Brief:

• The Oakland Athletics have signed an agreement to purchase 49 acres of land near the Las Vegas Strip with the intent of constructing a $1.5 billion, 35,000-seat Major League Baseball ballpark, team president Dave Kaval told the Las Vegas Review-Journal Wednesday.
• With the plan to move, the franchise would end a long struggle with the city of Oakland, California, to build a new home stadium, and finally exit the Oakland Coliseum. The A’s have played in Oakland since 1968.
• MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred provided a statement to the Review-Journal, supporting the A’s move to Southern Nevada.

Insight:

For years, the franchise negotiated with Oakland to secure a new venue, and for three years the team tried to build a waterfront ballpark at Howard Terminal in Oakland — a plan that never came to fruition. Then, in May 2022, the MLB announced the Coliseum was no longer a viable option for the future of the league or the team, encouraging the franchise to seek other markets.

Thus far, the A’s have purchased just the land for an undisclosed amount. Seller Red Rock Resorts, parent company of Station Casinos, will still own about 50 acres of land in the area when the deal is fully inked.

The site of the future arena will develop the city’s “sports district,” Kaval said, as it is just over a mile north of the home of the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders. Formerly based in Oakland, the Raiders shared the Coliseum with the Athletics until 2019 when they moved to the $1.97 billion Allegiant Stadium, built by a Mortenson-McCarthy joint venture.

In building the stadium, the A’s will seek to secure funding through a public-private partnership with state and city officials, the Review-Journal reported. Kaval hopes to break ground in 2024 and finish the park in 2027.

This article was originally written by Zachary Phillips and appeared here.