Manfred ‘disappointed’ if no A’s Vegas park by ’28
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Jesse Rogers, ESPN Staff Writer
ORLANDO, Fla. — As uncertainty still hovers around the move of the Oakland A’s to Las Vegas, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred is confident the plan will come together in time, both in the short and longer term.
“I would be disappointed if we didn’t open that stadium, Opening Day, 2028,” Manfred said Thursday from the owners meetings. “In terms of an interim home [from 2025 to 2028] I’m comfortable with where they are in the process.
“It’s not like we don’t know where they’ll be in 2024. They’re doing a good job of exploring them and find the best possible opportunity.”
The A’s lease at the Oakland Coliseum expires after this season so the team and league have been exploring places to play until their stadium in Las Vegas is complete. Manfred wouldn’t comment on potential cities, though Sacramento, Salt Lake City and staying in Oakland are all possible.
“They’re looking at all their revenue streams and figuring out where they can max out those streams,” Manfred said, adding that it will be ‘in the west.’
Owner John Fisher declined an opportunity for an interview Thursday.
The commissioner waved off any controversy surrounding comments Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman made on a podcast this week when she intimated the A’s should stay in Oakland. Not long after making those comments, Goodman softened her stance in a statement, saying she would ‘welcome’ the A’s.
“The governor, the Clark County officials, have all been supportive of the A’s moving to Las Vegas,” Manfred said. “She said one thing then said another so it kind of canceled each other out in my mind.”
Manfred also addressed the new stadium plan for the Rays in St. Petersburg, saying it’s working its way through the approval process.
“I spoke with [owner] Stu Sternberg [at the meetings],” Manfred said. “He’s positive about where the substance is. But we’re at the point now where it needs to go. It takes a long time to get in the ground and get a stadium built. The sooner the better.”
In other stadium news, Manfred is pleased the Chicago White Sox might be finding a new home in the city’s south loop, a day after the team released renderings of a new riverfront park. Owner Jerry Reinsdorf met with the mayor of Nashville during the winter meetings, sparking speculation of a move after the team’s current lease expires after the 2029 season.
“The White Sox are important to the city of Chicago,” Manfred said. “I’m excited about the possibility of a new facility there. I think the location would be great for them. I’d love to see Jerry at this point in his career get something done.”
While teams look to new stadiums, the Orioles are looking at a new owner after the Angelos family recently agreed to sell the team to billionaire investor David Rubenstein. The approval process is just beginning — but could move quickly.
“Once it’s public that there is going to be a sale, it leaves everyone in an awkward spot,” Manfred said. “I want to see that done as soon as possible.”
That could mean a vote before the next owners meetings or even before Opening Day, according to sources familiar with the situation. It takes 75% approval by existing owners for a sale to go through.
Other items on the week’s agenda at the Four Seasons included the owners sitting for a presentation by agent Casey Wasserman in relation to MLB players participating in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. If it was up to Manfred, MLB players would have consistent participation now that the sport has returned to the Olympics.
“I think the pros are the potential for an association between two great brands,” Manfred stated. “I love that combination of nationalism and sport.
“The con is the logistics. If you look at the calendar, its complicated by the proximity to the All-Star Game.”
The bigger question, according to some owners, is what happens after 2028. The Olympic Games are being held in Australia in 2032, doubling down on the logistical issues that come with pausing the major league season. It might lead to a ‘one-and-done’ event for major league players, something Wasserman helped push.
“I have always been of the view, we had multiple-year commitment,” Manfred said. “Casey softened me a little bit.”
The league is monitoring the Diamond Sports bankruptcy situation. Depending on its outcome, Manfred is hopeful to have at least a bundle of 14 teams to attract a streaming service to distribute in-market games as soon as 2025. Many teams are scrambling to fill revenue streams lost.
“This is a difficult time,” Manfred said. “Not only have we been unfamiliar with revenue declines — local media has been a fixed number for them. We have made clear we are exploring every opportunity to get them revenue in the short term. We’re trying to assure them with a vision as to what it’s going to look like longer term so we can rebuild that source of revenue.”
Manfred views the alliance between ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery, which will produce a streaming service for sports fans, a win for MLB.
“I see that development as a positive,” Manfred said. “It’s another place that’s going to need to buy rights to make the platform go and be compelling. I think it’s good to have another buyer. It’s particularly good for us. It’s our three biggest partners.”
With all that’s on the table, the league won’t be expanding anytime in the near future but it’s on Manfred’s mind. Stadium deals for existing teams will need finalizing along with the long term for local broadcasting.
“We’re going to have to get our footing on local media a little bit better,” Manfred said. “In times of uncertainty, it’s hard to talk about additional change. Having said that, I have five years left [on his contract]. Those teams won’t be playing by the time I’m done but I would like the process along and [cities] selected.”
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Ryan S. Clark
Many of Mikko Rantanen’s greatest moments have come in a Colorado Avalanche sweater. It’s just that the most defining moment of his career came at their expense.
It wasn’t enough that the Dallas Stars were trailing by two goals. It was also the fact that Rantanen scored a hat trick in a string of four unanswered goals that saw his current team, the host Stars, eliminate his old team, the Avalanche, in a 4-2 win Saturday in Game 7 of the Western Conference quarterfinals at the American Airlines Center.
“Obviously, the feeling was incredible to win a series,” Rantanen said in his postgame media availability. “This series was not exactly what I expected. I expected a seven-game series, even before Game 1. The ups and downs in the series. … Belief was there with the group the whole time. Obviously, I was able to make a pay to get the first one and the crowd started to roll.”
The Stars, attempting to reach the conference finals a third straight time, will advance to the semifinal round in which they will await the winner of series featuring the St. Louis Blues and Winnipeg Jets. That encounter will be decided Sunday in Game 7 in Winnipeg.
Soon, the Stars’ collective focus will shift to another Central Division foe. But for now? The attention before, during, and after the game, was on Rantanen.
Part of what made the Avalanche-Stars series arguably the most intriguing first-round series in either conference was the fact it placed two 100-point teams that are in championship window against each other. But, it also came with several subplots with the notable being the team that traded quite a bit to land Rantanen — with the hope he could win them a Stanley Cup now — needed him to defeat the team that he won a championship with back in 2022.
With one assist through the first four games, there was a discussion about if the Stars could manage to win with a sputtering Rantanen on top of the fact they were already without two of their best players in defenseman Miro Heiskanen and forward Jason Robertson.
Rantanen responded with a three-point performance in Game 5, and a four-point performance in Game 6 only to then have a hand in each goal on Saturday. His first goal came on the power-play with 12:12 remaining in the third period when he found enough space to fire a wrist shot that beat MacKenzie Blackwood.
Then came the game-tying goal and the significance it carried. The Stars went on the power play went Avalanche forward Jack Drury was called for holding. Drury part of the trade package the Carolina Hurricanes used to get Rantanen in late January before they would trade him to the Stars.
Drury’s penalty opened the door for Rantanen to score a game-tying goal that might be one of, if not, his signature salvo. Rantanen skated into the Avalanche zone in a 1-on-3 before he split two players before going around the net for a wrap-around goal that went off the skate of Samuel Girard with 6:14 left.
Three minutes later, the Stars received another power-play opportunity that saw Rantanen along with another former Avalanche forward in Matt Duchene work together to find Wyatt Johnston for the game-winning goal.
In the final minute, the Avalanche pulled Blackwood in the attempt to grab a late goal and force over time. Instead? Stars goaltender Jake Oettinger withstood a barrage that officially ended when Stars forward Tyler Seguin got the puck out of the zone only for Rantanen to skate in on an open net for the hat trick with three seconds left.
“I couldn’t care less who scored for them, I really couldn’t,” Avalanche captain and left winger Gabriel Landeskog said when asked about what it was like to watch Rantanen score a hat trick. “Mikko is one of my best friends and I love him, but I couldn’t care if he scored or if somebody else scored.”
For eight full seasons, Rantanen was part of a homegrown movement that saw the Avalanche go from finishing with what was then the worst record in the salary cap era back in 2016-17 to become a perennial favorite to win the Stanley Cup, which did they did in 2023, while also becoming a model for the need to build through the draft.
Building through stars such as Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon, Landeskog and Rantanen allowed the Avalanche to become a success. As did the moves they made to get other key figures like Valeri Nichushkin and Devon Toews.
Like all teams in a championship window, the Avs were facing the prospect of possibly making a difficult decision. They had yet to agree to a new contract with Rantanen, who was a pending unrestricted free agent. Then, came the blockbuster trade that few throughout the league saw coming.
The Avalanche traded Rantanen in a three-team trade that saw them get Martin Necas and Drury along with two draft picks. Rantanen’s time with the Carolina Hurricanes was limited to just two goals and six points in 13 games.
Despite the fact the Hurricanes are also among that cadre of championship contenders, Rantanen struggled to find cohesion in Raleigh. Rather than run the risk of watching leave for nothing in free agency, the Hurricanes put out feelers to a few teams with the Stars being one of them.
A long-time admirer of Rantanen, the Stars packaged two first-round picks, three second-round picks and former prized prospect Logan Stankoven to get Rantanen. They then signed him to an eight-year contract worth $12 million annually.
“It’s two things: It’s where our team’s at, and it’s Mikko Rantanen,” Stars general manager Jim Nill told ESPN back in March.
Rantanen finished the regular season with five goals and 18 points in 20 games prior to the showdown with his former team.
Not only did Rantanen’s hat trick condemn his former team to their second first-round exit since winning the Stanley Cup, but it continued a theme of former Avalanche eliminating their previous employers.
The Avalanche and Stars faced each other in last season’s Western Conference semifinal that saw Duchene, a former Colorado first-round pick, score the game-winning goal.
A year later, it was another former Avalanche first-round pick who delivered the devastating blow.
“It seems pretty fitting,” Johnston said about Rantanen. “Obviously, we want to win for each other and I think that goes a little extra when it’s a guy like that who is such a big part of our team and was there for a long time and everyone knows the trade that went on. It’s so awesome. We’re so happy as a group for him.”
As if Rantanen scoring a hat trick in a four-goal comeback wasn’t enough, there’s also the fact that this is now the ninth consecutive Game 7 that Stars coach Peter DeBoer has won his career.
DeBoer’s nine wins in Game 7s broke a tie with Darryl Sutter for the most in NHL history. It was also DeBoer’s third game 7 wins with the Stars.
“I felt something was going to happen,” DeBoer said. “But I could not have predicted that.”
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