Las Vegas mayor Carolyn Goodman isn’t exactly extending a warm embrace to the Oakland Athletics, who plan to build a $1.5bn stadium in her city.
Goodman said the team’s stadium plan “does not make sense” and A’s ownership should go back to the drawing board and pitch a new plan in the Bay Area.
“I personally think [the A’s have] got to figure out a way to stay in Oakland to make their dream come true,” she told the Front Office Sports Today podcast.
The A’s ballpark is planned for a nine-acre parcel on the Las Vegas Strip, and Goodman said the congestion makes the site less attractive than a larger site in north Las Vegas, which she had proposed. However, the mayor and the city do not have jurisdiction over the Strip, which falls under the oversight of Clark county instead.
“There are a lot of questions about whether that’s going to fit,” Goodman said about plans for the stadium on the small lot.
A’s owner John Fisher has drawn the ire of Vegas locals for his failure to share revised artists renderings of the park to show how it will be situated on the lot. Fisher’s plan is to finish the park in time for the 2028 season and leave the cavernous and worn out Coliseum in Oakland, the fifth-oldest stadium in the major leagues, after the team’s lease runs out following the 2024 season. The team has yet to secure a facility for the interim three seasons.
Plans to put $380m of public financing toward the Las Vegas project are also being challenged legally.
Fisher failed to come to agreement with officials in Oakland on a new waterfront stadium in the city and shifted his focus to Las Vegas.
Goodman told Front Office Sports that she believes the Athletics “really want to stay in Oakland. They want to be on the water. They have that magnificent dream, and yet they can’t get it done.”
Although the Oakland Raiders moved to Las Vegas, she said the A’s belong in California.
“I just think there’s an appetite [in Oakland]. I run into people from Oakland all the time,” she said. “They want to keep the team, and it’s just the government up there. It costs money … I love the people from Oakland. I think they deserve to have their team.”
After her appearance on the podcast, Goodman added context to her comments on social media and said she was “excited about the prospect of Major League Baseball” in her city, though she didn’t back off her statement that Oakland and the A’s should try to make their relationship work in a “perfect world.”
Jorge Leon, president of the Oakland 68’s, a fan group, told the San Francisco Chronicle that Goodman’s stance was a positive.
“I think it’s a good thing,” Leon said. “We’re kind of surprised because we’re used to politicians saying, ‘C’mon down to our town.’ So it’s a breath of fresh air. We’ve been advocating stopping relocation, and when public money stops, I think relocation stops.”
Fisher has yet to comment on Goodman’s comments.