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![\"Scott](\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/vitalvegas\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/author-logo-lg-88x88.png\"){kind=logo}
<\/a>\n <\/div>\n\n By Scott Roeben<\/a>, on July 19 2024 <\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
At a presentation to the Las Vegas Stadium Authority on July 18, 2024, the Oakland A\u2019s confirmed there is currently no financing in place for a proposed $1.5 billion ballpark in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
We aren\u2019t talking about a shortfall. There\u2019s no financing to pay for this venue, at all.<\/p>\n
The bottom line: Las Vegas continues to have its chain yanked and pretty much everyone involved is complicit in the clown show.<\/p>\n Nobody really understands what the Las Vegas Stadium Authority does, but there\u2019s a Web site<\/a> that says, \u201cThe Las Vegas Stadium Authority is responsible for the ownership and oversight of the NFL stadium project created by Senate Bill 1 during the 30th Special Session of the Nevada State Legislature. The Stadium Authority is also responsible for the ownership and oversight of the MLB stadium project created by Senate Bill 1 during the 35th Special Session of the Nevada State Legislature.\u201d<\/p>\n We assume that clarifies everything.<\/p>\n This body is responsible for overseeing sports venues built with public money. You know, safeguarding taxpayers 24\/7. Taxpayers gave $750 million to a billionaire to build the Raiders stadium. The guy who heads up the Authority, Steve Hill, also runs the LVCVA (Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority), the agency charged with promoting Las Vegas for the casinos (funded with tax dollars via a room tax). It\u2019s Las Vegas, absolutely nothing to see here.<\/p>\n The A\u2019s are forced to interact with the Las Vegas Stadium Authority because if all goes to plan, $380 million in taxpayer money will go toward building a new ballpark on the Tropicana site.<\/p>\n The Las Vegas Stadium Authority is very invested in the A\u2019s move, as it\u2019s perceived an MLB team will move some serious needles in Las Vegas (visitation, tax revenue, jobs, prosperity, the whole nine), at least based upon projections (largely untethered from reality) by consultants hired by the A\u2019s.<\/p>\n At the meeting, A\u2019s executive Sandy Dean laid out the financing details for the new ballpark.<\/p>\n By \u201cdetails,\u201d of course, we mean unmitigated horseshit.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how it went.<\/p>\n Confirmed: The A\u2019s don\u2019t have investors investing. They hope to, but if they had investors, we\u2019d have heard about them. No smart investor is going to contribute $850 million (or any portion thereof) based upon some magical future projected value of the team. That value is a complete fabrication (just like projections of 28,000 fans attending every game), as is the assertion there are a number of interested investors. The A\u2019s even hired a high-powered firm (Galatioto Sports Partners) to find investors, but none have surfaced. Not one.<\/p>\n If we\u2019re calling the homeless \u201cunhoused\u201d now, should we be referring to the A\u2019s ownership and management as \u201cunclued\u201d?<\/p>\n \u2014 Vital Vegas (@VitalVegas) July 15, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Confirmed: The A\u2019s don\u2019t have lenders who are actually lending. The A\u2019s are claiming multiple financial institutions are excited to lend the A\u2019s $300 million, but excitement isn\u2019t money. Excitement can sometimes result in money, like at strip clubs, but at strip clubs, there\u2019s a viable business model.<\/p>\n Confirmed: While the Fisher family could contribute all the necessary equity ($850 million) to the project, there\u2019s no real indication that\u2019s happening. \u201cCould\u201d is a far cry from \u201cwill.\u201d Wealthy people don\u2019t get or stay wealthy by spending their own money on projects with questionable returns.<\/p>\n Confirmed: When we say there\u2019s no funding for a ballpark, we aren\u2019t exaggerating. The $380 million in public funding everyone assumes is a done deal actually isn\u2019t. See, the A\u2019s have to spend $100 million to get the public money. If that $100 million doesn\u2019t exist, neither does the public funding.<\/p>\n It\u2019s all smoke and mirrors from the A\u2019s, abetted by public officials.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the illusion of activity. Of progress. Of something being accomplished.<\/p>\n Read this slowly and repeat if necessary: Hopes and promises aren\u2019t financing. Words and proposals and laughable renderings<\/a> don\u2019t pay for things.<\/p>\n The A\u2019s iron-clad financing plan for a Las Vegas ballpark is akin to \u201cthoughts and prayers,\u201d and we all know how effective those are.<\/p>\n Why are people, including many media outlets, so inclined to take the A\u2019s, its ownership or its representatives at their word?<\/p>\n The A\u2019s had an iron-clad, binding agreement to build a ballpark on the Wild Wild West site. They now say they\u2019re building on the Tropicana site.<\/p>\n The A\u2019s have yet to provide anything concrete related to this ongoing quagmire. The renderings are ridiculous, the financing is foggy and the team is playing in Sacramento for three years. You know, to start building that Las Vegas fanbase.<\/p>\n Our money\u2019s on the Sacramento A\u2019s staying there. Unless the team ends up staying in Oakland. Stop chortling<\/a>. We\u2019ve been saying this for a year.<\/p>\n If you think the A\u2019s are done in Oakland, you haven\u2019t been paying attention. The Trop deal isn\u2019t a done deal and moving to Vegas isn\u2019t either. They haven\u2019t even said where they\u2019re getting a billion in financing. Just relax. It\u2019s just sports.<\/p>\n \u2014 Vital Vegas (@VitalVegas) July 24, 2023<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n You can watch a portion of the Las Vegas Stadium Authority meeting here<\/a>.<\/p>\n You can read more about the meeting here, from media outlets that are giving the A\u2019s the benefit of a doubt for some inexplicable reason. Here are stories from the Las Vegas Review-Journal<\/a>, Nevada Independent<\/a> and AP<\/a>.<\/p>\n We aren\u2019t seeing a ton of skepticism in news coverage, but that\u2019s Las Vegas.<\/p>\n We like the takes from Field of Schemes<\/a>, mostly because they agree with us that the financing plan is a \u201cbig pile of nuthin.\u201d We\u2019d add \u201csteaming,\u201d but that pretty much nails it.<\/p>\n And don\u2019t get us started about the Bally\u2019s Corp. aspect of this mess. Bally\u2019s Corp. isn\u2019t building a resort on its own. The company lacks the resources.<\/p>\n One twist in this saga did transpire in Chicago recently.<\/p>\n The owner of the land under Tropicana, a REIT called GLPI (Gaming and Leisure Properties, Inc.), is presumably helping Bally\u2019s Corp. (which owned the operations of Tropicana) build a casino in Chicago with $2 billion in financing<\/a>.<\/p>\n Could GLPI help pay for a proposed casino resort on the site shared by the imagined A\u2019s ballpark in Las Vegas? Anything is possible, but the only way a resort on the Tropicana site is viable is if it\u2019s the only thing on the Tropicana site. It\u2019s complicated, but viability is based upon the number of hotel rooms, and the number of hotel room on this site is limited by FAA restrictions due to the proximity to the airport.<\/p>\n One tidbit not widely reported is the fact Bally\u2019s Corp. effectively sold off all its real estate to fund the Chicago casino project. So, selling more isn\u2019t an option to help pay for whatever gets built on the Trop site. We get the feeling Bally\u2019s could swing one or the other project with some serious help, but not both. Bally\u2019s chose Chicago. Time will tell.<\/p>\n We personally think sports have ruined Las Vegas, so it pains us to have to write about a subject that\u2019s not even particularly Vegas-related anymore. An MLB team will be Vegas-related again when a serious team with serious owners present a real-world plan, including financing, probably in the parking lot of the Rio, unless an NBA arena is build there first.<\/p>\n Hearing rumblings about Oak View Group eyeballing Rio. We assumed an MLB ballpark would eventually end up there when the A\u2019s deal falls through at the Trop site, but it sounds like a Rio stadium would make Oak View more competitive in drawing an NBA team when T-Mobile seems the\u2026<\/p>\n \u2014 Vital Vegas (@VitalVegas) July 7, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n There do need to be more voices of reason to help lend perspective to this ongoing debacle.<\/p>\n Las Vegas deserves a team worthy of it, and the A\u2019s aren\u2019t it.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/vitalvegas\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/as_clown_car-845x563.jpg\"\/)
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