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

I'm not sure I agree with this. As a business, the NHL put a team in Las Vegas - an extremely non-traditional market and part of their iffy "Sunbelt Strategy" - and had every incentive to set it up for success over the long term with the local fanbase.

The NBA has an example of what intentionally hamstringing a new franchise can do: the Vancouver Grizzlies never recovered from being prohibited from winning the #1 pick. They mismanaged their team by drafting players like Big Country and dealt with a weak Canadian dollar, but the NBA arbitrarily capping how high they could draft put the team behind the 8-ball from the beginning. David Stern even said "I consider Vancouver to be one of our failures... I regret that it was never really (given) the attention that it deserved, because it’s a beautiful and extraordinary city."

OKC will be another interesting example of who is right in this situation. The Thunder came preloaded with Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, James Harden and Serge Ibaka. They were bad initially, but it was clear that they would quickly grow into a contender so the city never had to deal with a truly awful team until now. We'll see how true lows impact OKC's attendance and ratings in that small market now that a lot of aimless losing is in their future.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/27/weather/lake-mead-colorado-river-shortage/index.html


First-ever Colorado River water shortage is now almost certain, new projections show

 

Vegas is a baseball town believe it or not. Spent over 15 years there and I stopped counting how many of my coworkers were little league coaches or played in softball leagues. Add all the SoCal transplants and you would have just as many people cheering against the A's as for them. And God help them when the yankees or red sox come to town.

 

Interesting the As are only looking at Vegas - maybe they think Vegas is desperate (seeing the Raiders deal). So many other cities to start a bidding war!

 

Good cause oakland is the worst city in americas. I'd go to any city in florida before i venture out to oakland lol

 

@tinman hell yeah bro. Vegas is lit!

 

you know that, for the past 2+ decades, A’s avg attendance has been less than 10K.

for some games, attendance has been less than a thousand

 

It's that for real? That's worse than most minor leagues...

 

Incorrect. Their attendance isn’t good, and their ballpark is crappy. They need a new ballpark. But a simple google search would show you they haven’t averaged less than 10,000 for 20 years. You can go year by year on this site. https://www.espn.com/mlb/attendance/_/year/2017 I started with my personal favorite year.

 

Danke Shoen Field at Celine Dion Park?