A's Reportedly Have Some Investors for Las Vegas Ballpark

Nov 26, 2023; Paradise, Nevada, USA; The Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign on the Las Vegas strip. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

For nearly a year, the Athletics have been looking for investors in their club at their own valuation, in order to come up with some of the funding to build their ballpark in Las Vegas. In April of 2024, the team hired Galatioto Sports Partners to help find the investors they were after.

In a report from CNBC's Michael Ozanian, A's owner John Fisher has found some of the investment that he's been searching for. The shares of the team are based on a $2 billion valuation, according to the report, while Forbes has valued the franchise at $1.2 billion. The increased ask is Fisher seeking an investment that includes a ballpark in Vegas, which is less likely to happen without investors.

The interesting piece of this report from CNBC is that while some investors have been found, the summation of their investment is for a total of around $200 million. They also mention that Fisher is now upping his search from looking for $500 million to $550 million.

Perhaps this is due to the newer ballpark construction estimate of $1.75 billion, up $250 million from the original price. Still, it's just a small dent in the new figure.

The investors in hand already have been vetted by MLB.

Given the new target of $550 million, that would mean that Fisher is willing to part with just over a quarter of the franchise, at 27.5% when given the $2 billion valuation.

One potential issue here could be that there aren't enough potential investors ready to put money down based on that valuation, with their money being needed to complete the ballpark project in the first place. But with some investors already locked in, Fisher can't really offer others a lower valuation to collect more cash, either.

That would be like paying full price for something right before it went on sale, but worse, since this is now a business partner that you're supposed to be building trust with.

With the A's Vegas ballpark projected to cost at least $1.75 billion, the funding for the project is currently $200 million from investors, $380 million in public funding (though the A's have said they'll now only use $350 million), and $300 million coming from bank borrowings from U.S. Bank and Goldman Sachs.

That still equates to Fisher and his family putting in $900 million of their own money into this project, before any overages in building expenses and potential issues with impending tariffs.

It's not impossible that this project gets done, but given Fisher's track record over the last 20 years, and the timeline that they're under, where they insist that construction will start in just a couple of months, it's certainly going to be tricky to pull off.

The Athletics still plan to have the proposed ballpark in Las Vegas ready for Opening Day in 2028. For now, the team will be playing their home games in a minor-league facility in West Sacramento that holds 14,000. The team that uses that field, the Sacramento River Cats, will also continue playing there and will share the ballpark with the A's.