MLB Owners Unanimously Approve Athletics' Move To Las Vegas

[ificandream]

MLBTRADERUMORS.COM

By Steve Adams | November 16, 2023 at 8:22am CDT

Major League Baseball’s owners have unanimously voted to approve the Athletics’ move from Oakland to Las Vegas, tweets John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle. The approval was seen as something of a formality, with little — if any — opposition from the sport’s other owners anticipated.

The Athletics’ current lease at the Coliseum only runs through the end of the 2024 season, which leaves plenty of questions about where the club will play its home games in the interim. Among the potential scenarios that have been discussed are sharing the Giants’ Oracle Park, playing home games at their Triple-A stadium in Las Vegas, or temporarily extending the current lease. The current plan, while not yet final, could see them split their time between multiple sites, tweets Bob Nightengale of USA Today. The Athletics plan to build a $1.5 billion stadium with a capacity of 33,000 on the Las Vegas strip, at the site of the Tropicana Casino. That new home, however, is not expected to be ready until the start of the 2028 season.

With the valuation of the Athletics’ franchise slated to rise following the move, Nightengale further reports that the remaining owners included a provision with their vote that team owner John Fisher would be taxed “heavily” on any sale if he ultimately strives to sell the club for an immediate profit. The magnitude of the tax isn’t clear, nor is the length of time for which he’ll need to retain ownership of the team before he is exempt from said taxation. In such an event, the amount that he’s taxed would be divided among the other 29 franchises.

It’s the first relocation of any Major League team since the Expos moved from Montreal to Washington D.C. in 2005 (and, of course, became the Washington Nationals). The move from Oakland to Vegas, while still not yet 100% official — hurdles remain to be cleared with the funding and construction of the new facility — will bring a 55-year run in Oakland to an end and leave Northern California as the sole territory of the cross-bay Giants.

Read more: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2023/11/mlb-owners-unanimously-approve-athletics-move-to-las-vegas.html

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I bet this "experiment" will be a massive failure.

[rsdsharp]

1. So they will be the first team to play in four different cities.

[303squadron]

2. Will they be called the Vegas

Point Shavers?

[GreenWave]

3. Maybe Pete Rose can manage them in the gambling Mecca.

[Xavier Breath]

4. I've not been a baseball fan for decades

and the last MLB game I attended was about thirty years ago. But, I had to come into this forum and this thread to say how absolutely disgusted I am by this move. Hell, even when I was a fan I was never an Oakland fan, but I respect the tradition they have (had) and what they meant to the game. And what MLB just did today to the fans of Oakland is just sickening. I'm not naïve, and I fully realize that this (and the other professional sports) are a business. But it's just a sad commentary today how much that is true.

If you're an A's fan, you have my sympathies today.

[demosincebirth]

6. Fisher, the owner is an asshole. He strung the fans of Oakland along

ever since he bought the A’s.

[ificandream]

7. The A's have been destined to be cellar dwellers with the way Fisher and Billy Beane have run the team.

As a Giants fan, I actually feel sad for them.

[True Dough]

5. This was

a foregone conclusion.