KVIG Informative

Nevada and Clark County approved up to $380 million in public money for the Athletics’ new Las Vegas ballpark years ago. The team still hasn’t asked for a single dollar of it — but that’s about to change.

Construction on the Athletics’ $2 billion domed stadium on the Strip has passed the $400 million mark, funded entirely so far by team owner John Fisher’s own equity, according to A’s vice chairman Sandy Dean, who updated the Las Vegas Stadium Authority in February.

The public funding, approved by the Nevada Legislature through Senate Bill 1, includes up to $380 million in state and county money, financed through a mix of transferable tax credits and county-issued bonds. Stadium Authority Chairman Steve Hill said in December he doesn’t expect the team to request that public financing until sometime this year at the earliest.

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Clark County has already begun laying the financial groundwork. County commissioners approved a resolution to issue up to $135 million in general obligation bonds to reimburse prior stadium-related expenditures, one of several steps required before the public funding can actually flow to the project.

The stadium’s price tag has climbed twice since it was first announced in 2023 — from $1.5 billion, to $1.75 billion, and now to roughly $2 billion. Dean told the Stadium Authority in June he expects the cost to hold steady going forward, saying the team has moved past the design and process changes that drove earlier increases.

Foundation work is complete, with more than 1,000 pilings driven into the ground to support the 33,000-seat structure. Mortenson-McCarthy, the same contractor that built Allegiant Stadium for the Raiders, is overseeing construction, with A’s President Marc Badain — who also worked on the Allegiant project — pointing to that track record as a reason for confidence in the current timeline.

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The team has also begun selling personal seat licenses for a select number of high-end seats, an arrangement the Stadium Authority approved earlier this year. Badain said the team has a season-ticket deposit list of more than 20,000 people.

The A’s are on pace to open the stadium in 2028, still using entirely private money so far. But the $380 million in public financing the Legislature approved years ago hasn’t gone away — it’s just waiting for the team to ask for it, on a timeline only the A’s control.