The Long-Awaited Move of the Oakland Athletics

By Noah Massey | Oct. 21, 2024

In November 2023, the proposed relocation of the Oakland Athletics to Las Vegas was unanimously approved by the Major League Baseball owners, the first relocation of a MLB franchise since the Montreal Expos became the Washington Nationals in 2005.

Following the sale of the Athletics by Walter Haas in 1995, the lingering threat of the team moving has remained ever present with the team playing in the Oakland Coliseum, a stadium that has consistently ranked among the league’s worst for years yet affectionately toted by fans as “Baseball’s Last Dive Bar”. From an attempted move to the South Bay, then to neighboring Fremont, then within Oakland, and finally to the nine-acre site where the Tropicana hotel once stood along the Las Vegas strip, the journey leading to the new home for one of baseball’s most storied franchises has been anything but linear. 

Yet even with the Tropicana being demolished on October 9 for the future stadium, a long road remains as construction is yet to begin with funding for the ballpark pending written confirmation from the Athletics organization, a confirmation which isn’t expected until December.

Rendering of the new Athletics stadium in Las Vegas

San Jose

Following the purchase of the Athletics by Steve Schott and Ken Hofmann in 1995 for a reduced price after assuring Haas that they would keep the team in Oakland, the owners began actively looking at new possible stadium locations in the South Bay. Unfortunately for the A’s owners at the time and future owners, the Giants already had territorial rights to the area, graciously given by Haas in exchange for nothing when the Giants were looking at the possibility of moving there in 1990

The A’s appealed this ruling on multiple occasions, with the latest coming in 2012 through the proposed building of Cisco Field in downtown San Jose. The bid concluded in 2015 with the Supreme Court rejecting the city’s appeal on an antitrust lawsuit against Major League Baseball.

Fremont

In between threats of moving to San Jose, in 2006 the A’s agreed to buy a 143-acre site for a stadium in Fremont, roughly a half hour drive from the Coliseum. However, in 2009 after experiencing local opposition and delays, the A’s scrapped their plans to build a $1.8 billion ballpark village in the small city after already committing $80 million to the project. 

Oakland

With the focus for a new ballpark shifting back to Oakland following the Supreme Court ruling, the A’s began to focus on three prospective sites within Oakland – remaining on the Coliseum lot, Laney College, and Howard Terminal. Of the three, the A’s first choice was to pursue Laney College – a plan that was ultimately declined by the college trustees. In 2018, the A’s turned their focus toward the Howard Terminal site, their final effort to remain in Oakland.

The Howard Terminal plan was the last attempt to keep the team in Oakland before the A’s eventual decision to move to Vegas. Interestingly, Howard Terminal was still being internally discussed up until the team's decision to move to Vegas. The plan called for a six million square foot mixed-use development that would cost $12 billion on a waterfront site previously used for port operations. The development presented its own unique problems, including lawsuits from the neighboring Schnitzer Steel plant, causing the timeline for the ballpark to extend past 2030.  A’s president Dave Kaval eventually concluded that such a timeline was too long. 

“I'm saddened that we weren't able to pull it off because [the designers] had such an incredible vision”, said Kaval. “We had private capital willing to go into that location.”

However, according to a response from the city of Oakland following the A’s decision, the difficulty of the development on the Howard Terminal site was exactly what the A’s ownership desired and laid out, and the city did everything in its power to meet the requested needs of the team – including providing $425 million in funding for offsite infrastructure costs.

Las Vegas

After 27 years of rumors surrounding possible moves from the Coliseum, the A’s finally announced that they would be moving to Las Vegas. Since, the decision has faced criticism from players and fans alike, some of whom argue that A’s owner John Fisher and Kaval deliberately drove fans away to create a case for relocation. 

There is evidence to back these claims, as the team has avoided spending on players and facilities, with their largest player contract being given in 2004 in a 6-year $66 million deal given to Eric Chavez – a contract given one year before Fisher purchased the team. With recent free agent contracts growing past $300 million in total value, the Athletics have continued to see their team payroll fall further behind teams who are more willing to spend.

Others, including Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, have also accused the franchise of negotiating in bad faith with the city of Oakland. 

“In the last three months, we’ve made significant strides to close the deal,” Thao said in 2023. “Yet, it is clear to me that the A’s have no intention of staying in Oakland and have simply been using this process to try to extract a better deal out of Las Vegas.”

Athletics owner John Fisher

The new Las Vegas ballpark will feature a 33,000-seat – smallest in the MLB – closed-roof ballpark with a cost of $1.5 billion. The stadium will be surrounded by three towers that would make up a new Bally’s hotel-casino. Of this total cost, $380 million will come from public financing, $300 million will be debt financing and $850 million will come directly from the Fisher family.

With substantially less public support than their fellow relocators – the Raiders got $750 million for Allegiant stadium prior to their move – the Athletics will have to foot a sizable portion of the cost themselves. However, the A’s franchise has been making plenty of money for Fisher to help him foot the bill. Thanks to MLB revenue-sharing rules, the A’s have continued to turn a profit, despite their meager attendance figures. In 2022 the team made $62.2 million in 2022 despite averaging 9,973 fans per game and having one of the worst tv deals in baseball. Since the announcement of their move in 2023, the A’s have seen their profits dip with the move hurting fan revenue and sponsorship revenue.

With the expiration of their lease on the Coliseum approaching with the conclusion of the 2024 season, a possible extension could cost the team up to $97 million.

Three full seasons still remain until the completion of their new facility as the A’s will be forced to spend their time playing at the stadium of the Sacramento River Cats, the Triple-A affiliate of the San Francisco Giants. Sutter Health Park, featuring 10,624 permanent seats and a maximum capacity of 14,014, will undergo numerous upgrades to make it MLB-ready, including a new home clubhouse which will be installed adjacent to the stadium, renovations to the visitor clubhouse, installation of a new synthetic turf field, upgraded camera capabilities, and the addition of club seating and video boards.

With breaking ground still lying in the distant horizon and many snags lying along the way, this move is anything but set in stone. Concerns have continued to emerge surrounding the move as financial details are yet to be finalized, the stadium’s acreage will be the least in the MLB, and the location of the stadium along the Las Vegas strip has brought on accessibility concerns. 

Proposed Bally’s Hotel flanking the Athletics stadium

Implications

Major League Baseball has not seen expansion since the addition of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 1998. With the ever-increasing amount of money in sports and the proposed benefits they can bring to a city, the interest from other cities to get their own team has never been greater. With the latest move by the A’s and moves in other leagues – such as the Raiders and Arizona Coyotes of the NHL – relocation has continued to have pull as a threat by owners when they want public funding for a new stadium or stadium upgrades. 

In the MLB alone, the Milwaukee Brewers, Chicago White Sox, and Arizona Diamondbacks have all utilized this threat within the past year. With major cities like Nashville and Salt Lake City remaining without baseball teams, the threat of relocation can be utilized as a proper threat to try and get public funding for stadiums as long as the desire for baseball remains as high as it has been. 

On the flip side of this is a city like Oakland. Without swaths of public funding and an inability to hold onto the teams they already have, the city has gone from three storied franchises to zero in a matter of five years. Their story will further incentivize other cities to do whatever they can to hold onto their franchises – regardless of whether allocations of public funding for stadiums is beneficial for a majority of the public, who are the ones footing the bill for the extremely wealthy owners who are reaping the profits from their favorite franchises.