By Pat Hickey, Reno Gazette-Journal, May 30, 2023
“Memo from the Middle” is an opinion column written by RGJ columnist Pat Hickey, a member of the Nevada Legislature from 1996 to 2016.
Nevada lawmakers celebrated Memorial Day by hearing a pitch on why the Oakland Athletics should become the Las Vegas A’s, and just how Nevada can help the worst-performing Major League Baseball team’s relocation to the Vegas Strip.
The pitch, made by some of southern Nevada’s heaviest business hitters, was as slick as any one of “Catfish” Hunter’s legendary sliders. The problem is, the Las Vegas boosters’ delivery came in the bottom half of the ninth inning — or in non-baseball parlance, at the very end of this year’s legislative session.
Whether or not lawmakers are going to agree to the Oakland A’s “Moneyball” approach and decide to pay to play with the MLB team, may depend on other procedural priorities lawmakers and the governor are jawboning over at home plate in Carson City in the waning hours of the game within the game — which is Nevada politics.
Steve Hill, president of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, told lawmakers that paving the way for the A’s to come to Nevada, as the Oakland Raiders recently did, would solidify Las Vegas as “the sports and entertainment capitol of the world.”
Not mentioned was the National Hockey League’s Vegas Golden Knights. As it turns out, most lawmakers were following the hockey team’s game during the A’s ballpark presentation when the chair of the committee announced the score that sent Vegas to the Stanley Cup Finals. The applause of lawmakers (and even Steve Hill) indicated most had been watching the hockey puck in flight more than they had the soft-toss delivery of the baseball presenters. It was later brought up by a Las Vegas lawmaker that both the Vegas Golden Knights and the WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces located recently to Vegas without any public subsidies.
State Treasurer Zach Conine, one of the supportive presenters, characterized the public-private partnership as a win for Nevada.
“Senate Bill 509 doesn’t raise taxes at all. Nevada will get back some of its money through tax credits,” pointing out that recent private-public partnership ballpark deals that have had a much larger public financing component. According to Conine, “The A’s would incur a 75% private investment of stadium cost, and only 25% would come from public financing, some of which the state would get back.”
Besides the proposal being dropped late in the legislative session, an image problem exists for the Major League franchise that currently spends the least in baseball. According to the publication Roster Resource, “The 2023 MLB payroll breakdown has the New York Mets at the top of the ledger with $358 million, the L.A. Dodgers at $228 million, cross-town rival, the San Francisco Giants at $194 million and the Oakland A’s at the bottom of the list at $60 million.” It’s not always been the case with the A’s, who fielded three World Series teams from 1988-1990, with the A’s actually sporting the highest payroll in baseball back in 1991.
That was then. Now, current A’s owner John Fischer, who is believed to have grown his Gap Inc. inheritance since the pandemic, and is rumored to be personally visiting lawmakers in Carson City this week, may have a lot of heavy lifting to do to convince state lawmakers that he’s not the like the owner of the hilarious baseball parody, “Major League.” In the comedy, the Cleveland Indians manager was certain the owner purposely fielded a weak team of misfits because “they don’t want the fans to show up so they can move the team.”
The A’s owner and club leadership may have to have a performance like A’s Hall of Fame closer Dennis Eckersley in order to get the other side out of the notion that Nevada’s monies could be better spent elsewhere.
Opponents will insist that money could be better invested in schools, specifically teacher’s salaries — not investments in another sports team. (To be fair, Nevada is already planning to spend an unprecedented amount toward K-12 funding this session.)
With the governor and state lawmakers already juggling a number of other legislative ticking time-bombs in the air, is there still a chance a “baseball bill” can be a hit this session?
You bet there is. Republicans love economic development deals. Democrats crave Culinary and construction union deals that are dangled before them. Will Nevada once again pay to play? If I was a betting man, I’d say yes. Then again, if the A’s fail to close the game in their last inning at bat — I may indeed whiff on my prediction.
“Memo from the Middle” is an opinion column written by RGJ columnist Pat Hickey, a member of the Nevada Legislature from 1996 to 2016.