” May said. “Maybe one year with an option. But not at least until some of this stuff gets ironed out. It’s not like the A’s are looking for that anyways. Which is understandable.”

All signs point to another frustrating season at the Coliseum.

“If I’m (general manager David Forst), I don’t know how you operate under these circumstances,” May said. “I don’t know how you do that job. He’s finding a way though.”

In a 45-minute meeting that was described as positive and informal by those in attendance, everything was put on the table to facilitate discussions about an extension that would keep the A’s in Oakland until at least 2028 — the earliest date their proposed ballpark in Las Vegas is expected to be ready.

It’s the first time the A’s have discussed an extension with local officials in person, according to Alameda County Supervisor David Haubert. Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao’s chief of staff Leigh Hanson and City Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan also were among those in attendance.

“It’s a recognition that we all have to work together, we’re all in the same boat to some degree,” Haubert said. “The fact that we had a dialogue, had a positive dialogue, is a good thing. There were no food fights. No backstabbing. No yelling at each other. It’s professional dialogue.”

The A’s also have met in recent weeks with city officials in Salt Lake City and Sacramento about playing in Triple-A ballparks that seat 15,400 and 14,000, respectively.

They expect to continue having conversations with representatives from Oakland in the coming weeks with the hope of reaching a resolution soon, before MLB releases its schedule for 2025 in the summer.

“We had a positive meeting with the city and county,” said an A’s spokesperson familiar with Thursday’s meeting. “We look forward to further discussions regarding a lease extension at the Coliseum for the interim period before the Vegas ballpark opens.”

The big question is what Oakland would want in return and if the A’s are able to give it to them.

Thao said last September that she would want “some tangibles for our city.” Among those discussed again on Thursday were the idea of the A’s name and logo being kept in Oakland, the guarantee of an MLB expansion team coming to the city, and a guarantee that the Oakland Roots and/or Oakland Soul soccer teams could play games at the Coliseum.

But many of those factors would involve cooperation from additional parties, such as Major League Baseball. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has already said that he isn’t in position to guarantee an expansion team to any city, because MLB hasn’t formally decided on expansion yet and doesn’t plan to do so until the A’s and Tampa Bay Rays are in new stadiums.

Manfred also has said the matters of the name and logo are up to A’s owner John Fisher, who would present a recommendation to the other MLB clubs.

Both Fisher and Manfred have expressed concern about the viability of the 58-year-old Coliseum, with Manfred saying in November that “at some point a facility deteriorates to the level it’s just not a major league facility.”

The A’s also have plenty of work to do in Las Vegas, where Thursday’s planned Las Vegas Stadium Authority Board meeting was canceled. They have yet to file development and non-relocation agreements for their new ballpark, but they have submitted three different ballpark renderings, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The renderings contain different plans to build on three locations throughout the Tropicana hotel site. The site is 35 acres, but the A’s 33,000-seat ballpark will have to fit on just nine acres.

The Tropicana hotel will be shut down on April 2 to clear the site for the A’s to begin building as soon as nine months, per the report. The A’s hope to open their stadium in 2028.

Prior to Thursday, the A’s already had been engaging in discussions with Oakland officials about an extension to the Coliseum lease, but Haubert said he didn’t feel as though all sides were talking openly.

He organized Thursday’s meeting because “it was in the best interest of the community and everybody if they did talk.”

“Getting together was a good thing,” he said. “As I expected, it was good to let everyone express their thoughts on the situation, their interests moving forward together. We all know the deals, the details of the situations that the A’s are about to own half of the facility in connection with the City of Oakland. We have to work together.”

Everything was put on the table, and nothing was taken off the table, Haubert said.

Neither Hanson nor Kaplan immediately responded to requests for comment on Thursday’s meeting.

The sides will meet again in the coming weeks, though no specific date has been set.

Team president Dave Kaval will meet with officials from the city of Oakland and Alameda County on Thursday to discuss a lease extension at the Coliseum that would keep the A’s in Oakland until their ballpark in Las Vegas is ready, according to an industry source.

The A’s are entering the final year of their lease with the Coliseum and have been exploring other options for the 2025 season and beyond until they’re ready to play in their new ballpark, which is expected to open in Las Vegas in 2028.

They’ve already begun discussions with city officials and those conversations are ongoing.

Expected to be at Thursday’s meeting along with Kaval are the Oakland mayor’s chief of staff, Leigh Hanson, county Supervisor David Haubert and City Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, according to the Chronicle, which first reported news of the meeting.

Last June, a Vegas official suggested the A’s could play in Reno in the interim. There has also been talk about sharing Oracle Park with the San Francisco Giants.

More recently the A’s met with city officials in Sacramento and Salt Lake City while touring both Triple-A ballparks there.

Sutter Health Park in Sacramento was the home of the Triple-A affiliate for the A’s from 2000-14, then became the Giants’ Triple-A affiliate in 2015. Smith Ballpark in Salt Lake City is the home of the Los Angeles Angels’ Triple-A affiliate and seats 15,400, the largest capacity in the Pacific Coast League.

The A’s would like to get this sorted out as soon as possible. The MLB schedule for the 2025 season comes out in the summer and the league is hoping to have this resolved in the next few months.

For the A’s, extending their lease at the Coliseum makes the most sense, but would likely come at a cost.

Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao said last September that the A’s would need to give up something valuable in return.

“To extend the ballpark lease for the Oakland A’s to play here in Oakland, there’s going to have to be some conversation, some real conversation, some tangibles for our city of Oakland,” Thao told NBC Bay Area at the time. “Including the possibility of an expansion team guaranteed, including the possibility of a name staying here in the city of Oakland. … I’m not going to stand here and allow for there to be abuse in this so-called relationship that we have.

“And so, if (the A’s are) willing to have that conversation and be … a good tenant here in the city of Oakland and a good team player, then that’s a conversation we should have. We should really talk about possible expansion and keeping the name here in Oakland.”

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has commented that the league is not in position to guarantee expansion teams to anybody. To date, there has been no known ownership group to publicly declare interest in an expansion team in Oakland.

Fisher said at the MLB owners meetings in November that it would be up to Manfred where the A’s play until their stadium is ready in Las Vegas.

MLB Players Union head Tony Clark will need to approve any temporary location, and the players are unlikely to approve Triple-A ballparks that don’t meet specific standards.

The A’s will need to remain in their media market to continue to receive a reported $67 million in their deal with regional sports network NBC Sports California.

In December, the A’s agreed to pay $45 million to Alameda County to officially acquire half of the Coliseum property — the other half is owned by Oakland. The club was on a payback plan with the county, but had agreed to pay the entirety within 180 days of announcing a plan to take the A’s out of Oakland, which the team did last year.

It’s uncertain what the A’s have planned for the Coliseum property following their departure, whenever that may be.

The A’s declined to comment on this story. City officials did not respond to requests for comment.

The baseball franchise, which initially had tried to get out of sending the money so quickly, sent a letter Thursday to Nate Miley, chair of the county’s Board of Supervisors, acknowledging that it will “satisfy the obligations” that remain outstanding from the parties’ 2019 agreement to purchase the land for $85 million.

The sale entitles the A’s to 50% ownership of the Coliseum complex, which includes the ballpark, the nearby arena and the vast parking space in between, even though the 2024 season may be the team’s last there.

And while the deal doesn’t formally close until 2026, its terms required the A’s to pay out the rest of what they owed to the county if the team ever announced it was leaving Oakland — which it did in April, when the team first secured a land deal for a Las Vegas ballpark.

That detail of the agreement — and the notion that the A’s owed the county $45 million within 180 days of the announcement — garnered attention after an opinion columnist for this news organization pointed it out last month, prompting weeks of confused responses from both the team and county officials.

County officials, including Miley, did not respond Friday to requests for comment, nor did the A’s.

The team hasn’t said what it intends to do with the 155-acre property, which has a murky future. A’s president Dave Kaval said at the time of purchase that the deal would help keep the team in town, but that outcome now appears off the table.

“I have not had any discussions with board members about what the A’s want to do with the property, because the A’s have never articulated them,” said Henry Gardner, the head of the Joint Powers Authority, which oversees the site on behalf of the city and county. “I haven’t seen or heard from the A’s what a redevelopment would look like.”

The other half of the property is owned by the city, which is in negotiations with the African American Sports and Entertainment Group, a Black-led development group to transform the site into a large commercial hotspot with live sports, hotels and nightlife, though the project has faced difficult early hurdles.

A local soccer franchise, Oakland Roots SC, has made overtures to play in an adjacent lot or even on the ballpark grounds after the A’s lease at the Coliseum expires at the end of 2024.

Separately, though, the A’s purchase is tied up in litigation after the lobbyist group Communities for a Better Environment challenged the county’s decision to sell the property.

The Bay Area’s chapter of the group alleged that the county did not sufficiently follow the Surplus Lands Act, a longstanding California law that requires public agencies to prioritize affordable housing for land.

Meanwhile, the deal cannot close until bonds taken out by the city and county in the 1990s for improvements at the ballpark and arena are fully returned, with the final payments expected in early 2026.

Where the A’s will play after their lease at the Coliseum expires remains a mystery.

Back in June, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority president Steve Hill said the A’s could play in Reno in the interim. Since then, three other options have been presented by Kaval: staying at the Coliseum and extending the lease, playing at the A’s Triple-A home in Las Vegas or sharing Oracle Park with the San Francisco Giants.

ESPN reported in September that MLB owners would want to know the A’s plan for a temporary home before voting to approve their move to Las Vegas at the owners’ meetings in November. But the vote was unanimous in approving the relocation — without the A’s announcing their intentions.

Fisher has said that MLB will ultimately make the decision.

Asked about it at a press conference immediately following the vote, commissioner Rob Manfred said: “We’re exploring a variety of alternatives, including staying at the Coliseum for the remaining years in the interim.”

In order to qualify for their hefty payouts from NBC Sports California — the A’s reportedly received $67 million from the regional sports network last year — the A’s must play at least half their home games in Northern California.

Both MLB and the MLB Players’ Association will have to sign off on any plans before they can be finalized.

He has no plans to sell the team.

Fisher made the statement to the Las Vegas Review-Journal on the heels of last week’s unanimous vote by MLB to approve the A’s move to Nevada.

“I want my family to own the A’s long into the future,” Fisher said. “We are committed to building a state-of-the-art ballpark on the Strip and bringing more championships to Southern Nevada.”

Why speak about this now, after Fisher has repetitively made it clear he doesn’t intend to sell the team?

Perhaps it’s because of a report in USA Today last week that provided some insight into how the other MLB owners perceive Fisher’s intentions.

Within MLB’s agreement to approve the A’s relocation, there’s a provision called a “10-year flip tax,” USA TODAY reported.

The tax is to prevent Fisher from using the relocation to boost the team’s value and then sell it to another ownership group.

If Fisher sells the team before the A’s are to begin playing in their Las Vegas ballpark in 2028, he would be taxed 20% of the purchase price, with the money split among the owners. The tax then goes down to 10% if he sells in 2029, and a decreasing amount each year until it ends in 2034.

Fisher bought the team in 2005 for $180 million. In March, it was worth an estimated $1.2 billion, according to Forbes annual report. The value could go up with a move to Vegas and a new ballpark that will be partly funded by Nevada taxpayers.

Because Fisher was able to convince MLB owners that a path forward in Oakland was not viable, commissioner Rob Manfred recommended they waive the relocation fee, expected to be at least $300 million, to get the A’s to Vegas.

The “10-year flip tax” could be a way that MLB attempts to nudge Fisher to invest in his team and become less reliant on revenue sharing.

The Oakland A’s owner addressed the media shortly after the MLB owners voted to approve the A’s move to Las Vegas at the owners’ meetings in Arlington, Texas, on Thursday morning.

“I understand that it is an incredibly difficult day for Oakland fans,” he told reporters. “And I just want to say we made every effort and did everything we could to try to find a solution there and it was only in the last couple years we began to turn our attention to another market.”

Fisher also released a statement and sent a letter to some fans.

His statement:

“I want to express my gratitude to the owners and commissioner for their thoughtful deliberation and positive votes in favor of our relocation to Las Vegas.

“Today marks a significant moment for our franchise, and it’s met with mixed emotions – sadness for this change and excitement for our future. I know this is a hard day for our fans in Oakland. We made sincere efforts to keep our team in Oakland, but unfortunately, it did not work out. I am grateful to the fans who have supported our team throughout the years and the home Oakland provided. The storied history of our franchise includes three cities over the past century: Oakland, along with Kansas City and Philadelphia, will always be part of this franchise’s DNA.

“We are excited to begin this next chapter in Las Vegas. I want to thank the Las Vegas and Nevada community for welcoming us. We will continue to work hard to bring home more championships for our fans and for our new home in Vegas.”

Fisher also sent a letter to A’s fans, obtained by ABC’s Casey Pratt.

The letter:

“Dear Fans of the Oakland A’s,

“I know that today is a very difficult day with the vote by MLB owners allowing for the A’s relocation from Oakland to Las Vegas. I share a lot of those emotions – sadness that our team will be leaving its home since 1968, pride in what we have accomplished together on and off the field in Oakland, but also hope and optimism about the future of the A’s in Las Vegas.

“Since 2005, when Lew Wolff and I bought the team, we focused our efforts on developing a new privately financed stadium to position the A’s for long-term, sustained success. From the beginning, I wanted to stay in the Bay Area which has been home to my family for generations and to the Athletics for over fifty years.

“Even before we bought the team, it was clear that the A’s needed a new stadium, with the Coliseum being one of the oldest ballparks in the game and with huge repair and maintenance issues. We spent nearly all our time and effort exploring multiple locations in Oakland, Fremont, San Jose and then Laney College, the Coliseum and Howard Terminal in Oakland. For the past 2-1/2 years, we also explored Las Vegas in parallel with those efforts.

“I fell in love with the history and community around the A’s from the beginning of my affiliation with the team. I felt that I was in a unique position to succeed in building a new home for our team, which was critical to having a sustainable, winning team on the field for A’s fans. However, after the last six years of working on keeping the A’s in Oakland, the hurdles proved too great. We were unable to get a binding agreement from the City, with rising costs of infrastructure making it harder and harder for the city to pay for its part of the project, and organized opposition from maritime interests raising significant doubts we could ever get a stadium built.

“In May 2021, MLB gave us permission to explore Las Vegas as an alternative market out of concern for the rate of progress being made by the A’s in Oakland. The need for a new stadium was reinforced in the 2022 collective bargaining agreement between MLB and the baseball player’s association, which stated that the A’s must have a binding agreement for a new stadium by January 2024 or lose revenue sharing. Despite our best efforts, including six years of work and $100 million spent on securing a stadium in Oakland, we came to the difficult conclusion that we would not be able to have a binding agreement with Oakland by the January, 2024, deadline. The threat of a referendum delaying the process further confirmed that decision.

“I want to thank the mayor’s office, the port, the city council, the state, and most importantly A’s fans and our own employees, who were all dedicated to trying to make this work in Oakland. I believe the collective motivations of everyone involved were honorable and I appreciate all the work that was done in support of this effort. I also understand their disappointment and frustration, and the desire in the media to place all the blame on me and the A’s organization for the inability to make this work. All I can say is that we worked as hard as possible for six years to find a solution in Oakland.

“To our fans, I am truly sorry. While I know that today is a sad day, I hope that it is also the start of a new and bright future for the A’s.”

Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao also released a statement that can be read here.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred held a press conference with reporters in which he discussed Oakland as an expansion city. Read here.