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On Wednesday, Baseball Prospectus published a piece of mine updating their readers on what’s going on with the A’s and their quest to move to Las Vegas. I’ll give you the short version here: sources close to the A’s have been saying that there’s a plan “in place” for the private funds needed to cover the over $1 billion the A’s are on the hook for to build a stadium in Vegas, but no one is allowed to see the plan, there is no set date for revealing the plan despite a ticking clock, and oh, also the plan isn’t actually finished or in place, and is still mostly a hypothetical about things owner John Fisher could do if he wanted or needed to, I guess.
I bring this up here not just to point you in the direction of related writings elsewhere, but also because, later that same say, the New York Post published an “exclusive” story about the A’s and their quest to sell 25 percent of the team for $500 million, which some simple math tells us means they’re valuing the franchise at $2 billion. Two things: first, those same figures were reported nearly a year ago by the Los Angeles Times, and second, this doesn’t mean the Post is necessarily behind the times or the Times, so much as that it’s like Fisher simply isn’t moving off of this amount of money for this amount of ownership, and the calls for it are just getting louder given the aforementioned ticking clock.
A financial plan is supposed to be revealed to relevant officials in Nevada on October 31 or December 5, neither of which is all that distant. Fisher might very well need that $500 million, and 25 percent is the most he’s willing or able to give up for that, lest he be in danger of losing control of the club. Which, hey, that was a concern brought up months ago and also again in my Wednesday piece, that he has $3 billion in net worth but it’s all tied up in assets he wants to retain and not cash. Oh, and without this financial plan, none of the other relevant documents pertaining to the new stadium can be approved by Clark County.
Neil deMause already did the work of pointing out that it doesn’t make any sense for anyone to overpay for a 25 percent stake in the A’s, especially not when there are actual franchises that aren’t moving to a minor-league stadium for the next three years as they await a ballpark that might never actually be built in a city they might never actually play in up for sale. Why pretend the A’s are worth $2 billion and buy 25 percent of them when you could instead put together a group to buy all of the Twins, who Forbes values at under $1.5 billion, and who already play in a modern stadium? The A’s, meanwhile, were last valued by Forbes at $1.1 billion, and yet, they’re acting as if the team is worth $2 billion, despite being in a position where they maybe need this $500 million to even start building the smallest stadium in MLB in its smallest media market — one Bally’s owns the surrounding land for, too, land they’ll be developing and profiting off of themselves.
As is usual with the A’s, we’ll just see how this works out for them. That clock is ticking, after all.
With rumors of the White Sox being open to selling, commissioner Rob Manfred has spoken up on the matter. What he says here isn’t actually all that important — it’s the usual “we value the city of Chicago and want to stay there” stuff that can always be turned around into “it’s their fault we didn’t get to stay” if the time ever comes up. What I do want to point you to is that the rumors about a sale are, like his meeting with the mayor of Nashville at the winter meetings, likely a ploy to get Chicago to fund the new stadium he’s been clamoring for.
To go back to deMause again — he’s had a busy week of things over at Field of Schemes — Reinsdorf is reportedly speaking with a Nashville-based prospective ownership group led by former MLB player and executive, Dave Stewart. That’s a very specific group to leak a link to, given that it would stoke fears that new owners would take the White Sox out of town at the first opportunity.
Combine this with Reinsdorf’s own words back in February — “When I’m gone, [Reinsdorf’s son] Michael) will have an obligation to do what’s best (for the other investors). That likely means putting the team up for sale … The team will be worth more out of town.” — and it’s clear that Jerry has been laying this groundwork for a while. The White Sox get to play this card, of course, because the A’s have recently broken the seal on relocation, which I’ve previously said would, if nothing else, give teams even more leverage when trying to siphon public subsidies out of cities, counties, and states. Reinsdorf is well aware of this, and is trying to pull off one last heist before retirement or death. Coverage of these stories should reflect that fact, especially given that he has a history of doing this exact thing, one he’s even bragged about! A savvy negotiator creates leverage, indeed.
The WNB Players Association opted out of their current collective bargaining agreement at the earliest opportunity: the very day after the WNBA Finals wrapped. This was an expected move, and it’s also one they made to get them into the CBA they just opted out of five years ago, as well. Essentially, this lets them start the negotiation process a year sooner than if they had just played the final season of the deal, but with at least the hypothetical potential for a work stoppage of some kind occurring in the mix, as well.
The timing makes a lot of sense, as there’s just so much going on in the WNBA right now, and it’ll require additional negotiation to sort out. The league is booming, in its popularity, in its attention, in its revenues. Wanting more significant salaries is part of what will be negotiated, yes, but as ESPN got into in a detailed report, there are all kinds of issues the players are concerning themselves with. Pensions, more support for players with children, improved facilities for practices and games, and they don’t want the league to grow in the way it already has and is projected to do further without their input and benefit. Increased salaries is one thing, but softening the salary cap into something more flexible than the current hard cap is a must. Terri Jackson, the executive director of the WNBPA, said, “We’re getting to a point where the salary cap and the systems and that part of the business needs to start looking like a professional league that’s not a startup, that properly values the labor and properly values the players.”
Throw in that a couple of expansion teams will be arriving for the 2026 season, putting even more of a spotlight on the league and giving it additional room for growth — the plan is for even more expansion teams beyond those in the future — and it makes a lot of sense that the players would want to get started on all of this as soon as possible. The TV deals are bigger, the league is bigger, its popularity and place in the general zeitgeist both growing. Why wait?
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