The Athletics are three steps closer to relocating to Las Vegas.
The city’s stadium authority on Thursday approved a trio of agreements needed to greenlight construction on the A’s new home ballpark, which will be built on the Strip. Construction is expected to start in the spring of 2025.
“It’s a really significant day for Las Vegas, for Nevada,” Las Vegas Stadium Authority Chairman Steve Hill said. “There will be more of that. We’ll have the groundbreaking, we’re going to have a (stadium) topping off party and we’re going to have Opening Day. We’re going to have many years of Major League Baseball.”
The stadium authority OK’d a development agreement along with 30-year lease and non-relocation agreements.
Under the development agreement, the A’s must shoulder the first $100 million of the stadium’s cost before public funds can be used. The team has already spent $40 million on the project, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Both the lease and the non-relocation agreements can be extended more than once and can last up to 99 years. The agreements lay out what the A’s can do if the stadium becomes unplayable or if the team attempts to relocate before the lease expires.
The stadium authority also approved stadium construction financing. The A’s new ballpark will cost $250 million more than originally projected, but team owner John Fisher is still expected to foot his share of the bill.
In a letter presented earlier this week to the stadium authority, U.S. Bank senior vice president Stephen Vogel wrote that Fisher, whose net worth is an estimated $3.2 billion, and his family can comfortably afford the $1.75 billion project.
“We conclude that the Fisher family and their related entities have financial assets (excluding their interest in the Athletics Major League Baseball franchise) more than sufficient to fund the equity portion of the proposed capital structure for the Athletics’ Las Vegas stadium,” Vogel wrote.
U.S. Bank and Goldman Sachs are loaning Fisher $300 million for construction costs, while the public sector is chipping in $380 million, per Front Office Sports. Fisher has said he and his family will contribute as much as $1.1 billion.
That leaves $1.37 billion for Fisher to raise himself. He is still recruiting minority equity investors but has not yet given a clear picture on how he will fund the rest of the project.
The ballpark was originally slated to cost $1.5 billion, but improvements to fan and player amenities — including suite spaces — have raised the bill.
The A’s hope their new home will be ready for Opening Day 2028. Until then, the team will play its home games at Sutter Health Park, a minor league stadium in Sacramento, Calif., that seats about 14,000 fans.
The A’s had called Oakland home from 1968 to 2024, but Fisher elected to move the team after failing to agree with the city on terms for building a new stadium in the Bay Area.
–Field Level Media