Could Major League Baseball come to Salt Lake City sooner than expected?
It appears to be a possibility.
In search of a temporary home between the end of the team’s lease in Oakland and a move to its yet-to-be-built stadium in Las Vegas, Oakland Athletics ownership and executives plan to tour Smith’s Ballpark in Salt Lake City this week, according to a report from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
According to the report, A’s owner John Fisher and president Dave Kaval, among other executives, toured Sacramento’s Sutter Health Park on Thursday. Their tour of Smith’s Ballpark is coming “later this week.”
Mayor Erin Mendenhall “has always said Salt Lake City is a big-league city and thinks Smith’s Ballpark would be a great temporary home for the A’s,” Andrew Wittenberg, spokesperson for the Salt Lake City Mayor’s Office, said in a statement. “Even for a short time, MLB could be a catalytic element for the neighborhood. Mayor Mendenhall takes seriously her commitment to residents of the Ballpark neighborhood and is eager to move forward with a long-term strategy that prioritizes year-round activation of that property. We can’t comment on any ongoing conversations around Major League Baseball at this time, but very much look forward to the day when big-league baseball is being played in Salt Lake City.”
The Miller family, through its Big League Utah collaborative project, is trying to entice MLB executives and owners to open an expansion franchise in Utah, with a stadium likely located at the Power District, a plot of land currently owned by Rocky Mountain Power near North Temple and Redwood Road. But expansion decisions aren’t expected imminently. Even if Salt Lake were selected for expansion, it would still take years for a ballpark to be built.
That’s also the problem that the Athletics face. They’ve officially announced they’re moving to Las Vegas, but their new $1.5 billion ballpark on the current site of the Tropicana Hotel won’t be ready until 2028. The team’s lease in the Oakland Coliseum expires after the 2024 season. Where will they play in the meantime?
The Review-Journal reports that all options are “still on the table” for the Athletics. That includes extending the lease at the Coliseum, the Triple-A Aviators’ Las Vegas Ballpark, the Giants’ Oracle Park, the Reno Aces’ Greater Nevada Field, along with the aforementioned Triple-A ballparks in Salt Lake City and Sacramento. But the deadline to figure out a home in 2025 is approaching, as MLB needs to know before they create the schedule for the 2025 season this July.
One year ago Wednesday, the Salt Lake Bees announced that they were leaving Smith’s Ballpark after the 2024 season for a new stadium out in the Daybreak development in the valley’s southwest corner. Since then, the city has been exploring possibilities for the ballpark and its land, but hasn’t announced a final decision.
