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SALT LAKE CITY — The mayor of Las Vegas is walking back comments she made on a podcast that seem to cast doubt that the Oakland Athletics will actually move to Sin City by 2028.
Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman appeared on Tuesday's episode of "Front Office Sports Today" to talk about multiple sports dealings happening in her city, including the upcoming Super Bowl being held at Allegiant Stadium. But when asked about the A's upcoming move, she noted that A's haven't officially completed a deal to build a new stadium and seemed to suggest she's not on board with the team's plan to build a stadium by the Vegas Strip.
Goodman said she met with A's owner John Fisher and president Dave Kaval "innumerable" times recently and she still has concerns about what's proposed. Among her concerns, she said there is "enough congestion" in the area already and that, even after all those meetings, she doesn't believe the team's executives are fully committed to a site or even the city.
She added that she doesn't believe the plan to build on the ground of the soon-to-be-demolished Tropicana Casino doesn't make sense, especially after the team nixed an original plan to build on a larger and cheaper site that would have produced far less traffic concerns in the city.
"That's the reason I keep thinking, 'There's something wrong here.' ... They really want to stay in Oakland. They want to be on the water. They have that magnificent dream and yet they can't get it," she told the podcast. "I personally think they've got to figure out a way to stay in Oakland and make their dream come true."
The mayor also noted that a stadium deal is "not done until it's done."
Shortly after the podcast was posted, Goodman issued a statement clarifying that she's "excited about the prospect of Major League Baseball in Las Vegas," which "very well may be" the A's."
Statement on today's conversation about the Oakland A's. pic.twitter.com/3dOXfFuq3d
— Carolyn G. Goodman (@mayoroflasvegas) February 6, 2024
"My points included that it is my belief that in their perfect world the ownership of the A's would like to have a new ballpark on the water in Oakland and that the ownership and government there should listen to their great fans and try to make that dream come true," she wrote. "Should that fail, Las Vegas has shown that it is a spectacular market for major league sports franchises."
Major League Baseball owners voted in November to approve the team's request to relocate. Its lease in Oakland expires at the end of this season and executives have insisted that they plan to have their new Las Vegas stadium ready by 2028.
The team's executives also visited Utah last month to tour the construction site of a new stadium in Daybreak, which they are considering for a temporary home between 2025 and 2027. Utah has its own efforts to draw in an MLB team on a permanent scale, but those efforts have been focused on an expansion team to this point.
It's unclear yet how those efforts would be affected if the A's don't finalize a deal in Las Vegas after all.
