Las Vegas Wants A Professional Baseball Team: Updates, Thoughts, And Ideas
Las Vegas has made the jump to sports city status. The Raiders came over from Oakland, the Golden Knights have been contenders (this year was a down year), the WNBA’s Vegas Aces have become very popular, and now they are looking to add more. Vegas has been named as a possible expansion city to field an NBA team. Some reports have linked Fenway Sports Group as a sutor with LeBron James leading the charge in that department. But today, we’re going to talk about baseball. For those who don’t know, the city has been looking into a baseball team for a while now. It seemed like there was an idea and somewhat of a plan in place. But, there might be an unexpected curveball when comes to bringing MLB to Sin City.
Recent Developments
Here’s what we know. We know that there has been some interest between the Oakland A’s and the city of Las Vegas for the last year or two. Quick tangent here, but the reason why the Raiders left Oakland is because they were forced to share a stadium with the A’s (pictured above). The city of Oakland refused to accommodate or entertain the idea of a new barn specifically for the Raiders. For that reason, Mark Davis moved the team. It sounded like the A’s ran into the same problem. They wanted a new field, but the city said no. The team voiced their displeasure by saying they wanted to look for alternative options for a new city. The A’s were allowed to do so.
It was also recently reported that a little over 3,000 fans came to an A’s game, while a little over 5,000 fans came to watch the minor league team, the Las Vegas Aviators. For geographic reasons, it would make sense to be in the same vicinity of the farm system. However, it seems like the A’s are making progress with the city of Oakland, and that could derail any plans with Las Vegas. On May 4th, the Bay Conservation and Development Commission Staff recommend that the plans for a waterfront ballpark in the Bay Area should be allowed to move forward. There are still come hurdles to clear, and failure to do so will pretty much kill the project. More news and updates should come at the end of June after another vote takes place.
Other Options
So, what’s plan B if the A’s decide to stay? Let’s think about this for a second. There are some teams that struggle to find fans consistently showing up. There is one team in particular that comes to mind, and it may not be a team you would expect. The Tampa Bay Rays have entered the chat. The Rays at times cannot get fans in the building despite having really good teams.
The Red Sox played them in April and Boston fans outnumbered the Tampa fans, and it wasn’t even close. There is nothing official about the Rays looking to move, but it’s an interesting theory to entertain. Plus, if they go back to calling themselves the Devil Rays, the Las Vegas Devil Rays has a really nice ring to it. This could be something to monitor moving forward.
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