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Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Staff Writer
ARLINGTON, Texas — Major League Baseball’s owners will vote on the Oakland Athletics‘ relocation to Las Vegas during their next meetings, scheduled to take place in Dallas from Nov. 14 to 16, commissioner Rob Manfred reiterated prior to the start of the World Series on Friday.
The A’s hope to break ground on a new 33,000-seat, retractable-roof stadium on the site of Vegas’ Tropicana hotel by April 2025, with hopes that it will be ready in time for the start of the 2028 season. The A’s lease at the current Coliseum expires at the end of the 2024 season.
Manfred, addressing a relatively small group of reporters from Globe Life Field, declined to say where the A’s would play during that three-year interim period.
Tony Clark, executive director for the MLB Players Association, said there is “ongoing dialogue with the league and we’ll continue to have that dialogue, but there’s nothing that’s been set in stone at this point.”
Manfred said the league’s three-person relocation committee — consisting of Milwaukee Brewers chairman Mark Attanasio, Philadelphia Phillies CEO John Middleton and Kansas City Royals CEO John Sherman — “has been meeting on a regular basis” about the A’s application. From there, it will go to the eight-person executive council, which needs to provide majority approval in order for all 30 owners to get involved.
If three-quarters of MLB’s owners approve, the A’s will officially be allowed to relocate to Las Vegas, a hotly contested decision based on the franchise’s 50-plus-year history in Oakland and lack of roots in Las Vegas.
“I do find it interesting that amid the conversation and dialogue around finances that rather than staying in the sixth-largest market, they’re moving to a market that may very well have them in the perpetual cycle of receiving revenue sharing,” Clark said. “But all of that needs to be remedied sooner rather than later because it is a draw on the entirety of the league at this point.”
Source: www.espn.com