Bryce Harper opens up on Las Vegas getting MLB team

Will a Major League Baseball team soon call Las Vegas home? Bryce Harper, a Las Vegas native, wants to see it happen.

But not in the way that it’s been most discussed. Harper doesn’t want the Oakland Athletics — or any existing team — to end up in Las Vegas.

The two-time National League MVP believes that the team that ends up in Vegas should be an expansion team.

“I think they need an expansion. I don’t think a team can come in here and thrive — kind of like the Knights did, you know. The Knights were an expansion team and I think having a team like the Knights come in that’s an expansion, it’s a lot different having another Major League Baseball team come in here and try to thrive. So, I think they definitely need to do an expansion if they’re going to come here.”

The trends are moving in the opposite direction. Vegas recently hosted the A’s for a pair of spring training games. Don Logan, president and COO of the Athetics’ Triple-A affiliate, the Las Vegas Aviators, even endorsed a move, saying (per Paul Gutierrez, ESPN), “It’s a better opportunity here [for the A’s] in the long term.”

On paper, the A’s moving to Las Vegas seems logical. They struggle with attendance, need a new stadium and have been embroiled in negotiations with the city of Oakland with hopes of building a new stadium for years. Only, those talks have produced little. Furthermore, the A’s could move to Vegas and maintain their present place in the American League West.

Having said that, Harper has a point. It’s easier for new fans to embrace a team that they can identify as their own. Naturally, that’s more difficult to do if a team has decades of history in a previous location. Expansion also comes without the gut-wrenching feeling of taking a team away from its community.

Where expansion becomes different is in scheduling. The way leagues like the NHL and NBA operate, you can have an odd number of teams. It’s not ideal, but you can even have it in the NFL (as was the case from 1999-2001. But it’s not possible in MLB, where teams play every day.

So, if Vegas is getting a team, another expansion team is also coming. That doesn’t make Vegas getting an expansion team impossible by any means. It just is more challenging.

[Rebel Report, ESPN]