Inside The As

A's Las Vegas Ballpark Gets a Major Potential Update

The A's Las Vegas ballpark is expected to be ready in 2028
Jason Burke|
Las Vegas Ballpark Construction
Las Vegas Ballpark Construction | A's Construction Cam

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Oakland Athletics

There's been no press release, and no formal reports on the matter, but according to Mick Akers of the Las Vegas Review-Journal's post on X (formerly Twitter), it appears as though the A's Las Vegas ballpark will have a little more room to operate than originally thought.

Up until Friday, all of the reports had said that this ballpark would be on nine acres in the Southeast corner of the lot that formerly held the Tropicana Hotel. Well, that may not be the case any longer. Check out these updated images.

"Here’s the Trop site layout at full build out. Bally’s project will be built in phases. The 9 acres of shared space for dining, retail & entertainment on NW corner & the utility plant (CUP) & parking garage on the SE corner planned to be ready w/ the A’s ballpark in 2028."

This seems to suggest that there will now be nine acres of shared space on the lot between the A's and Bally's, and the image provided suggests that the Athletics ballpark will be the biggest attraction (though not the tallest) on the site.

He could mean that both the ballpark and the shared space will each be nine acre spaces, but that's not what the image shows, since those two areas are not close to the same size. So have the A's increased their footprint on this space? That's something we're going to have to try and figure out.

Akers also dropped these new conceptual images that show the current design for the new Bally's hotel completely blocking the A's ballpark from the street view. It seemed like getting some land on The Strip in Las Vegas was a big deal, but if the project is hidden behind other buildings, that could limit some of the appeal.

As Casey Pratt points out, they went from the renderings to these new images, and one certainly looks better than the other.

While not being able to see the ballpark is certainly a potential issue, the bigger question is about how many acres the A's are now getting. If they're now being allotted more space on the Tropicana site, does that mean that they'll be able to fit more than the 33,000 fans (30,000 fixed seats, 3,000 standing) that they'd been planning on? They're currently floating ticket package pricing.

If they do get more seating in there, how does that impact the final total of the construction costs? The A's are expected to discuss the guaranteed maximum cost for the project at the next Las Vegas Stadium Authority meeting in November. The last update we received this summer had the new estimate around $2 billion for the project.

While up to $380 million in public funding will be available for the project, A's owner John Fisher will be on the hook for anything over that amount—whether that is through personal investment, loans, or other avenues like selling pieces of the team to investors.

The projected timeline for the ballpark says that it will be ready for Opening Day in 2028, and the Athletics have said that they are on schedule.

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Jason Burke
JASON BURKE

Jason has been covering the A’s at various sites for over a decade, and was the original host of the Locked on A’s podcast. He also covers the Stanford Cardinal as they attempt to rebuild numerous programs to prominence.

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