LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — The Oakland A's and Major League Baseball have confirmed that the team has submitted its official relocation application with the league.
Spokespeople for both organizations confirmed the news to Channel 13 on Wednesday, bringing the baseball club another step closer to a move to Las Vegas.
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Next, a three-person MLB committee will study the proposal and then make a recommendation to baseball owners and Commissioner Rob Manfred.
"The Oakland A's effort to become the Las Vegas A's, they're taking it very seriously and moving all of those things forward," said Jeremy Aguero, an analyst in Las Vegas who's doing contract work for the A's as they work on the relocation process.
The team wants to build a $1.5 billion ballpark at the site of the Tropicana Las Vegas, which would be razed to make way for the stadium.
Earlier this month, the A's announced that they have hired two construction firms — M.A. Mortensen Company and McCarthy Building Companies — to oversee the facility's construction.
"There are still requirements for putting financing together and logistical and design elements," Aguero said of the stadium build process.
The A's have said they plan to honor the final year of their lease at the Oakland Coliseum, meaning the club would play their 2024 home schedule there.
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After that, it would have to play in a stadium for multiple seasons while the Las Vegas ballpark is being built.
In media interviews this week, A's owner John Fisher said he's committed to the move to Las Vegas and that he has no plans to sell the team, despite a vocal group of A's fans who have been public with their desire that Fisher sell the team to an owner who would work to keep the team in Oakland.
The A's have long lobbied for a partially publicly funded new ballpark in the Bay Area, though various proposals over the years have died that would have kept the team in Oakland.
No MLB franchise has moved cities since the Montreal Expos left Canada to become the Washington Nationals in 2005.
The annual MLB winter meetings take place in early December in Nashville, Tenn., and some have speculated that's when an owner vote on relocation could take place.
