New Oakland A’s team president Dave Kaval committed the team to announcing, by the end of 2017, a site and a timeline for building a new baseball stadium in Oakland. The announcement itself must have been like hearing President Kennedy saying America should commit itself to going to the Moon by the end of 1969, not just in the scale of the coming project but also in the buy-in that will be needed from multiple groups to make it happen.
Kaval must marshal fans, civic leaders, and the owners who have put him forward as their representative, to make a stadium happen on whatever timeline he promises.