A lawyer of the Las Vegas stadium authority told the group MLB wants to put the World Series in one spot.
Is Major League Baseball ready to pull local markets out of the World Series and have the best of seven games championship series played at a neutral site? The lease that is being negotiated between Las Vegas officials and Oakland Athletics’ ownership has both sides discussing a provision that would allow the planned Las Vegas team to play World Series games outside of the home market. Mark Arnold, who is the special counsel to the Las Vegas Stadium Authority, revealed during a May 18th authority meeting that MLB is requiring teams’ lease agreements to include a section that leaves the option open for teams to play playoff games at a single host site.
“It could be possible for MLB to go to some model that is more like the Super Bowl, if you will, where some playoff games are played in a location that is not necessarily the home stadium of any of the teams,” Arnold told authority members. Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred and his 30 owners are just interested in getting money opportunities. If MLB actually goes ahead and decides that the World Series should be held in a neutral site, numerous markets would be cut out. There is no way MLB would hold a World Series in places like Detroit, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Denver because of either market size or weather. It could snow in Denver in late October, it could be very cold in Minneapolis. The World Series would play in places such as Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Arlington or Houston, Texas, maybe in Florida. For MLB neutralizing the World Series has a positive while there is a major downside for local markets. MLB could put the World Series up for bids forcing markets to pay for the right to hold the World Series and put more money in MLB pockets.
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