There have been plenty of opponents of the planned relocation of the Oakland A’s to Las Vegas, including from likely sources such as Oakland city officials and Nevada educators. But a new and powerful figure has joined that group: Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman (above).

Appearing on the Front Office Sports Today podcast, Goodman had harsh words for the MLB team’s effort to build a new $1.5 billion ballpark along the famed Las Vegas Strip, and believes the team would be better served staying in Oakland.

“They … want to get closer to the Strip with all the congestion and everything,” Goodman says of the team’s plans to build at the current site of the Tropicana Las Vegas resort. “And I thought, ‘This does not make sense.’”

Goodman has advocated instead for a larger site in north Las Vegas for the ballpark. But more broadly, the mayor does not believe the A’s would be a strong fit in Las Vegas, counter to how teams such as the NHL’s Golden Knights have deeply integrated themselves into the local area.

“I personally think [the A’s have] got to figure out a way to stay in Oakland to make their dream come true,” she says.

Even before the mayor’s comments, A’s owner John Fisher already was coming under increased fire for failing to follow through on scheduled plans to release updated renderings of the planned ballpark, or answer other key questions such as whether the facility will have a retractable roof. The nine-acre Tropicana site, while sitting in a prime location near T-Mobile Arena and Allegiant Stadium, is barely larger than the site of Minneapolis’s Target Field, MLB’s smallest facility footprint.

“There are a lot of questions about whether that’s going to fit,” Goodman says of the Tropicana site.

Goodman later issued a public statement seeking to walk back some of her podcast comments, and said, “I want to be clear that I am excited about the prospect of Major League Baseball in Las Vegas, and it very well may be that the Las Vegas A’s will become a reality.”

Teachers’ Pivot

The Nevada State Education Association has taken a supplemental approach in its long-running opposition to $380 million in planned public funding toward the new ballpark. After facing a prior setback in its efforts to force a November 2024 public vote on the funding, the NSEA is now backing a lawsuit filed in Nevada’s First Judicial District Court, challenging the constitutionality of the funding. The lawsuit will supplement the still-ongoing but uphill referendum effort to get on this fall’s ballot.

“Even though public education and other services are woefully underfunded in Nevada, politicians chose to direct precious tax dollars to a billionaire’s stadium projects,” said one of the plaintiffs, Chris Giunchigliani. “Hopefully this legal challenge will reset the debate.”

Now that FIFA has finalized the match schedule for the 2026 World Cup—to be held in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico—a particular quirk of the global soccer governing body is coming to the forefront: FIFA’s refusal to abide by existing corporate stadium names, monikers that in most instances were solidified long before FIFA planned to bring the tournament to North America.

FIFA’s long-standing policy has been to give sponsorship presence in the World Cup only to those companies that pay it directly, and the organization considers corporate stadium names a form of “ambush marketing.” During prior World Cups, this issue has surfaced to varying degrees. But the U.S. stands as one of the most active and highly developed markets in the world for sports facility naming rights, bringing the policy to a new level of prominence.

“We consider ambush marketing to be a priority in our brand protection work, as this practice puts FIFA’s commercial program directly at risk by effectively devaluing official sponsorship,” FIFA said. 

To get a sense of the naming-rights dollars that will, essentially, go to waste, here’s a list of the scheduled U.S. and Canadian venues for the 2026 World Cup—corporate names; what FIFA is calling each for the tournament; and an estimated worth of their current naming rights:

• AT&T Stadium / Dallas Stadium / 20 years, $400 million
• BMO Field / Toronto Stadium / 10 years, undisclosed cost
• GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium / Kansas City Stadium / 10 years, undisclosed cost 
• Gillette Stadium / Boston Stadium / 15 years, $120 million (extension)
• Hard Rock Stadium / Miami Stadium / 18 years, $250 million
• Levi’s Stadium / San Francisco Bay Area Stadium / 10 years, $170 million (extension)
• Lincoln Financial Field / Philadelphia Stadium / 14 years, $167 million (extension)
• Lumen Field / Seattle Stadium / 15 years, $162.7 million (extension)
• Mercedes-Benz Stadium / Atlanta Stadium / 27 years, $324 million
• MetLife Stadium / New York New Jersey Stadium / 25 years, $400 million 
• NRG Stadium / Houston Stadium / 32 years, $300 million
• SoFi Stadium / Los Angeles Stadium / 20 years, $625 million

The FIFA rules will require stadium signs to be covered up and not referred to in game broadcasts, unless those companies strike separate agreements with the governing body. FIFA is also mandating the installation of grass fields, much to the frustration of the NFL Players Association, which has lobbied against artificial turf in NFL games.

“Look, I would love for it to be called Arlington Stadium, but I get it,” said Arlington Mayor Jim Ross of AT&T Stadium. “The bottom line is we are going to put on a wonderful show.”

Paris Saint-Germain’s superteam-that-wasn’t appears to be over. Star forward Kylian Mbappé will reportedly leave the French powerhouse this summer to sign with Spanish power Real Madrid, ending a nearly seven-year run with the team. In 2021, the club seemed on the brink of assembling a soccer dynasty after acquiring former Barcelona teammates Lionel Messi and Neymar to complement Mbappé, creating one of the most talented scoring trios the game has ever seen. Here’s what it cost PSG:

• Mbappé: PSG paid $194 million to Monaco in 2017, with a mandatory purchase option. He earned $80 million over three years on his first contract with PSG. In ’22, Mbappé signed a three-year, $235 million extension with $65 million in bonuses. 
• Messi: In 2021 he signed a two-year deal for $36 million a year, with the option for a third season at the same rate.
• Neymar: He transferred from Barcelona for a record $239 million in 2017. The Brazilian star earned $217 million over four years from his first PSG contract, plus $122 million more through two years on a five-year extension signed in ’21 worth more than $300 million total.

However, money can’t buy a championship, as the team struggled to get its three stars on the field together through a combination of injuries, international commitments, and conditioning issues. Messi broke up the trio last summer when he left for MLS, and Neymar followed shortly afterward. Paris Saint-Germain never made a deep run in the Champions League in the two seasons they were together and didn’t even see a full season with the trio. Here’s what PSG got: 

• 0 Champions League titles (eliminated in the round of 16 each time) 
• 2 Ligue 1 titles
• 39 total matches played together, out of 100 possible matches