SEATTLE – On Sunday, in a meeting at a Seattle hotel, Oakland mayor Sheng Thao said she gave MLB commissioner Rob Manfred documented evidence of her city’s plan to build a new ballpark for the Oakland Athletics.
At the meeting, which Thao said took place at her request, she presented Manfred with 31 packages, one for him and one for each major-league owner, detailing her city’s efforts to get a park built on a waterfront site at Howard Terminal.
It was the first time the two met, Thao said. Previously, they conversed only through the media. On June 15, in addressing the A’s potential move, Manfred said, “There is no Oakland offer, OK? They never got to a point where they had a plan to build a stadium at any site.” Thao released a statement immediately, calling Manfred’s claim “totally false.”
On Sunday, she took her case to Manfred directly.
Read the conversation with Oakland mayor Sheng Thao
View the documents given to Manfred (PDFs):
League approval is perhaps the last major step in the A’s planned relocation to Las Vegas, although the move still faces political opposition. But Thao, in an exclusive interview, said she is continuing to fight for the team to stay in Oakland, and is willing to re-open negotiations for a new ballpark.
“For me, it was very important that (Manfred), and not just him, but the (league’s relocation) committee and the owners had a copy of all that we are presenting, for transparency purposes,” Thao said. “Through the press, we have heard that Manfred has stated there was no proposal. We wanted to dispel that notion. If people were misinformed, we wanted to make sure everybody had all the real-time information of how close we were to a ballpark.”
Manfred seemed “receptive” to the city’s presentation and said he would forward the materials to the owners’ three-person relocation committee headed by Brewers owner Mark Attanasio, Thao said.
“We had a good meeting, a very open exchange of views,” Manfred said Tuesday before the All-Star Game. “I understand she came to the process late and is doing her best to figure out if there is something that can be done in a process that was in a lot of ways kind of over when she showed up on the scene.”
Thao was sworn in as mayor on Jan. 9, replacing Libby Schaaf who had held the office since 2015. The process was not over at that point. The A’s continued to negotiate with Oakland after Thao’s inauguration.
Baseball’s collective-bargaining agreement states the A’s needed to reach a binding agreement for a stadium by Jan. 15, 2024, or lose the money it would receive from revenue sharing for that year. Manfred called the potential loss of revenue sharing “a cosmic kind of alteration in their economic situation.” Both the A’s and league evidently believed Oakland did not have enough money available to build a new park.
The packages the city prepared for Manfred and the owners included three booklets: A 52-page presentation of terms summarizing the transactional documents, a 114-page explanation of Howard Terminal design guidelines and a 120-page preliminary development plan including detailed maps, building and grading plans. The ballpark would be part of a $12 billion development project the A’s wanted at Howard Terminal. In Las Vegas, the team would be getting only a $1.5 billion, retractable-roof park.
Thao, in a cover letter to Manfred, said, “Oakland very much had a specific and concrete proposal on the table,” and believed it was “extremely close to finalizing a deal with the current ownership of the A’s.” City officials said they presented the A’s with the proposal at 6:25 p.m. PT on April 14. The A’s announced five days later they had entered into a binding agreement to purchase land in Las Vegas for a future ballpark site.
At that point, Thao said the city was “ceasing negotiations” with the team, which later entered into a deal with Bally’s Corp. to build at a different location on part of the Tropicana Las Vegas resort site and received approval from the Nevada Legislature for about $380 million in public funding.
“I’ll be very honest. I was obviously upset. This felt really unfair,” Thao said of her reaction to the A’s initial announcement. “But there are no shovels in the ground (in Las Vegas). And until there is a shovel in the ground and it’s starting to be built, it’s still reality that the Oakland A’s can still be in Oakland. That’s the stance I’m going to continue to take.”
Asked if the city would be willing to make an upgraded proposal, Thao said, “Absolutely. If (A’s owner) John Fisher and (president) Dave Kaval or a new owner come to the table to again start a real conversation, a true partnership, about how do we keep the Oakland A’s here and how do we build out a stadium, absolutely, 100 percent.”
The city, in the presentation it prepared for Manfred and the owners, said it secured more than $425 million in funding to cover offsite infrastructure costs, $65 million more than the A’s requested. The team would pay for onsite infrastructure and development, but the city would reimburse about $500 million of that cost through the creation of an infrastructure financing district, according to Molly Maybrun, the city’s lead negotiator and project manager for the Howard Terminal site.
The city has yet to hear back from the A’s, Thao said.
“There is a current offer on the table. Since that offer was made we have been awarded two additional grants,” Thao said. “The offer gets more attractive by the month and the A’s should reconsider.”
Manfred repeatedly has said the league plans to expand from 30 to 32 teams, but only after the A’s and Tampa Bay Rays resolve their stadium situations. The A’s, who must formally apply to the league for relocation, have begun to submit information for that application but have not completed the process, Manfred said.
Among the items the A’s have yet to address, according to Manfred: Where the team would play from 2025 to ‘27, after their lease at the Oakland Coliseum expires and before their new ballpark in Las Vegas is built. Thao said Fisher and the A’s have not initiated a conversation with the city about possibly remaining in Oakland during that time.
If the A’s succeed with their plan to move to Las Vegas, Oakland would become an immediate candidate for an expansion club. Thao said, if necessary, she would welcome that possibility. But citing the A’s 55-year history in Oakland, she believes Las Vegas is better suited for an expansion team.
The Bay Area television market, including Oakland, San Francisco and San Jose, is the nation’s 10th-largest. Las Vegas, ranking 40th, would be baseball’s smallest. Thao cited the difference as the No. 1 advantage of Oakland over Las Vegas. She also noted Oakland’s excellent weather, as opposed to Las Vegas’ desert heat, and made specific mention of the city’s diverse population.
“I know it is a core value of MLB to actually continue to diversify its fan base,” Thao said. “Leaving Oakland for Nevada doesn’t help prove that point. Keeping MLB and the A’s rooted in Oakland, that is how you diversify your fan base. Oakland is one of the most diverse cities in the whole nation.”
Asked if she got the sense from Manfred that the A’s move to Las Vegas was a foregone conclusion, Thao declined to speculate on what the commissioner was thinking, speaking only for herself.
“I don’t believe in completely closed windows,” Thao said. “What I believe is that it’s an option for people to open windows. And I’m going to continue to push for that window to be open if they do think it is closed.”
—The Athletic’s Evan Drellich contributed to this story.
(Top photo of Rob Manfred: Tim Nwachukwu / Getty Images)
