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A few days before this news, it was shared the A’s were back in discussions with Rio as a possible location for the team’s new stadium.<\/p>\n
The Las Vegas Festival Grounds were out of the running awhile back, as we heard the owner, Phil Ruffin, was insisting he get the revenue from concessions and parking, which would be a serious no-go for an MLB team.<\/p>\n
The Rio made a lot more sense than Tropicana for a lot of reasons (including the owners, Dreamscape, offered the land for $1).<\/p>\n
But common sense doesn’t drive decisions in Nevada when it comes to professional sports. It’s professional sports!<\/p>\n
Choosing the Tropicana site does significantly lower the amount of money the A’s would be asking for from taxpayers, so there’s that. They were previously looking for $500 million, now, it would be a mere $395 million. (Bally’s Corp. would rent the site, not sell it. The A’s would pay $10.5 million a year under a 50-year lease agreement, according to the Nevada Independent<\/a>.)<\/p>\n While it’s bittersweet Las Vegas could lose a classic casino relatively few people visit, the plan appears to be for Bally’s to build a new “1,500-room hotel-casino across from the stadium.” How it would be “across,” we have no idea. Excalibur is across from the Tropicana (across Las Vegas Blvd.), ditto MGM Grand (across Tropicana). We assume they mean on a portion of the Tropicana site, as was the plan at Rio.<\/p>\n The A’s say they’ll start building the ballpark in 2024, with a tentative completion date of 2027.<\/p>\n This all has a dog-chasing-its-own-tail vibe to it, but it appears the A’s have landed on an actual deal this time.<\/p>\n As with the Wild Wild West site deal, which was reported as “binding,” that term is used differently than most would interpret it. The deal with Red Rock Resorts was apparently contingent upon the A’s getting public funding, and we’re pretty sure they’d have that same out in the Tropicana deal.<\/p>\n We don’t care all that much about where the A’s end up, as long as they move to Las Vegas, because then our 2021 Tweet would be deemed prescient and we would be carried around on the shoulders of cheering sportsball fans.<\/p>\n Still trying to get used to the sound of \"Las Vegas Athletics.\"<\/p>\n — Vital Vegas (@VitalVegas) March 17, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"Tropicana\"](\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/vitalvegas\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/trop_reopening4.jpg\")
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