Group winds up pitch for baseball in LV

Thursday, May 13, 2004 | 11:24 a.m.

More than a year of toil for Mike Shapiro, the point man for financiers who are trying to buy the Montreal Expos and move them to Las Vegas, has been reduced to a thick final proposal that is due Friday in New York.

Shapiro, a consultant for San Francisco area-based Centerfield Management Group that has extensive connections to Major League Baseball, planned to hone its language, sharpen its message and polish its presentation most of today.

"It's very, very complicated," said Shapiro, who will either have the proposal printed in New York or shipped overnight to baseball's offices on Park Avenue. "It's a tough thing to have to do ... we've done a Herculean amount of work to get to the point where baseball is willing to consider Las Vegas. For a long time, Las Vegas was not even on the map.

"We've done a lot of work to get on the map. Actually, to now become one of their top considerations is a testament to what we've been able to put on the table for them."

Shapiro and the groups he represents, Teamscape and the Las Vegas Stadium Co. LLC, hope the proposal convinces baseball's nine-member relocation committee and Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig to keep Las Vegas on a short list of finalists for the Expos.

Washington, D.C., several Virginia cities and Monterrey, Mexico, are among the candidates who have been pursuing the beleaguered franchise, which is in its third season of being run by baseball's 29 other owners.

The Washington Times cited multiple sources in reporting that Washington, Las Vegas and Monterrey are on the league's "short list."

Rich Levin, baseball's senior vice president in charge of public relations, declined to comment about any cities wooing the league for the Expos.

"We don't discuss individual sites," he said. "At the appropriate time, the relocation committee will make a presentation to the executive council, and the commissioner will take it from there."

The relocation committee is expected to recommend a final list of two or three cities to Major League Baseball's full ownership group next Wednesday and Thursday, during the owners' quarterly meeting in New York at the league's headquarters.

Various sources, however, indicated that Selig might not reveal those cities after those meetings end Thursday. Shapiro said he does not expect to be notified of those developments.

"They have not told us what will happen out of that meeting, whether we'll be a finalist or cut," he said. "At this point, it's kind of hard to tell what will happen."

Moreover, no timetable has been set for the relocation committee to determine a finalist, when it will present that victor to the executive council for discussion or when all of the owners will reunite for a final vote.

Selig plans to announce a new home for the Expos by the mid-July All-Star break, but even that deadline has a degree of doubt.

"Whether it is or not, I don't know," Levin said about a mid-July announcement. "But it will be completely resolved by the start of next season."

As first reported by the Sun, the Las Vegas groups have been exploring the acquisition of public funds to help build a retractable-roof stadium behind Bally's and Paris Las Vegas, a project that is estimated to cost at least $450 million.

Baseball's two newest ballparks, Petco Park in San Diego and and Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, cost $474 million and $458 million, respectively, when all land acquisition, infrastructure and financing expenses were tabulated.

Major League Baseball officials have said they want to see at least two-thirds of the financing for a stadium to come from public sources. Officials in Washington, D.C., have a plan to build a stadium fully funded by public money.

Supporters of the Las Vegas proposal have been talking to government leaders about public financing, however, sources familiar with the Las Vegas project said Wednesday that that public-financing element is a relatively small portion of the groups' proposal.

"It's not a make-or-break part of the deal," said one insider.

George McCabe, an associate in the public relations firm Brown & Partners, said Selig "could be swayed by something short of legislation," such as a statement of support from Gov. Kenny Guinn.

In addition, the proposal will likely contain an option in which the stadium could be completely built with private financing, according to sources.

And project supporters are buoyed by the expectation that a significant percentage of those who would attend major-league baseball in Las Vegas would be tourists.

Company Chairman Robert Blumenfeld, a prominent New York financier, has repeatedly declined interview requests until "the appropriate time." By many accounts, Blumenfeld is the most influential figure in the project, attracting other investors and financing.

Teamscape President Lou Weisbach recruited Blumenfeld to the project more than a year ago, and Weisbach said Teamscape, Las Vegas Stadium and Shapiro have made impressive strides.

"Las Vegas is now on the radar screen for (all) major-league sports," Weisbach said. "I don't believe we were in the past. Las Vegas will have a major-league sports team in the not-too-distant future."

Teamscape is based in the Chicago area, and Weisbach signed Chicago Cubs broadcaster and former pitcher Steve Stone as an ambassador, and possible future major-league director of operations, to the groups' efforts.

Weisbach said Stone is "as knowledgeable a man and broadcaster as there is in the game."

Reached Monday in Los Angeles, where the Cubs began a series against the Dodgers, Stone said he neither had a gut feeling about the groups' chances of moving the Expos to Las Vegas nor knew any salient information about the project.

He also said he had never met, or heard of, Blumenfeld.

"I can't really tell you anything," Stone said. "I have no idea where it's at, what's out there or what's available. I don't really know anything."

Caesars Entertainment Inc. is a partner in the project, but only in that it would provide land behind its Bally's and Paris Las Vegas properties for a stadium.

Caesars would act only as a landlord, with no financial stake in the acquisition of the team or the construction of a stadium. An executive with intimate knowledge of Caesars' involvement requested anonymity in talking about the project.

"Our posture is, we're letting this thing play out," he said. "If Mr. Shapiro and his representatives are successful, we'll get back into negotiating about the property. I don't think there's a strong feeling, one way or the other. We're ready to make the play at the appropriate time."

It is uncertain how the Expos' situation will play out, but Shapiro, so far, is satisfied with the effort from his team.

"We've tried our damndest," he said, "to get a proposal to them that succeeds."

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