The Oakland v. Las Vegas stadium game continues.
Major League Baseball’s Oakland Athletics franchise is tied to Oakland through 2024 and it appears that the team will be in Oakland past the end of the stadium use lease which ends in 2024. The National Football League’s Oakland Raiders remained in the city past that business’s lease deal as a stop gap measure until the business was able to relocate to Las Vegas. So Oakland sports fans have experience with a lame duck business. What is different in 2023 for Oakland Athletics owner John Fisher and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred are the faces on the other side of the negotiating table as there is a new governor in Nevada and a new mayor in Oakland. But the 2022 problem remains. Where is Fisher going to get funding for his projects? In Oakland, Fisher has a plan to build a stadium-village on the Oakland waterfront but getting public money has been a major obstacle.
In Nevada, the business has not picked out a stadium site even though Athletics’ ownership set a deadline of spring 2022 to pick out a parcel of land where a stadium could be built. Oakland has been a Major League Baseball problem since 1967 when the American League gave Kansas City Athletics owner Charles O. Finley permission to move to Oakland and create a two-team market with San Francisco. In 1980, A’s owner Finley agreed in principle to sell the team to Marvin Davis, who planned to move the Athletics to Denver. Oakland and Alameda County blocked the deal. Various owners have tried to get a new Oakland or Fremont or San Jose Athletics stadium built and have failed. San Jose was a problem as the San Francisco Giants owners controlled the territory even though voters in the city said no to a Giants stadium.
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