A’s Just Signaled a Potential Funding Issue in Las Vegas, and It Won't Matter

There have been plenty of questions about the funding of the A's ballpark in Las Vegas

Gold shovel with Athletics on it in the dirt as the team's ceremonial groundbreaking in Las Vegas | Athletics

The Athletics are making plenty of progress in the building of their planned ballpark in Las Vegas, with the team's president, Marc Badain, saying that some of the roof steel will begin being put in place in June. Before that happens, they will be doing some steel work in the bowl of the ballpark, beginning in March.

That was the first report that came out from the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Thursday. The second was a bit more interesting for a couple of reasons.

According to Mick Akers, the A's will be requiring a one-time seat license fee for certain season tickets. The plan is still for there to be family friendly options available when the tickets officially go on sale, and those types of tickets will not be impacted by the planned implementation of PSLs.

Instead, the personal seat licenses will be used on premium seating options. Of the 30,000 fixed seats, the team has said that 5,533 of them will be premium. This is not to say that each and every premium seat will have a PSL attached, but that only premium seats will have PSLs.

A's admit to a funding problem?

When the Las Vegas Raiders sold their personal seat licenses, they generated $549 million to use on improvements to Allegiant Stadium, according to the LVRJ. They're also reporting that the A's will be selling theirs anywhere in the range of $6,000 to $106,000.

Even if they sold each of their premium seats for just the $6,000 mark, that would still generate over $33 million dollars. In the grand scheme of a $2 billion ballpark project, that's a drop in the bucket, but it's meant to show how quickly they can accrue funds for the ballpark.

By the same measure, if they sold each of those seats at the $106,000 figure, they'd be looking at about $586.5 million, which is roughly 30% of the projected cost for the project. They're not going to sell every PSL at either of those prices, but if they end up generating roughly $200 million, that could make a substantial dent in any potential funding gap that they have.

The A's have been firm in saying that there is no funding gap, despite there not being an agreed upon guaranteed maximum price for the project, but the unveiling of PSLs would seem to suggest that there is a gap of some sort.

Lending credence to that suggestion is how quickly they could be going after those funds. From the LVRJ: "After the PSL agreement is introduced next week, members of the stadium authority will review it and then vote on it in the weeks following the meeting. If approved, the A’s will begin selling the PSLs a few weeks after the program is approved by the stadium authority, Badain said."

It doesn't seem farfetched that they could be selling those PSLs by the fall, at the latest, if they're approved.

We should also point out that even if there is a funding gap, that doesn't necessarily mean that the A's have been lying about the financials being lined up. Recently, their partner Bally's has been in the news for both being fully on board for building with the A's at the former Tropicana site, as well as expressing some concerns about their own project in Las Vegas.

Without Bally's, the ballpark project costs would likely be on the rise. The PSLs could be a way to combat that concern, setting some money aside just in case, while having it on hand for other upgrades if Bally's comes through.

Why a funding gap doesn't matter

While having the money is better than not having the money, the A's being able to add some significant funds through just selling the right to purchase season tickets should quiet those concerns.

The one worry here would be if they do in fact need the money for the ballpark, and there is just a complete lack of interest in securing those seats. That said, the available seats are going to be more for the high rollers and the casinos, so they will presumably be bought up to be handed out to guests at other Vegas properties.

That also makes it so that the A's can charge a bit more for the premium seat licenses, instead of just selling to local fans. That means more PSLs sold at higher dollar values, which means more funds raised.

Badain's comments about what to expect with the ballpark project also reflect the confidence that the club has in the construction timeline. He's talking about what to expect in a couple of weeks and a couple of months, which is something he wouldn't be doing—or he'd be a lot more vague—if there were any lingering doubts.