Hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers money will go into the project.
So much for Nevada legislators balking about giving Major League Baseball’s Oakland Athletics owner John Fisher money to build a Las Vegas stadium for his business. The Nevada elected officials are trying to figure out a way to make sure Fisher’s stadium gets public money by the end of the Nevada legislative session on June 5th. Hundreds of millions of dollars, public dollars, could be headed Fisher’s way despite the fact that there was some sort of “no taxes are to be used for the baseball stadium” talk. Fisher and Nevada legislators have cut the initial $500 million request by Fisher to something other than $500 million. But hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayers’ money whether that is a hotel-motel tax or a car rental tax or a raise in property taxes in Clark County will be put into the project once the Nevada legislators and Governor Joe Lombardo approve the expenditure. Lombardo initially opposed raising taxes to fund a ballpark. But politicians always find money for a sports venue. Neither team owners nor elected officials want the public to vote on a sports venue because most of sports venue referendums fail as Tempe, Arizona politicians found out on May 16th when local voters said no to a National Hockey League arena in the city.
But what exactly is the framework for the Las Vegas stadium deal? It seems the owners of the Tropicana hotel property plan to give Fisher about nine acres of the Tropicana property for Fisher to build a very small stadium with a capacity of 30,000-seats with a retractable roof. There are no drawings of the proposed stadium, no cost breakdown. Just a proposal that legislators will consider. It appears Fisher, with an assist from MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, has dumped Oakland and has put all his cards on the table hoping for a Las Vegas payout.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
