The not-yet-Las Vegas Athletics held a groundbreaking for their proposed new $1.75 billion Las Vegas stadium yesterday, and let’s skip right past all the pomp and circumstance and get to the good bit:
You know, groundbreakings are always just media events: Get a bunch of shovels and hard hats, hand them to local dignitaries, snap some photos, and move on. Anybody can have a groundbreaking — former UNLV basketball star Jackie Robinson, for example, staged one in 2014 for his planned $1.4 billion retractable-roof arena project in Las Vegas, and that was the last time any dirt was shoveled on that project, which finally expired quietly in 2023. And I did predict on Friday that Monday’s event would be a Potemkin village of fake construction work, so this wasn’t entirely unforeseen.
And yet! Even I could not have dreamed up John Fisher standing alone on a podium in front of a collection of backhoes that were just props rented for the occasion — plus the actual ground being broken being just some dirt on a table, which made for a super-weird visual. Props (the other kind) to Doug Puppel of the Engineering News-Record for asking about the Bob the Builder cosplay, and to that nameless PR person for answering honestly.
Of course, Fisher holding the world’s most awkward media event is nothing new — the man specializes in awkward — and doesn’t in itself mean that the A’s will follow in Robinson’s footsteps and never do any real construction work. Builders McCarthy Building Companies and Mortensen told KTNV that drilling was set to begin Monday night, and there is a construction schedule of sorts, though it’s just a list of “milestones” to be achieved in each calendar year. So, you know, maybe?
Except there’s still that nagging question of where Fisher will get the money to pay for it. He has produced a letter vowing that he and his family are committed to spending “up to $1.1 billion” on the stadium project while at the same time trying to sell minority shares in the A’s at inflated prices and reportedly trying to sell the San Jose Earthquakes to raise additional cash. That KTNV article was headlined “How will the Athletics pay for their new ballpark? We break down the money,” and this was as far as the breakdown went:
$380 million in already approved state taxpayer funds can be used.
The Fishers have a $300 million loan.
$1.1 billion is expected to be covered by the Fishers.
So we’re still right where we were all along: Fisher has a nine-acre plot of land, dreams of a spherical armadillo, and a $1.1 billion budget hole to fill. And now, a one-day backhoe rental bill to pay.
Dignitaries and near-dignitaries at the groundbreaking mostly insisted on seeing the glass as half full. Nevada assemblymember Steve Yeager told the San Francisco Chronicle, “You always want to see what happens with the economy. But I don’t think we would be having this groundbreaking if this wasn’t going to be a go.” Former Nevada state Sen. Scott Hammond noted that people were initially skeptical that Raiders owner Mark Davis would get his stadium built as well, and predicted that Fisher would find money for his project, though he admitted that funding is “still a work in progress.”
And what did Fisher himself have to say about coming up with the missing money?
“We’ve got a number of people who have committed so far, and we’re continuing to raise capital,” Fisher said. “But this will probably help because people all want to see: is this real? … As the structure comes up, I think people are going to be able to look at it and, you know, sort of say, ‘Wow.’”
One thing we can all agree on: People are going to look back at this entire A’s-to-Vegas process and say, “Wow.”