Two years before the first pitch in Vegas, A’s offer look inside their next stadium
It was a productive week for the Major League Baseball team that will become the Las Vegas Athletics in 2028: opening a ballpark preview center and discussing progress on the $2 billion stadium.
A guest was reminded to take off his shoes before stepping into The Immersive Cube at the newly opened A’s Ballpark Experience Center. The walls, floor and ceiling of the 3,500-cubic-foot space are LED screens, providing viewers with a 270-degree virtual look inside of the Athletics’ $2 billion stadium, currently under construction on the Strip.
John Roberson, CEO of Nashville-based Advent, which created the currently one-of-a-kind viewing space, said the idea is to give prospective ticket buyers and baseball fans a look at what they might expect at the closed-roof ballpark scheduled to open in April 2028.
Almost on cue, an operator tapped a button on his tablet computer and guests were transported to the pitching mound, providing a player’s perspective from the field. Roberson then asked the view be changed to the “Barrel Room,” a name given for a high-end club space above home plate. The views are based on renderings of the ballpark.
More than two years before the 33,000-fan capacity ballpark is ready for opening day in April 2028, the target audience for the 5,800-square-foot preview center at the UnCommons in southwestern Las Vegas is prospective suite owners willing to pay big money to lease luxury spaces.
Team President Marc Badain said the cost to purchase season tickets or attend individual games is still being evaluated. Team officials are compiling data from a survey answered by fans who paid $19.01 — referencing the year the team was founded — to be in the queue for season tickets.
“We won’t determine ticket prices for a while,” Badain said, adding the center helps introduce the Las Vegas A’s to the community before the team officially arrives in two years.
“We want to make sure that we do it right,” he said. “You want to create a bunch of different products that people in this town can enjoy.”
Center highlights include an architectural model of the stadium featuring a roof that rises to provide a scaled preview of seating options, fan zones and design features. Educational areas display the A’s journey through Philadelphia, Kansas City and Oakland. Interactive exhibits include team history, memorabilia, bobbleheads and four out of the A’s nine World Series trophies.
“The A’s are a historic franchise,” said former A’s pitcher and now television broadcaster Dallas Braden, whose May 2010 perfect game is one of 20 reels in The Batter’s Box video room. “This is a tremendous opportunity for Las Vegas to learn about the team.”
A’s owner John Fisher told The Nevada Independent at the event that the team has kept its promises to Las Vegas. “Everything we're doing is showing this amazing community that this is happening,” Fisher said. “Everything we said we were going to do, we have done right.”
In addition to opening the preview center, in the past few days, A's officials have also updated the Las Vegas Stadium Authority on the ballpark’s construction and provided a site tour for members of the media. Construction began earlier this year, ahead of a ceremonial groundbreaking in June.
Much of the recent work has been pouring concrete for the concourse levels. Work is expected later this month on forming the seating areas with steel supports for the roof, which will go into place by next summer.
A’s Vice Chairman Sandy Dean said the stadium’s cost, which began at $1.5 billion in 2023 before rising to $2 billion, isn’t expected to increase significantly. Fisher and the A’s have funded the current construction.
Though a $380 million tax incentive structure was approved in 2023 by the Legislature to help pay for the construction and has been collecting funds through a special tax district, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority CEO Steve Hill said he doesn’t expect the A’s to ask for any of the public money until sometime in 2026.
Penn celebrates M Resort expansion; CEO still eyeing the Strip
In the last few years, M Resort had to turn away group business, even long-standing customers. At 390 rooms, the Henderson hotel-casino wasn’t large enough to host conferences that outgrew the hotel’s capacity.
“It was hard to say, ‘We can’t accommodate you,’ and the business went to the Strip,” Penn Entertainment CEO Jay Snowden said last Wednesday. “We don’t have that issue anymore.”
Three years after it was announced and following 18 months of construction, Snowden helped cut the ribbon on M Resort’s $206 million expansion that nearly doubled the hotel’s size to 765 rooms and added other non-gaming amenities.
M Resort, which Penn acquired in 2010 when its original owners couldn’t get out from under the weight of an unmanageable $860 million in debt, is now the second-largest property in the company’s portfolio, which covers 43 casinos and racetracks in 20 states. The largest property is L’Auberge Hotel & Casino in Lake Charles, Louisiana, which has more than 1,000 rooms.
“Our customers want to come to Vegas, so it’s a selling point,” Snowden said of the hotel-casino roughly 12 miles from the south end of the Strip. “We can really take care of people who kind of get lost in a larger Strip resort that has 5,000 rooms and 4,000 slot machines.”
As part of the expansion, M Resort added 15,000 square feet to its largest ballroom and increased its overall event and conference space to more than 100,000 square feet. Meril, a new restaurant by celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse, is expected to open in 2026.
With M Resort’s 93-acre footprint, Penn has options for additional expansion.
“This is a top-tier property for Penn, and Nevada is an important state because we also have a presence in the north,” Snowden said of Cactus Pete’s and the Horseshu Hotel & Casino in Jackpot. “We're going to continue to invest here because we get great returns, and our customers love the experience.”
But he also has eyes on the Strip.
Penn formerly owned the Tropicana Las Vegas before selling the since-demolished resort to Gaming and Leisure Properties in 2020 during the pandemic. The company explored acquiring The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas before it was sold to MGM Resorts International in 2022, and The Mirage, which was sold in 2023 to Hard Rock Entertainment.
“I wouldn’t rule anything out,” Snowden said. “It has to be an opportunity at the right time in the right place. We’re not making calls, but we’re always interested.”
Fernandez officially joins IGT as CEO
Hector Fernandez took over as CEO of IGT last week, six months after the company’s $6.3 billion merger with Everi Holdings was finalized.
Fernandez resigned as CEO of Aristocrat Gaming when the deal was announced more than a year ago, but had to sit on the sidelines until a contractual non-compete clause expired.
The IGT-Everi merger was funded by investment giant Apollo Global Management, which took the company private. IGT and Everi were two of the largest gaming equipment providers.
Nick Khin, who served as interim CEO of the merged company, resigned as CEO of the gaming division. Khin will become an IGT strategic adviser.
Fernandez will also oversee the gaming division.
What I'm reading
⬛ Illegal bookmaker Wayne Nix nominated for Nevada’s Black Book; fellow illegal bookie Mathew Bowyer is next up — Buck Wargo, CDC Gaming Reports
“These two individuals certainly qualify for the list of excluded persons. Nix and Bowyer have brought so much negative publicity to the state.” — Board member George Assad.
📈 Fanatics launches prediction market in 24 states — Laya Neelakandan, CNBC
Nevada is not among the states included in the launch.
News, notes and quotes
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