Here's a vintage report from the Friday, March 20, 1998, edition of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Today's Washington Post -- and a few of our posts -- have been throwing the Vegas name around again (as New Yorker predicted), so I thought it would be a good read. Apparently the A's have looked into it. My prediction is that after Chris Webber leaves the Sacramento Kings and they return to obscurity, former casino owners and current Kings owners (the Maloof brothers) will take their team to Vegas. You'll see the Las Vegas Kings before you see the Las Vegas A's. Anyway, here's the story...

Las Vegas A's? Don't hold your breath
The Athletics say a home in Southern Nevada is a possibility, but local officials say it is just talk for now.
By John Katsilometes
Las Vegas Review-Journal

Las Vegas baseball fans clamoring for a major-league team should heed one piece of advice: Don't get too excited.

That's the message from Las Vegas Stars general manager Don Logan as well as the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority in the wake of a report published in Thursday's San Francisco Chronicle indicating the Oakland Athletics were interested in possibly relocating to Las Vegas.

"All we know is the A's are considering possibly moving to Las Vegas and they conducted a (feasibility) study about a year ago," Logan said Thursday during a telephone conversation from Phoenix, where he has been attending Cactus League exhibition games. "We haven't been involved in anything substantive. The A's started all this talk."

If the Athletics decide to pursue a move to Las Vegas, they would have to purchase the right to supplant the Stars as the city's lone professional baseball entity, Logan said.

"In the eyes of Major League Baseball, we own permanent territorial rights for professional baseball here," Logan said. "The A's have the right to buy that right from us. It would have to be done with our cooperation, and we haven't been close to being involved in any of that kind of discussion."

Logan said he hasn't spoken with Athletics general manager Sandy Alderson in more than three months, and that conversation centered on golf rather than baseball.

Alderson, traveling from Oakland to Phoenix on Thursday, did not return phone messages and did not comment in the Chronicle story.

While touting Las Vegas as one of the nation's most vibrant and fastest-growing cities, Rossi Ralenkotter, LVCVA vice president of marketing, agreed that the discussion of the A's making Southern Nevada their permanent home was still hypothetical.

The most recent contact between the A's and the LVCVA was "eight or nine months ago," Ralenkotter said.

"We haven't had any discussions with them since after they started their feasibility study," he said. "Major League Baseball looks at a lot of cities for professional franchises. Charlotte (N.C.), New Orleans, Sacramento, (Calif.), San Jose, (Calif.), and now Las Vegas. As Las Vegas grows, the more appealing we'll be to professional franchises."

Especially ones like the A's.

Dissatisfied with their relationship with the Oakland Coliseum since the NFL Raiders relocated from Los Angeles in 1995, the Athletics have expressed interest in moving out of Oakland. San Jose, which lacks a major-league quality baseball park, has been the most prominent alternative and the top choice among Athletics owners Steve Schott and Ken Hofmann, according to reports.

Also mentioned as possible sites have been Sacramento -- which has long sought a major-league club and has constructed a concrete shell of a baseball stadium near Arco Arena -- and the east Bay Area community of Dublin.

Las Vegas emerged as an alternative in part because the Athletics played a half-dozen regular-season games at Cashman Field, the Stars' home field, to open the 1996 season.

At the time, the Coliseum was undergoing renovations to add permanent seats for Raiders games, and the Athletics' front office deemed the facility unfit for major-league games. Oakland considered New Orleans before picking Las Vegas.

The Athletics also are scheduled to take part in the spring's second "Big League Weekend," March 27-29 at Cashman Field. The Chicago White Sox, San Francisco Giants, Arizona Diamondbacks, Milwaukee Brewers and Cleveland Indians also will take part in the exhibition games.

The A's have not shared the results of their feasibility study with Logan or the LVCVA, but Las Vegas' market base of 1.2 million would be one of the smallest major-league media markets in the nation.

And local fan reaction to Oakland's six-game stint in 1996 was lukewarm.

In anticipation of large crowds, Cashman Field was expanded with temporary seating from its capacity of 9,353 to about 12,000. But the expansion wasn't needed -- a little more than 9,000 fans per game turned out. The opening-night crowd was 7,294, less than half Oakland's average home attendance in 1997.

Last season, the A's averaged 15,608 at home, lowest in the American League but far more fans than Cashman can accommodate.

"You'd need a new stadium, for sure," Logan said. "We're talking about something that's a long way down the road."

Also, if the Athletics were serious about moving, they would have to gain approval from gaming-skittish Major League Baseball, which prohibited betting on A's Las Vegas games in 1996 as well as any "Big League Weekend" games.

"If the A's moved here," said Michael "Roxy" Roxborough, president of Las Vegas Sports Consultants Inc., which provides odds for most sports books in Nevada, "all of their games would be off the board."

Which, Roxborough added, would do nothing to enhance interest in Las Vegas A's games.

While I'm sure Las Vegas would love a team from one of the four major sports leagues (NFL, NBA, NBA, NHL), I believe the gambling issue will prevent this from happening anytime soon. While sports teams continually want to send players with drug and alcohol addictions to rehab, players with gambling problems are taboo. So, they can want it, but I doubt they will get it.

I think you're right, Shortstop8. That gambling issue is just too big of a factor to overlook for these sports leagues. Vegas is quickly getting the population, but gambling might ultimately prevent them from getting a major league team. And you know, Vegas is probably just fine with that anyway.

This story may have been part of a publicity stunt to get people to attend the exhibition games in Vegas:

quote:

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The Athletics also are scheduled to take part in the spring's second "Big League Weekend," March 27-29 at Cashman Field. The Chicago White Sox, San Francisco Giants, Arizona Diamondbacks, Milwaukee Brewers and Cleveland Indians also will take part in the exhibition games.

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And...CubFan, surely you jest!

quote:

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You'll see the Las Vegas Kings before you see the Las Vegas A's.

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Move my beloved Sac Kings? Never!

Daddabom, maybe he meant the LA Kings?

If Vegas is to get ANY big four sport, I would say they should concentrate on NHL. Who wants to sit out in 110-degree weather for 81 home games? As bad as or worse than Phoenix. Unles...oh yeah, another retractable roof abomination in the offing. OTOH, the idea of sitting in an AC arena on such a day/night to watch hockey--or just sit and drink beer!--now THAT's got some appeal.

Plus, if any sport has historic reason to steer clear of gambling--and that means Las Vegas in particular--it's baseball.

Portland in the National League.

daddabom,
It's just a theory. We probably won't see either one. But I'd say the Kings are more likely to move to Vegas based on their ownership. The A's certainly aren't moving to Vegas anytime soon. I guess that was my point.

Note: Here's another vintage news report -- this time from the Las Vegas Sun last August. It mentions the A's potential move, but doesn't even reference Vegas as a possibility.

Oakland betrayed by A's owner
By Dean Juipe
LAS VEGAS SUN
August 15, 2000

OAKLAND, Calif. -- There's really no blaming the ballpark.

The Coliseum -- or the Network Associates Coliseum, to give credit in these naming-rights days -- is, in spite of what you might hear, a wonderful place to watch a baseball game.

That remark runs counter to what the management of the Oakland Athletics has been saying for the past couple of years. The A's are the Coliseum's summertime tenant and have made their alleged dissatisfaction with the stadium their primary, outward incentive for shopping for a new home.

But as a two-day trip to this facility underscores, the Coliseum is not the problem. Elderly by today's standards -- it was built in 1969 -- and obsolete by today's standards in that it accommodates not only baseball but professional football, the Coliseum is, nonetheless, a lovely structure with no obvious weaknesses.

It's sparkling clean and its sight lines are more than adequate.

It even has luxury suites, the majority of which were installed when the stadium was renovated a few years ago.

It's a nice place to visit and see a baseball game, or a football game when the Oakland Raiders are scheduled.

Yet the Athletics are one of five Major League Baseball teams -- Minnesota, Tampa Bay, Montreal and Florida are the others -- shopping for a new home, and they're thought to be among the most likely to actually up and move.

Team co-owner Steve Schott says he prefers staying in Oakland but he's lobbying for a baseball-only stadium (to be built at the taxpayers' expense) and he'll relocate to find one. Santa Clara, a community at the south end of the San Francisco Bay and near San Jose, has already returned his interest.

"We covet spots in Santa Clara county," Schott has been quoted saying, "and we're talking to people who want us down there."

The Athletics' lease with the Coliseum expires after next season.

As an unbiased non-Californian, it's offensive to see the community of Oakland once again going through the trauma of losing a professional sports team for reasons largely outside of its control. When the Raiders temporarily abandoned the city for Los Angeles they did so in spite of capacity crowds in Oakland; now the A's are looking elsewhere although they're drawing fairly well and Schott admits they at least break even with a $33 million payroll.

Nonetheless he has presented the commissioner's office with a preliminary plan to move the team to Santa Clara, to a stadium to be built near the Great America amusement park.

The San Francisco Giants figure to put up token opposition, claiming the A's would be infringing on their territorial rights by moving to Santa Clara. But it's believed MLB would approve the move.

This is lousy for Oakland, lousy for baseball and lousy for professional sports in general.

What it is, is greed. Instead of being grateful for decent support in a relatively small market, Schott wants to be wined and dined and showered with dollars as if they were laurel wreaths.

It appears as if he'll get his wish.

If he does, he deserves to have his conscience keep him up at night.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

He's right. Thee A's SHOULD stay in Oakland. They ARE drawing fairly well, despite being out of contention already (in June!).

And I don't think Schott will move them. Expect Pohladesque machinations for a few more years until he gets fed up and sells...and the team stays put. ≥

Portland in the National League.