While The New Official Renderings For The Vegas A's Stadium Resemble The Baby Of The Sydney Opera House And The Sphere, They Do Admittedly Look Pretty Awesome

Ethan Miller. Getty Images.

The Oakland Athletics' on-going move to Vegas has been anything but smooth. It almost seems like they're aiming to go about this in the most incompetent way possible. You'd think a billionaire moving his team would have this all squared away, but you'd be wrong. In fact, there's still a decent chance this all falls apart in spectacular fashion. As we've documented on this forum, the mayor of the city doesn't even think it's a good idea for them to make the jump. 

Well after a three month delay, we finally received official renderings for what the Vegas A's stadium is going to look like. The first edition of renderings that we saw last summer were thrown out. 

We were told to expect new ones by the end of last year, but the can kept getting kicked down the road with a blanket statement that they'd be released when they were ready. It took until yesterday for everyone to see what this $1.5B project was going to resemble. Without further adieu…

Advertisement

Images by Negativ

(Athletic) Described in a press release as echoing the “vibrancy of the ‘Entertainment Capital of the World,’” the ballpark will have a fixed roof that will be covered by five overlapping layers that are meant to resemble baseball pennants and will let in sunlight. The outside of the stadium will be clad with metal that, according to the release, will reflect the Las Vegas Strip at night. The ballpark will feature what they are calling the “world’s largest cable glass net wall” which offers a view of the Strip over the left center and center field walls.

Now everyone and their mother has described this as a spitting image of the Sydney Opera House with a splash of the MSG Sphere and dishes stuffed into a dishwasher. They're not wrong. 

All jokes aside, I think it looks pretty cool. Now is it weird that the A's have assembled a roster where Brent Rooker is their best hitter and JP Sears is the ace of the staff while they're currently concocting this state of the art stadium? Really building the hype! Speaking of Rooker, he went onto receive a tough ricochet shot with the batting averages listed in the fake lineup graphic. 

Would love to know how the worst average on the team is going to be .247

Is it also hilarious that the A's still have their comments turned off across all social media platforms (you can still quote tweet on Twitter) because they know how angry everyone is about the move? Most definitely. But we can agree if this stadium ends up looking like those renderings, it's gonna be sick. Now how many people you get to regularly see a baseball game in Vegas is another story, but if we're just talking stadium design, I don't know I think it's pretty sweet. 

Advertisement

I see way too many negative comments online about this, harping on the Opera House similarities. I get that it looks like the Opera House, but if you take out your hatred for Fisher, the whole move, the depleted roster, and all the scumminess in between, then you gotta admit this is a cool design. 

There are for sure question marks though. For starters there are no lights as far as I see. Considering this will be a dome, I'd recommend installing lights. In general, even if it wasn't a dome you probably want lights for night games or day games when there's heavy cloud cover, but what do I know? Do we love the scoreboard? 18,000 square feet would make it the biggest in the whole league. Looks futuristic, but is it too much? Are players going to be bothered by it? Also what are the odds the actual finished product looks anything like this? Do we think this ends up costing the $1.5B estimated or double? Well, we know now that the owner Fisher randomly decided in January that he'd like to seek money from local investors, after originally not aiming to do so. 

“I think the more we get to know and connect with the community, the greater chance we have for success,” 

Yeahhhhh surely that's exactly why he wanted the money and NOT because he's a cheap fuck. 

By the way, if this somehow ends up costing less than the $1.6B it took to make MetLife I'll die laughing. Gotta be the worst money ever spent in the history of buildings.

Jeff Zelevansky. Getty Images.

Jim McIsaac. Getty Images.

John Moore. Getty Images.

Advertisement

Have to imagine that was the last time that architect was in charge of anything, right? What a dud of a stadium that houses not one, but TWO New York football teams. I'll never get over it. 

But back to Vegas, the renderings look cool. I'm sure this won't be close to the last time we see an update, especially considering this version didn't have lights. Do we ever see this thing actually happen? With John Fisher running the show everything is in play. Passan was far from hopeful about the whole thing when he spoke on it a few weeks ago. 

I very much look forward to seeing how this all unfolds. The only thing we do know for certain is that this upcoming season they'll once again be playing in Oakland. After that the lease is up and it's anyone's guess. The completion of the 33,000 seat capacity stadium isn't expected until 2028. There's also issues with TV rights as well if they choose to play home games that are outside the Bay Area between now and the move. I can't tell if it'd be better if they do complete the villainous Vegas transition or if this all blows up in their faces. The clock is ticking, but hey at least we've got renderings!