Las Vegas A's?

[Dan Druff]

I've long contended that an MLB team isn't coming to Vegas, because there are several problems:

1) The population isn't big enough to fill a baseball stadium (much bigger than a hockey/NBA area) for 81 games per year.

2) The TV market is small. Many don't realize that Vegas is incredibly isolated. There's basically no population in outlying areas for 100 miles in all directions. The closest city of any consequence is St. George, UT, which is 120 miles northeast. So your entire market is basically Vegas/Henderson/North LV/Boulder City. And that's it.

3) The number of tourists coming into town to see their home team play in Vegas will be minimal, aside from close teams such as the Dodgers, Angels, Padres, and Diamondbacks. This is different from the NFL, where there are very few games per season, so people are more likely to plan trips around their team being in Vegas.


Despite that, it looks like an MLB team might come to Vegas anyway. Presumably they're excited by the success of the Golden Knights (which Vegas people loved both because it was their first major pro team, plus the team was immediately good) and the Raiders (first "big 3" sport to come, plus it's easy to fill stadium with just 8 home games.)

The Oakland A's, long battling a lousy stadium, lousy area, and lousy fan support, are seriously considering moving to Vegas.

Team officials came to Vegas this month, and claim they will finalize a list of 10-12 potential sites for the new Las Vegas A's stadium by November: https://www.reviewjournal.com/sports...ember-2442670/


So is this a done deal? Not yet. The A's want to stay in Oakland, but only if they can have a new waterfront stadium, supported by a new proposed tax which would fund major infrastructure improvements around that new stadium. If the A's get this from special tax approved, and if their new stadium gets the green light, they will stay in Oakland.

However, they claim they will likely decide by the end of 2021 if a move to Vegas is coming. It does appear that Vegas is their only desired new location, so if the Oakland ballpark falls through, you'll be saying hello to the Las Vegas A's very soon.

Sadly, being an AL team, the Dodgers won't be playing them very often. I think it would be better to move the Rockies over to the AL West, and put the Vegas A's in the NL West, given that fans from Phoenix, San Diego, and Los Angeles are all roughly 300 miles from Vegas.

[Texter]

They should move to San Marcos Texas.

Half an hour from Austin and 50 minutes from San Antonio…name them the Texas As….done.

Still with Astros and rangers in the AL

That’s over 3 million people within an hour

[limitles]

Vancouver a long shot

[Texter]

Do People in Vancouver root for Seattle or Toronto or neither?

[limitles]

Do People in Vancouver root for Seattle or Toronto or neither?

Toronto over Seattle for sure but also fair weather fans as Toronto is not on the list of favourite Canadian cities. Centre of the universe attitude thingy

[Walter Sobchak]

Vancouver a long shot

[limitles]

Vancouver a long shot

I said long shot but the Vancouver "ehs" would be lovely

[Dan Druff]

BUMP

Not looking likely.

Environmental Impact Report approved for new Oakland stadium, which is considered a huge hurdle.

Vegas now a backup plan: https://ballparkdigest.com/2022/02/2...long-shot-bet/

[Dan Druff]

BUMP again

Actually looking very likely now. A's have bought land in Las Vegas, directly west of I-15 near Tropicana Ave.




MLB.com article: https://www.mlb.com/news/a-s-buy-lan...uture-ballpark


This would put them directly across the freeway from T-Mobile Arena, where the Golden Knights play. The land they bought does not house any existing hotels, so no hotels will need to be wrecked. At one point, it was discussed that they would buy the Tropicana property, and then blow it up.

Don't start booking hotels to see the A's play in Las Vegas during the 2024 season, though. The plan right now is for the team to relocate in 2027.

Unless MLB changes the way interleague games are scheduled (which was already changed a lot this year to increase interleague play), don't expect to watch too many Dodgers games there. In fact, the Dodgers are playing the A's only 3 times this year -- all of them in Los Angeles!

You'll be more in luck if you're a fan of the Angels, Rangers, Mariners, or Astros, as these teams are all in the same division as the A's, and will play in Las Vegas the most.

[Bilbodoggins]

I watched the A's lose to the Mets 17-6 last week. 17 walks by A's pitching! Can't they just invoke the mercy rule and shut the whole thing down?

[gut]

I watched the A's lose to the Mets 17-6 last week. 17 walks by A's pitching! Can't they just invoke the mercy rule and shut the whole thing down?

The A's are basically a AAAA team until the move

[Dan Druff]

I watched the A's lose to the Mets 17-6 last week. 17 walks by A's pitching! Can't they just invoke the mercy rule and shut the whole thing down?

The A's are basically a AAAA team until the move

Yeah, they really are.

This is a really, really horrible team. This isn't one of those Moneyball things where unheralded players are going to overperform their low contracts. This is just a bad team with players who mostly shouldn't be in Major League Baseball.

[Daly]

The A's are basically a AAAA team until the move

Yeah, they really are.

This is a really, really horrible team. This isn't one of those Moneyball things where unheralded players are going to overperform their low contracts. This is just a bad team with players who mostly shouldn't be in Major League Baseball.

Baseball - 600139 - Total #11 Ticket
#600139 Oakland Athletics/Regular Season Wins under 59½ +100 for Game
Accepted: 3/29/2023 @6:01 PM
RISK: $1,000.00 WIN $1,000.00

[Daly]

Right - this isnt moneyball. This is a game of money. The plan has been to be a AAAA team and spend next to nothng for now and get to Vegas.


Here is the problem.

Locals will go to one of 40 hockey games. They also get first team advantage.

NFL will sell to everyone and they can count on 10K if not more people flying in as an awaycation. I went to the pats game with that retarded lateral last year and I already have plans to book the moment I find out what weekend the Patriots play again this coming season (schedule is out but we font have dates until next month).

The “problem” is the same as we have here in Miami. Too much other shit to do and its hot as balls in the summer. 81 dates is a lot of dates. They wont get the same numbers of “fly in” business that the NFL gets. Maybe the LAD or SF SD but that wont help a AL team. Boston/NY fans will fly in. Doubt Toronto or Baltimore will.

It wont be a fail and they will be better than they generaly would be in Oakland.


How long until a deranged Oakland fan blows up Las Vegas for taking his/her sports teams from them

[go_buccos]

Well I guess that In-n-Out that's right there is history. Too bad.

[Sanlmar]

The Vegas Golden Knights absolutely murdered it from the start. The whole experience is one of the hottest tickets in town still.

It will be interesting to me how the architects handle the design for fans in the 2020’s. The A’s should cut in the Stevens brothers (Circa) to assure success in Vegas. They get it like almost no one else in that town.

Baseball is not hockey. Baseball is more a zen experience and millenials are not into zen. Millenials and Zoomers aren’t not going to buy a ticket for a Vegas baseball team and sit in their seat for 3 hours. They want to walk around and commune. Restaurants, bars and gathering spots. Baseball will be a soundtrack in the background of the experience.

Maybe you don’t even offer a seat - lol.

A’s will prolly fuck it up.

[BlunderMaker]

Traffic on Tropicana is fucked for the foreseeable future I see

[Sanlmar]

Casinos in the stadium?

Say yes and the financing is paid for.

[Dan Druff]

Right - this isnt moneyball. This is a game of money. The plan has been to be a AAAA team and spend next to nothng for now and get to Vegas.


Here is the problem.

Locals will go to one of 40 hockey games. They also get first team advantage.

NFL will sell to everyone and they can count on 10K if not more people flying in as an awaycation. I went to the pats game with that retarded lateral last year and I already have plans to book the moment I find out what weekend the Patriots play again this coming season (schedule is out but we font have dates until next month).

The “problem” is the same as we have here in Miami. Too much other shit to do and its hot as balls in the summer. 81 dates is a lot of dates. They wont get the same numbers of “fly in” business that the NFL gets. Maybe the LAD or SF SD but that wont help a AL team. Boston/NY fans will fly in. Doubt Toronto or Baltimore will.

It wont be a fail and they will be better than they generaly would be in Oakland.


How long until a deranged Oakland fan blows up Las Vegas for taking his/her sports teams from them

The stadium has a planned retractable roof, so that should take care of the issue of attending games in July when it's 113 degrees outside.

However, I agree with the rest. Getting a nice home crowd 81 times per year isn't going to be easy, especially since they'll presumably be starting with a failteam and trying to build it from there. It's not like the Astros are moving to Vegas.

And maybe they can subsist on that sweet TV money? Ummm.... see the Bally Sports bankruptcy thread.

The A's have a shitty situation in Oakland. The area is horrendous, the team sucks, the locals have tuned out, the stadium is lousy, and too many people are satisfied with just being fans of the Giants down the road. So moving out to Vegas is an upgrade, but if they think they're gonna draw big in this super-isolated small market, they need to think again.

As I said earlier in the thread, the best thing MLB could do for the A's would be to swap the A's and Rockies in their divisions once the A's move. This would put the A's driving distance from 3 division rivals -- the Dodgers, the Padres, and the Diamondbacks, and only an hour flight from the Giants. That's what they need if they want any kind of decent gate from tourists. But the Rockies would probably object to this, especially since the Dodgers road games tend to draw pretty well there (I know, as I was at one of them in July 2021).

[NaturalBornHustler]

I've long contended that an MLB team isn't coming to Vegas, because there are several problems:

1) The population isn't big enough to fill a baseball stadium (much bigger than a hockey/NBA area) for 81 games per year.

2) The TV market is small. Many don't realize that Vegas is incredibly isolated. There's basically no population in outlying areas for 100 miles in all directions. The closest city of any consequence is St. George, UT, which is 120 miles northeast. So your entire market is basically Vegas/Henderson/North LV/Boulder City. And that's it.

3) The number of tourists coming into town to see their home team play in Vegas will be minimal, aside from close teams such as the Dodgers, Angels, Padres, and Diamondbacks. This is different from the NFL, where there are very few games per season, so people are more likely to plan trips around their team being in Vegas.


Despite that, it looks like an MLB team might come to Vegas anyway. Presumably they're excited by the success of the Golden Knights (which Vegas people loved both because it was their first major pro team, plus the team was immediately good) and the Raiders (first "big 3" sport to come, plus it's easy to fill stadium with just 8 home games.)

The Oakland A's, long battling a lousy stadium, lousy area, and lousy fan support, are seriously considering moving to Vegas.

Team officials came to Vegas this month, and claim they will finalize a list of 10-12 potential sites for the new Las Vegas A's stadium by November: https://www.reviewjournal.com/sports...ember-2442670/


So is this a done deal? Not yet. The A's want to stay in Oakland, but only if they can have a new waterfront stadium, supported by a new proposed tax which would fund major infrastructure improvements around that new stadium. If the A's get this from special tax approved, and if their new stadium gets the green light, they will stay in Oakland.

However, they claim they will likely decide by the end of 2021 if a move to Vegas is coming. It does appear that Vegas is their only desired new location, so if the Oakland ballpark falls through, you'll be saying hello to the Las Vegas A's very soon.

Sadly, being an AL team, the Dodgers won't be playing them very often. I think it would be better to move the Rockies over to the AL West, and put the Vegas A's in the NL West, given that fans from Phoenix, San Diego, and Los Angeles are all roughly 300 miles from Vegas.

1. The population has almost doubled in the last 25yrs. 660k and just cracked the top 30 metro population in the country. Plenty big enough. Oh and MLB teams don't "fill their stadiums" for regular season games. They operate at 50% capacity if they are lucky, much lower if they are not. They don't need to pack 45k into a stadium nightly to be successful. I would bet my ass this would be a smaller 35-40k stadium anyway since that is what the trend is now.

2. Most local TV markets derive their viewers from far less than 100 miles away. There aren't many fans of teams 100miles outside of market unless it is a NY or LA or Chicago.

3. Sports teams don't give a shit about tourists they get all their revenue from season tickets, the rest is just filler. And they will sell a metric ton of them right out of the gate. You seem to think that Vegas is still a desert tourist destination only when in 2023 that is not true anymore. I personally know 3 people who grew up here on East Coast and have been in Vegas for 15-20 yrs now raising a family. It's not the 90's anymore, lots of people have been laying down roots over last 20 yrs.