MLB Owners Might Decide Whether To Relocate The A’s To Las Vegas At The June Meetings
MLB Commissioner
MLB owners might officially approve the Oakland Athletics’ relocation to Las Vegas in only a few weeks.
The vote may occur during the owners’ meetings, which get underway on June 13 in New York, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said while visiting Milwaukee on Thursday. Even though that would make things official, Manfred knows that MLB must still be ready to take a formal vote.
“It’s possible that a relocation vote could happen as early as June.”
“It’s very difficult to have a timeline for Oakland until there’s actually a deal to be considered. There is a relocation process internally they need to go through, and we haven’t even started that process.”
Rob Manfred
For years, the A’s have been said to be considering leaving Oakland, and in recent weeks, they’ve made several decisive moves to make that transfer a reality.
The club and Bally’s Corporation have agreed to construct a $1.5 billion stadium on the present site of the Tropicana Las Vegas resort. The deal would bring a 35,000-seat stadium with a retractable roof to the Las Vegas Strip.
A tentative agreement was reached between the A’s and the government for the project to receive up to $380 million in funding.
Since moving to Oakland in 1968, the A’s have played at the Oakland Coliseum, where their contract expires in 2024. Despite the constantly deteriorating Coliseum, the team and the city have not agreed to retain the A’s in the Bay Area for years.
Although it appears to be a losing cause at this time, Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and Manfred have recently made an effort to alleviate at least some of the concerns of A’s supporters over relocating. Should the A’s return to the negotiating table, Thao claimed she and the city are “very close” to securing a deal for a new stadium, and Manfred didn’t rule it out either.
The Associated Press quotes Rob Manfred in response to a question about the A’s potential relocation to Oakland.
“I think you’d have to ask the mayor of Oakland that.”
“She said she had cut off negotiations after an announcement was made in Las Vegas. I don’t have a crystal ball as to where anything’s going. There’s not a definitive deal done in Las Vegas. We’ll have to see how that plays out.”
