The Oakland A’s grand plan to build a stadium in Las Vegas faced its most consequential test deep into Wednesday night as some skeptical Nevada legislators grilled the team’s representatives over its request for $380 million in public funding for the project.
Other state lawmakers, though, lauded the team’s proposal to build a $1.5 billion, 30,000-seat ballpark on the strip and offered support during a special session Gov. Joe Lombardo called after the legislature’s regular term had ended Tuesday.
It turns out, that was just the start.
The nearly day-long session adjourned shortly before midnight and is scheduled to resume around 11:30 a.m. Thursday.
Legislators are asking for more details and assurances surrounding the ambitious bill — introduced so late in the game that without Lombardo’s intervention, it would have been on hold until February.
If the public funding is approved, the A’s would end a decades-long search for a new stadium, reaching a key checkpoint in their efforts to leave Oakland and taking the last major team from a city once robust with professional sports franchises.
The A’s, which tracked down the current site after ditching a separate, costlier land deal, ran into hard questions about how recently the bill was introduced, as well as the proposed language, which some members of the legislature believed didn’t contain enough clear-cut community benefits.
Many of the lawmakers appeared to simply not believe the project was worth such a sizable investment.
“The small business community is basically being used to subsidize a form of corporate welfare for some exceptionally big people that honestly should be able to finance their own projects without the need of the Nevada taxpayers,” said Republican Sen. Ira Hansen.
The proclamation is here! The measure would be consistent with the provisions of Senate Bill 509 (as introduced in the 82nd regular session of the Nevada Legislature). https://t.co/r002Zo92DU pic.twitter.com/9bpCx1BZ67
— Tabitha Mueller (@tabitha_mueller) June 7, 2023
But the A’s have promised tax revenues generated by the 9-acre project site — on the same lot as the likely-to-be demolished Tropicana hotel — would go above and beyond the state’s bond-debt obligation.
“Those first years will probably be the easiest to fill … this shiny new stadium on the Vegas Strip,” Jeremy Aguero, a financial analyst hired by the A’s, said of attendance at the new ballpark. “I like our chances.”
Sen. Jeff Stone, a conservative former Californian, noted that sports franchises have almost never defaulted on their debt obligations, echoing other elected officials who signaled excitement at the prospect of summer baseball games on the Strip.
“I think you’ve done a good job minimizing risk to taxpayers,” Stone said. “I think it’s a very exciting project to consider.”
Major League Baseball has told the A’s they must have a stadium deal in place before Jan. 15 to continue to be eligible for revenue-sharing monies.
League commissioner Rob Manfred, meanwhile, has pledged to waive the team’s relocation fees if the ballpark in Vegas becomes a reality.
The eagerness by Manfred and billionaire A’s owner John Fisher to move Oakland’s longstanding baseball franchise out of town has irritated most of the city’s leaders and residents.
In a letter to Manfred this week, U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, who represents Oakland, said the commissioner and the A’s don’t appear to be negotiating with Oakland in good faith and are attempting to “actively take crucial revenue, and a cultural staple, from the East Bay.”
“Multiple generations of Oaklanders have grown up identifying with the team’s dogged efforts and hard-earned triumphs,” Lee wrote.
“The A’s organization adds significant tangible economic benefit to our region, including numerous good paying jobs at Oakland Coliseum,” she added. “But as important is the sense of unique shared cultural identity that surrounds the team and its local fanbase.”
Hansen made it a point at Wednesday’s special session to extend sympathy to Oakland, noting that the A’s may one day “abandon” Las Vegas in similar fashion.
The A’s lease at the Coliseum extends through the end of the 2024 season, but a ballpark at the team’s latest proposed site in Las Vegas would not be constructed until at least 2027.
The $380 million sought by the A’s is significantly lower than the $750 million Nevada coughed up in 2016 to draw Raiders football away from Oakland.
And after Nevada legislators last month balked at a $500 million funding request for a stadium further down the strip, the A’s scrambled to the Tropicana site — announcing each of the two deals with a tone of finality that stands in stark contrast to how things have played out.
The bulk of the public funding for the retractable roof stadium would come from $380 million in public assistance, partly through $180 million in transferable tax credits and $120 million in county bonds.
Backers have pledged the district will generate enough money to pay off those bonds and interest. If the bill were approved, A’s would owe no property taxes for the publicly owned stadium, and Clark County would be expected to contribute only $25 million.
For senators with little patience for the project, details of the financial workings were more interesting because of the opportunity cost — all the ways that the money wouldn’t be spent.
Sen. Rochelle Nguyen, a Las Vegas Democrat, noted that the A’s had made their funding request “at the same time that the governor has vetoed funding for summer school, a bill to support children’s mental health, a bill requiring paid family leave — all because the governor said we couldn’t afford them.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
