My dream is coming true! Baseball in Sin City!
There were concerns that a deal seeing the Oakland Athletics move to Las Vegas was going to fall through, but the worries were laid to rest Tuesday after the franchise and Bally’s Corporation reached an agreement to build a $1.5 billion stadium, according to The Nevada Independent’s Howard Stutz. It will be located near the southern end of the Las Vegas Strip on a part of the Tropicana hotel site.
Bally plans on demolishing the Tropicana, which will allow them to build a 35-000 seat stadium on reduced public funding around $395 million, according to Stutz. The stadium will feature a retractable roof and will take up nine acres of land out of the 34 that Tropicana occupies at the moment.
Back in April, the Athletics had a binding purchase agreement for land in Sin City, which set them up with a route out of Oakland — a town they’ve been in since 1968. At that particular time, negotiations were still ongoing between the Athletics franchise and city of Oakland for a potential new stadium, however, the A’s appear to now have their eyes fully focused on Vegas in a move that is 100% backed by MLB commissioner Rob Manfred.
“We support the A’s turning their focus on Las Vegas and look forward to them bringing finality to this process by the end of the year,” said Manfred to the Las Vegas Review-Journal in April. (RELATED: Los Angeles Dodgers’ Noah Syndergaard Using Hypnosis To Fix His Early-Season Struggles)
The Oakland Athletics are a depressing 8-29 on the season, easily the worst record in Major League Baseball.
The Oakland A’s have made a deal with Bally’s Corp. to demolish the Tropicana and build a $1.5 billion ballpark on the Vegas Strip, per @howardstutz. pic.twitter.com/LyXhrnoNkI
— Las Vegas Locally 🌴 (@LasVegasLocally) May 9, 2023
Let’s get it! I’m ready to load up on Vegas Baseball merchandise!