The Athletics aren’t giving up on Oakland just yet, but they’re just as focused on moving the club to Las Vegas.
A’s president Dave Kaval said Friday ahead of their game against the San Francisco Giants that the team is moving forward on “parallel paths” in planning new stadiums both in the Bay Area and in Las Vegas.
One way or another, the team wants out of the Coliseum.
“I think we’ve been really clear, I think the league’s been really clear that this site does not fit the 21st century vision for baseball in North America,” Kaval said, via The Associated Press. “You need a downtown urban location to be successful, especially in a two-team market where you have the Giants in a similar stadium on the waterfront, and we’re going to do everything we can to have a stadium that can be at the level or eclipse what they have at Oracle Park in San Francisco. And we have that vision down at Howard Terminal.”
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred gave the A’s permission to seek relocation in may after the team’s latest plans to build a new ballpark in Oakland stalled. Their latest proposal involved privately funding $1 billion for the stadium, and included an ask of $855 million from the city from infrastructure improvements in the area.
Manfred has called Las Vegas a “viable” option, and insisted that this play isn’t a bluff simply to get local officials in Oakland behind a new stadium. He also said that he expects significant movement on the team’s relocation in the near future, too.
Kaval said Friday that he thinks the city could vote again “later this year.”
“We remain disappointed that they didn’t vote on our plan, so that has not changed,” Kaval said, via The Associated Press. “By the same token, we’re still hopeful to make progress on negotiations with them. But time will tell how that plays out. We’re still getting all the other processes working and hopefully finalized. We’re doing everything we can to make that happen in an acceptable timeline for the league.”
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