Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo has signed legislation allocating $380 million in public funds for a new Major League Baseball ballpark in Las Vegas. The bill clears the way for the Athletics to apply to the MLB to relocate from Oakland, California, where the team has played for over half a century. Oakland A’s executives hired more than a dozen lobbyists to press lawmakers in Nevada’s capital, Carson City, to approve a $1.5 billion stadium, arguing it will create jobs and boost Las Vegas’s economy. Writing about the move in The Nation magazine, sports editor Dave Zirin commented, “This is about billionaire sports owners demanding socialism for the rich and seasonal service industry work for the laboring class. They are urban hostage takers, demanding a king’s ransom from the public trough.”