Fisher can now finish a stadium deal in Las Vegas
Major League Baseball’s John Fisher’s Oakland Athletics franchise is now in lame duck limbo. MLB owners have decided to allow Fisher to pursue establishing a Las Vegas franchise in 2028 which leaves four seasons of nomadic life for the Athletics’ players. The franchise will stay in Oakland in 2024. Fisher will finish out his lease to use the Oakland stadium. After that, there is no solution as to which stadium Fisher’s business will call home in 2025, 2026 and 2027. Fisher’s Las Vegas dream stadium is scheduled to open in 2028. There are some problems that need to be solved. The Nevada school teacher’s group, Save Our Schools, opposition to building a Las Vegas stadium with $380 million in public assistance is not going away.
Meanwhile MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, who oversaw the elimination of 42 Minor League Baseball franchises and is pushing minor league baseball cities to spend money to either upgrade or build new stadiums to keep a team or lose the franchise to a city willing to pony up dollars to get a minor league team, doesn’t really care about what MLB will behind in Oakland. An Oakland stadium never materialized and its now Viva Las Vegas for Fisher. “This is a terrible day for fans in Oakland. I understand that. That’s why we always had a policy of doing everything humanly possible to avoid a relocation, and I truly believe that in this case. Vegas is a unique market in many ways. We think over the long-haul Las Vegas will be a huge asset to Major League Baseball,” said the commissioner. What is ahead for Oakland? Possibly an Oakland lawsuit that MLB and Fisher negotiated in bad faith with Oakland officials. Oakland lost franchises in the National Basketball Association, in the National Football League and in the National Hockey League and Fisher might be gone very soon.
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