It was the event that many in Baseball Twitter predicted would never happen, as the Athletics marked the official launch of construction of a new Las Vegas ballpark with a groundbreaking ceremony.
Since a new Las Vegas ballpark was announced by Vegas officials and the Athletics, it was dogged by an unusually high level of skepticism in Baseball Twitter, with the consensus being that the project would die the same way a proposed Howard Terminal ballpark died. Now, big projects do deserve a higher level of skepticism, and in the case of a big project taking place in a smaller market and rewriting some rules of sports-business management (more on that later), scrutiny of a new Las Vegas ballpark plan deserved the scrutiny.
But hell, we’re dealing with a sports-business press that can’t even get the ballpark capacity right—30,000 seats, 3,000 SRO spaces, not 33,000 seats—so forgive us if we don’t see that press comprehending the complexities of putting together a $1.75-billion funding plan. Big projects take big time, and the reality is that construction on a new Las Vegas ballpark is underway, Baseball Twitter be damned.
And while the Athletics and John Fisher were initially not very forthcoming about the funding plan for the $1.75-billion project, in recent months we’ve seen some details emerge on the project slated to open April 2028. With the team pledging $1.4 billion toward the ballpark, his game plan has been transparent: round up investors and sell shares of the MLB franchise, up to $500 million. Already announced: concessionaire Aramark will invest at least $100 million in the team while also spending $75 million on new concessions equipment for the new Las Vegas ballpark. Fisher will personally back $1.1 billion (though Fisher says proceeds from the sale of the MLS San Jose Earthquakes and PayPal Park, which could raise upwards of $500 million, will not go directly toward the Athletics), and Goldman Sachs and U.S. Bank are underwriting a $300-million construction loan. (Clark County will pay $350 million.) And the team has not even begun to announce any deals with private equity—and there’s a lot of private equity floating around the sports-venue world these days.
With site construction already underway, the A’s held a ceremonial groundbreaking yesterday; participating were Rob Manfred, Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors authorities and team president Marc Badain, among others. Sounds pretty standard: speeches affirming the importance of the project, ceremonial photos featuring plenty of gold-plated shovels and superfluous hard hats.
One reason why there’s been a heightened level of skepticism surrounding the move of the Athletics to a new Las Vegas ballpark: the open emphasis on tourism as an economic driver for the team. In decades and decades of modern sports business research, the lesson was that a team should never rely on tourism—visitors arriving from out of market. The NHL’s Vegas Knights have developed a passionate local fanbase, but the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders have relied on out-of-market fans to boost attendance at Allegiant Stadium. Some of these out-of-market fans are true Raiders fans living in northern and southern California, while many others make the trek to cheer on the visiting team. We all remember the images of red jerseys dominating the stands at Allegiant Field when the Kansas City Chiefs are in town, and there’s always a boost of out-of-market fans when the Chargers, Rams, 49ers and Broncos visit. The NFL schedule makes it perfect for an out-of-market fan to drive in for the weekend, drop a few bucks at a casino, splurge on a nice steak, and then buy tickets for the Raiders game on the secondary market.
The Athletics are counting on a similar boost when the Dodgers, Giants, Padres, Angels, Yankees and Red Sox are in town. Yeah, it won’t be hard to score a free ducat for a midweek Rays-Athletics series, but expect things to be a lot tighter when the Giants or Angels in town for weekend series. The NFL may not be the best economic model given its unique revenue-sharing structure, and a reliance on tourism may not be replicable in Major League Baseball. So we will see.
Of course, the entire project could collapse in the next 12 months: between tariffs potentially driving up the cost of construction materials like steel or uncertainty about lending rates impacting the cost of financing debt, there are plenty of points of failure along the way. So let the skepticism about the new Las Vegas ballpark continue—but temper that skepticism with the reality that construction has indeed begun.
Photo via the Athletics, via X.
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About Kevin Reichard
Kevin Reichard is founder and publisher of Ballpark Digest.