A's Await High Stakes Vegas Vote

The 2025 season is nearly over, with just two games remaining in A's first season removed from Oakland in decades. Following the team's decision to relocate to Las Vegas, they decided upon a quick pit stop in West Sacramento for three or four years.

With the dealings on the diamond nearly complete, it will be time to focus on the goings on of the offseason—and the all-important vote that could be approaching in Las Vegas.

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Athletics' development agreement with Clark County is going to get a public hearing next month, on October 8. Clark County commissioners recently introduced the ordinance for the proposed ballpark.

There is a chance that the commissioners will also hold a vote during the county zoning meeting. The approval needs to happen before the A's are able to get into the $380 million of public funding that was approved back in 2023 with SB 1.

The most interesting piece of information that could come from this meeting is hearing what the guaranteed maximum price for the ballpark will end up being. When the funding was initially approved a little over two years ago, it was slated to be a $1.5 billion ballpark with a retractable roof, then turned into a $1.75 billion field with a fixed roof.

With the tariffs in play these days, A's owner John Fisher has said that the price is now expected to be more in the $2 billion range, and given the passage of time that's happened since that announcement in June, perhaps it's even surpassed that figure.

Rob Manfred's Quote

In that LVRJ article, there is also a quote from MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, which is a bit interesting. "I think that John Fisher is 100 percent committed to being in Las Vegas, building a great building and making that club successful,” Manfred said.

“Certainly, (he) had the financial resources to do it, no matter what lefts and rights came along the way. I was really pleased to get to the groundbreaking; I think it was concrete demonstration that there will be a team in Las Vegas."

The quote itself is standard stuff from Manfred, but it's odd that it's being published in an article in September. The doubts have quieted a bit post-groundbreaking as more people look to be seeing how this whole thing goes.

The question surrounding Manfred's comments is more about when he said them, as opposed to when they were published. If this is a re-used quote from the groundbreaking that the author decided to use in the context of the piece, that makes sense. Yet, if this is a new quote, that's a different story, since the pushback on the ballpark hasn't been nearly as fervent of late.

The biggest pushback for many has been on how Fisher will finance this ballpark, since it'll take somewhere close to one-third of his net worth to make happen. The voices like Manfred's always say "he has the money," and there is no denying that. The question has always been if he'll use the money. The funding plan is what everyone is waiting on.

We should get more of an idea about the project during that October 8 meeting.