Get ready baseball fans, because the potential move of the Oakland Athletics to Las Vegas just got a whole lot more interesting! A bill introduced in the Nevada legislature on Friday could provide up to $380 million in public funding for a brand new, state-of-the-art stadium on the Las Vegas Strip. The proposed stadium would have a retractable roof and seat 30,000 fans, all for a cool $1.5 billion.
The breakdown of the funding would come from $180 million in transferable tax credits from the state, $120 million in county bonds, and $25 million in credit from Clark County towards infrastructure costs. But before we get too excited, the bill still needs to pass with a simple majority in the state Senate and Assembly.
If the bill does pass, the new stadium would be built on the site of the Tropicana Las Vegas resort, which would be demolished to make way for the new ballpark. At 30,000 seats, it would be the smallest stadium in MLB. But even if the bill passes and the stadium is built, there’s still one more hurdle to clear: MLB owners must approve the move from Oakland to Las Vegas. They’ll be meeting in New York from June 13-15 to discuss the potential move.
Of course, the public funding is not a done deal yet. Some Democratic legislators have threatened to block the bill if Republican Governor Joe Lombardo nixes other spending proposals. So, while the potential move is exciting news for baseball fans, there’s still a lot of work to be done before we can start planning our trips to the new Las Vegas ballpark.
