Moreno still wants a new stadium.
In the no never means no category, Major League Baseball’s Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim owner Arte Moreno is ready to talk to the Anaheim Mayor Ashleigh Aitken about his need for a new or renovated baseball park in the city. When we last left Moreno, he had struck out in his attempt to take over the Anaheim stadium and the land surrounding it. Moreno wanted to build a stadium-village. Moreno has an extremely valuable property. His Angels business signed a 20-year local cable TV deal with FOX Sports in 2011 that brings in $150 million annually. Subsequently, Sinclair’s Bally Sports bought out the regional cable network. Bally Sports recently declared bankruptcy so that deal is in jeopardy. But between 2003 and 2019, the team averaged more than three million customers per year and despite having a bad team in 2022, Moreno’s Angels business still drew nearly two and a half million people to games. But the stadium is not the state-of-the-art facility that Moreno wants.
In the past Moreno has looked at sites in Los Angeles, Carson, Irvine and Tustin as a possible replacement for the Anaheim stadium. In March 2022, Long Beach, California officials claimed they were ready to provide Moreno with a stadium site. Long Beach, which is about 23 miles from Anaheim, had offered Moreno a chance to look at the city’s waterfront area for a stadium in 2019 when Moreno was exploring various areas to relocate his business. There was no concrete proposal for a Long Beach stadium, there was no money plan, just a notion that Moreno could be in a position to develop the waterfront property with the ballpark as the centerpiece. Moreno then had a deal with Anaheim which fell through. Moreno is back in the stadium game in Anaheim.
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