MLB owners will discuss John Fisher’s request to move his business from Oakland to Las Vegas.
The Lords of the Diamond, Major League Baseball owners could be giving one of their brothers, Oakland Athletics owner John Fisher the green light to take his business to Las Vegas at their fall meeting. Fisher has to present his case to the full membership and tell the barons of baseball that he has a great deal available in Las Vegas and that Oakland is an old, used up market because politicians are unwilling to give him money to build a stadium-village although Oakland and Alameda County politicians along with the state of California politicians have found money to partially fund a stadium-village at Howard Terminal near Jack London Square in Oakland. It appears that Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred, a Harvard Law School graduate, was out of the loop concerning the negotiations between Fisher and his team president Dave Kaval and Oakland officials.
Fisher will have to sell the other owners on the Las Vegas market and how it will make money for him and the other 29 MLB owners starting in 2028 when a Las Vegas stadium opens. The San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose TV market is the 10th largest in the country. Las Vegas is the 40th which means that Oakland should be a more valuable TV market than Las Vegas. Oakland has a bigger population than Las Vegas and probably has more corporate money available. Las Vegas may be glitzy but the majority of the local workers are in the service industry and those workers might not have disposal income for a baseball game. But the other owners know all about the market, a market that might be oversaturated with big league teams, the National Hockey League’s Vegas Golden Knights and the National Football League’s Raiders. There are also casinos and entertainment options. Despite all of that, Fisher may get the okay to move.
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