A’s Owner Pledges $1B to Build Vegas Stadium, Still Won’t Show Us the Money
Last week, Athletics executive Sandy Dean claimed that team owner John Fisher and his family will invest $1 billion into constructing the promised $1.5 billion A’s stadium on the Las Vegas Strip. However, no money has left any bank accounts yet.
According to Dean, who spoke to a special meeting of the Las Vegas Stadium Authority board, four letters will be presented at the board’s next meeting on December 5:
- A letter from John Fisher committing the Fisher family to invest $1 billion
- A letter from Goldman Sachs and US Bank committing $300 million for a construction loan
- A letter from US Bank confirming its review of the Fisher family finances and SEC filings and concluding that the family has the ability to pay
- A letter from Athletics StadCo, an LLC created to manage the stadium’s private capital investment, stating the letters from debt and equity financiers are sufficient to move forward with the stadium
Final approvals are expected to be made at that meeting.
“We feel like these documents are on track for the schedule that we have been talking about for a number of months,” said Steve Hill, chair of the Stadium Authority and president and CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA). “We feel like there’s a real possibility we’ll be able to reach a conclusion on all of them on December 5.”
According to the A’s, construction will begin in the spring and finish before the opening of the 2028 MLB season. As much as $380 million in public funding will go into building the 33K-person capacity stadium, which will stand on the Las Vegas Strip in the vacant lot formerly occupied by the recently demolished Tropicana.
At least that’s according to the A’s, the Las Vegas Stadium Authority, and Bally’s Corp., which claims it plans to build a casino resort adjacent to the stadium.
According to many industry observers, however, this latest development is no more than smoke and mirrors.
Kicking the Ball Down the Road
“These feel more like stall tactics than steps forward,” wrote Jason Burke of Sports Illustrated. “Nothing has actually happened yet, and when the letters are presented in December, nothing will happen then, either.”
“These are concepts of plans for funding,” echoed Casino.org’s own Vital Vegas. “The question all this keeps coming back to isn’t ‘Where can a billionaire find a billion dollars?’ but rather ‘Is the Fisher family ready to throw a billion dollars of its own money down a stadium hole?’”
The issue is that Fisher putting $1 billion of his own money into the project makes little sense since the investment is too risky. Among the many reasons for this risk are:
- Overrunning the $1.5 billion estimate is an inevitability that even the A’s admit
- Bally’s hotel towers situated so close to Harry Reid International Airport will be severely height-restricted and, therefore, severely revenue-restricted
- That’s if Bally’s even has the capital to build a casino resort there
- Nine acres isn’t enough room for a baseball stadium
- One of the worst teams in Major League Baseball, which drew an average 6,400 spectators per game in its final season in Oakland, cannot possibly draw anywhere near the stadium’s 33K capacity
Indeed, Dean also said at that meeting that Fisher is still pursuing outside partners who can purchase stakes in the franchise.
The New York Post reported last week that the stakes up for grabs amount to 25% of the team for an amount that values the franchise at $2 billion, a ridiculous 66% more than its most recent valuation of $1.2 billion.
“John Fisher can have as many promises or pledges or ‘binding agreements’ as he wants,” Burke wrote, “but given his track record, it’s incredibly difficult to take what they’re saying as completely truthful.”
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