Johnathan Walker:Athletics unveil renderings of new Las Vegas 'spherical armadillo' stadium

While significant hurdles remain to be Johnathan Walkervaulted before the Athletics play a game in Las Vegas, the club announced Tuesday it was partnering with a Danish design firm to build its proposed 33,000-seat ballpark on the Strip.

The A’s on Tuesday released long-delayed renderings for a ballpark designed by Bjarke Ingels Group, an audacious design for a cozy nine-acre parcel. While it vaguely resembles the Sydney Opera House, the club has dubbed its hoped-for addition to the Vegas scene “a spherical armadillo.”

The A’s move from Oakland to Las Vegas was approved by Major League Baseball owners in November, and the club has secured $380 million in state and Clark County funds toward the development of its proposed ballpark, to be constructed on the current site of the Tropicana Las Vegas Casino Resort.

But the road to Vegas is not without potholes.

A Nevada teachers’ union is mounting a second challenge to the A’s state funding, suing to question the legality of the bill. A’s owner John Fisher has also not specified how he will fund the remaining $1.1 billion or so to construct the stadium; in a Las Vegas appearance last month, he suggested the club would welcome additional investors to raise capital.

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Amid all that were long-awaited stadium renderings that were expected to be released in December, when the A’s scheduled an event that included Fisher, the governor, county commissioner, UNLV’s president and labor and tourism leaders.

Yet the A’s abruptly canceled the Dec. 4 presentation, strangely and perhaps cynically citing the recent deaths of Nevada state troopers. There was virtual silence on any renderings since.

At least until Tuesday. The stadium, which was intended to be a retractable-roof dome but instead has a fixed roof perhaps owing to the small parcel of land, is expected to include a view of the New York New York casino skyline. According to BIG, it will feature “the world’s largest cable net glass wall.”

The AI-generated humans in the renderings are staring out at what the club touts as MLB’s largest video board, although it appears aligned more for an opening crawl in a Star Wars movie than to quickly inform fans of a pitch’s velocity.

BIG and the A’s have a history; the Danish firm also provided the renderings for the club’s 2018 rendering rollout of a ballpark at Oakland’s Howard Terminal. That model has haunted the city since, as Fisher’s dreams of a $12 billion multi-use project faded and he pivoted toward a far less ambitious project in Nevada.

Even that remains but a vision. The team will play the 2024 season at Oakland’s Coliseum, after which its lease will expire. The club is in negotiations with Oakland to potentially extend its stay, while also pondering Salt Lake City and Sacramento as temporary homes for the 2025, ’26 and ’27 seasons as the Las Vegas park is constructed.

The renderings showed an image of promising A’s second baseman Zack Gelof on the Jumbotron, a fine choice given his talent and youth. Yet Gelof would be eligible for salary arbitration and entering his fifth full season in 2028. Fisher’s track record indicates a strong chance he’d be traded by then.

For now, he lives on as a Las Vegas Athletic, even if only in the imagination.