The A’s have merely put in an offer on the site. Their offer has not been accepted, much less have they finalized a purchase, even begun the process of designing and/or securing funding for a stadium, asked MLB for permission to move, or received permission to move. There’s a like a million things that would still need to happen for the A’s to actually move. We don’t even know if the offer they’ve put in on this land is remotely competitive. They’ve just said they’ve put in some kind of an offer. We’re not even close to the A’s actually moving yet.
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Fair enough. The article does mention two other sites. The A’s toured those a couple months ago.
The A’s might be playing a giant shell game, with all the spots and Oakland.
Oakland does have a plan, and I believe the city did give some on the entertainment district taxes.
Vegas on the other hand, to @oakcityyimby 's point, is putting up next to nothing. They are broke (at least in the millionaire subsidy kitty) from the new football stadium, lol
Thus, @daviddonovan second point, there is indeed a tremendous amount of financing to come together to make this work. If it does, it could make a mint.
So, sort of like living with a Significant Other who says they want to leave for someone better but will stick with you until then? /s 
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Gutting Vegas with too many teams too fast will backfire just as it did with Miami and Atlanta. At least they had territory to build on, Vegas is too hemmed into California and Arizona to do so.
Re: MLS alignment, putting Chicago in the West would reduce the boondoggle of Vegas.
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It would be interesting where this hypothetical MLS stadium would go, but my bet would be somewhere near or on the strip. The article @pBeez share about the potential A’s stadium mentioned the land the Tropicana casino is currently on. T-Mobile Arena and the Raiders stadium are on/around the strip so it would make sense for them to keep it close for all the tourists too.
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The thing about Vegas, I’m not sure their TV market or even potential fanbase is that huge. But with Vegas being such a tourist, destination city, I can see a lot of people around the country planning their trip to Vegas whenever their local NFL / baseball or whatever is playing in Vegas. Then they can go see their team play in Vegas. They will probably have more visiting team fans in the stadiums for that reason.
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Maybe, maybe not. Ask an average Cincinnatian how much of a fiscal disaster the Bengals stadium was, and continues to be. Is it worth keeping major league sports in town? Maybe, maybe not. I do feel bad for Oakland fans, though.
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I’m skeptical, at least as far as MLB. Miami is a great tourist destination yet Marlins Park isn’t exactly overflowing with fans from opposing teams (unless it’s the Yankees, Mets, or Red Sox, where you can easily assume most of those fans are transplants living in South Florida). NFL? Definitely, make a weekend out of it. MLB, with games every night for six months, I’m not so sure. Either way, Vegas is becoming oversaturated with sports teams quick, but I assume the gambling tie-in makes up for it and then some.
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Good call on the TV markets, as according to this list Las Vegas ranks as the #40 TV market in the US. For reference, Raleigh/Durham ranks as #24. I haven’t watched any Raiders games, as a Panthers fan, unless they’re on national TV to see if their stadium has the LA Chargers effect (aka more road fans than home fans).
@Kevin good point about Miami, don’t want to piss off any natives from Miami in particular here but do you think part of that is their (fairweather) fan culture down there? I remember hearing/seeing on ESPN Lebron/Heat complaining about their arena not filling up when they were super good too.
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The Vegas Golden Knights have the 2nd highest tv ratings amongst the US NHL teams. While their tv market is smaller, they’re getting a ton of eyes tuning in. It’s been a resounding success for the NHL in Vegas so far.
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I think the Golden Knights’ incredible success has been this weird perfect storm that’s hard to replicate:
- They were the first professional sports team in the city.
- They really nailed it with the Vegas-esque stadium theatrics, which are hard to replicate in most other sports.
- They made the Stanley Cup Finals in their first year and have made the playoffs every year since.
I mean, I was rooting for them just to see a new expansion team win in their first season, and I have zero attachment to Las Vegas. The Golden Knights are such a unique situation, and I’m worried that an oversaturated market could really choke out another team before they even get a chance to take off there.
It’d just be so depressing to see such a historic team leave their home of over [half] a century. I’m gonna be so bummed if the A’s leave Oakland, especially to go to freakin’ Las Vegas.
Edit: @Kevin pointed out they’ve only been in Oakland sixty years, which I was literally reading yesterday but had 1908 in my head for some unknown reason.
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Well, not quite a century, the A’s were in Philadelphia and then KC. But still, nearly 60 years in Oakland is nothing to sneeze at.
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Might be a little, but I think a lot of it has to do with geography. Urbanized South Florida is 100 miles long but only 10 miles wide, and the sports venues are near the southern tip of it in Downtown Miami. I gotta imagine people from Ft. Lauderdale and northward aren’t too interested in traversing into central Miami on a weeknight for anything.
I wonder if Brightline is doing something to address that…
Maybe! Looks like the Heat arena is a short walk from the Miami Brightline station. Bit of a longer haul to get to Marlins Park.
It’s even worse than this in terns of TV markets. An MLB team in Raleigh would surely turn on some TVs in the Triad and the eastern part of the state. So you’d get a decent number of viewers who aren’t in the official Raleigh Durham TV market.
Las Vegas’ exploitable TV market is basically the state of Nevada, and, boy, that is a tiny market. It doesn’t matter for the NFL. The Golden Knights are making it work okay for now. But for MLB, that’s going to be a massive handicap.
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This may take some strong marketing to catch on, but what if we (Raleigh) started using Aztek Death Whistles at games (obv only Canes currently) but then if we got MLS/MLB carried it over to those games as well. Think the vuvuzela they use at soccer matches. When there’s thousands it’s a pretty impressive sound. Listen to the video below and imaging even a hundred of these inside PNC.
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That’s basically what I already sound like when something exciting happens on defense 
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That was not what I expected. lol, that would be worse then those dang Miss State cowbells.
Ummm. NO - I would never go to a game again if I had to listen to that the entire time.
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