Yesterday the Oakland city council met regarding the A’s stadium proposal. The A’s were not happy with the result. Did the politicos shoot down the Howard Terminal site? No, they voted 6-1 to request the A’s ownership to kick in another $352M for area residential development, to be reimbursed later. The A’s were already proposing to pay in $1 billion for the stadium and $400M for area development, so I get the less than pleased response. This isn’t like the A’s are going for a total handout.
They, and MLB (read: Rob Manfred) have repeatedly threatened a move for the team to Las Vegas. Of course, although team reps have traveled to Las Vegas multiple times over past year or so, there is no solid stadium plan there either. Manfred insists the city is a viable alternative…but, of course he does. That’s been MLB’s get-a-new-ballpark-for-team-X gambit for decades. St Pete was used to get the White Sox and Giants new parks.
Negotiations with Oakland will of course continue. The A’s lease runs through the 2024 season. They’ve got that long to make a solid plan.
Fan Interference 
The problem lies with MLB making each team an “owner” of a geographic area. I think I’m repeating what I’ve read here before on this subject. The best example I know is the Orioles who lost “ownership” of a substantial number of fans in the move of the Nationals to DC. Somebody owns Las Vegas (Happily, it’s probably Oakland) but if the A’s move there would they still own Oakland? I bet the Giants would like a piece of that, and so on and so on. Moving a baseball team now would be like dividing Berlin again. It’s just impossible.
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I have written on the territory thing before here. It’s what kept the A’s from moving to San Jose…it “belongs” to the Giants. (It was once A’s territory. They gifted it to the Giants, and the Giants were not generous in return when the A’s wanted to move there.)
Las Vegas gets MLB blackouts with Giants, A’s, and Diamondbacks broadcasts. However, I think it’s A’s territory. The Las Vegas Aviators are their AAA team, so I don’t think the territory thing would be an impediment.
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