A crucial meeting is taking place.

There may be some clarity in the timeline of the construction of the Las Vegas baseball park that will be the home of John Fisher’s Oakland Athletics franchise beginning in 2028. Fisher’s draft development agreement is on the agenda for the next Las Vegas Stadium Authority meeting. The draft development agreement will detail how the stadium will be financed by Fisher and the construction plan for the 33,000-seat stadium, with an estimated $1.5 billion price tag, to be built on a portion of the 35-acre Tropicana hotel site. This would be the fourth and final agreement that Fisher needs to reach with the stadium authority in order to make the $380 million in public funding available for him as required by Nevada Senate Bill 1.

An updated draft of the non-relocation agreement will also be presented and still needs to be approved by the board. A community benefits agreement was already approved earlier this year. All of this does not mean Fisher will be able to build the ballpark. There could be some lawsuits and even the possibility of a local referendum where people would have a yes or no option on spending public dollars for a ballpark for a private business. The Athletics’ ownership is requesting to play up to eight home games a season away from the team’s Las Vegas ballpark. The request to play more than a half-dozen home games away from Las Vegas is in the team’s 37-page proposed 30-year non-relocation agreement. In the last three partially publicly funded baseball stadium agreements in Miami in 2009, in Cobb County, Georgia in 2014 and in Arlington, Texas in 2017, the teams’ ownership agreed to no more than three “home” games in neutral sites a year. It seems strange that Fisher doesn’t want to have all 81 home games in Las Vegas.

Proposed Las Vegas stadium

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