A’s sell fans right to get on line for tickets at Vegas vaporstadium

access_time personNeil deMause

“A’s Tell Las Vegas Baseball Fans They Can Spend $19.01 To Secure Priority Access To Buy Season Tickets At Planned Stadium On Strip” is a perfectly cromulent headline; so is “A’s Open Ticket Deposits for Las Vegas Stadium That Doesn’t Exist Yet.” Choices! It’s all about choices.

For A’s fans, or Las Vegas baseball fans, or just fans of baseball who want to visit Las Vegas a whole lot, the choice is whether to spend $19.01 (because the A’s were created in 1901?) to get on a “priority list” for tickets at the team’s new Las Vegas stadium, if there are ever tickets, if there ever is a stadium. Front Office Sports describes this as a “deposit,” but there’s no indication on the team website that you can apply the $19.01 toward the price of tickets if you buy them or get it back if you don’t, so this appears to actually be one of those “fan club membership” type deals that let you get in on the presale before the general public.

And, you know, John Fisher needs all the money he can get, so another, say, 30,000 payments of $19.01 each would raise … okay, $570,300 isn’t all that much, but every dollar counts! Plus there’s nothing stopping Fisher from accepting more season ticket “priority list” members than seats exist, maybe this is the new market inefficiency! Gotta be lots of people who want to see Aaron Judge or whoever hit home runs!

In other pretending-the-A’s-are-moving-t0-Vegas news, the team has announced its games will be broadcast on a Las Vegas radio station this year, in addition to in Sacramento and the Bay Area, and also recently filed a permit to clear and grade the proposed stadium site. Whether all this is in actual preparation for a Nevada move or just an elaborate shadow play intended to entice some “investors” to come out of the woodwork and give Fisher a pile of money for no good reason remains unknowable, maybe even to Fisher himself — groundbreaking or it didn’t happen at this point, so might want to save yourself $19.01 for now.

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Portland baseball booster releases fresh stadium renderings in hopes it’ll get him more tax money

access_time personNeil deMause

Portland Diamond Project, the people who want to bring an MLB team to Oregon, released new renderings yesterday of a 32,000-seat stadium along the Portland waterfront. We’ll get to the pretty pictures in a minute, but first, this:

[Portland Diamond Project CEO] Craig Cheek told a legislative committee Monday morning that Portland could break ground on a Major League Baseball stadium on the south Waterfront as early as 2027 if Portland is awarded a team.

Uh, sure? MLB isn’t likely to pick its expansion cities before 2027 — it still needs to settle the Tampa Bay Rays and Sacramento A’s stadium situations, and then hold a bidding war for both prospective owners and prospective cities. And “breaking ground” is typically just a matter of a bunch of elected officials showing up with hardhats and shovels, so it’s not really a sign of major construction activity. So this is mostly Cheek, an ex-Nike VP who runs the hey-Portland-let’s-put-on-a-baseball-team show, trying to get headlines by issuing checks his butt is never going to have to cover.

As for why Cheek was before a legislative committee, that’s because:

The group appeared in front of the committee to make an appeal to “modernize” Senate Bill 5, the 2003 bill lawmakers passed that would carve out $150 million for a stadium in income taxes paid by a team’s players and executives.

“Modernize,” eh? What’s that mean, exactly?

“We asked legislators to revisit SB5, originally passed in 2003, and update the law to better reflect the current revenue generated by players’ salaries and the rising costs to build a world-class stadium in downtown Portland,” Cheek said. “This would not be a new tax on Oregonians. We look forward to working with the legislature to make Oregon Better with Baseball.”

So, the modernized bill would presumably increase the amount of borrowing Oregon would take on, in anticipation of more state income taxes players would pay given that salaries are higher now than in 2003. Cheek doesn’t appear to have revealed details of how much tax money the project would require, other than saying that the stadium would cost around $2 billion total — and that this wouldn’t really be taxes that would cost Oregonians anything, because player income taxes would be free money the state treasury wouldn’t get otherwise, which is not exactly true.

Anyway, on to the vaportecture, I know you’re all excited to see that:

Daytime fireworks, gotta respect the classics! Also, that indeed appears to be some kind of sliding translucent roof, though whether it’s overlapping panels or some kind of accordion-like structure is hard to tell. Either way, when extended it would still leave large openings on the ends, which should be good to protect fans and players from most rainy weather, but not necessarily be the “365 days a year” experience that Cheek is promising.

Aside from fans displaying a weird affinity for waving flags in the middle of an inning and the only scoreboard being unseeable for fans in the left field corner, not much more to say about this one, so let’s move on to:

More flags! And a whole bunch of extremely het couples of various kinds and bicycle models. Are those people planning to bring their bikes into the stadium? I sure don’t see any bike parking before you have to ascend the steps to the turnstiles. Speaking of which, all those fans in wheelchairs are going to have a heck of a time with those steps, though there does seem to be some sort of ramp (with no railings) that they can use to wind their way up to the entry level, if they dare.

And while I get that showing rendered people mostly from behind avoids the problem of having to show particular faces, having all those fans wear t-shirts with giant Old English P’s on the back does imply some weird things about fashion trends in the year LOL2027.

This is a nice enough view showing the proposed stadium’s setting along the Willamette River, but I mostly appreciate it for its new innovation: daytime spotlights! Those are going to be really impressive, so long as you outfit them with 3.86 x 1026-watt bulbs.

So to recap: An ex-Nike executive wants to build a $2 billion stadium in Portland, Oregon for a team that doesn’t exist with owners that haven’t been identified using money that hasn’t been quantified, but in any case he wants the state legislature to allocate more of it than the last time someone made these promises 22 years ago. The daytime spotlights are probably still the most implausible part of this whole deal, but it’s close.

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Trump’s tariffs and budget cuts will make stadiums more unaffordable — but will cities stop funding them?

access_time personNeil deMause

Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser still really wants to build a Commanders stadium using an as-yet-undisclosed pile of public money, but she has a little problem: The district is facing a potential $1 billion budget deficit over the next three years. Not that that usually stops cities from pouring money into sports venues — when times are good it’s usually “we can afford this” and when times are bad it’s “we can’t afford not to do this” — but the, uh, disconnect is great enough that even local TV stations are asking questions, literally:

7News On Your side reached out to Bowser and asked her the following questions:

  1. How will this forecast affect talks with the Commanders about a new stadium?
  2. Will Mayor Bowser push the team to take on a larger share of the bill for a new stadium?
  3. Will this forecast lead to more spending cuts or higher taxes for residents?
  4. Will this forecast push the mayor to back away from any new stadium deal requiring the use of taxpayer dollars?

So far the response from Bowser — as well as the D.C. council, which was presented with similar questions — has been crickets.

Anyway, this does complicate Bowser’s plans to lure Josh Harris’s Commanders back to the city with gobs of taxpayer money. And how did D.C. end up in such a huge budget hole, anyway? Funny story:

D.C.’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer, in its new revenue forecast released Friday, estimates the city will bring in $21.6M less this year and an average of $342.1M less over the following three years than its December forecast predicted. The total decline adds up to just over $1B in reduced revenue between now and the end of fiscal year 2028.

The report cites the Trump administration’s recent moves to slash the federal workforce as the primary reason for the declining projections, along with the domino effect that is expected to have on the local economy.

This raises a larger question: What impact will the mayhem that Donald Trump and Elon Musk are committing across the federal government have on stadium and arena construction? We’ve already seen predictions that Trump’s tariffs on both Canada in particular and imported steel and aluminum in general will cause construction prices to soar. Throwing local government budgets into the wood chipper would only compound the problem, as cities and states would be chasing ever-more-expensive stadiums with ever-shrinking treasuries.

And yet! It’s important to remember that one of the things that kicked off the entire stadium-subsidy racket — and, before it, the auto-plant and computer-chip-factory rackets — in the 1980s was Ronald Reagan slashing federal funding to local governments. With no way of creating jobs by spreading around federal dollars, city mayors increasingly turned instead to offering their dwindling supplies of cash to corporations as a way to try to steal jobs from the city down the road, launching the economic war among the states. It didn’t work — raiding your neighbor while they raid you is a zero-sum game — but that hasn’t stopped it from becoming ingrained as the business of local government, and it was all set off by local government having too little cash, not so much that it didn’t know what to do with it.

So, will a Trumpcession tank team owners’ stadium plans? It’s way, way too soon to tell. It’s going to change the entire climate around construction of more or less everything, though, as well as state and local governments’ fiscal plans, so things will be different, if not necessarily better. At the same time, Trump’s tax cuts are making the rich much richer, so you would think that team owners could better afford to pay for stadiums themselves — but, again, this whole scheme isn’t about who can afford them, it’s about how to get someone else to pay for them so owners can keep more money for themselves. Kleptocracies work in mysterious ways.

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Friday roundup: D-Backs tax kickback plan rushes ahead despite questions, Utah bill would let a hundred stadiums bloom

access_time personNeil deMause

Springtime is always a busy time for stadium and arena shenanigans, if only because it’s budget season for most states and cities. But still! Buncha bullet points today, is what I’m saying, and expect a lot more next week, and so on and so on until legislators break for the summer or come to their senses, whichever comes first (you know damn well which will come first):

  • An Arizona state legislative analysis says because Diamondbacks players pay $3.5 million a year in state income tax, that would over more than a quarter of the tax kickbacks team execs want for stadium renovations — asked and answered, move to strike. Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, meanwhile, says the state analysis doesn’t look at actual economic data but rather projections like calculating every fan buys two beers (first, assume a spherical fan). No worries, though, the bill still has to go through — oh, welp, looks like it already passed the state house and just needs to clear the senate, and House Democratic Leader Rep. Oscar De Los Santos has expressed “alarm” and said “we should not be rushing through this legislative process,” guess there’s no time to worry like the present.
  • Utah state senator Scott Sandall, figuring one MLB stadium with no team to play in it and no way to pay for it isn’t enough for a growing state, introduced a bill to let Salt Lake City’s stadium district build multiple stadiums as small as 18,000 seats for any sport, “to be proactive, just for the future,” not because he has any particular sports teams in mind that could use an 18,000-seat stadium or anything.
  • Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas is supporting a new Missouri state bill to raise money for Royals and/or Chiefs stadiums by providing … okay, Lucas didn’t say exactly how much money or from where, and the bill itself isn’t posted on the Missouri senate website yet, but Lucas says it’ll help Kansas City “host FIFA World Cup games,” please nobody tell him that it’s going to be decades before the U.S. gets another World Cup after 2026, I don’t want to spoil his day.
  • The proposed Cleveland Browns stadium in Brook Park is set to lead to the creation of a new Circle K gas station, maybe, if government bureaucrats don’t get in the way with their red tape about “residents” being “concerned,” can you believe those guys?
  • Phoenix Suns co-owner Justin Ishbia has pulled out of bidding for the Minnesota Twins and is instead upping his minority stake in the Chicago White Sox, which certainly can be read as positioning himself to become majority owner once 89-year-old Jerry Reinsdorf gives up either control or this mortal coil. Whether he would go ahead with with Reinsdorf’s current stadium plans, let alone rebranding the team as the Chicacago White Sox, remains to be seen.
  • The MLB cable empire keeps on crumbling, and at least one small-market owner, the Milwaukee Brewers‘ Mark Attanasio, says he wants a TV revenue sharing model more like the NFL’s where all the money is shared equally. This is worth watching since it would have a major impact on where teams could relocate to (Green Bay would suddenly be a viable MLB market), plus all sort of other things like how long the 2027 baseball lockout is likely to last.
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KC area officials compete to bid for Chiefs/Royals stadiums, team owners sit and twirl mustaches

access_time personNeil deMause

Shit’s gettin’ real-ish in Kansas City:

  • Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe met with city and Jackson County leaders yesterday for 30 minutes to discuss plans for Chiefs and Royals stadiums. County legislator Sean Smith, who was a swing vote in approving a referendum on the last stadium-funding proposal for the teams, came away saying “it went really well” and “the governor indicated that there’s clearly some state-level tools they can bring to bear,” which is unspecific but sounds like state funding of some kind is in play.
  • State officials said they’ll work on property tax reform, which #1 stadium backer county legislator Manny Abarca said could help get county voters on board with raising taxes for stadiums.
  • KFVS-TV opined that “The Kansas City Chiefs bring more than just championships to Missouri. The Chiefs estimate Missouri receives $28.8 million in tax revenue each year from their games.” (That sound you just heard was millions of economists suddenly crying out in terror and being suddenly silenced.)
  • In neighboring Clay County, meanwhile, two state senators introduced legislation to create a county sports complex authority to spend money it would get from somewhere, somehow.
  • In neighboring Kansas, House Rep. Sean Tarwater recommended against using money from a fund to lure sports teams to spend on education instead, on the grounds that the state is currently negotiating with the Chiefs and Royals owners and if officials offered money and then had to reveal they blew it all on schools, “we’d look like jackasses.”
  • The video from the same KMBC story that reported on Tarwater opined that Missouri house speaker Jon Patterson said last spring’s stadium funding referendum “likely failed because there wasn’t a sense that Kansas City Jackson County were on the same page,” which, okay, Jon.

Nothing concrete, in other words, but the bidding war is clearly very much on. Presumably legislators are currently putting their heads together to figure out how to approve money in a way that doesn’t require going before voters, or at least going before voters with a “but we’re cutting your property taxes at the same time!” carrot. The Chiefs and Royals owners, meanwhile, have not publicly commented, which has been working pretty well so far as they’ve let competing elected officials do their work for them, bwahahaha.

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Deal to spend $500m+ in taxpayer money on new Spurs arena moves ahead, judge promises it won’t cost taxpayers

access_time personNeil deMause

Bexar County commissioners took another step toward approving at least half a billion dollars in tax money for a new San Antonio Spurs arena yesterday, voting 4-1 to approve a memorandum of understanding with San Antonio and team owner Peter Holt to start negotiating terms of an arena deal. Or perhaps that should be continue negotiating terms of an arena deal, because the initial framework of a deal is already in place:

The county’s so-called venue tax is made up of two taxes: one on hotel rooms and another on car rentals. It could yield up to $397 million in revenue if the hotel occupancy tax remains at 1.75%, or as much as $449 million if the county asks voters to raise that tax to the maximum of 2%, County Manager David Smith told commissioners early this month….

Aside from the venue tax, the new Spurs arena could be financed with other pots of public dollars, such as revenue from the city’s project financing zone and increases in property taxes within a tax increment reinvestment zone.

The hotel and car rental taxes appear to be headed for a public referendum, possibly in November, otherwise next May. The TIF district and project financing zone (basically a TIF for business and hotel taxes) wouldn’t have to go through a public vote, but would require the approval of the city council or county commission.

The total public outlay from all this is as yet undetermined. (The city is also considering gifting Holt a publicly owned golf course, market value likewise undetermined.) But it’s not stopping proponents of the arena project from saying it’s clearly better than the current situation, where the Spurs are forced to play in an ancient 23-year-old arena that is practically falling to bits, probably:

The county would need to pour about $78 million into improving the Frost Bank Center through 2029, Mike Wooley, co-founder of Venue Solutions Group, told commissioners Tuesday. The venue would require about $245 million worth of improvements over the next 20 years — if it continued hosting an NBA team.

The San Antonio Express-News doesn’t bother to ID Venue Solutions group, so let’s look them up: They were “launched in 2011 by three industry professionals with over 65 years of collective experience in the public assembly facility industry” (names of said professionals not included on the company website) and have done “facility condition analyses” for a bunch of different arenas, though when you click on “view case study” no actual studies are available. So while county judge Peter Sakai and county manager David Smith both said that’s $245 million the public wouldn’t have to spend on arena improvements if they built a new arena, there’s no way to tell how much the public would have to spend on improvements for a new arena, which in 20 years would be almost as old as the one the Spurs owner is desperate to get out of now.

But anyway, spending [insert large number here] dollars of tax money on a new Spurs arena to replace the one that was opened during Season 14 of The Simpsons won’t cost taxpayers anything, promises Sakai, because reasons:

Sakai made clear numerous times that putting this on the backs of County taxpayers is a non starter for him.

“For me to continue to have the county be invested, no homeowner property tax,” he said. “It cannot fall on the seniors. It cannot fall under disabled. It cannot fall on the veterans who are on fixed income. That’s that’s a deal breaker for me.”

Well, that’s okay then! Wherever the money comes from, it won’t take away from money for seniors or the disabled or veterans or adorable puppies, because they’ll have just as much public money at their disposal, from all the magic beans that will come with this deal, once it’s negotiated, for sure. Also, Sakai promises, the current Spurs arena will remain “sustainable and viable for the long term” and won’t “turn into the next Astrodome” — because that always works out well.

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Will a Browns dome pay for itself in new tax revenues? A LOLinvestimagation

access_time personNeil deMause

There’s an article in Cleveland Crain’s Business today that’s behind such a wreck of a paywall that it’s hard to figure out exactly what’s going on, but I’ve been able to puzzle out the gist of it: The Cleveland Browns’ real estate consultant says Ohio can recoup the $1.2 billion in tax money the team owners want for a new stadium so long as tourists pour into the state in unprecedented numbers just because the team moved a few miles:

“We have seen in venues similar in size to the proposed Brook Park stadium where an event, like WrestleMania or the Final Four, there are multiple days of activities surrounding that event, or these sports fill the venue for several days in a row,” said [RCLCO managing director Erin] Talkington, who leads the firm’s sports, entertainment and large-scale mixed-use practice.

“Those are some of the numbers that we’re looking and calculating how that drives additional revenue,” Talkington added…

According to a proposal presented to news media in February by the Browns, a $2.9 billion projected increase in Ohio income, sales, and commercial activity (business) taxes over 30 years would pay off a $600 million bond issued by the state.

So who is Talkington, and where do these numbers come from? Crain’s doesn’t say, so let’s do some research of our own:

  • RCLCO, formerly Robert Charles Lesser & Co., “is proud to be the ‘first call’ for organizations seeking strategic and tactical advice regarding property investment, planning, and real estate development.” Talkington, in particular, consulted on the Tennessee Titans and Tampa Bay Rays stadium plans, two proposals that diverged pretty dramatically from reality in their economic impact promises. Talkington herself has a B.A. in architecture, which while a fine enough field is maybe not enough to make you an expert in fiscal impact.
  • This isn’t the first time we’ve heard rosy numbers from RCLCO: They made the same claims in December, and as noted the Browns put forward the same numbers last February before their consultants had even written their report. So the only thing making this news is that Talkington got the Crain’s reporter on the phone and gave her some fresh quotes, I guess?
  • New tax revenues of $2.9 billion over 30 years would mean about $96.7 million a year — likely backloaded, but let’s ignore that for the moment. At, say, 5% interest, that would be enough to pay off about $1.5 billion in costs — not nearly enough to cover $1.2 billion in stadium spending and leave “a net $1.3 billion for the state of Ohio,” but still a positive. Assuming, of course, that that $2.9 billion over 30 years in new taxes really exists.

So, is the new tax revenue real? After 17 paragraphs of Talkington and William DiBlasi, “CFO at Elevate, a sports and entertainment property agency,” Crain’s finally gets to its rebuttal, which is still not from any budget or economics experts, but rather from an elected official:

Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne has said that the county is not in the position to use public funds for a new stadium that he and Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb contend will pull tax revenue from the city.

So: An architecture major working for the Browns owners says a new suburban dome will pay for itself, while two elected officials who want the team to stay in Cleveland say it won’t. The answer must lie somewhere in the middle! Too bad it’s not possible to determine what the entire field of economics has concluded about the fiscal impact of sports stadiums, guess we’ll just have to go with our gut on this one.

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Friday roundup: Ravens get even more public cash, D.C. United wants somebody to buy them a roof

access_time personNeil deMause

Greetings from New York, where we now have two terrible mayors instead of one! That’s hardly the worst of today’s political news, so instead let us distract ourselves with some (mostly) terrible stadium and arena news:

  • The Baltimore Ravens‘ $434 million stadium renovation project is now a $489 million renovation project, and 64% of the additional cost is set to be covered by state taxpayers. Or, if you’re whatever AI is writing the headlines over at Sports Illustrated, “Ravens Spending Over $50 Million More on Stadium Upgrades,” sure, that’s probably right, no need to read your own story to check.
  • D.C. United‘s owners want to add 10,000 seats and a roof to their (checks) not yet 7-year-old stadium, and “what remains unknown is the potential price tag or whether the team will ask the city for subsidies.” Also the Axios reporter passing this along (from an original source of “two sources,” not even “familiar with the team’s thinking” or anything) calls D.C. United “American soccer royalty,” what ever happened to no more kings?
  • Missouri House Speaker Jonathan Patterson is turning up the heat on Jackson County, saying “time is running out” for “a plan and course of action” for new Kansas City Royals and Chiefs stadiums, or else … the teams will kick everything back a year and try again, again? Too many showrunners these days really do substitute overbearing string sections for viable suspense plots.
  • D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser says a Washington Commanders stadium “will be the anchor that attracts other investment–housing, amenities, jobs, and opportunities,” guess somebody doesn’t remember what the late Allen Sanderson said about NFL stadiums and cemeteries.
  • In 2023, the city of Anaheim commissioned a $325,000, two-month study of how to keep the Angels‘ stadium viable for decades to come, and now the study may not be done until 2026 and will cost over $1 million, cool, cool.
  • New Sacramento Republic F.C. vaportecture! And it looks like, uh, a soccer stadium? At least there are some smoke bombs, on both ends of the pitch for some reason, but no fireworks or people holding up scarves dramatically and we can’t even see what ridiculous formation the players are in, I give this a B-minus for entertainment value at best.
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Texans owner wants public money to replace or redo 22-year-old stadium, it must be Thursday

access_time personNeil deMause

Every once in a while, someone who doesn’t really follow sports or news or how the world works in general will suggest that, what with all the new stadiums being built these days, we’re set for a lull once every team owner who wanted one has already gotten one. This ignores the fact that some team always by definition has the oldest stadium, and history shows that it’s only a matter of time before that team’s owner gets back on line for a new one.

And with that, I give you the Houston Texans:

When Texans owner Cal McNair named a new team president last month, the first thing he touted about Mike Tomon’s résumé was his “extensive history in stadium development.”…

The Texans, meanwhile, have started negotiating a new lease agreement at NRG Stadium, their publicly-financed home since 2002. A recent facility assessment found the stadium was in average or below average condition compared to its peers, with a laundry list of needs from deferred maintenance over the years. But McNair’s quote and Tomon’s history suggest stronger ambitions: The team may want a new stadium entirely.

That’s some tea-leaf reading, there, but the Houston Chronicle has a bit more to go on than just Tomon’s history working for Legends Entertainment (co-owned by the Dallas Cowboys and New York Yankees) and work on the Buffalo Bills stadium campaign: The paper also reports that “two sources familiar with the Texans’ thinking” (so, likely someone in the team front office) say that team officials have “explored” a possible new stadium though they haven’t “committed” to one.

If your first thought is “Wait, don’t the Texans already play in a new stadium?” I have some bad news for you about time. NRG Stadium was opened all the way back in 2002, making it more than 22 years old, which is increasingly when sports team execs start thinking wistfully about that new-car smell, especially since 30-year leases are getting close to expiring then, making for a good opportunity for leverage for demanding new buildings. Besides, though the old stadium was built for just $352 million, because that’s how things rolled back in the first George W. Bush administration, it now somehow needs four times as much in renovations:

A recent study estimated long-term maintenance costs will reach $1.4 billion over the next 30 years, with Harris County on the hook for those payments.

None of the reporting has actually linked to that study, that I can find, at least. (Another Chronicle article puts the figure for required work at $2 billion, again without citing specifics.) And while yes, the Texans’ lease puts Harris County taxpayers on the hook for repairs — the county just spent $35 million on fixes to the roof and ginormous video screens, thanks to one of those dreaded state-of-the-art clauses that local governments way too often agree to — that’s the lease that expires in 2031, so the county would no longer be bound by it then.

In any event, Texans owner Cal McNair appears to be floating a trial balloon of “if it’s going to cost the county $2 billion to repair the old stadium, may as well help me build a new one,” and hoping no one looks too closely at whether that makes any sense for a building that is one month older than Jenna Ortega. If tt worked for the Tennessee Titans owners, it should be good enough for Houston, right? Wait, you say the Titans owners may have lied about the prospective renovation costs in order to get a new stadium? Well, can’t blame a guy for trying.

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Manfred “believes” A’s will play in Vegas, D-Backs need new stadium, Yankees paid for Tampa upgrades that they didn’t

access_time personNeil deMause

Some days you just want to sit and laugh at Rob Manfred, and today is definitely one of those days. Take it away, Mr. Baseball Commissioner:

The Las Vegas Stadium Authority approved lease, non-relocation and development documents in December to clear the last major hurdles for the A’s to construct a $1.75 billion stadium on the Strip. Details remain to be worked out, such as a development agreement with Clark County, but groundbreaking likely will take place in the spring to allow a 2028 opening.

“I don’t think the timeline has changed,” Manfred said. “I believe we’re going to be on time to go in 2028.”

Hand it to Manfred for once: Instead of mumbling his way through an explanation of the A’s possible move to Las Vegas as is his wont, he gave a simple declarative statement that can be passed off as news while appending it with  “I don’t think” and “I believe” to maintain plausible deniability if it turns out he was talking out his ass. (Or out A’s owner John Fisher’s ass, in this case, since that’s who still has one small hurdle to clear in building a Las Vegas stadium.) That’s some quality commissionering, got anything else on any other team owners’ stadium dreams?

“I think that the reality of today’s economics is that either building or renovating a stadium almost by definition has to be a public-private partnership. I give [Arizona Diamondbacks CEO] Derrick [Hall] and [owner] Ken [Kendrick] a lot of credit for trying to be creative, making sure we have a facility here in Arizona that’s good for the long term.”

Does it, though? If a new stadium almost by definition costs more than it will bring in in new team revenues, then what it is about the old stadium that isn’t good for the long term — oh, sorry, you said “I think,” that’s your get-out-of-fact-checking-free card, my bad.

Looks like we have time for just one more:

“The industry owes Hal Steinbrenner a real debt of gratitude,” Manfred said of the Yankees owner. “He put literally tens of millions of dollars into improving Steinbrenner Field and the first people who are really going to get to use it for any period of time is the Tampa Bay Rays.”

Maybe not literally tens of millions of dollars on this go-round — perhaps you’re thinking of the previous $40 million renovation, which was mostly paid for by the state and city? If only you had said “I believe” first, but it’s okay, we have some lovely parting gifts.

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