Passan: Latest on Oakland A’s stadium plans, Las Vegas move
-
Jeff Passan, ESPN
With Major League Baseball typically sharing a tentative schedule for the next season with teams early every year, the Oakland A’s were supposed to have figured out by the end of December where they’ll play in 2025 and beyond before moving to Las Vegas in 2028. That didn’t happen. A mid-January deadline passed. Soon enough an end-of-January target will, too.
Even after the A’s secured the deal to abscond from Oakland permanently, the franchise’s near-term future remains in limbo. It’s not just the MLB-low payroll or the lack of significant improvement of a roster from a team that went 50-112 last year. It’s something as fundamental as not having a home following the expiration of their lease with RingCentral Coliseum after this season.
Here is what you need to know about where the A’s stadium plans currently stand, according to multiple people involved with the process to find the team a home.
What is holding up the decision?
It’s pretty simple: local TV money. The A’s contract with Comcast to broadcast their games on NBC Sports Bay Area calls for the team to receive about $70 million next year, sources said. But if the A’s aren’t in Oakland, the regional sports network is no longer bound to pay the rights fee. The delicate balance between maximizing TV money and securing a temporary home is complicated by the strict nature of the Comcast deal. Even a move to play in a Triple-A park in Sacramento, about 85 miles northeast of Oakland, would not be covered under the A’s current contract.
Already the move to Las Vegas will take the A’s from 10th-largest TV market to one ranked 40th. Clearly TV money was a secondary consideration for the permanent move. But a temporary one, even if the A’s negotiate a new deal with Comcast or another regional sports network, could be for a fraction of what they’re set to receive now. That very conundrum — and the leverage Comcast holds — is gumming up a resolution.
What are the likeliest options?
The two cities at the top of the list currently, according to sources: Sacramento, the home of the A’s Triple-A affiliate, and Salt Lake City, which would love to use the A’s as proof of concept that it warrants an expansion franchise in the future.
Both cities have NBA franchises that regularly sell out all of their home games. Sacramento is the 20th-ranked TV market, while Salt Lake City is 27th. Sacramento offers an easier short-term solution — mayor Darrell Steinberg told The San Francisco Chronicle he is “over the moon about the possibility” — while Salt Lake City is, for MLB, the longer-term play.
Sacramento’s Sutter Health Park seats more than 10,000 — and, with standing-room-only tickets and lawn seats, can go up to 14,000. The ownership group in Salt Lake, which previously controlled the Utah Jazz, is building a new Triple-A stadium for 2025 in South Jordan, Utah, that could seat up to 11,000.
While Sacramento previously had shown no aspirations to bring MLB to town, Salt Lake City has been effusive in its desire. After A’s officials recently toured the city to assess its viability, Big League Utah, the group at the heart of Salt Lake City’s efforts, erected seven billboards around the city that said: “UTAH WANTS THE A’S.”
Were the A’s to land in Sacramento, they could renegotiate their deal with NBC Sports Bay Area, which broadcasts Kings games. Should they move to Salt Lake City, sources said, the team could land a new deal, though because that television territory currently belongs to the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies, it would add an extra layer of negotiation.
Could they stay in Oakland?
Potentially, though it’s unlikely. The A’s do own 50% of the Coliseum — and the City of Oakland, still stinging from the A’s leaving town, owns the other half. The team and city haven’t talked in 10 months, sources said, and so if a conversation about extending the lease for three more years is to come, it would be at the A’s behest.
The situation really will be a litmus test for how much A’s owner John Fisher is willing to do for money. Staying in Oakland would mean going hat in hand to politicians that find his actions loathsome and negotiating with them. It would mean inviting constant sell-the-team chants — the sort of thing that might crop up in Sacramento and almost certainly wouldn’t in Salt Lake City. It would mean a near-daily relitigation of a move that a number of power brokers around the sport still see as short-sighted and wrong.
At some point, cutting the cord just makes sense. And the expiration of the stadium lease seems like the right point.
Why don’t they just move to Las Vegas?
Using the Triple-A park in Summerlin — about a dozen miles from the A’s stadium site at the old Tropicana hotel on Las Vegas Boulevard — is an option, though it wouldn’t exactly constitute the splash the A’s are looking for upon their move to Vegas.
There is precedent. The Washington Nationals spent their first three seasons at RFK Stadium as Nationals Park was being built. But to introduce themselves to a new city in a minor league park with a wretched team is not at the top of the A’s priority list and makes Las Vegas, at least for now, a long shot for 2025-27.
Will they make it to Vegas by 2028?
Getting a stadium deal in the first place took plenty of legwork and lobbying. Getting the stadium built by 2028 depends upon staying on schedule — something at which the A’s aren’t exactly proving themselves adept. With $380 million in public money going to help fund the $1.5 billion stadium project, a group called Schools Over Stadiums is pushing for a ballot referendum that would put the use of tax dollars to a vote. If shovels aren’t in the ground by early 2025, sources said, there are questions about whether the A’s really will be ready to debut off the Strip by 2028.
What will the A’s look like when they do go to Vegas?
In their proposal to MLB’s relocation community, the A’s suggested by the time they arrived in Vegas, they could carry a payroll in the $170 million range, as The Athletic first reported. This is from an organization whose largest Opening Day payroll was $92.2 million in 2019.
Is it possible that with less TV revenue and a gate limited by ballpark size that a team would nearly double its highest payroll and more than triple its current one over the next three seasons? Sure. Is it likely? Clearly not. As much as the A’s will save money by not bankrolling projects to assess where they’ll spend their future, the notion that the team will spend the next three years in a temporary location, without a big-league-caliber TV deal, with gate revenue limited by stadium size and somehow start to carry midlevel payroll necessitates a leap of faith not even the most ardent fan would take.
While fans in Edmonton and Dallas are always singing about how they have friends in low places, only one of them has the high ground in the Western Conference finals. And that’s the Oilers after their 6-1 win Sunday in Game 3 to take a 2-1 series lead.
With the series tied heading into Sunday, the objective for Game 3 was to gain a firm grasp of the conference finals, and the Oilers did just that by having five players with multipoint performances. As for the Stars, losing Game 3 left them trailing a series for the second time this postseason, with the only other such occurrence coming after Game 1 against the Colorado Avalanche in the first round.
Now that the Oilers are in control of the series, what does it mean for them going forward? What must the Stars do differently ahead of Game 4 for them to return home tied rather than a game away from elimination? Ryan S. Clark and Greg Wyshynski examine those questions while delving into what lies ahead for two teams that not only faced each other in the conference finals last season but between them have been involved in every conference final since 2020.
Edmonton Oilers
Grade: A
Much could change between now and whenever the playoffs end. But for now, the argument could be made that this was the most important playoff game the Oilers have had this postseason.
The Oilers have had numerous strong performances, such as Game 3 against the Los Angeles Kings in the first round or their final two games against the Vegas Golden Knights in the conference semifinals. But what made the Oilers’ performance in Game 3 against Dallas arguably their most important was that they found a balance between being difficult in the defensive zone while not relying on a shutout to accomplish that objective.
The Stars finished with 37 shots, 13 high-danger chances in 5-on-5 play and scored only once. Connor McDavid has repeatedly stressed that the Oilers can play defense, and that has been made clear over their past five games. But Sunday proved they didn’t need Stuart Skinner or their defensive structure to blank an opponent to win. — Ryan S. Clark
Dallas Stars
Grade: C+
The final score doesn’t reflect the majority of this game, which Dallas coach Pete DeBoer can mine for positives among the many (many) negatives and some mitigating circumstances. Having Roope Hintz warm up but not be able to go because of the foot injury he suffered from a Darnell Nurse slash in Game 2? That’s deflating. Having the on-ice officials miss a delay of game call on Brett Kulak in the first period only to have Evan Bouchard open the scoring 10 seconds later? Also deflating.
So it’s to the Stars’ credit that they got to their game at 5-on-5 in Game 3 better than they have in any game of the series, at least before Edmonton ran up the score in the third. The results weren’t there and a loss is a loss — and a loss by this margin is difficult to stomach — but their second period and the performances from some of their slumbering depth players give the Stars at least a glimmer.
However, there’s no question Edmonton has this thing in well in-hand and the Stars have to find a way to solve Skinner, which is not something I thought I’d be writing at this stage of the postseason. — Greg Wyshynski
Three Stars of Game 3
Two goals and an assist for his seventh career multigoal playoff game. Hyman’s second goal was the Oilers’ fourth off the rush, the most in one game by any team this postseason. Hyman also was plus-5 Sunday.
Bouchard scored his sixth goal of the postseason and these two were on the ice for the first two Edmonton goals. At 5-on-5 this postseason, the Oilers are outscoring their opponents 7-1, and 5-0 in this series, when Bouchard and Kulak are on the ice.
0:48
Connor McDavid restores Oilers’ 2-goal lead
Connor McDavid finds the back of the net to restore the Oilers’ two-goal lead vs. the Stars.
3. Connor McDavid
C, Oilers
For all the talk about the lack of goals from the best hockey player in the world (which was odd because he had 20 points in 13 games and was a plus-7 entering Game 3 despite having only three goals), McDavid punched out a pair of tucks for his sixth career multigoal playoff game. Also, seeing McDavid with the puck barreling toward the net on a 3-on-1 is nightmare fuel for opponents. — Arda Ćcal
Players to watch in Game 4
Zach Hyman
LW, Oilers
To go from 16 goals last postseason to just three goals entering Game 3 of the conference finals is one way to assess Hyman. Another is to realize that he’s been the most physical player on a team that is among the tallest and heaviest in the NHL.
Hyman came into Game 3 leading the NHL with 99 hits. He remained physical Sunday by leading the way with six hits in a game that saw the Oilers continue their punishing style with 47. But to then see Hyman score two goals and finish with three points in addition to that physicality? It once again adds to the narrative that the Oilers might not only have more dimensions than last year’s team, they could be better than the team that finished Stanley Cup runner-up in 2024. — Clark
0:53
Zach Hyman’s 2nd goal puts Oilers up 4
Zach Hyman taps home his second goal of the game to put the Oilers up 5-1 vs. the Stars.
This is the first two-game losing streak for the Dallas goaltender in the playoffs. A lot of what happened in Game 3 wasn’t necessarily on him — a Connor McDavid beauty and a Zach Hyman breakaway were among the Edmonton tallies — but outside of the third period of Game 1, he’s not been a difference-maker in this series. Oettinger came into the game leading the playoffs with 5.58 goals saved above expected, according to Stathletes. The Stars have been able to depend on him as a slump-breaker. But this is his third game with a save percentage south of .900 in the series. As the Stars try to build on some positives from this game, they need Otter to provide the foundation for it — and in the process, silence those “U.S. backup!” chants from the Oilers fans. — Wyshynski
Big questions for Game 4
Are the Oilers about to do to the Stars what they did to the Golden Knights?
Simply put, the Oilers are where hope goes to die. Teams in a championship window that have yet to win a title are always being judged on their evolution. What the Oilers did to the Stars a year ago in the conference finals by winning the last three games showed that they could close out a series after trailing. This postseason Edmonton has shown a calculated and methodical coldness when it comes to putting away opponents.
The Golden Knights won Game 3 on a last-second goal to create the belief they may have found an opening. They didn’t score again for the rest of the playoffs after being in the top five of goals per game throughout the regular season. Breaking out for six goals to open the series seemed to be a sign the Stars may have found an opening. Since then? They’ve scored only once in the last six periods while facing questions about what’s happened to another team that went from being in the top five in goals per game in the regular season. — Clark
Can Dallas make Edmonton uncomfortable at all?
Our colleague Mark Messier made this point between periods of Game 3: The Stars have yet to do anything to get McDavid or Leon Draisaitl off their games. That extends to the rest of the Oilers. Outside of an anomalous run of three power-play goals in the third period of Game 1, there have been precious few instances of the Stars carrying play for long stretches or putting a scare into Edmonton at 5-on-5.
They had that for a bit in Game 3 with a dominant second period: plus-14 in shot attempts, plus-11 in scoring chances and a 10-1 advantage in high-danger shot attempts. But they were digging out of a 2-0 hole, only managed to get one goal of their own on the board and then McDavid stuck a dagger in them with 19 seconds left in the second.
The Stars need a lead. They need zone time. They need to get their rush game going: Skinner had a .897 save percentage on shots off the rush entering the game. Edmonton is playing with a champion’s confidence. Dallas has to find a way to inject a little doubt into its opponent or this series is going to end quickly. — Wyshynski
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway