The owner of MLB's Chicago White Sox apparently isn't being shy about asking Illinois to foot a big chunk of the cost of building a new stadium on in the city's South Loop section that would become the lynchpin of Related Midwest's $7B mixed-use development, known as The 78.

Jerry Reinsdorf showed up at the state capital in Springfield on Tuesday to pitch legislators on the project. According to several reports, the ChiSox owner is asking them for a $1B subsidy to build the new ballpark.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker previously has indicated he's not keen on using tax dollars to subsidize new stadiums for billionaire franchise owners, but Reinsdorf has been expressing confidence that Illinois eventually will be writing a very large check.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin expressed the same kind of confidence when he announced in December that the Wizards and Capitals, DC's NBA and NHL franchises, would be moving from downtown Washington across the river into a new arena that would be built in a proposed $2B, 9M SF sports and entertainment district in Alexandria at National Landing, near the site of Amazon's HQ2 mega-project.

The Virginia Senate is digging in for a fight. On Sunday, the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee released a budget plan for the upcoming fiscal year that does not include the creation of a sports and entertainment authority, which would have the power to issue bonds for the arena project.

"The best place the Wizards and Capitals can be is right where they are in Washington DC," said Sen. Louise Lucas, who heads the finance committee, according to a report in DC News Now.

Lucas noted that DC Mayor Muriel Bowser has offered Ted Leonsis, owner of the Wizards and Capitals, $500M in funding to upgrade Capital One Arena and keep the teams in Washington.

"She's trying to offer them everything she can to stay in DC and I'm not giving them a damn dime to come to Virginia," Lucas declared, according to the report.

Leonsis issued a statement noting that Virginia's House of Delegates has approved funding for the sports and entertainment district, which he said will "create 30,000 jobs, generate billions in economic impact and deliver benefits for the entire Commonwealth." The two branches of the VA legislature have until the end of March to breach the impasse.

Meanwhile, in Oakland, some complications have developed in the plans of the Athletics to move into a new baseball stadium in Las Vegas in 2028, a move that has been approved by MLB owners.

The A's partner, Bally's Corp., is closing the Tropicana Las Vegas Casino Resort in April. According to the plans, the casino will be demolished to make way for the new ballpark, with Bally's planning to build a new casino resort on land next door.

Since MLB voted to approve the move in November, A's owner John Fisher has yet to issue renderings or a financial plan for the new ballpark, which is expected to cost more than $1B. Last June, Nevada's state legislature approved $380M in public financing for the project.

A more immediate concern is where the A's will play after their $1.25M per year lease expires after the 2024 season at the Oakland Coliseum.

According to a report in the San Francisco Business Times, the A's reached out to city officials in Oakland last week to discuss the possibility of extending the team's lease for the Coliseum after exploring minor league facilities in Sacramento and Salt Lake City.

Another complication: the A's are now owners of half of the Coliseum site, which the city wants to develop, after buying out Alameda County for $85M. Stay tuned.