Las Vegas Mayor Thinks A's Should Figure Out How to Stay in Oakland
This morning, Front Office Sports dropped an exclusive interview with Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman, which included some spicy takes. The one with the most traction has been "I personally think [the A's have] got to figure out a way to stay in Oakland to make their dream come true."
During the interview, she also questions whether the A's have the funding for the proposed ballpark in Las Vegas, which has been a common question in recent weeks.
Mayor Goodman also sent out a press release a little later in the day clarifying her previous remarks.
Some may take this as Goodman walking back her previous remarks, but this is almost a nicer way of doubling down. "It may very well be that the Las Vegas A's will become a reality that we will welcome to our city" isn't exactly a ringing endorsement saying that everything is going great and that this is a done deal like many people seem to think.
This statement reads more like Goodman wanted to leave the door open for Major League Baseball through expansion, rather than taking on the Oakland A's.
One piece of the interview that hasn't been picked up as much is when the interviewer, Owen Poindexter of FOS, starts listing off some of the teams that have made Vegas home like the Golden Knights, Raiders, and the A's, "who appear to be on their way. He then mentions that "the NBA is certainly going to consider Vegas" at which point the mayor jumps in and says "No, no. I can assure you that's a 'when' not an 'if'. I know [the NBA] is coming."
She didn't do the same for the A's, however.
While Goodman is the mayor of Las Vegas, the area where the A's are hoping to build at the Tropicana site is not actually under her domain. Instead, it is part of unincorporated Clark County.
Nonetheless, the comments were newsworthy and caught a lot of attention both in Oakland, Las Vegas, and also across the country. With the Super Bowl being held in Las Vegas, there's an opportunity for the A's and Major League Baseball to make some extra noise to bang the relocation drum. Instead, the comments from the mayor are the big headline for the entire sport, which has also seen extensions handed out to Bobby Witt Jr. and Jose Altuve the past two days.
Over the past three weeks, the headlines about the A's relocation to Las Vegas have included the emcee at the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce asking the crowd if they were alive in a clip that went viral, and then last week the two biggest national baseball writers, Ken Rosenthal and Jeff Passan, writing about why the move just isn't adding up. This week it's the mayor's comments.
Things aren't looking great for the A's in Las Vegas. Even the mayor thinks they should stay in Oakland.