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Good news, everyone. The Las Vegas Stadium Authority held a meeting on Thursday to clear up all kinds of financial details about how the A’s stadium is going to be paid for. In typical A’s/Vegas fashion, the only thing that’s clearer after this is that no one knows what they’re doing or what’s happening.
As stated before, $380 million is coming from Nevada — though there was once again a claim that the A’s won’t use the full $380 million allotted them, as they’ll supposedly leave $30 million on the table, how generous of them — with the rest coming from personal seat license sales — PSLs — and the rest from financing. As Neil deMause noted on Thursday before the meeting when looking at the documentation released to the public beforehand, we didn’t get clarification on what John Fisher is actually paying for this stadium, or where he’s getting the money from:
That’s a lot of words, but it appears to say that Fisher will just have to provide documentation that he’s good for his share of the stadium costs by the Effective Date, which is defined as “[_________], 202[_].” So, no actual details on where the money is coming from yet, or when we’ll know where it’s coming from.
It’s a lot of money, too, that Fisher owes: $1.2 billion is still out there, unaccounted for, even after Nevada’s hefty check(s). And as the Nevada Independent noted:
Still unanswered is how exactly the A’s will provide the needed $1.2 billion in private financing. Fisher told the San Francisco Chronicle in March that $200 million would come from debt, $500 million from his family and another $500 million from yet-to-be-determined equity investors, but nothing has been formalized.
Dean said the Fisher family could provide all of the required equity for the project, although Fisher said in January that he was hopeful about finding outside investors from Las Vegas.
As I discussed at Baseball Prospectus last month, getting investors isn’t a given, considering what investors expect to get from the act of investing. Fisher has assets he’s not going to want to give up or lose control over in an equity deal — if anyone would actually be interested in making such a deal with him, considering the sorry state of the franchise and its move to Sacramento — and not much in the way of cash, which is where the money from the family comes in. Though, like with everything else, we should believe he’ll get half-a-billion in financing from “the family” when he’s got it in hand.
So Fisher and the A’s have $380 million accounted for, $350 million of which they’re planning to claim, and oh, they don’t actually get access to those funds until they’ve secured the other funds. Which they have to do by “[_________], 202[_],” a date that shows some real confidence that this is all coming together as smoothly as everyone involved in it wants you to believe. I know I’m very reassured every time an authority figure I don’t trust goes, “oh yeah it’s all coming along as expected no need to worry also I don’t have details or corroborating evidence for you just trust me.”
The stadium is supposed to break ground in April of 2025, but less than nine months out from that date, there’s less than one-quarter of the ballpark funds accounted for, and they don’t truly exist until the other three quarters do. That park, by the way, still doesn’t have completed design plans (from the earlier Nevada Independent story):
“[Sandy] Dean said the A’s are working with the architects in refining the designs of the planned Las Vegas stadium after the renderings were initially released in March.
“We’re working our way through the design process so we can have thoughtful conversations with potential investors,” Dean said. “It would make the most sense to have the design more refined.”
Yes. Yes, it would make sense to have the design “more refined” for the conversations with investors that you’re still trying to talk to nine months before the stadium is due to break ground.
Are we any closer to having this all wrapped up than we were before these supposedly illuminating meetings? It sure doesn’t seem like it. Commissioner Rob Manfred can say everything is fine as many times as he wants, but I’m having a hard time buying it, considering this whole process began over a year ago and about all there is to show for it is relocation to a different city and the other 29 owners agreeing that the A’s are allowed to move to Vegas. We’ll see if Fisher and Co. can get moving in a hurry with financing and such, because that’s what’s really needed to break this thing open, but given the expected break ground date is April, well. The clock is ticking.
Granted, all of this is superior to what’s going on with St. Petersburg and the Rays right now — the Rays officially secured the support of St. Petersburg’s city council with a 5-3 vote on Thursday, in favor of getting them up to $1.4 billion in public subsidies for a new domed stadium right next to the old one that will solve no problems for anyone involved and just create some new ones instead — but the A’s are still an issue even if they fail to move to Vegas in the end. They’re still leaving Oakland behind after treating it horribly for decades, they’re still going to end up needing to pull in public funds from someone, somewhere if Vegas falls through. There’s no winning play here, just schadenfreude and the possibility for John Fisher to force to feel like garbage. Though, hey. That can be a pretty big dub if we get it, considering, again, the ease with which even the Rays can secure ridiculous sums of money from the public these days.
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