A’s Fisher short on answers in Vegas
LAS VEGAS — Sorry, Oakland Athletics fans, I bring you bad news from the future home of your once-beloved baseball club.
A’s owner John Fisher appeared Wednesday morning at a Chamber of Commerce event, “Preview Las Vegas.” After listening to his brief lounge act, then tossing a few questions at him backstage, I can offer no hope that Fisher’s Vegas plan will blow up and he will take another shot at Oakland.
The A’s move to Vegas still seems like a half-baked plan, with more holes than my blackjack strategy. But a short visit here reminded me that this is a city built on preposterous ideas. And that sports teams have an ability to cloud minds when it comes to getting civic leaders to take seemingly foolish risks. Right, Mark Davis?
From the reasonably warm welcome for Fisher at this event, sort of a pep rally for Vegas growth, I get the feeling that folks here aren’t worried that they will be expected to embrace and support what is currently the worst team in sports with zero prospects of improvement soon.
Hey, in Vegas, crazy dreams drive away worries, and Fisher has what Vegas money people lust for: another big-league sports team. Whether or not Las Vegas citizens lust for the Oakland A’s is another matter, but once a stadium is built, they’re stuck with the A’s, for better or for worse.
And Oakland is history. From things I’ve heard recently, I get the impression that it’s possible Fisher forged ahead with his Howard Terminal plans longer than he might have wanted to because baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred, probably fearing the loss of MLB’s lucrative antitrust exemption, urged Fisher to give it the old college try.
“All I can do is say I gave everything I had to try to make things work” in Oakland, Fisher claimed, recycling one of his
talking points, “and we’re very excited to be coming to Las Vegas, and this is where our new home is going to be.”
Still, many questions hang in the air, about Oakland and about Vegas. Sadly, after listening to Fisher onstage for 25 minutes, and backstage after that, I don’t have much clarity on key points, but here you go:
Are the A’s on schedule to open in Las Vegas in 2028?
“We hope so,” Fisher said. “I’ve spent enough time in real estate to know that nothing ever goes in a completely straight line, but we are working really well together with our partners, we have a tremendous team” of architects, designers and builders.
That 2028 timetable, I’m calling it iffy. The A’s said they would reveal renderings of the stadium in December, then called off the unveiling, saying they did so out of respect to a tragedy involving two local police officers. Fisher explained Wednesday that during that brief delay, the A’s decided to wait to unveil their ballpark renderings at the same time as plans for the rest of the current Tropicana site are ready to be shown.
“We’ll release our renderings when it’s the right time to do so,” Fisher said.
What can you do with a statement like that?
How will Fisher fund his portion of the ballpark?
He said, “We anticipate that the stadium will cost close to $1.5 billion, that will be funded mostly with equity from my family. We’d actually like to consider raising capital, especially from local investors, because we think that that creates a connection to the community. We’ve seen that with a lot of other teams, be a successful thing. And (we’ll finance the rest) with a little bit of debt.”
That evades the key question of how far along that moneygathering project is, but I warned you not to expect definitive answers.
Fisher and A’s President Dave Kaval swear that they will field a competitive team when they open in Vegas and money starts rolling in. Sounds great — and unusual for Fisher’s A’s — but how does that unfold? So I asked Fisher what the timeline is for ramping up his payroll and roster.
“So, look,” Fisher said, “successful teams go through rebuilding periods, and it is a reality in all sports that to maintain excellence requires periods where you need to build up your youth and you need to see some of your best players leave. And we believe that by coming to Las Vegas, we’re going to be able to get out of this idea that the A’s have to let their best players go prematurely.
“And that’s a goal, that’s been our goal since the very beginning, since we were working on a new stadium in the Bay Area, and now that we’re working on a stadium in Las Vegas, is to have a sufficient payroll that will allow us to, again, keep the players who are building their careers in Summerlin with the Aviators (the A’s Triple-A affiliate nearby), and have them stay with the A’s for a very long period of time.
“Teams like Houston, Baltimore have sort of demonstrated that you can have tremendous long-term success following periods where your team is not performing as well.”
I appreciate Fisher taking the time to address that, but he could have answered the question just as well with a shrug.
Fisher and the A’s are in the process of buying a 50% interest in the Oakland Coliseum site. So we had a little Q&A on that, too.
What are your plans for the Coliseum?
“We haven’t focused on that issue. I know others are focused and trying to get an answer on that, and I understand that desire, but our focus has really been on working on our new home.”
But some, including me, have said that your half-interest in the Coliseum, with no stated plan, is holding up potential development.
“Is it holding up potential development? You write that it is. … Not really sure that it is holding up any potential development. There isn’t a lot of development happening right now. But like I said, we’re evaluating what the options are, and we don’t have a timeline for an answer.”
It seems like a big investment ($90 million) to not know what you’re going to do.
“OK.”
What about reports that you looked at the old Raiders’ practice facility in Alameda?
“We’re not involved in that right now.”
The A’s lease at the Coliseum expires after next season. The team will need a temporary home for at least three seasons while its Vegas park is built. The A’s recently kicked the tires on Sacramento and Salt Lake City. But the A’s TV contract calls for them to play in the Bay Area, and going outside that area could cost the team more than $60 million per season.
“We don’t have an answer on that situation right now,” Fisher said, “but obviously, revenues are important to the A’s, like they are to every other team. It’s something we will be paying close attention to.”
The exercise of asking Mr. Fisher for answers was similar to throwing questions at a Magic 8 Ball. However, I did get one definitive answer on Wednesday. In the event lobby, Stomper was working the crowd, posing for selfies. I wondered if the A’s brought Stomper’s real person to Vegas, or just hired a local to fill the costume. I asked Stomper if he’d come down from the Bay Area.
He gave me a thumbs-up.