Las Vegas and Oakland fans alike will be well familiar with the new president of the Athletics. Marc Badain, who was president of the Raiders when the football team moved to Las Vegas from Oakland in 2020 and left a year later amidst controversy, is going to reprise the role with a baseball team making the same transition.
The Athletics on Thursday named Badain as president, replacing Dave Kaval, who exited this winter.
“We are excited to welcome Marc to the Athletics,” said A’s owner John Fisher in the team’s news release. “His vast experience, particularly his work on the opening of Allegiant Stadium and overseeing the Raiders’ move to Las Vegas, makes him a great addition to our team at this pivotal moment. His leadership, commitment to the community, and ability to oversee transformative projects will be key as we look to build a strong and successful future in Southern Nevada.”
The A’s hope to be in Las Vegas in time for the 2028 season. In the interim, they plan to play three seasons in West Sacramento at Sutter Health Park, a minor-league stadium. Construction on a new park in Las Vegas is slated to begin in June, Fisher said last month.
Badain, who joined the Raiders in 1991 and was named their president in 2015, resigned in 2021 along with two other high-ranking Raiders executives because of what owner Mark Davis called “accounting irregularities.”
Davis said the team “overpaid our taxes,” and that the practice might have started in Oakland. Davis also said at the time “it might be” fair to characterize the resignations as forced. Chief financial officer Ed Villanueva and controller Araxie Grant also resigned. Grant denied wrongdoing in an interview with Sports Business Journal.
In 2022, The New York Times reported that Raiders employees saw “numerous problems large and small” in the organization, including “lax controls over how money was spent and how people were paid and even the bungling of the payment of its taxes over several years.”
Since leaving the Raiders, Badain continued to work on Las Vegas stadium efforts. He most recently served as president of Oak View Group, where he was overseeing a $10 billion development plan that included an NBA arena. The effort reportedly stalled last year.
“I’m honored to join the Athletics and help guide the team into a new era of success,” Badain said in the news release. “Las Vegas is a city that celebrates innovation and excellence, and I’m excited to work alongside the team, the fans, and the community to create something extraordinary.”
Sandy Dean, an A’s minority owner and longtime advisor to owner John Fisher, had served as team president since Kaval left this winter. Dean is now vice chairman and “will continue to represent the ownership group in various areas and remain actively involved in plans to develop the team’s new ballpark,” the team said.
(Photo of Badain: AP Photo / John Locher, File)
