It may be a lost cause at this point, but Oakland’s political leaders and baseball fans are not letting the A’s go to Las Vegas without fighting until the bitter end.

With Major League Baseball set to vote next week on the A’s proposed relocation amid high expectations of approval, the club’s hometown since 1968 is still trying to change minds.

Oakland mayor Sheng Thao, who has battled for months with league officials, wrote team owners detailing how the more than $900 million in proposed public-sector assistance for a new ballpark in Oakland would nearly triple the $380 million in taxpayer funds pledged in Las Vegas, now the subject of a potential referendum. 

During a standing-room-only hearing this week, Oakland’s city council also unanimously passed a resolution reaffirming its commitment to keeping the A’s.

“You can have Oakland, [and] you can have Las Vegas. You can have both,” Thao said. “You can keep this amazing fan base and expand into a new market. All you have to do is vote no and make sure that the Oakland A’s stay rooted here in the city of Oakland.”

Thao’s letter is additionally part of an elaborate “Stay In Oakland” box developed by a group of A’s fans, along with supporting clothing companies and designers. Sent to team owners, the box also includes an A’s cap, a customized baseball card, and a DVD of Oakland baseball history.

“The box is everything that’s been done before in Oakland, and why they should vote no,” said Stephen Lucero, an A’s fan, artist, and firefighter. 

If approved, the relocation will represent MLB’s second franchise shift since 1971.

The inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix is still eight days away, but there’s already been a crash — in the race’s market for tickets and hotel rooms.

After the highly anticipated Formula 1 race initially set jaw-dropping ticket and hospitality prices, get-in pricing on the secondary market has fallen by more than a third in the last month, and grandstand seats for the race can now be had for about $1,000.

Even more dramatically, motorsports website Oversteer48.com found about 10,000 unsold tickets in the grandstands constructed at Las Vegas’ Sphere and the course’s East Harmon Zone when analyzing Ticketmaster data.

“That’s a huge amount for an F1 event, especially considering there’s a whole bunch of other grandstands I couldn’t get data for,” wrote the site’s Alex Gassman. 

Hotel rooms have seen a similar drop, with average prices falling by about a quarter in the last month to about $283 per night — in some cases, by half those of a year ago. 

A key element in the dampening enthusiasm is the lack of competitive drama surrounding the race. Top driver Max Verstappen clinched this year’s F1 championship last month, and the Dutch superstar has won 15 of F1’s last 16 races.

Operational Concerns

A potentially large disruption to the upcoming race was averted this week as resort operators Caesars Entertainment, MGM Resorts International, and Wynn Resorts reached tentative labor deals with the union that represents more than 35,000 cooks, food servers, bartenders, housekeepers, and other workers at 18 major casinos in town. 

The product of seven months of negotiations, the pacts will avert a threatened strike and provide what is described as “historic” wage increases for employees and reduced workloads.

Meanwhile, weather remains a concern for the race, with early forecasts suggesting a heightened chance of rain and temperatures for the 10 p.m. ET race expected to challenge F1’s lowest-ever mark of 41 degrees Fahrenheit at a Montreal race in 1978.

The bankrupt Diamond Sports Group began the week with a dramatic deal with the NBA to return all its team rights to the league at the end of the 2023-24 season. 

Now, similar efforts could be developing with the NHL and MLB, too.

The Bally Sports parent company’s proposed cooperation agreement with its lenders — an important step in Chapter 11 reorganization efforts — anticipates a similar deal with the NHL, and the company said it’s working on a modified set of rights agreements.

DSG’s latest filing with a U.S. bankruptcy court in Texas, however, suggests perhaps the most dramatic step yet in its programming recalibration: a potential loss of all its MLB rights after the 2024 season. 

As MLB has pressed for answers on DSG’s 2024 plans and stands ready to handle production and distribution for as many as 16 teams, DSG said final resolution on that topic will arrive by the end of the year — with perhaps more dramatic steps for 2025.

“These actions give MLB and its clubs the clarity they demand in their objection concerning the future treatment of their telecast rights agreements and give them time to transition to another broadcast partner before the start of the 2025 MLB season,” DSG said in its filing.

DSG’s problems are also causing increasing issues around MLB team payrolls.

Seismic Shifts

If DSG parts with all NHL and MLB team rights as with those of the NBA, the company would then be forced to start over and rebuild its RSN business essentially from scratch. Such a move, however, would permit DSG to do that on entirely different economic terms, reflecting a more current market reality defined by cord-cutting.

“Since well before the commencement of these Chapter 11 cases, the debtors have made every effort to position themselves for the next phase of sports media distribution,” DSG said.