Oakland A's New Las Vegas Renderings Don't Answer Many Questions
When the A's needed to apply for public funding for their proposed Las Vegas ballpark, they released a set of initial renderings that seemed unrealistic. After the $380 million was secured, the public was told to scrap those renderings, because they were trash.
An announced release party in early December was put on hold, and as we got into 2024, everyone started wondering where exactly the updated renderings were. The A's had said they were waiting on Bally's, while Bally's said they were waiting on the A's in order to put out a complete picture of what this new project would like like at the Tropicana site.
On Tuesday, the images accidentally came out.
Melissa Lockard of The Athletic was the first to tweet the photos after receiving an e-mail from Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), the design lead for the project, and then minutes later there was apparently an e-mail saying that the renderings were under embargo until Wednesday. Technically it appears as though this screw up is on BIG.
Somehow, the biggest news that the A's had going for them, the renderings release, was botched. If you're looking for any shred of hope that the team somehow stays in Oakland, the fact that the franchise can't even coordinate an e-mail may be a good sign.
The public was told there would be a full view of the reimagined site. Instead, we got something that is pretty similar to what the A's produced with the "trash" renderings, only with a few more nods to armadillos. The new images still don't fit on nine acres, which is the first thing that jumps out. There's also the fact that the ballpark looks distinctly like the Sydney Opera House.
The view from inside the ballpark depicts a clear vantage point to gaze upon the Las Vegas Strip, and A's owner John Fisher told the Nevada Independent that whatever Bally's ends up building will not block those windows. That could end up being tricky, given the ballpark's spot on the southeast corner of the land. As we can see from the rendering above, it's facing the MGM Grand, but in the rendering below, we can also see the New York-New York Hotel & Casino pretty clearly with the Statue of Liberty being a defining marker.
For an idea of what that look like on the map, below we can see the New York-New York off to the west, the MGM to the north, and the square that has the Desert Rose Resort in the southeast is roughly where the ballpark would be. In terms of sight lines, that a lot of space to not obstruct with an entire casino/resort.
It's also worth noting that in the press release the team sent out, they included this terminology: "The ballpark is currently designed to include an 18,000-square-foot jumbotron, which would make it the largest screen in MLB." The jumbotron is the giant green thing that's hanging over the field. The use of "currently designed" certainly makes it feel like the giant screen could end up on the chopping block, which is one of the only things that's different from the first renderings, other than the suddenly un-retractable (commonly referred to as fixed) roof.
On the bright side, it would be easier for Brent Rooker (a .300 hitter per these renderings) to check his exit velos after making good contact on that giant scoreboard.
Back in November, it was also reported that the A's had been looking to take inspiration from the new Texas Rangers ballpark. Not even the 70 suites that fill that ballpark are even hinted at in these renderings. When asked if there is any similarity between the A's renderings and the ballpark in Texas, Locked on Rangers host Brice Paterik said, "I don't really see the similarities other than they're both meant to have baseball played there."
Aside from all of the flaws that we can see in these new renderings, there is one thing that we haven't seen: the price tag. It's hard to imagine this project still coming in at $1.5 billion, which is an important number because Fisher is on the hook for cost overruns. He's also in charge of pumping money into the roster ahead of the team's arrival in Vegas. And yet, this same guy is also trying to work with the city of Oakland to play a few more seasons at the Coliseum so that he doesn't lose out on his yearly $70 million check from Comcast Sports California?
That TV money is peanuts compared to the rest of the money he's supposed to come up with to make this entire relocation happen. The whole Las Vegas situation has seemed far fetched from the beginning, and the A's latest renderings sure didn't provide the "see, we have a plan!" feel that they were surely striving for.