This Bally's Quote Could Spell Trouble For A's Las Vegas Ballpark Plans

The A's aren't out of the woods when the ballpark opens

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

The Athletics have broken ground on their planned ballpark in Las Vegas, and while there are still questions about the overall financing of the project, the general consensus is that one way or another the A's end up landing in Las Vegas. Whether that is on time or with John Fisher still as the owner of the club remain to be seen.

As of right now, the picture that the club is painting of the ballpark build-out is flawless. A couple of times a month there are drone videos of the progress that has been made, and the A's even unveiled a new Twitter/X account to update people on the progress at the construction site.

Welcome to the A's Ballpark account! Here's what we've been up to over the past six months at the site in Las Vegas 🤩 pic.twitter.com/dzd0u8PNmt

— A's Ballpark in Las Vegas (@VegasAthletics) January 29, 2026

Yet, in a report from KTNV in Las Vegas, there was a quote from Bally's Chairman Soo Kim that should be causing a little bit of concern for a couple of reasons. Kim was speaking at a recent gaming conference, and was asked about his own Las Vegas project.

"Of all the projects that we have in our portfolio, Vegas is the one with sort of the widest standard deviation of outcomes. I mean, you can do really well in Vegas and you can do really poorly whereas sort of the regional properties like Chicago and New York, they're much easier, much more easy to predict what the outcomes will be.

"Vegas has that sort of risk factor. Our response to that risk factor was hey, we're going to build this slowly. We are excited to build it. We aspire to be and continue to aspire to be a world-class gaming company and I think it's hard to be a world-class gaming company without Vegas. I'm not dying to do it [sell the rights] but again, never say never."

Why this could be bad news for the A's

Hearing the chairman of the main partner for the ballpark project not exude a lot of confidence in what they're supposed to be building in the very near future isn't a great sign. But beyond that, the tidbit at the top where he talked about the Vegas project having the widest range of standard deviations for outcomes—that has to be terrifying for the A's and Major League Baseball.

While the projections shown to the lawmakers to get that $380 million in public funding back in 2023 were all rosy and seemingly pulled directly from thin air, there has always been concern over the project hitting the benchmarks it needs to. The most common one that has been brought up is 30 straight years of sellouts, which does seem fairly farfetched.

If Bally's is having a hard time with the projections of a casino in Las Vegas, that can't bode well for the A's. Bringing in a baseball team that the public may or may not even want along with all of the baggage that comes along with the A's brand right now means that the same volatility should exist in the A's actual evidence-based projections.

The problem is, the A's and MLB are kind of backed into a corner. They need this to go off without a hitch, given how they left Oakland and how they treated Sacramento in their first year at Sutter Health Park. Bally's has more leeway to strike while the iron is hot or build nothing at all. They could even end up selling the gaming rights, which brings even more doubt to the entire Tropicana site.

The other reason this could be bad news for the A's

While the A's are under construction in Las Vegas and the assumption is that they'll finish on time at this point, there is no indication that Bally's will also be anywhere near finished with a phase of their project on that same timeline. Of course that could change if they get to work in the very near future, but what happens if they fall too far behind the A's pace?

Well the ballpark is going to open when it's ready, regardless of how the site looks, and that could be a problem. The A's will be counting on roughly 5,000 fans to be tourists each and every game, and in that first year, there figures to be a good influx of those tourist dollars. What happens when their first impression of this ballpark is that everything around it is completely unfinished?

While the A's can have their ballpark and their extended players that are forming a pretty solid team, there will still be lingering questions as to whether this project is going to be a success well beyond that first year in Las Vegas.