LAS VEGAS — The new chief of the Las Vegas Triple-A baseball team said he wants to let the public pick a new name for the team by next season.

"We're the 51s for the 2008 season, but after that, I'll be honest, I'm not the biggest fan of the 51s name," Derek Stevens, chief executive of the Stevens Baseball Group, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal for a Monday report. "We want to come up with another name, and that's something we'd like to target for the 2009 season."

Stevens Baseball Group bought the 25-year-old franchise from Mandalay Baseball Properties in a deal approved last week.

Mandalay switched the team's moniker in December 2000 from the Stars to the 51s and adopted an alien mascot in a tongue-in-cheek reference to Area 51, the famously top-secret test site in the Nevada desert.

Stevens said other changes will be visible this year, including a new scoreboard featuring a 15-by-36-foot video at Cashman Field, and a new left-field party deck and bar that can accommodate 100 people.

A new ballpark isn't a top priority, Stevens said, even though Las Vegas' affiliation with the Los Angeles Dodgers expires after this season and a renewal could hinge on plans for a new stadium.

"The Dodgers were very clear with us," Stevens said. "The status of the stadium will be the most significant factor in their willingness to extend our affiliation."

Stevens said a new ballpark will be needed "at some point" and talked about building a dome.

"It's still in the relatively early stages to do something like that," he said, adding that building a stadium would take "a community effort."

If the Dodgers decide to break their affiliation, Stevens sounded confident another big league club would replace them.

"There are 30 major league teams and 30 Triple-A teams, and we will be an affiliate to one of them, irrespective of the stadium (issue)," Stevens said. "We're still Las Vegas, and Las Vegas is still one of the foremost desirable locations for a Triple-A team."

Stevens' family hails from Detroit and manufactures nuts and bolts for the auto industry.

Stevens, 40, and his brother Greg Stevens, 37, owners of Desert Rock Enterprises, also recently completed the purchase of 50 percent of the Golden Gate hotel-casino. Derek Stevens said he wants to sell about 25 percent of the team within the next few weeks and has had interest from high-profile celebrities he did not name.

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Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com