Saturday, May 07, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Las Vegas' baseball odds improve

Click image for enlargement. Florida Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria cheers his team on during a Sept. 26, 2003, game against the New York Mets in Miami. ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO

The Florida Legislature's scuttling of a proposal to help fund a new stadium for the Florida Marlins puts the team in play for relocation and boosts Las Vegas' chance of bringing the franchise here, national experts said Friday.

"This definitely enhances Vegas' shot at getting a baseball team sooner rather than later," said Marc Ganis, president of Chicago-based SportsCorp Ltd.

A $60 million state tax rebate sought to help build the Marlins a new $420 million retractable-roof ballpark passed the Florida House last week. But the plan was dead in the water after Florida Senate President Tom Lee declined to bring the measure to a vote Friday, the final day of the legislative session.

The Marlins released a statement shortly after the Legislature adjourned late Friday night. The team expressed its disappointment and said it would evaluate all its options.

Without a stadium financing commitment by the end of the session, Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria is now free to explore relocating. Experts say there is little doubt where the focus of Loria's interest is, considering he sent two team executives here last year to meet with Mayor Oscar Goodman and other local officials and talk about Las Vegas and baseball.

"There are very few viable markets, and Vegas is the strongest potential market for a baseball team," said Ganis, the consultant who helped move both the St. Louis Rams and the Oakland Raiders out of Los Angeles. "If (Loria's) got to look outside of Florida, Vegas is the natural place."

In Tallahassee for the legislative session, officials from the city of Miami and Miami-Dade County said they would try to salvage a deal next week, but offered no specifics for proceeding after their lobbying efforts failed at the Legislature.

"When I get back into town, everyone will convene and we'll look at our options," Miami Mayor Manny Diaz told the Miami Herald for today's edition.

"I'm willing to meet with anybody and everybody," Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez told the Herald.

Goodman said Friday he is following developments in Florida, but was tight-lipped when asked if he would be contacting Marlins executives to lobby them about relocation.

Marlins Vice Chairman Joel Mael, the team's No. 2 executive, and P.J. Loyello, vice president of communication and broadcasting for the team, flew to Las Vegas in December and met with Goodman, City Councilman Larry Brown and Rossi Ralenkotter, president and chief executive officer of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

The executives explained they were barred from talking about relocation, but asked many questions about the city's interest in luring a franchise and questioned the city officials about Las Vegas demographics.

"I will say I've not spoken to them in the last week," Goodman said Friday. "Las Vegas is interested in any team if they're desirous of relocating."

Brown said regardless of whether the Marlins relocate, it is the perfect time for Las Vegas to speak to franchises interested in coming here. He pointed out that the city is in the final two months of a six-month negotiating period with New York City-based The Related Cos.

The city and Related are attempting to ink a development deal for Union Park, the 61-acre parcel downtown where city officials have set aside 18.7 acres for a proposed baseball stadium near a new City Hall, a performing arts center and other amenities.

"From a timing perspective, we have the master plan being finalized on the 61 acres, so certainly for any serious baseball consideration the timing's right to open talks," Brown said.

Smith College economics professor Andrew Zimbalist, author of the 2003 book "May the Best Team Win: Baseball Economics and Public Policy," said while the developments in Florida favor Las Vegas' baseball dreams, there is still a major stumbling block.

"Las Vegas is an attractive city because of its present size and because it's growing so rapidly, but the difficulty right now is it doesn't have a very big media market because it's in the middle of the desert with nothing around it," said Zimbalist, a biweekly commentator on the business of sports for National Public Radio.

"Television generates a very substantial chunk of the revenue, so there's going to have to be some creativity from Mayor Goodman and any potential owners as they undertake the challenge of finding a way to generate replacement revenue sources to make up for the weakness of the TV market."

Zimbalist said while league officials are currently skittish about gambling, he expects this will be relaxed in the future, creating possible revenue streams for the stadium.

"You could have little areas of the ballpark, bars where people are betting on the game, either on the outcome of the game or innings or even pitches," Zimbalist said. "You can just imagine electronic betting machines around the park. Would (the league) allow that immediately? No, but would baseball eventually allow it? Probably."

City officials have not revealed how a 40,000-seat baseball stadium that would likely cost upwards of $500 million will be financed, but have acknowledged this is part of their negotiations with Related.

Goodman has repeatedly said "taxpayers won't be taken advantage of" and has mentioned there might be financing options in which the public pays little or nothing to build a stadium. He has declined to elaborate on how this might be possible.

On Friday, he said if a public-private partnership finances the stadium, the public portion might only be the publicly owned land set aside for the stadium site.

"I'm confident that once we get a phone call from a team that wants to relocate, we can get a conversation going on how to finance it," Goodman said Friday.

Brown said because the city has spending priorities far more crucial than baseball, any funding plan is going to be unique to ensure the city's commitment to public safety and services is not impacted.

"There's so many other priorities here from a public-need standpoint," Brown said. "We're going to have to get very creative with the financing. It's going to have to be a scenario that has not been done before."