Update: Oakland A's put in binding offer for Las Vegas stadium

Sure they can. The fanbases for MLB and AAA are quite different and with MLB directly controlling the Minor Leagues now, its not a crazy thing anymore. Teams save a lot of costs when they can directly manage the minor league team from their offices (and moving players between teams is much cheaper). Its quite a luxury to have your AAA team in your backyard.

Similar to the Astros/Skeeters relationship, we have the Twins/Saints relationship here in the Twin Cities. They're both baseball but the product being offered is so different that they don't really compete with each other.

 

LOL, no one is arguing that point, tinman. I totally agree and said so more than once...Oakland is going to have to fund a ballpark to keep the A's. That point is true regardless of whether LV is a better market for baseball than other potential relocation spots.

 

I don't know.

 

yes, the current ballpark is not going to work for them. It hasn't for a long time.

Actually last in the league in attendance right now is Toronto. Boston and Miami are drawing less per game, though I don't know what capacity is in those cities...are there any restrictions in Miami at all? I'm really not putting much stock in attendance numbers in the midst of a pandemic when I'm assessing market strength in a new ballpark.

In 2019, in a terrible ballpark that literally has sewage issues, they averaged 20,521/game, ahead of Detroit, KC, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Tampa and Miami. All but Tampa play in great ballparks that far exceed Oakland's.

Oakland needs a new ballpark. If they don't fund it, they'll lose their team. If they do fund it, there's zero reason not to stay in Oakland.

 

They need a new ballpark, tinman...in a new area of town. That point has been conceded at least 5 times here by me. No one is suggesting they can or should stay in the same place they are playing right now.

 

Toronto is playing in the Florida and that’s an outlier bc their using a smaller spring training stadium. The Red Sox avg 100% of their limited compactly right now. Tb and the Marlins are down at the bottom with Oakland

 

Pro sports in Vegas are like a famous star agreeing on a long term performance residency.

 

Vegas is supporting NHL and AHL - it’s a good test to see if the market given its smaller population could support major and minor league teams of the same sport.

 

TB and OAK will either get new ballparks or they will be moving. Having said that, franchise relocation in baseball is very rare.

 

One of the secondary factors is probably radio revenues, any pro-team in either market would be the third biggest draw after two major college programs in non-baseball revenue sports.

 

Too much fun and sex in Las Vegas

 

Sure it’s rare but it’ll happen sooner or later. LV will get a MLB team. And at some point an NBA team

 

I think the NBA makes a ton of sense there. I’m not sure if MLB does. Regardless, I don’t see MLB expanding any time soon. If Tampa and Oakland build ballparks, I don’t see a relocation happening in baseball anytime soon either. In my entire lifetime exactly one MLB team has relocated. The Raiders, alone, have relocated 3 times in my lifetime.

There will be multiple open markets available for either the Rays or A’s of them if their current homes don’t build a ballpark, and San Jose as an option potentially allows the A’s to stay in that massive media market. I don’t think it’s a given that LV gets either an NBA or MLB franchise any time soon. I suppose it depends on what timeline you’re judging by, because I’m certainly not saying never.

 

Yeah to add - the Bay Area's CSA population is almost as big as Chicago's and likely will surpass Chicago sooner than later (as will probably DC-DMV area and they have of course multiple teams there as well between the Orioles and Ravens also being part of that CSA) so the Bay Area should certainly have some secondary teams in the same sport.

The Red Sox have only had a 12.5% capacity maximum until this week which doubled to 25%.

 

Yeah, the Bay Area media market is massive...and local TV market revenues are a big part of the pie for MLB teams. Las Vegas would be the smallest media market in MLB if they had a team.