LAS VEGAS, NV - FEBRUARY 10: A Welcome To Fabulous Las Vegas retail store at the entrance of the Venetian Hotel & Casino is viewed on February 10, 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Las Vegas will play host to the NFL's Super Bowl LVIII, taking place next year at the recently constructed Allegiant Stadium, home of the Las Vegas Raiders. (Photo by George Rose/Getty Images)
The Oakland Athletics are desperately trying to become the Las Vegas Athletics (whether they will succeed is a different article).
With one year remaining on their lease, the team will be moving most likely after the 2024 season, and moving into a new Strip-side ballpark in 2027. Early indications show that the team would move temporarily to share the existing Las Vegas Ballpark with the current Triple-A team, the Las Vegas Aviators, until their new stadium is ready.
But what will the Oakland A’s do when they vacate the ballpark and move into their brand-new stadium? Will the Las Vegas Aviators remain? How will Minor League Baseball change because of it?
I see a few options:
The Aviators are bought by the Athletics and stay in Vegas
So far, the Las Vegas Aviators have voiced their intention to remain in the local area. MLB has focused on having Triple-A teams close to their parent clubs for ease of travel in call-ups and rehab assignments. Ultimately, though, it may prove difficult for the team to stay if it continues to be independently owned.
The Las Vegas Aviators and the Las Vegas Ballpark are both owned by the Howard Hughes Corporation. If the A’s move in, there should be no problems in the short term. The Howard Hughes Corporation will bring in massive profits by having an MLB team in their ballpark for at least three seasons. On top of that, they will also have a minor league team putting people in seats. But the allure of keeping the Aviators in Vegas will most likely fall apart quickly once the A’s move into their new stadium. Teams located near their parent clubs tend to suffer from their parent club being so close. If the A’s move to Vegas I believe that the Aviators will be forced to rebrand as the Summerlin Aviators (named after the suburb that the team is actually located in, like the Sugar Land Space Cowboys) to avoid branding confusion with the MLB team.
The Gwinnett Stripers and the Sugar Land Space Cowboys were last in attendance last year in the IL and the PCL, respectively. Both clubs are within their parent team’s protected areas and are critically owned by their parent team. The St. Paul Saints and Tacoma Rainiers, both independently owned and located near their parent club, had decent attendance. If the Aviators stay in Vegas after the stadium is built, they would be one of the closest Triple-A teams to their parent club while also being in one of the smallest markets in MLB. For the record, Sugar Land, Gwinnett, Tacoma, and St Paul are in the 5th, 8th, 15th, and 16th-ranked metros in the United States, respectively. Las Vegas, on the other hand, is the 29th-ranked market in the United States.
All that to say, there is a decent likelihood that the Aviators would see a decent dip in attendance once the A’s move happens. If the A’s are insistent on keeping the Aviators around for convenience’s sake, it is possible that Howard Hughes corporation sells the team to the A’s (like Sugar Land sold to Astros once they were admitted into the PCL from the independent American Association). Howard Hughes Corporation would simply rake in the money from the Aviators lease and no longer have to worry about the logistics of operating the ballpark. But that is not their only option. They could also relocate.
OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA – APRIL 15: A detailed view of the baseball patch on the side of baseball caps worn by players honoring the late Jackie Robinson during a major league baseball game between the New York Mets and Oakland Athletics at RingCentral Coliseum on April 15, 2023 in Oakland, California. All players are wearing the number 42 in honor of Jackie Robinson Day. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images) /
The Aviators relocate to a new market
Do not be surprised if all the talk of the Aviators staying in Vegas is all bluster to keep attendance up. It would be reasonable to assume that if attendance does decrease once the A’s move, the Aviators will relocate somewhere else to increase attendance and profits. The most likely candidate for the relocation location would be Tucson, Arizona.
MiLB experts may point out that Tucson has had PCL teams in both of the last two decades that ultimately relocated and this is true, but the reasons they relocated were more complicated than simply lacking attendance. It is true that in 2007 and 2008 that the Sidewinders had among the lowest attendance in Triple-A, but they had been sold and all signs pointed to them moving to Reno. Just like the A’s in Oakland now, why support a team that is about to dump you?
The second iteration of Tucson in the PCL was never going to work, they had a boring identity (the Tucson Padres-guess who their affiliate was) and the team was very clear that they were only there temporarily until they could get something figured out in the San Diego area. Their plan didn’t work, so they stayed an extra season in Tucson with little support as they continued to look for alternatives. This team still exists today as the El Paso Chihuahuas.
While a new field may be necessary, Tucson is the second-largest market in the entire United States without any form of affiliated baseball. A Triple-A team would be justified.
As far as affiliates go, I think there is an easy answer here: The Reno Aces become the Las Vegas A’s affiliate and the Tucson Sidewinders/Toros/Aviators become the Arizona Diamondbacks’ affiliate. This relocation option is easily the easiest and does the least amount of changes to MiLB at large. It provides markets with affiliates that make sense and are about as close as you can reasonably get to the parent markets without sharing the metro.
BURNABY, BRITISH COLUMBIA – DECEMBER 21: An aerial view of metro Vancouver is seen at sunrise on December 21, 2022 in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. Vancouver is currently under an arctic outflow warning, with winds creating temperatures that feel like -20 celsius. (Photo by Andrew Chin/Getty Images) /
The Aviators relocate to a current MiLB market, and that market relocates to a new market
So this is a variation where the Aviators are able to work out a deal with another team to relocate (effectively promoting the team to Triple-A) and then that team relocates into a new market.
In this case, Vancouver has proven that it is ready to come back to the Triple-A game. The Vancouver Canadians had the highest attendance in the High-A Northwest League last year. Stadium renovations have been approved, so a promotion to Triple-A could lead to an increase in attendance and act as a trial for expansion. If the Aviators were to move to Vancouver, a hole in the Northwest League would be created that needs to be filled. Looking around the region, the best market for a replacement team would be Boise, Idaho. Boise currently has a team in the pseudo-independent Pioneer League that averaged 3,336 fans per game in 2022, which would have ranked third in the NWL in the same season.
Ultimately, if the A’s work out a deal to move to Vegas, the question of the Aviators will need to be properly addressed. How it is ultimately addressed will vary from doing nothing to moving into whole new communities. Will the Aviators stay or go? I mean, this only matters if the A’s can get a deal done for a stadium. Otherwise, I will be talking about this again once the next MLB expansion talks start to heat up again.
Data for this article was found using milb.com, mlb.com, Wikipedia, and Baseball Digest
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