LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Officials from the Oakland Athletics were back in Las Vegas on Thursday exploring the idea of relocating the team to the valley.
13 Action News spoke with Dave Kaval, the team's president, on Zoom. Kaval was in Las Vegas the day before as well, and he described this fourth trip to the valley as fruitful and productive.
This trip follows a city council meeting in Oakland that got contentious at a couple of points. On Tuesday, Oakland City Council voted 6-1 in favor of a nonbinding term sheet, essentially allowing negotiations to continue on plans to build a new ballpark for the team on the waterfront in Oakland.
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The only problem is, the A's weren't happy with the term sheet, saying it included amendments they had never seen before, and that it wouldn't work for the team as it's currently written.
"We were very disappointed that they didn't vote on a term sheet that we had ever seen or agreed to," said Kaval. "So we're taking some time to kinda digest and unpack what was voted on, how it converges or diverges from what we had proposed, and to really work with Major League Baseball on some of the key outstanding items."
"And, maybe most importantly, the timeline," he continued. "And assuring that we can actually get to a binding and definitive vote on a timeline that works for the league."
Here in Las Vegas, Kaval says the team hasn't narrowed down the list of two dozen potential sites for a new stadium, but they did bring their architect to survey some of those sites.
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"We brought our architect, Brad Schrock, who designed the stadium in Summerlin for the Aviators, Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta, our soccer stadium in San Jose for the San Jose Earthquakes, has an incredible background in SafeCo Park," he said. "So, we've worked together for 15 years."
"We went out to the different sites and we saw how you could lay out different ballpark configurations, retractable roofs, and what are the sightlines and all those different aspects."
"It was really a very fruitful trip," Kaval added. "We learned a lot. I think Brad was inspired by a lot of the locations and what it could mean for designing a really spectacular addition to the Las Vegas community."
Kaval says Oakland is still an option for the A's and they'll continue to negotiate with MLB and the city, but they're running out of time to get a deal done.
Kaval says the A's brass will be back in Southern Nevada in a couple of weeks, so they can continue to explore moving the team here.
