Las Vegas has become a magnet for attracting major league sports franchises since the arrival of the National Hockey League's Golden Knights in 2017 and the National Football League's Raiders in 2020.
Whether it's launching an expansion team like the Las Vegas Golden Knights or a team relocating like the Raiders moving from Oakland, Las Vegas is the top destination for billionaire celebrities seeking a potential National Basketball Association expansion team or owners of teams like the Oakland A's seeking to relocate a Major League Baseball team.
Billionaire superstar athletes LeBron James of the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers and champion boxer Floyd Mayweather, who held five simultaneous boxing titles, both said in June that they were interested in owning an NBA team in Las Vegas.
"I wanna own a team....Yeah, I wanna buy a team for sure. I would much rather own a team before I talk. I wanna own a team in Vegas. I want the team in Vegas," James said recently in a preview of his HBO series "The Shop."
Mayweather, who lives in Las Vegas, said he's been "talking to certain individuals" about owning an NBA team, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
“I’ve been talking to certain individuals for the last six months,” Mayweather said on June 13 at the M Resort Spa Casino after announcing an exhibition bout against Japanese mixed martial artist Mikuru Asakura. “That’s something I’ve been working on behind the scenes, but I’ve never came out and publicly talked about that with the media.
“Me and my team have been working behind the scenes with the NBA. I can’t say exactly where, but I’m working on getting a team,” Mayweather said, according to the Review-Journal.
What Are NBA's Chances of Coming to Las Vegas?
Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, however, said expansion of the league will not happen in the near future, but that Las Vegas is on a short list of possible locations whenever the league considers expansion, according to The Spun.
The Oakland A's, however, are getting more and more serious about a possible relocation to Las Vegas. And that decision might become more clear on June 30 when the Bay Conservation and Development Commission votes on whether to formally remove the port use designation on the 56-acre Howard Terminal site near Oakland's Jack London Square where the A's seek to build a $12 billion mixed-use development that includes a $1 billion ballpark.
If the commission votes against removing the port use designation, the mixed-use development and ballpark are pretty much dead and the A's will likely turn their attention to moving to Las Vegas.
But even if BCDC votes to remove the port use designation, the process to get a new stadium is far from over. The Oakland City Council on July 5 expects to discuss a possible non-binding public referendum vote on the Howard Terminal project on November's ballot. Such a vote would give the city council guidance on the proposed project and probably stretch the approval process into 2023, which Oakland A's President Dave Kaval opposes, the Review-Journal reported on June 17.
Image source: Penn National Gaming.
Major League Team Looking at Two Potential Sites
Because of all the uncertainty over the proposed Oakland project, the A's are remaining very active on getting a Las Vegas ballpark deal across home plate. Kaval said on June 17 that he has made multiple trips to Sin City over the last couple of weeks as part of the process of choosing between two potential sites for a ballpark, the Review-Journal said.
“There’s been excellent progress being made on that every week; we’ve been in and out of Vegas every week for the last couple of weeks,” Kaval said. “The momentum is building.
“We’re doing a lot of design work, final feasibility, traffic, parking and all that type of stuff,” Kaval said in the Review-Journal report.
The A's president said he wasn't sure when an announcement of the chosen stadium site would be made, but he wanted all aspects of the ballpark plan in place when it is announced
The A's have been considering building a ballpark in partnership with a casino operator, but not necessarily Caesars Entertainment (CZR) or MGM Resorts International (MGM), on a site occupied by the Tropicana Las Vegas casino on the Las Vegas Strip, which is owned by Gaming and Leisure Properties (GLPI). It also is considering building a stadium on its own or in private/public partnership on a lot on or near The Strip.
