On Tuesday, MLB fans got a look at renderings of what the Las Vegas Athletics stadium will look like when and if the franchise makes the announced move from Oakland to Vegas. Only, fans weren’t supposed to see it until Wednesday.
Melissa Lockard of The Athletic shared a media release from, BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group and HNT, the firm which will design the stadium. One tweet shared a photo of what the stadium will look like from the outside (bearing a striking resemblance to the Sydney Opera House) while the second rendering was from inside of the stadium, during a game.
The official capacity will be 33,000. The scoreboard may or may induce vertigo. pic.twitter.com/uZR3Ow0oVZ
— Melissa Lockard (@melissalockard) March 5, 2024
For reference, those tweets were shared at 2:52 and 2:53 p.m. Eastern time, respectively.
Minutes later, Lockard had a follow-up tweet.
“Oops, they say that it should have been embargoed until tomorrow. But that was after I tweeted it, so…”
Oops, they say that it should have been embargoed until tomorrow. But that was after I tweeted it, so…
— Melissa Lockard (@melissalockard) March 5, 2024
Lockard later noted, “I honestly wasn’t trying to break any news. The release didn’t have an embargo on it. I figured everyone would be pushing it out. And then the embargo came in six minutes later after I already had. Oy.”
At 3:40, the A’s posted the renderings on the team’s official Twitter page.
The renderings themselves were widely panned, as was how they became public.
https://twitter.com/JAYRJAYSHOW/status/1765132609405985175
https://twitter.com/bschaeffer12/status/1765131044192161922
— Gabe Fernandez, it’s so hold over (@thelatinochild) March 5, 2024
For anyone unaware, media embargos are fairly common. A key element is, if something is under an embargo, that needs to be clarified before (or at least at the same time as) sharing anything. For something as significant as an MLB team’s new stadium renderings, sending out an embargo notice six minutes after the renderings might as well be six hours.
This is just the latest botch in a project that’s been full of them.
[Melissa Lockard on Twitter/X, Photo Credit: Melissa Lockard, BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group and HNT]
