The Athletics made a major splash in Major League Baseball free agency on Thursday by signing starting pitcher Luis Severino to a $67 million contract.
That was only the second-most important piece of news for the franchise.
The most important piece of news was that their ballpark proposal in Las Vegas cleared a massive hurdle with the approval of three major agreements that were required before construction on a new stadium could begin.
From the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
“The lease and non-relocation agreements are for an initial term of 30 years, with the ability to extend the lease multiple times, up to 99 years. There are stipulations to what occurs if the A’s try to relocate before the lease is up or if the stadium becomes unplayable for a variety of reasons and what the team could do during that time.
“The development agreement requires that the A’s spend the first $100 million on the project before public funding is made available for use. The A’s reported that they have already spent $40 million during the planning phase of the project.”
The A’s are hoping to break ground for the stadium in 2025 and have it be ready for the start of the 2028 Major League Baseball season.
In the meantime, they are going to spend the next couple of seasons playing in Sacramento on a temporary basis.
The A’s left Oakland after spending decades in the Bay Area.
After not having professional sports until 2017, Las Vegas has become a hot spot for pretty much every major North American sports league. The NHL was the first league to get into the market with the Vegas Golden Knights, followed by the WNBA (Aces) and NFL (Raiders).
Now the A’s are next with Major League Baseball.
Assuming the A’s complete the stadium process and officially start playing, the NBA and MLS will be the only leagues the city is missing. It is probably only a matter of when, and not if, for both of them.
Meanwhile, Oakland has lost all of its professional sports teams with the Raiders and A’s both leaving (eventually for Vegas) and the NBA’s Golden State Warriors moving across the bay into San Francisco.
