A's Las Vegas Agreement Isn't For Specific Site
In the span of a month, the A's have announced that they have shifted their focus from parallel paths solely to Las Vegas, switched from the Wild Wild West site to the Tropicana site as the future home of the ballclub, and then on Wednesday released a joint announcement that included a quote attributed to "Clark County." Not the Commissioner of Clark County, but the physical place. Nobody wanted to put their name on this thing?
That's odd.
But the day got even weirder.
On Wednesday night, reports started surfacing that Clark County is split on the stadium subsidy issue, per LVSportsBiz which is the cause for the weird unattributed quote. 8 News Now is reporting that the ballpark deal is not site specific, meaning the A's could change the location of the ballpark--again.
Casey Pratt also noted on Twitter that he heard the A's had viewed another new venue, even after the Tropicana announcement. He also points to the fact that in the big Wednesday joint announcement that there was no quote used from Bally's, who operate the land on which the A's would be building at the Tropicana site.
I'm starting to get the feeling that A's owner John Fisher just sits at the blackjack table and says "hit me" until he busts, never understanding that he's actually supposed to build a ballpark at some point. Instead, he's just over here collecting sites that he could build at, in theory.
Even without a site firmly selected, knowing how exactly it will be funded, who covers the overages, how this impacts local residents, and a slew of other pertinent questions, Nevada lawmakers are ready to hand over a deal to the Gap heir.
There is a good chance that Fisher is trying to let the clock run out, but his motives aren't yet known for certain as to why he'd keep wasting everyone's time.
The first reason is that he knows that he's not going to offer the assurances that Las Vegas is looking for, so he wants to limit the amount of time that lawmakers have to vet the incoming bill.
The other reason could be that he's waiting for the June 5 deadline to pass in the Nevada Legislature to give the illusion that time has run out with Las Vegas as well, before returning to complete a deal with the city of Oakland. This is admittedly a more far-fetched scenario, but if "shifting their focus solely to Las Vegas" in the first place was a ruse to begin with in order to work a better deal, this would be one way to return back to those negotiations with a little less egg on his face.
In watching this process play out, it seems apparent that John Fisher is getting ready to sell the team. Part of the agreement at the Tropicana site (if they do in fact build there) is $175 million to help with some of the construction costs in exchange for a commensurate rent increase. Paying more in rent for a quick hit of cash is something that you don't have to worry about if you're about to sell anyway.
If Fisher is in fact looking to sell, he could be asking himself which piece of land would be more valuable to a potential buyer? Nine acres in the 40th largest media market that you're renting, or 55 acres of waterfront property with plenty of room to expand in the 10th largest media market in the country?
This is not meant to sound like a shot at Las Vegas. Instead, it's an attempt to make sense of the sporadic nature of John Fisher's decision-making process. From a purely business/cashing out point of view, Oakland still looks like the better opportunity for the biggest return. But from what we can tell about John Fisher's business prowess, he doesn't have much of it and while his right-hand-man Dave Kaval went to Stanford, it seems as though his best business move is to tell people that he went to Stanford.
Maybe he'll write a book entitled "The Art of the Steal."
Once a bill officially arrives, we will be able to have answers to some of the more burning questions surrounding this Vegas ballpark project, but until then, really anything is on the table.