How the A's Can Make a Splash With Their Las Vegas Renderings
The Oakland A's were supposed to unveil their Las Vegas ballpark renderings at the beginning of December, but a tragedy in Nevada halted the planned ceremony which has yet to be rescheduled. Obviously the holidays are a busy time to get much of anything done, and with the NFL season coming to a close, it's hard to break through and grab people's already limited available attention.
Brodie Brazil of NBC Sports California recently made a video talking about the rendering release delay and basically laid out the timeline for the next month plus until the Super Bowl, and looked for a time when the A's could actually make their announcement.
The Super Bowl is set to happen on February 11th, 2024. The A's first spring training game is on February 24th, with pitchers and catchers on February 14th. The A's could certainly choose any time to release their renderings in the build up to the NFL's championship game, but if the team really wanted to make a splash, why not make the announcement during the game itself?
A 30-second spot during the Super Bowl is reportedly costing $7 million for 2024, but in terms of advertising, this is one way that the team could reach a huge number of fans that aren't glued in on the A's relocation saga, and would instead be seeing pretty pictures of a ballpark in Las Vegas that they may want to visit one day. 115 million people watched the Super Bowl last year. This would be a pretty effective way to reach that tourist base that the team is going to rely on to hit their projections year after year.
The commercial would grab their attention, if done properly. It wouldn't hurt that the Super Bowl will be held in Las Vegas as well, giving the A's a little added bonus for their commercial spot in marketing their potential new home.
There is obviously the question of just how much money A's owner John Fisher has for such expenditures since people are already questioning how he'll end up paying for the ballpark itself, but as we saw earlier this month, he has nearly $1 billion in GAP stock at his disposal should he choose to sell some off.
Two weeks ago we questioned where the A's Las Vegas renderings were, and guessed that the team and MLB were working in tandem on the timing of the release to get the most bang for their buck. At the time, it felt like they could have been waiting to solidify where the team would be playing games from 2025-27 while the Vegas field was being built. Could it be that that is in fact the case, but they're also waiting for a big moment during the Super Bowl as well? It would be a pretty effective marketing strategy.
While the NFL likely wouldn't look too kindly on another sport taking some of the spotlight away from their big game, the loophole here would be that the A's would be paying the going rate for a commercial to make their announcement. The commercial doesn't even have to be the rendering release, per se. For the commercial itself, they could partner with the Sphere and some other tourist attractions in Vegas, split the cost, and show a four or five second teaser for the A's "coming soon." Then you drop the renderings themselves the following day to build off of that buzz.
This is just speculation, but if the A's wanted to change some of the narrative around the franchise, this would be one heck of a way to make a splash.