11:20am: Lindsey Adler of the Wall Street Journal reports that the A’s will not have a city associated with their name for the next three seasons. Rather than the “Sacramento Athletics,” they’ll just be referred to as the Athletics or the A’s, with no city designation.
11:05am: The Chronicle’s Eli M. Rosenberg reports that the City of Oakland’s final offer to the A’s was a three-year, $60MM lease of the Coliseum (X thread). That’s a notable step down from the previous $97MM price point but still apparently didn’t move the needle for Fisher and Athletics ownership.
10:12am: The 2024 season is officially the Athletics’ last year in Oakland. The team announced this morning that they’ll spend the 2025-27 seasons playing their home games in Sacramento’s Sutter Health Park ahead of their planned 2028 move to Las Vegas. There’s an option on the agreement for the A’s to spend a fourth year in Sacramento, presumably in the event that the construction of their new Las Vegas stadium is not completed on time.
Sutter Health Park is home to the Sacramento River Cats — the Giants’ Triple-A affiliate. It seems the two teams will share the stadium for at least the next three seasons — or at least that such an arrangement is under consideration. The press release announcing the Sacramento decision states: “Not only will fans be able to experience Major League Baseball in West Sacramento, but they will also still get to enjoy the beloved tradition of Minor League Baseball and the Sacramento River Cats.”
However, that’s not necessarily set in stone. John Shea, Susan Slusser and Steve Kroner of the San Francisco Chronicle report that the A’s and River Cats sharing Sutter Health Park is “one option.” The Chronicle trio further reports that there’s also been some consideration that the River Cats could play home games across multiple sites, including the Coliseum and the Giants’ Oracle Park.
River Cats president Chip Maxon told KCRA 3’s Michelle Dapper last week: “We are Sacramento’s team, we’re not going anywhere. If someone else were to play here, we’ve made it clear we want to play all 75 home games for the River Cats for the foreseeable future.”
Maxon’s comments notwithstanding, the NBA’s Sacramento Kings are the majority owner of the River Cats. Kings president and CEO Vivek Ranadivé issued the following statement:
“I’m thrilled to welcome the A’s to Sutter Health Park, where players and fans alike can enjoy a world-class baseball experience and create other unforgettable memories. Today marks the next chapter of professional sports in Sacramento. The passion of our fans is second to none, and this is an incredible opportunity to showcase one of the most dynamic and vibrant markets in the country.”
Said A’s owner John Fisher:
“We look forward to making Sutter Health Park our home through our move to Las Vegas. We extend our appreciation to the Kings and the City of West Sacramento for hosting the A’s while we work to complete our new ballpark in Las Vegas.”
There are, as one would expect, some logistical hurdles that need to be cleared. Sutter Health Park’s capacity is just over 14,000; it’s well smaller than the size of a standard big league stadium. While that invites plenty of jokes about the Athletics’ attendance, concerns regarding the size of the stadium extend beyond its sheer seating capacity. A’s players voiced concerns to the Chronicle about the size of the clubhouse and training room, the standards of the batting cages, and the lights at a Triple-A stadium. Right-hander Paul Blackburn also noted the location of the clubhouses, which are beyond the outfield wall as opposed to the MLB standard of being connected to the dugouts, as another issue.
On top of the facility itself, the A’s will need to sort through television broadcast specifics with NBC Sports California. Shea, Slusser and Kroner report that the A’s made $67MM from their television contract last year but will likely revise that deal and receive less revenue now. However, the move to Sacramento allows the A’s to avoid the City of Oakland’s proposed $97MM fee for the extension of the current Coliseum lease. It also allows Fisher to retain a 50% stake in the Coliseum property itself.
Suffice it to say, there are ample hurdles yet to be cleared and plenty of unknowns to be determined. As The Athletic’s Melissa Lockard points out, the fact that the A’s are endeavoring to play their home games in West Sacramento — rather than at their own Triple-A stadium in Las Vegas — speaks to the difficulties of making an arrangement like this work for all parties involved. That the A’s are even announcing this despite ostensibly not having a concrete plan outlined for where the River Cats will play only adds to the disjointed and disorganized feeling that has been emblematic of their entire relocation saga.
It’s fitting there going to a minor league stadium… Still won’t sell out
See the San Diego, I mean Carson, I mean LA Chargers as to how the As situation is playing out.
Has Fisher been talking to Spanos?
Feels like Deja vu.
Speaking of deja vu, I recently had an old friend call to tell me he was homeless and needed a place to crash for awhile until he could get his own place. So yeah, I’m feeling it, too.
Is he crashing at your place?
Yes, I also want to know .
Did you kiss?
Did you say “let me go ask my wife” then come out the house and he could see it on your face, he knew that was no. Then you said “ I don’t know man ah she kinda funny you know” and he said “I know everybody funny, now you funny too”?
May Gd bless the Delaware Destroyers
I’ve been saying and I’ll say it again:
This explains the Stripling trade.
There was no reason for the A’s to take on Stripling unless there was a wink-wink agreement in place between A’s and SFG ownership.
Hopefully, the A’s owe more than just taking on a bad contract, I’d love to get some of their top prospects later.
The A’s have only drawn between 3500 and 6600 fans so far at home. Opening day was only 13,500 so they still wouldn’t sell out the 14k seat park in west sactown.
Different fans in the Sacramento metro but still not promising.
Actually, there was a “boycott “ protest on opening day where A’s fans tailgated on opening day but didn’t do to the game. #weirdflex
Sacramento fans are hungry for major league baseball. If you build it, they will come the first year. Maybe years two and three as well.
I am very excited!
Sacramento hasn’t been hungry for AAA baseball. You should already know this.
The teams that play against the A’s are the best in the world.
Manny’s right, Sacramento will embrace the A’s like they have the Kings, notwithstanding their likely record. Keep in mind Sacramento is the nation’s 20th largest media market in a large region. The fan base is there.
Conin, Sacramento is around 25th in total and average attendance amongst other MILB teams. Not Top 3, or Top 5 or Top 10. That’s not embracing baseball. They fill half the stadium. That’s not supportive.
Isn’t this at least a little like embracing a girlfriend who has already promised to leave you for someone else?
embracing a girlfriend who has already promised to leave you for someone else?
======================
Probably, even though the way I’d express it is that you are dating Bo Derek, even though you know she’ll leave in three years.
But you’ll have a pretty good three years.
I’m gonna say that the A’s don’t have much on Bo Derek, even at close to 70. 😉
Average attendance for the Rivercats was 5177. Their attendance ranked 32nd in MiLB, 22nd in AAA. The fans don’t come out for the team that is there now. They won’t come out for a team they know is absolutely leaving in 3 years.
BlueSkies
Nope, this is liking having a Wing-Girl who introduces you to all the hotties, the ones with looks, brains and a job, the Cubs, Dodgers, Pirates, Giants (I have an affinity for NL teams), Atlanta, Phillies, Astros, Rangers, Yankees, Orioles.
It is totally different. It is MLB baseball. The fans for the road team have opportunities of a lifetime.
They’ll be Sacramento’s booty call for 3 years, but they’re also really terrible in bed.
A’s don’t have much on Bo Derek, even at close to 70.
=========================
I knew that was coming, and actually felt bad about the comparison. But there will be some people that will show up just to watch one of the other Cali teams.
Hey Manny, enough with the fantasies!
I’m going a solid little number has found herself a temporary arrangement with a sugar daddy. She gets to make old boy happy, and keep the not as financially endowed current boyfriend. Lives the life, makes a few contacts and sets herself up for a future, more permanent arrangement with another billionaire.
I beg to disagree as Sacramento had the Solons for so many years. Bob Lemons was our manager at Old Hughes Stadium. They sold out too.
No way is Fisher’s bargain bin team a Bo Derek… try Nell Carter.
When the A’s had River Cats they were a top 5 AAA draw, SF could care less about AAA team and don’t draw.
The last time the Rivercats were a top 5 in AAA attendance was in 2008 which I believe is the year Art Savage passed away. They became the Giants AAA team in 2015 and attendance actually went up the first two years they were a Giants farm club.
Manny: Well, they’re the best collections of young, desperate, controllable Hispanic players in the world, at least.
They did till they affiliated with Giants
geg42, there’s a distinct possibility that they’ll sell out often. Sacramento baseball fans will get to see big league baseball for a few seasons. Many will be thrilled. It will be interesting to see.
This isn’t a great situation for the A’s, but fans in Sacramento will be motivated to show that they’re capable of supporting an expansion team. That’s better than 3+ years of “Sell!” chants, boycott protests, and hostile meetings with Oakland’s political leadership.
The Rivercats have never drawn 14k fans. They average around 5k most years. Its not a high drawing team, I think someone said 20th or lower each year in AAA, and after the novelty of seeing actual MLB teams like the Rangers, Mariners, Astros, and Angels wears off I would expect A’s attendance to be about what the Rivercats attendance has been historically.
All of that is premature because the union has not approved the site yet. You would think that Fisher or Manfred would have reached out the union before announcing the move, but as of this morning it was being reported that has not happened yet.
My wife and I were in Sacramento for their home opener against the Chihuahuas last season and the attendance was only 9500. The next day it was 2500.
Sounds like a great place to watch Aaron Judge hit homers against the Triple-A’s!
“…whether they be Athletics players or Aaron Judge and others launch home runs out of this very intimate, the most intimate ballpark in all of Major League Baseball, for the next three years.”
– real quote from John Fisher
A’s Owner Fisher (the unqualified MLB Owner who got control
of the A’s because of college fraternity relationships with Lew Wolfe and Bud Selig) once again takes the award as the WORST MLB OWNER
worse than former Dodgers Owner Frank McCourt.
Playing A’s games in Sacramento breaches the A’s SF Bay Area TV contract
and LOSES 60-70M per year in revenues = 180M- 210M in lost TV revenues
for the A’s and MLB.
Sacramento IS NOT IN THE SF BAY AREA.
Fisher will have to renegotiate.
A’s will be lucky to get a 5-10 M per year contract playing in
West Sacramento.
He’ll still make money but as angry as I am with the situation, this is kind of amusing. NFL and NBA would never let things get this embarrassing (extended stay in a sad minor league stadium for a professional team, angry players, historically terrible roster lineup). Manfred and the executive ownership let it come to this, now we’ll have a stark visual representation of baseball’s downward spiral as “America’s pastime”.
At some point, they are going to kill the goose that laid the golden egg the baseball fans with these kinds of stupid actions.
At some point people need to support a baseball team. Bad owners in other cities have a strong fanbase. Oakland does not. Place the blame where it should be, for once fanoooo.
Bad owners in other cities have a strong fanbase.
====================
There are some bad owners, just like every other sport. But most of the “bad owner” BS is simply small market teams trying to cycle in and out of be good.
At least on the stadium front, the NFL absolutely did have a similar situation with the Chargers, who moved from San Diego to a temporary stadium in Carson, CA for three years that was half the seats as the rest of the league.
Angry players? The Arizona Cardinals actually charge players to eat at the team cafeteria. The Bengals apparently don’t have any facilities for player families. Unfortunately, that sort of thing pops up.
SF Bay Area fans supported the A’s when they had good, competent ownership that spent team revenues on the players and on putting a playoffs competitive team on the field.
(Walter Haas Jr Levis).
At some point, MLB has to step in and force incompetent, underfunded ownership to sell the A’s team to an Ownership group financially capable of keeping its great young talent, extending their contracts, signing some free agents, spending money on marketing, advertising and promotions and more.
In areas of the country like California where there are so many other entertainment options, rolling out teams with AAAA rosters
full of players acquired in “fire sale” trades every 3-4 years
is not going to get fans to spend hundreds of dollars per family (and up to thousands per family) per game to see meaningless games.
Chargers had a very loyal fan base that sold out its games and loyally supported that team for over 30 years.
NFL loved staging Super Bowls in San Diego.
Greed and extortion of “corporate welfare” from taxpayer funds for marginal owners with inherited wealth who did not make the money they are spending and did not/would not put a winning team on the field and felt “entitled/expect billion dollars+ team subsidies from taxpayers just won’t cut it for most smart cities/regions/fan bases.
They have plenty of $$$$.
They are just not suckers who give it away
to losing teams and/or businesspersons/owners in over their heads who cannot run a successful and profitable professional sports franchise.
Kansas City Fans just overwhelmingly rejected a sales tax
increase to fund a New stadium for the Royals and major upgrades for Arrowhead field for the NFL Champion Chiefs.
So, it is not Oakland OR CA that is the problem.
Smart taxpayers and pro sports fans nationwide
are rejecting this kind of “corporate welfare”
for wealthy pro sports team owners,
To be fair, their roster is Minor League quality, so they should fit there nicely.
Seriously though, way to endear yourselves to your new fan base by not using their city’s name.
Actually they will fill that park in Sac most nights. When I lived in Sac, the River Cats sold out many night and were a top minor league draw.
even more fitting that their minor league affiliate may be *swapping places* with them by playing in Oakland.
Imagine the reverse-protest for an Oakland River Cats game?
Nevada Supreme Court set to block public funding for A’s stadium on the LV strip.
Bally’s is all leveraged out so it cannot pick up the slack for A’s stadium in LV.
Too much seats in the stadium for them
I think there’s actually only 10k seats and like 4k are on the grassy area LOL
Having sat on the grass there, 4000 fans out there will resemble a large can of sardines only more crowded. They could put in temp seats and get it close to 20k without much effort.
I like it. MLB can use it as a test of Sacramento as a potential expansion market in the future.
@Dark Sooooooo if they sell out a 6K seat ballpark that qualifies as a potential market ??? Wow.
It would be a test to see if there are enough sponsors to support another team.
Oakland is still in California. As long as the regulations are still ridiculous and taxes so high, no more comes in.
Sacramento has enough problem as is, the LAST thing they need is to be associated with the A’s.“ Yea, we’ll take the dough but you’re the A’s, period. You got that!? Ahahaha!
Many new sports stadiums have been built in California in recent years mostly with private financing, cash and credit from the private business owners who own the private business sports franchises:
Warriors (Chase Field)
Rams and Chargers (SOFI Stadium)
Clippers (Intuit Dome)
49ers (Levis Stadium Santa Clara, CA)
Mostly private financing
Smaller public contribution
(Offer was made to Raiders to share Levis stadium)
Petco Park San Diego (Padres)
Private/Public partnership on financing
Might want to Fact Check before you post ridiculous statements,
Don’t quite understand the implication here but in the past 10 years here are the teams that have built stadiums/arenas in California: Rams, Niners, Sac Kings, LA Clippers, GS Warriors.
Beyond that, here are teams that have built stadiums/arenas in California in the past 30 years: Padres, Lakers, SF Giants.
California does have taxes/regulations but it seems every competent group that wanted a stadium got a stadium.
It just proves that Fisher and Manfred were negotiating with Oakland Officials in “bad faith”.
Dean Spanos 2.0.(Chargers)
(Decision was made long ago, but they just had the City Officials “jump through the hoops” to make it look like there was a chance for a deal, but they never intended to close a deal with Oakland),
Sacramento is still in California. In fact, its the state capital, You know, the place the people that MAKE the regulations work at.
Oh, and California is not in the top 7 in overall tax burden in the US.
death, you said the key word, competent. Fisher has shown he is not competent.
The reason teams could leave California is because it isn’t socialist, meaning California governments won’t pay for ballparks.
I mean, it’s awful to be in the largest economy in America and the fifth largest in the world…
CA is passing Germany as the 4th largest and richest economy in the World.
Fisher, Manfred and Selig have completely messed up
the A’s deal and cost MLB tons of money and revenues.
Well the tax foundation would disagree with you. You are ranked 5th with an overall average tax burden of 13.5% per capita.
Leave it to a Mets fan to throw out a negative just to make himself feel better.
Huh? How does it make me feel better because Californians pay a lot of taxes? I don’t wish that on anyone.
Wrong as usual Mets. MAXIMUM state income tax is 13%. Average tax burden was 10.4%.
NYC is higher on both.
The NBA’s Kings moved from KC to Sacramento.
More teams could go to CA in the near future.
The Houston Chronicle did an analysis comparing taxes in Texas and CA.
Texas has no State income tax.
But, the Houston Chronicle found out that the average Texan pays more taxes than the average Californian’
since Texas has a higher property tax rate and Texas loads on the junk fees nickeling and diming residents to death.
Nothing is free.
Now you are changing your argument to comparing California to NYC. Your original statement was California was not top 5 in state taxes. I called your BS and your comment is to say a city pays more taxes. I don’t live in either NY or California and using one or the other to defend your argument just proves how lost you are on the subject as both states pay ridiculous taxes. You do realize tax burden goes well beyond income taxes and the 13% top income tax isn’t a limit on the total taxes you pay in the state?
You are quoting tax burden for 2024 when we are 3 months into the year? California was 8th in total tax burden in 2023.
It’s 2024, they are using actual current data. Why do you all religiously try to twist facts to try make something not true be true. It’s not hard. Go on taxfoundation.org and look it up. The agency in Washington DC that actually tracts this for a living.
Sooooooo if they sell out a 6K seat ballpark that qualifies as a potential market ?
=======================
Sure it is a qualifying factor. When teams plans for expansion, they don’t have a magic 8 ball telling them what future attendance will look like, They take snippets of information. If they sell 6,000 tickets a game for a bad team that is not really there’s, that is a very good sign.
Does the word “Novelty” work for you?
No, but ‘Sooooooo’ is a heck of a lot of fun. Good one!
14K, not 6K.
10k seats. The grass area can fit up to 4k.
Kaval says premium seating, “upgraded seating”, and seat expansion are possible.
However the grass berm will stay – he’s talking about the experience as being “unique” and “intimate.”
I bet they can fit another 2-3k seats, for a 16-17k total capacity.
I don’t think they’ll sell out that number for three years in a row.
Is Kaval and Fisher going to cough up the money? Ranadive said that any expenses related to stadium upgrades would be Fisher’s responsibility.
No way are the Rivercats going to ever draw enough to make expanding the stadium seating worthwhile. They couldn’t sell out their home opener last season.
Jacalyn s right about being intimate on berm if they try to pack 4K people on it, 1K would be reasonable.
Should’ve went into Nashville where there’s an untapped market.
Travel would have been an issue. I know there are fewer divisional games than before, but still it is better to keep divisional opponents somewhat close. Although I guess Nashville is closer to Houston and Texas. I don’t know. I think MLB just needs to realign divisions again after adding a coupe of teams.
They Want that for expansion. Not for this garbage team
garbage owner
team would have been fine if fisher went away
They would have lost the $70 million a year they get for TV rights. They still might lose some of that, but it’s telling that the Kings are on the same NBC cable network that televises the A’s, Giants, and Warriors games (albeit for Sac).
Same owner but 2 different channels.
NBC Sports Bay Area = San Francisco Giants, Golden State Warriors.
NBC Sports California = Oakland Athletics, Sacramento Kings, San Jose Sharks.
As always, regional restrictions apply.
They still lose the $70 million per year contract with NBC Sports Bay Area.
NBCSA may negotiate a new deal, but they have already said that it won’t be anywhere close to $70 million per year. Estimates are 20% of the current deal.
The reason why is Sacramento is the 20th largest market while the Bay Area is the 10th largest. .
Where do you get this estimate? You’re saying that the A’s decided to lose $56m in TV revenue to avoid paying a $20m/year lease?
Oakland’s mayor must have been working under this assumption when she asked for $35m/year for the lease. The A’s didn’t even counteroffer when she lowered it to $20m. Oops.
PadsFans TV revenue numbers are correct.
A’s void their contract playing in Sacramento.
Sacramento is not in SF Bay Area.
Fisher/Manfred just keep finding new, creative ways to lose money.
Yes. The A’s decided to lose a $67 million per year TV deal with NO guarantee that NBCSA would renegotiate a new deal and knowing that it would be about 20% of their current deal IF NBCSA decides to renegotiate. That is NOT a sure thing because the A’s will only be in Sacramento for 3 years. The estimate was on this website and came from multiple sources including Maury Brown and Sports Business Journal whose articles were mentioned and linked to on The Athletic
So yeah, Fisher is an idiot. Is that news to you? .
Thao asked for $19.4 million per year over 5 years with an opt out after 3 years initially and RAISED it to $20 million for just 3 years.
The A’s never negotiated in good faith with Oakland. They haven’t throughout the stadium process. Fisher and Kaval have lied at every step.
The A’s already had an agreement with Sacramento weeks ago. How do I know that? They had signage up at the announcement presser at 7:00am that takes weeks to produce. You don’t do it in a few hours or even a few days. So Fisher lied. Kaval lied. Its what those two do.
Not news to me.
Been following that dysfunctional situation for quite a while,
Presumably this deal allows them to renegoiate their cable deal for a little less rather than losing it all. That has always been a potential selling point to me. But I do not see Sacramento getting its own permnent team, the Giants would fight that tooth and nail. Here, I figured that Giants lose a little for three years, but gain thereafter.
A’s /Fisher/MLB Breach their SF Bay Area TV deal ‘
worth 60-70M per year if they play in Sacramento.
(Sacramento IS NOT IN SF BAY AREA).
I doubt they would get 10-20 M per year for TV playing games in Sacramento.
NBC Sports has already said that moving voids the contract. If they had moved permanently to Sacramento, I think they might have gotten a deal that was half or a little less since the market is half the size of the Bay Area, but moving for 3 seasons into a minor league park is not going to equal a contract of more than 20% of what they were getting in the Bay Area.
What do the Giants gain from this?
I beg to differ the Nashville market is Atlanta and Cincy with a large contingent of retired folks loyal to their original baseball teams. Ask Tampa and Miami about the problem.
There will never be a new team in California
While the Giants control local politics I think youre right.
The Giants don’t control local politics. In fact, being a sports team makes them the antithesis of the local politics. The giants have territorial rights, the same as every other team in baseball. This is not political, or in any way shape or form politics. It’s basic business.
People want to hate on the A’s, but they have the worst fans in MLB, possibly all of sports. I’d be leaving that communist hell hole as well.
They control the Chronicle, which has systematically turned public opinion against the A’s in Oakland and also is now pretending to be sad that they are leaving; they were behind the groups that opposed the Laney College plan; they refuse to let the A’s build a stadium in downtown San Jose. Yes, the Giants are responsible for the A’s leaving town, but that’s understandable. They are the ones with the most to gain.
LOL. Not a communist hellhole just a bunch of fans that have been maligned by idiots like you for 30 years while the ownership refuses to pony up to get any real major-league talent.
Fisher is still the most responsible for the move. He backed out of his obligations to properly maintain the Colisseum, put the Major League payroll on a shoe-string budget, and turned down the perfectly acceptable plan for a new ballpark in Oakland.
So many false and misleading statements and so little time.
Do you work for the SF Giants of MLB?!
It sure reads like it.
NY, LA, Chicago all have 2 MLB teams that
share their cities territory 50/50.
Giants/A’s shared their territory 50/50 for 30+ years.
A’s former Owner Walter Haas Jr LOANED PART OF THE A’s territory to his MLB business rival and competitor the SF Giants to save their bacon and business and keep the Giants in SF Bay Area when the moving vans were already packed/loaded for Tampa in the 1990’s after
wealthy Tampa investors had purchased the Giants and were intent on moving the Giants to Tampa.
A’s helped Giants survive and thrive in SF Bay Area, joined with the O’Malley’s to block the Giants move, even helped line up local SF Bay Area well funded, new ownership to keep the Giants in SF Bay Area.
Giants reneged on promise to return the A’s 50% of their territory of Santa Clara County/Silicon Valley back to the A’s after the Giants moved out of an even bigger dump than the Coliseum, Candlestick Park.
Candlestick Park made the Oakland Coliseum look like Camden Yards or the Sky dome.
The SF Giants actively blocked New A’s stadiums in the SF Bay Area, Reneged on agreement to return the A’s 50% of their Silicon Valley territory, lied in the Media and BACKSTABBED THE A’s. TRUE GIANTS FANS WOULD BOYCOTT THE SF GIANTS FOR THEIR TREACHERY AND BACKSTABBING.
There is NOTHING 50-50 about New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago. New York is a Yankees city that the Mets also play in. Los Angeles is a Dodgers city that the Angels are somewhat a part of. Chicago is a Cubs town and probably 80% of the residents don’t even acknowledge the existence of the White Sox.
They’re not talking about percentage of fandom. They’re talking about the split of the shared territory. And SportsFan0000 is correct in that the bay area territory was not evenly split. A’s were given Alameda and Contra Costa county, the Giants? Everything else. This limits where you can promote or have team stores as well as where one can build a ballpark.
There’s Cubs Fans and South Siders. Don’t even call them White Sox Fans!
Uneducated baseball fans make the worst comments.
The point was that the Territories in 2 team cities are shared by the 2 MLB teams in an equitable manner that benefits both teams.
That was not the case in the SF Bay Area with the Giants and A’s.
The SF Giants were given preferential treatment over the A’s.
If that was not the case, then the A’s would be playing like 10-20 years ago in San Jose or Santa Clara like the 49ers,
A few years back the A’s were set to build a new stadium in San Jose, but Giants blocked it. Giants are thrilled they are leaving, just another reason to hate SF, its politics, and its sports teams. Be sure and watch where you step there.
Even without the A’s, California still already has at least double the teams of any other state.
You must be terrible investing in stocks.
San Diego is building a New Sports Arena
without a professional team
with a private investment team involved.
Rams Owner Stan Kroenke who built SOFI Stadium with his own cash and credit likes the SD Arena so much that he has joined as “lead investor”.sportspromedia.com/news/san-diego-sports-arena-pro…
Doesn’t always work though. Tampa / St. Pete built their stadium in 1990 in hopes of luring a team there and got close to getting the White Sox and the Giants at different times, but didn’t really get one until 1998. And by the time the team became relevant a decade later, the stadium was already outdated.
It is a new Sports Arena that will thrive with concerts and other activities.
With Stan Kroenek involved and his connections, I would not be surprised to see an NBA expansion team in San Diego
(and Seattle),.
Big difference with the New San Diego Sports Arena.
It will be viable and profitable without with other concerts and major activities and without a major sports team
like NBA or NHL.
A major sports team would just be the cherry on the top and not really needed, but it would be nice for them if it happened.
It’s a win-win for everyone.
Sacramento is a great baseball town but the surrounding area isn’t particularly populous, at least by California’s standards.
The principle applies for a lot of other expansion locations too. My bet would be the next two teams would be in Oakland and Nashville, but trying doesn’t hurt.
I doubt Oakland will get another bite at the apple after the horribly dragged out stadium issues. MLB would probably just want a fresh start somewhere else. Portland or Salt Lake City would probably get the nod over Oakland.
Personally I would love for Portland and Salt Lake City get teams just so when they realign it would get the Rockies out of the West division and give them a reasonable geographic rival.
LAD, SF, SD, AZ – NL West
LAA, LV, SEA, POR? – AL West.
HOU, TEX, KC, MIN – AL Central
STL CHC, COL, SLC? – NL Central
Any bets on if they go by “Sacramento Athletics” for those 3 years just to not use that dreaded Oakland word sooner?
Well the Expos still went by “Montreal Expos” the year they played in San Juan. But that was just one year. I don’t know if you would want to go to the trouble of making a new brand just for three years.
The Expos played 22 games in San Juan in 2003, that hardly constitutes a year.
Not sure how the A’s plan to address the logistics however i could definitely see them changing the road jerseys to say “Athletics” instead of “Oakland” i suppose they could just be known as the “A’s” for tv/scoreboard purposes. They could just take a page from Arte Moreno and call themselves the “Oakland Athletics of Sacramento”
HOW ABOUT MANFRED’s and SELIG’S
UNQUALIFIED FOR MLB OWNERSHIP COLLEGE FRATERNITY BROTHERS (WOLFE/FISHER)
“MLB THE MOVIE”
ARTIFICALLY CREATED MONEYPIT FOR MLB OWNERS ?!
The Oakland athletics of Sacramento
The Athletics, formerly of Philadelphia, Kansas City and Oakland
The Sacramental Athletics of Oakland
California A’s
Angels fans having a conniption in 3,2,1…
Nope. Been the LA Angels since 1902.
The California thing was just a blip in the team history back when Orange county was still primarily farms
Yeah, that’s not true. The LA angels of 1902 were a minor league team. The current angels were an expansion team from 1961 who moved to Anaheim and changed their name to the California angels in 1966 and have been there ever since. They changed their name to the LA angels of Anaheim about 20 years ago and have been subject to the curse of the ridiculous team name ever since.
Actually, this is only the 24th year they’ve been the Los Angeles Angels (of Anaheim or not), 1961-64, 2005-Present.
They were the California Angels for 32 years (1965-1996), as well as the Anaheim Angels for 8 years (1997-2004).
Plus, they were the California Angels when they were featured in the 90s version of the movie “Angels in the Outfield.”
Funny that the only year Angels won it all was when they were the Anaheim Angels.
Absolutely not true.
The LA Angels were a PCL team.
The PCL was a professional League.
It featured players such as Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams. Perhaps you’ve heard of them? The modern version of the PCL League is indeed minor leagues, agreed, but was not back then.
And the LA Angels were never ever a minor league team. A few of the PCL Angel players were on the original MLB team in 1961.
The Excrementos
The Itinerant A’s
The Las Vegas Real Estate Scams.
The Fisher “shakedown” artists.
I could absolutely see Fisher being that petty.
Sweet. Problem solved for me. I’ll never spend another penny on the A’s with Fisher (the c***) in charge. I’ll finish on 31 parks (including London) and enjoy the best players at the best parks..
No offense, but I really don’t think that will affect Fisher at all. The A’s will get a ton of fans in Vegas as soon as they start winning. It was only a little more than a decade ago that Astros fans railed against the team for not trying and basically being forced out of the NL. People vowed to not fool with them again. Then they started winning and the fans came back. As soon as the A’s start winning in Vegas, they will have fans back. Maybe not the same ones, but honestly I’d rather have future fans than past fans anyway.
Fisher is underwater and could not even qualify for financing for his share of the Oakland stadium deal.
Fisher will have trouble coming up with his share of proposed LV stadium deal.
A’s will not be “winning” in LV the way Fisher runs a team on a shoestring budget.
Fans will not support a Fisher run AAAA team in LV.
Why is it petty? It’s factually correct.
It has been announced they will go by just the A’s, not Oakland, Sacramento or Las Vegas, for the three years. Works for me!
Christmas in April.
Sac of A’s?
They would have to spend money to change names on stuff so they will stick with “Oakland” until they get to Vegas.
The Las Vegas Athletics of Sacramento just like the good old Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Oakland does not want the A’s in their city. I wonder what’s behind such an impasse.
@Prov Based on what? Maybe the A’s didn’t like the terms of what Oakland offered.
Winslow – “Based on what?”
Based on all I’ve read about the situation. If Oakland wanted the team to stay, there would be a deal to keep them there with a new stadium complex.
How many cities can give a billionaire $2 billion. This is all about a owner wanting free tax payers money.
Yeah, it’s the city’s (& local taxpayers) obligation to bend over like a pretzel for the altruistic carpetbagging MLB owners…
California could build a new stadium every couple years with all the money they waste on the homeless industrial complex.
How many cities could outdraw and better support a franchise than Oakland?
Answer: plenty.
You keep looking in the wrong direction instead of looking in the mirror and around you. The people have spoken; they do not care or want A’s baseball. No effort like Montreal.
@prov356 Oakland *did* have such a deal on the table for a new stadium, but Fisher turned them down due to thinking he could make more money by skipping town with the franchise.
Welp, like I said. Half the people blame the owner, half the people blame the city. Somewhere in the middle is the truth. None of us were in the meetings so anything said on here is nothing more than speculation.
Yes, many people seem confident in saying the A’s had a great deal for a stadium in Oakland. I’d have to be intimately familiar with the negotiations, team finances, and legal considerations to have a strong opinion one way or another. Without this knowledge, the fact that the A’s decided to leave is strong evidence that it wasn’t that great.
This is laughably wrong. Oakland worked in good faith with the A’s.
The A’s and Oakland have had an acrimonious public relationship for the better part of a decade. Maybe they worked in good faith behind the scenes, I wouldn’t know.
If this is just the fault of A’s ownership, we should expect Oakland to convince an expansion franchise to come, correct? Just offer the same proposal to a different ownership group, which will eagerly take it.
thorn – “If this is just the fault of A’s ownership…”
You can also expect similar issues to materialize in Las Vegas too.
Most of the issues with Oakland stemmed from the stadium, so no I don’t expect similar fights in Vegas for 20+ years.
If you’re right, and the problem is unique to Fisher, then any expansion ownership group would be dumb to not take it. The plans and negotiation are already far along, so expansion in Oakland seems like a slam dunk.
If I’m right and this is mostly due to Oakland’s market and political leadership, then the Raiders and Warriors will leave Oakland.
Fair bet?
Oakland/California is a hot mess so who knows what will happen.
Yeah most of this is downstream from Oakland’s rough finances. As others have pointed out, it’s not necessarily “California” because some great stadiums have been built in LA and San Jose. There is more money in these locations so teams are willing to foot the bill.
But a big factor is that Vegas’ political leadership wants to attract teams, so they just blow up an old casino and hand the land to the A’s.
Ted you are missing Esquire in your name
I mean Joe Lacob has already said he’s buy the A’s and build at Howard Terminal. But, baseball decides expansion, not the willingness of a specific group to do so.
Also, Fisher is a large reason the Raiders aren’t in Oakland. At least that’s what Mark Davis believes: cbssports.com/nfl/news/raiders-owner-mark-davis-ri…
Even better, here is Fisher himself accepting some culpability: sports.yahoo.com/john-fisher-reveals-attempt-amend…
It’s not only Fisher, now MLB doesn’t want baseball in Oakland, even if it were the best option? I looked at Lacob’s comments, and they’re essentially “sure, if the team was for sale, I’d be interested.”
Ok. You’re right, MLB is involved and wants them out. But John Fisher is fully culpable for the A’s and a large reason as to the Raiders leaving.
Also, the comments you read from Lacob are likely from October ‘23. Lacob’s interest in the A’s is more than just “yeah give me a call”. He actually tried to buy the A’s but in yet another example of MLB screwing the A’s over, they forced the sale to Lew Wolff:nbcsportsbayarea.com/mlb/oakland-athletics/lacob-o…
@its happening Wouldn’t the A’s be moving to the cities that can out draw Oakland with a terrible team? So why are the A’s not moving there? So fun to prove this guy wrong again. So name the city???
Time will tell if Vegas or Nashville can outdraw Oakland. It’s very unlikely that the political dysfunction of those cities matches Oakland’s, though.
Fisher never invested in any player nor the fan experience nor marketing. What business thinks customers just owe it to the to spend a bunch of money despite being crapped on for years? Blaming fans/customers is stupid.
Oh you poor fool, the A’s backed out of a deal to build a new stadium not the city of Oakland.
Which, unfortunately, will probably be proven right.
An issue created by the tech bros. But somehow they don’t have to pay into the system.
@ It’s Happening, That is completely false!
The fans wanted the A’s to stay and the A’s had sellout crowds until the start of the 2022 season. Fisher gutted the team by trading away all of their big stars, Olson, Chapman, Marte, Canha and pitchers Bassitt and Manaeaa. That is when the fans revolted and started staying away in droves.
This is the same thing Georgia Frontiere then the owner of the Rams pulled and when she stopped paying starts and didn’t put money into the team to justify a move to St. Louis.
@Thortnt25, No he just wanted to move the team. In 2022 he gutted the team for a reason and used it as an excuse to move the team. Offering to stay if the city built him a new stadium which he knew would never fly.
It’s the same tactic the Royals and Chiefs deployed and the people of Kansas said no to building new stadiums just like the citizens of Oakland did. With that said, I expect neither team to leave the area.
ALL of the reasons the A’s are not staying in Oakland begin and end with John Fisher. They had an approved deal with hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars and Fisher increased his ask at the last minute knowing that legally the city and state would be unable to make changes at the last minute. He was not negotiating in good faith.
Fisher was not negotiating in good faith to extend the lease at the Coliseum. There was signage at Sutter Health Park that takes weeks to create and install, but he only made the decision last night? Right! He had the deal in Sacramento weeks ago.
90% blame Fisher. 10% blame some other reason because they are idiots that are not paying attention to the situation.
Well, we found Dave Kaval’s new burner account, thornt25. So Dave, you keep getting outed. How does it feel to be known as the biggest liar and loser in MLB?
Dave/thornt25, you know that Lacob has already offered to buy the A’s and build at Howard Terminal.
Why are you trying to spin this away from your own failures? Howard Terminal was APPROVED and you could have had shovels in the ground within a week, when your boss asked for hundreds of millions more in taxpayer funding when you knew for a fact that under California law it was not possible at that late date. .
You don’t even have financing to build a new ballpark in Las Vegas yet. Even though you bribed local politicians to vote to give you $380 million, that is about to fall through on the grounds that its unconstitutional in Nevada.
Dave, most of the issues in Oakland stemmed from you and your boss John. Howard Terminal was not the first time you brought negotiations to the last and final step and then backed out.
You are Dave Kaval, so you are always wrong or lying.
The Raiders left because ofJjohn Fisher. How do we know? Mark Davis said so. Even Fisher apologized for that F’up later. Its ALL been about Fisher and you. All of it. Everywhere.
Howard Terminal was approved with hundreds of millions in local and state taxpayer dollars committed. Fisher backed out at the last minute after asking for hundreds of million more taxpayer money at a point that he knew was too late for the mandated public hearings to be held. Then less than 2 weeks later announced he had a deal in Las Vegas. The FIRST deal in Las Vegas. The current proposed location is the 2nd deal in Las Vegas.
The land from the Tropicana is not going to the A’s. The A’s won’t own it and the ballpark would be built on 9 of 35 acres in that parcel. .
All you know how to do is lie Dave.
Dave, that is not what Lacob said at all and you know it. Lacob made formal offers, with an S, for the team. He said he has a standing offer to buy the A’s and made a $1.4 billion offer in 2016.
“I had the A’s done,” Lacob told the Chronicle. “It was just taken away from me. You know what, everyone’s confident in their own abilities, obviously. I think we would’ve had a stadium a long time ago if I had bought it. That’s just me.”
He publicly stated in 2022 he would build at Howard Terminal.
Why do you keep trying to lie Dave?
“I had the A’s done,” Lacob told the Chronicle. “It was just taken away from me. You know what, everyone’s confident in their own abilities, obviously. I think we would’ve had a stadium a long time ago if I had bought it. That’s just me.”
Not only did the A’s gut the team, they doubled ticket prices. Fisher WANTED small crowds.
Oakland approved the stadium at Howard Terminal. All the hoops had been jumped through. Hundreds of millions in taxpayer funds had been appropriated. Then at the 11th hour John Fisher and Dave Kaval aka thornt25 asked for hundreds of million more in taxpayer dollars knowing full well that the process takes months of public meetings and votes by the city council to get any changes approved by California law. Then 2 weeks later Dave Kaval aka thornt25 announced that the A’s had a deal in Las Vegas.
Looks like this is just an issue with Fisher’s ownership and we can look forward to Lacob making a push for an Oakland expansion at Howard terminal in the coming years!
The A’s drew over 2 mil once in 53 years. Never drew well.
JOE LACOB’s STANDING OFFER TO BUY THE A’S
FOR 10 YEARS
“I’ve had a standing offer to buy the A’s from John Fisher for I don’t even know how long. Over a decade,” Lacob said. “It’s up to him; it’s his business. It would have been smarter to sell to me a long time ago because we would have been partners, and he would have been able to own a part of the Warriors as well.Jul 10, 2022
Do you not know how to look it up or do you just prefer being wrong?
2,003,628
2,109,118
2,201,516
2,216,596
2,169,811
2,133,277
2,035,025
2,494,160
2,713,493
2,900,217
2,667,225
2,287,335
I will let you look up the years. Hint, only one of those is since Fisher took over the team.
Wrong… the city of Oakland kept jerking the A’s around and never provided them with a ‘binding’ contract. That’s when the A’s took on the ‘parallel paths’ approach, which allowed Las Vegas to enter the picture, thereby sealing Oakland’s fate.
Oakland as a city is a JOKE. Chokeland is what defines them. Losers losing all 3 major league teams. It’s a shithole town that nobody likes going to.
Based on support. Are you kidding with this question?
What did John Fisher do to cultivate support?
Was it the:
– Constant departures of any homegrown talent via trade or FA
– Lack of investment in both on-field talent and stadium amenities
– Trying to move out of Oakland (Fremont, San Jose)
– Trying to get out of paying minor leaguers during COVID
– Raising ticket prices after the most recent sell off
– Refusing to invest revenue sharing into the team
Im genuinely curious. Happy to be wrong here.
deathby9 is the problem. Not a typo.
Because ownership should NOT be the reason you can’t get off your behind to support your baseball team. You don’t. Yet you blame ownership. You haven’t given ownership or the city a reason to keep a team in Oakland. Other teams have bad ownership. Yet fans support the team and the players on the field.
“The owner made us not care”. Ok….
It is the responsibility of an owner of any business to attract patrons. This is true in all walks of life. Why you don’t apply it to sports is absurd.
Also, ask the Pirates fans about Bob Nutting (they A’s outdrew them up until 2020 even with them getting a new stadium)
How about O’s fans and Peter Angelos (who the A’s outdrew up until 2020)
Miami, Kansas City, CWS as well.
To think ownership does not impact attendance is false. And to think Oakland is the only place with depressed attendance because of ownership is also incorrect. Even if you want to cite on-field play as a viable (in your mind) reason for fans not to go, I got some news for you: much of that has to do with payroll, and, well guess who controls that?
Any business that blames the customer is a bad business run by terrible business people.
It’s the responsibility of the fans to show up. Stop blaming ownership. Weak take. Buy tickets, buy merchandise. Your fanbase does not care, your argument has holes “who controls payroll…”. As if your city has supported good teams. You haven’t. That’s on you. Own it and wear it.
@It’s Happening, What do you mean by stopping blaming ownership?
The A’s constantly sold out during the moneyball era (1996-2004) and until the end of the 2021 season. Then Fisher dismantled the team in the off-season and made it perfectly clear he wasn’t going to invest in the team and would look to move the team.
Newsflash for ya, the A’s didn’t have a losing record from 1998 until 2008. And not again until the 2015-2017 season and during those years they either won the division, made the playoffs or finished near the top of their division. The fan base has ALWAYS supported the A’s by buying tickets and merchandise. You would actually know this if you lived in California or knew anything about the A’s.
@its_happening
Are you so silly that you have to stay up all night to be so silly in the morning?
Simple terms:
Crap product.
No-one buys it.
Too complicated?
My wife and I are going to Pittsburgh next month and last week she got online and bought tickets in Section 16, 4 rows behind home plate for a Saturday game against the division rival Cubs.
Lamar’s the A’s drew over 2 mil once in 55 years.
Since you repeated your lie, I will repeat the facts.
2,003,628
2,109,118
2,201,516
2,216,596
2,169,811
2,133,277
2,035,025
2,494,160
2,713,493
2,900,217
2,667,225
2,287,335
I will let you look up the years. Hint, only one of those is since Fisher took over the team.
The A’s have done everything in their power to show they don’t want to be in Oakland.
I agree. The city doesn’t want them there and the team doesn’t want to be there. My question was what caused the impasses.
I guess the question is what do you want the city of Oakland to do? Something has to give. They either have to let Oakland walk and fund the services the right wing mocks like public safety and education, or they cave, give Fisher what he wants and those services will need to be cut further.
Frankly it seems like Fisher just takes and takes, gives nothing back except crappy seasonal jobs with zero benefits or security and when he doesn’t get more handouts decides to take his team to Vegas.
Half the people blame the owner, half the people blame the city. Somewhere in the middle is the truth. It doesn’t matter at this point. The A’s are moving. It sounds like a similar situation to the Angels in that the owner should sell the team to someone who values winning.
I’m sympathetic to Oakland’s position because public stadium financing tends to be a money loser for cities and it’s probably better to reduce taxes or do something else with the money.
This negotiation for a 3 year extension changed my mind a bit, because of how deeply unserious Oakland’s demands were. They wanted exclusive negotiations for an expansion franchise, to keep the A’s name, and a $97m exit fee. A 3 year extension would have required no financing from the city and would have just been free money. But the political leadership of Oakland would rather posture.
Nobody should want to be in Oakland.
I worked there for 15 years and saw constant decline in all aspects. Gangs of organized criminals, sideshow punks, and the homeless encampments rule the streets. Businesses are closing and pulling out. Only the green belt is thriving with armed warehouses growing weed. Pretty sad that the only positive condition there is the weather.
Counterpoint: I have been in the Bay Area for nearly all my life and never seen Oakland as culturally vibrant as it is right now.
Come down from the foothills and hang out in the coliseum area for a day. Real “vibrant”.
Culturally vibrant means people pooping on sidewalks. And robberies.
Bobby Bo – You’ve never been to Oakland. Stop believing right-wing propaganda.
Oldgfan – There are always problems in cities, including by the Coliseum, yes, where very few people live. Yes, there are some homeless encampments in the city (in every city). However, the majority of Oakland is beautiful and vibrant.
Stop waking up at 5am start hanging out on a Saturday night.
It kind of does since low rent=creative people.
Only in your rose colored glasses.
Take a drive down wood street under the freeway. There’s a whole vibrant third world pallet city. Just don’t be there after dark. Cops won’t even go in there.
Somebody mentioned street poop! We have a winner!
How’s about Snake Plissken?
When I was in Austin TX in 2019 there were homeless camps under every bridge. Locals said it was similar in other cities. This isn’t a problem of what political party you believe in, it’s an American problem.
Again, thank you for parroting every talking point you heard on Fox. Do you have any thoughts of your own, or should I just wait for Tucker to tell you what to say next?
Oldgfan is absolutely the NIMBY who blocks affordable housing or rezoning, then whines when the problems he created show up.
What do you want, old timer? You go out of your way to make sure only a handful of people have money, housing skyrockets, and when the tech bros aren’t happy with their profits, they lay everyone off, and boom, how do you plan on paying your $3500 monthly rent?
Maybe we should just ask these people to stop eating and breathing? Would that work for you? Ironic that the right wing hates these people, yet they demand every child be born who dollars to donuts will be the very people who need services in the first place.
@njbirds
You don’t know me. So can’t “absolutely” call me anything. FYI I’m not a voter, so block nothing. Not political as all politicians are crooks.
My backyard is a forest, but you go ahead and assume you know it all.
By the way, you make no sense.
njbirds if you’re referring to my comment I did not know politics had anything to do with supporting a baseball team. However, you’ve been on this site for many years and you’ve yet to have a worthwhile thought during that time. You live in one of the worst states in America. Stop talking like you know something.
I just sold a condo for well over $1 million and $200k more than asking price in Jack London Square area. Wages and real estate values are skyrocketing in Oakland. Orinda, the wealthiest small town in the nation is in the Oakland hills. Not sure where you worked, but it wasn’t in Oakland recently.
oldgfan: Total Losers and their legal weed. One of *the* stories of the century, thus far.
Try and go to a night game in Oakland, better take Sealteam with you. Worst area in MLB
SealTeam6 will only be needed this season. Next season you’ll need say malevolent things about Sacramento.
oldgfan: Total Lo***s and their legal w**d. One of *the* stories of the century, thus far.
??? Been there and done that. Never robed or even attacked. So Arnold Ziffel why are you making up things. I been to many other stadiums in America seen much worse. Even in KC they can’t have a parade in day light with people being killed.
I go every year at night. Usually with my wife. Went to the Giants and Padres series last season. NO problems.
Your huevos are the size of BB’s apparently.
BINGO. You nailed it.
The incredible value of the land underneath the Coliseum site.
Now that’s a plausible explanation.
Would you want a John Fisher owned team in your city?
Bay Area government arrogance.
THAT IS THE MOST BULLSHEET STATEMENT I HAVE READ ON THIS TOPIC.
Oakland was on 3rd base and ready to score with the Jack London Square New A’s SF Bay Waterfront New ballpark deal..
Oakland officials were putting a lot more cash, credit, tax breaks into that deal than Fisher is getting in Las Vegas.
THE JACK LONDON SQUARE DEAL DID NOT GO BECAUSE FISHER
DOES NOT HAVE THE CASH & CREDIT THAT HE PROMISED TO COME UP WITH AS HIS PART OF THE DEAL
CONCLUSION: FISHER WAS REJECTED FOR FINANCING HIS END OF THE OAKLAND DEAL, A MUCH LARGE DEAL THAN THE LAS VEGAS DEAL
AND, FISHER WAS ALWAYS NEGOTIATING IN “BAD FAITH” WITH OAKLAND OFFICIALS AND NEVER INTENDED TO COMPLETE THAT DEAL.
HIS “NEGOTIATIONS” WITH OAKLAND WERE MERELY A SMOKESCREEN AND “COVER STORY” TO TAKE TO MLB OWNERS MEETING TO SAY HE TRIED AND OAKLAND WOULD NOT DO THE DEAL.
HOWERVER, FISHER LIED.
OAKLAND HAD APPROVED EVERYTHING AND WAS READY TO GO.
THEN, AFTER ALL THAT WORK AND ALL THOSE APPROVALS.
FISHER CHANGED THE DEAL AND ASKED OAKLAND AND CA OFFICIALS FOR 100’S OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS MORE FROM THE CITY AND COUNTY AFTER THE DEAL WAS READY TO BE SIGNED IN OAKLAND
CAN YOU SAY “BAD FAITH” BY FISHER?!
Poor baby need a bottle?
It was Fisher that withdrew from the deal. Sportfanoooo has no idea what happened. Fisher wanted free land to build a business empire which he didn’t get.. Not the first time Fisher pulled out of a big deal on a business park.
False!
Oakland and SF Bay Area wants an MLB team with competent ownership that puts a competitive team on the field, is a “good corporate citizen”, spends money on players, does not “fire sale” its young star players every 3-4 years, spends money on marketing, advertising and promoting the A’s team, is a true partner and team advocate.
Fisher doesn’t do any of that and is not that guy.
Sportsfan0000 – That sounds like what you want, not the city.
Prov, The first part of that sentence is almost literally what Thao said. Sportsfan is paraphrasing her interview.
I don’t often agree with him, but he is correct on this one.
If Oakland wanted that they’d show up and watch. They haven’t. That means what you said isn’t true.
Oakland and the SF Bay Area very much want the A’s in Oakland and the SF Bay Area.
They just object to “shakedown” artists like Fisher claiming to have money, but refusing to spend it on their own private business and new business building..
Oakland and the SF Bay Area offered more than Las Vegas is offering.
The Jack London Square deal that Fisher walked away from was a proposed 12B deal
Fisher and MLB were also offered more scaled back deals in the 1-2B range including plan to build a New A’s stadium in the Coliseum parking lot and tear down the old Coliseum after the new stadium was built
The Las Vegas deal is a much smaller deal on a small lot on the strip
with no room for expansion or increase in future revenues.
Fisher could not qualify for the financing in those Oakland deals.
Will MLB have to step in and finance Fisher in LV?!
Banks are not running in to finance Fisher in LV either.
@SportsFan0000
Absolutely correct. Go back to the originally Howard Terminal plan, and Fisher claiming all costs would be net by private backing…
I guess it is easier to steal money from tax payers that to provide a viable product that people willingly pay for….
BS!
This is on Bud Selig, Manfred, Fisher and the SF Giants for sabotaging the A’s in the SF Bay Area.
Warriors Owner Joe Lacob offered to buy the A’s
and build a smaller project on Coliseum in the parking lots
and then tear down to existing Coliseum
like what the Mets did with Citi Field.
Fisher and Manfred nixed that deal for what reasons?!
When they move to Vegas, they should change their name to Aces.
Isn’t Aces to obvious? Quicksilvers?
Obvious is not always bad. In fact, I would argue that it rarely is bad.
Nashville’s team will be called the Music City Stars. That oozes obvious.
Nashville can be “The Hitmakers”, haha!
I was with you through the first clause.
mlbmusiccity.com/
It’s the Stars. They already have the unforms designed.
I think the idea is so they can keep “A’s” as the shortened version.
Then again, “A’s” isn’t that much shorter than “Aces.”
That will save some ink.
They aren’t going to change their name.
Fisher would if he gets enough money from it.
The Athletics didn’t change their name when moving from Philadelphia or Kansas City, why should they now?
Marketing. The owner has to decide whether keeping the old name or adopting a new one is more valuable. The name Athletics has a certain legacy effect that may appeal to some people. However, the value of that legacy may have been diminished in the last few years by the owner, team’s performance, bad publicity from the stadium disaster, etc.
The value of keeping the name has to be weighed against the value of a new name signifying a fresh start leaving behind all the negative baggage that may have accumulated with the old name. It is about branding and one has to decide whether the old brand carries more value or would a rebranding add more vale.
Of course, one factor is inertia. Not changing takes less energy than changing.
There’s already a Las Vegas Aces. But I like the cards/blackjack theme – how about the Las Vegas Busts? A homage to their roots and a nod to their new home.
The One Arm Bandits
Does Fisher need an amputation?
No but that s lang for Slot Machine
Las Vegas Dealers? Jackpots?
Sam Rothstein owns the Aces name. If you have problem with it talk to Nicky Santoro. He can meet you somewhere in the desert. And bring a shovel.
I’m thinking the Vegas Degenerative Gamblers (the DG’s) might be the way to go.
Should be Jokers.
Vegas DraftKings
The problem with that is it’s the name of their WNBA franchise
Taho will have as many Ls this year as the A’s
@JimmyTwoBags: TAHOE also has an E.
Good for Sacramento.
Is it though?
What a shame this whole ordeal had been, but I am surprised Fisher is passing on the RSN money.
I’m not at all surprised. He values pouting more than money, like all silver spooners.
I thought if he stayed in area he keeps the RSN $$$. Sackoftamatos doesn’t count ?
I am fairly certain leaving Oakland breaks the contract with NBC Sports California. So they’re free to renegotiate (and I’m sure they will), but I imagine it will be much lower.
Actually I’ve read that it’ll be pretty close to what they are getting now. NBC CA is having problems with their revenue stream as people leave cable.
It can’t be that much lower, or they would have accepted Oakland’s proposal.
Maybe Fisher just sees it as a sunk cost, and he’ll make up the difference with the 50% Coliseum stake.
If their revenue stream is depleting why would the A’s get a better deal? that makes no sense.
He has 50% regardless of whether the lease went through or not. Leaving Oakland meant he needed to renegotiate his TV deal. I don’t know how you’re considering that a “sunk cost”.
To Oakland, this is just lease money they’re not receiving because their mayor thought she had a lot of leverage. Turns out she had very little.
If NBC Sports decides to renegotiate a deal, it will be for less than 20% of the A’s current deal. That has been reported for months including by Maury Brown and Sports Business Journal.
Fisher can’t sell his 50% share unless the city of Oakland approves the sale. Unless he sells to AASEG, its doubtful they allow it to go through.
LMAO. Dave, HE, meaning john Fisher, your boss, cannot sell his share in the Colisuem site without Thao’s permission. He is stuck with that unless he sells to someone the city of Oakland approves. He gets NO income from that. Only equity.
The Coliseum JPA already has new soccer team tenants starting in 2025 that will be paying as much for 33 events as the A’s would have for 81 under the lease proposal from the city, and now the JPA is free to hold other events like concerts that you and your boss blocked from being held during baseball season. Plus, now with the A’s gone, the Roots/Soul will be able to build their soccer only stadium on the Malibu lot and have it ready for the 2028 season.
The JPA wins when the A’s leave. They had ALL the leverage.
Now you and your boss lose $200 million in TV revenue, have to spend $15-20 million to upgrade a AAA park, and have to play summer games in Sacramento where its 100+ for 40 days per year for the next 3 seasons.
Sunk cost in that the relationship between the A’s ownership and Oakland is so acrimonious that Fisher says to hell with the difference in RSN value, he’d rather take a small loss than a win on Oakland’s terms. Maybe sunk cost isn’t the right term; I’m no businessman.
Fisher’s loss will be $200 million over the next 3 years.
Sacramento IS NOT IN THE SF BAY AREA.
Playing A’s games in Sacramento breaks their TV contract
and forfeits 60M-70M per year in TV revenues
You keep making statements that are disproven by actual events. You’re living in a world where Fisher is leaving $70M/yr to avoid paying $20m/yr, which is nonsensical for a cheap and greedy man. The more rational explanation is that the A’s are taking a relatively small hit to their TV contract.
Oakland’s mayor also thought Fisher would lose all his TV money, so she had tons of leverage. That wasn’t true.
Dave, he is right. Why are you lying? You KNOW you are losing $67 million in annual TV revenue by moving to Sacramento.
They were trying to get him to sell his share in the colosseum which is being prepped as the site for a number of other sports franchises. The stadium is a 2 minute walk from BART and probably has way more earning potential compared to a short term TV contract.
Besides, there appears to be no penalty for completely slashing payroll, selling the franchise for parts, and moving to a minor league stadium. It will still be profitable in the interim.
Interesting. The city of Oakland’s offer to have the A’s continue in Oakland was a deal breaker. But they tried, right?!?! The bigger issue is the A’s local TV contract which was in jeopardy with a move outside of Oakland. That had to be resolved to the A’s satisfaction to allow them to go to Sacramento for three years.
Not sure the MLBPA will be signing off on three-four seasons for its players in Sacramento, either.
MLBPA has no say in the matter.
The union can nix any facility. They already said no to the AAA ballpark in Las Vegas.
You sure are going to also hear about visiting teams complain about the inadequate facilities. A’s should just use the Field of Dreams and pay for a park use permit and 500 lawn chairs.
Let’s face it Fisher want to spend the least amount of money he can. By the end of the year Fisher will trade anyone making above minimum wage. A real commish wouldn’t allow a owner to make a mockery of baseball.
Yes, MLB and the Players can refuse to play in a substandard facility in Sacramento.
A’s and Fisher are walking away from 60-70M per year in TV revenues
by going to Sacramento which is not in the SF Bay Area.
A’s rights in Sacramento are worth maybe 10M per year.
( a loss of 60M per year).
“Bad Blood” between Oakland officials and Fisher
since Fisher/Manfred have lied to Oakland officials, repeatedly.
It’ll be less, but not that much less. Considering how cheap Fisher is, it won’t be a problem for him.
The Sacramento market is half the size of the Bay Area. Plus, they have not shown to be baseball fans in the area. The estimates are for a deal around 20% of the current deal, so around $13-14 million per year. Considering the fact that the A’s are moving again in 3 years, even that is not a certainty.
Sutter Health Field is in West Sacramento, not Sacramento. It’s in Yolo County.
Now they’re your problem Sac. When LV falls through good luck
Has anyone been to a game there? Is it a nicer place? We know they won’t fill the stands either way.
If A’s fan still exist, I do like the timing window for them. I would think the Astros and Rangers championship window would be closing or already closed and Mike Trout would be retired or severely in production decline, opening up a nice window to contend their first year in Vegas.
I’ve been to half a dozen games at Sutter Health Park, and it’s a nice AAA ball field. Similar to other relatively new AAA fields I’ve been to in Omaha and Columbus.
It’s a Cracker Jack box compared to the Coliseum.
True, but you could add 15,000 seats past the outfield fence in an offseason.
Which would turn one of the most beautiful minor league ballparks with a great outfield view into an ugly monstrosity, but bringing a Mount Davis to Sacramento to ruin it long after they’re gone would be just like the A’s.
What do you think of the pyramid that you can see from the park? Pretty cool.
Summer day games will be heck.
Traffic is a nightmare, concessions are terrible and overpriced, there’s no chance of walking to anything after them game and during the summer game temperatures are in the 90s at 7PM. I don’t think MLBPA is going to sign off on this. The lights are terrible and the mosquitoes are a terror. It’s cheaper to drive from Sacramento and go to an A’s game in Oakland than attend a Rivercats game in Sacramento. The Rivercats saying is; minor league baseball at major league prices.
90 degrees is very comfortable here so the night games will be fine. There will, however, be a few day games that will be really hot. When I moved here from the Midwest people asked me about the weather and I said you can subtract at least 10 degrees from the temperature to get a sense of how it feels, but 110 is 110 and having to play in the sun on those days will be really uncomfortable.
Also, I don’t think the MLBPA has a say in this.
The MLBPA definitely has a say. The park is on the river, hence the name RiverCats, and humidity can be an issue. Especially in the summer.
Why are you driving? I live an hour east of Sacramento and even I take light rail to the games.
I’ve been to games where the temp was 107 at game start and it was fine sitting still in the shade in the dry heat. Certainly better than those humid east coast teams in the summer and cools real quick at sunset. Never noticed a mosquito or any issues with the lights. They do charge a ton for the tickets, I’ll give you that one — I’ve noticed even some Giants tickets are cheaper than the cheapest River Cats non-seat lawn ticket.
Sutter Health Park is decent by AAA standards. Its usually half empty so you can get good seats all the time, but it costs as much to go to a game there as most MLB ballparks. More than the Coliseum. Concessions are outrageous. More than at Petco Park.
Have only been to games there in April and August. The weather was cool and nice in April and hotter than hades in August. 110 and 111 the two days we were there. The park is next to a river, so humidity and mosquitos seem like they could be a problem at times.
“the River Cats could play home games across multiple sites, including the Coliseum”
lol that would be a hilarious outcome
Seems a bit backwards.. and the fact that it’s the Giants affiliate twists the knife a bit more.
Not really considering the ball park are getting upgrades without the Giants having to do anything LOL
What would really be hilarious is if the River Cats outdrew the A’s in the Coliseum.
I could see protestors really buying up seats in that situation as a way to stick it to Fisher.
They might, Giants fans probably wouldn’t mind seeing what their triple AAA team is up to.
They will out draw the athletics
How can it be better to move to a temporary stadium for 3 years rather than work it out with Oakland? Seems like a logistical nightmare.
Oklahoma City parlayed their hosting a temporary team into getting a permanent one. As much as I despise the A’s owner, this is better than dealing with the Oakland government and remaining in the open air toilet known as the Coliseum.
Rickey Henderson lifted up that base in that open air toilet.
And Jackie Robinson played at the Polo Grounds. What’s your point?
Filling a Basketball arena 40 times per year is not even close to as difficult as filling a Baseball stadium 81 times per year. Lets see if the Sacramento area embraces the A’s AAAA team enough to even be remotely considered
From what I have read, the City of Oakland was asking for the moon in their negotiations for a 3 year ext. Guess ownership of the A’s made the right move and bailed. Now the city gets nothing. Now turn the stadium into a homeless camp!
I was assured that the A’s were going to Oakland’s city council “with their hat in hand” and the A’s had no leverage because of the TV deal! Somehow Oakland’s shrewd political leadership fumbled. This is odd because Oakland rarely messes up negotiations with sports franchises.
City and County HAD ALL THE LEVERAGE.
A’s Fisher and Manfred had zero leverage
since they have been CAUGHT RED HANDED IN MULTIPLE LIES, MULTIPLE BAD FAITH NEGOTIATIONS WITH OAKLAND OFFICIALS,
“BAD BLOOD” BETWEEN FISHER, MANFRED AND OAKLAND OFFICIALS ENOUGH TO LEAVE 60-70M
IN FORFEITED TV REVENUES ON THE TABLE?!?!
…because Sacramento isn’t demanding $60-100MM a year to play at their ballpark?
The A’s were paying like $2MM a year in lease to Oakland. MLB teams pay usually pay something around $1-5MM a year in lease agreements.
Oakland was demanding 50-100x market rate for the lease.
Oakland was in the “drivers seat”. It had spent many millions on the Coliseum over the years to keep Fisher happy.
Fisher, consistently, did not hold up his end of the deal,
Oakland has soccer, rugby and other teams that play at the Coliseum that actually pay, cooperate and are “good corporate citizens”..
They were in the drivers seat, were they? I suppose they were the limo driver.
Problem is they set their price like they were the only limo service in town because they were angry. Now they get nothing.
Oakland and Alameda County actually gets more money from Soccer, Rugby, Concerts, Special events
than it gets from the A’s and Manfred.
The stadium lease deal was a “money loser” for the City and County officials and a yearly subsidy of the A’s, a private business, every year.
Once Fisher, Manfred, MLB “showed their cards”, exposed their “bad faith” in negotiations, were caught in multiple lies and bad faith negotiations, Oakland and Alameda county had zero incentives and and zero reasons to continue to subsidize the A’s and make it easier to move to LV.
Yes but the problem is that most teams create multiplier effects that raise tax revenue in the surrounding areas. The Coliseum, because of lack of investment in the area (more the city of Oakland’s fault than anyone’s) doesn’t create these same multiplier effects. And when the team stinks it’s like a black hole (which is ironic because it used to be called the Black Hole).
The A’s are a total $hit$how! Fisher needs to sell the team. As a fan who lost the Supersonics to a shyster owner, I truly feel for A’s fans.
I bet the River Cats outdraw the A’s by 20%!
Whatcha wanna bet, crybaby?
Scrub
You should have lobbied for the new stadium project to actually get some funding instead of boycotting the A’s games to really “show ’em”
Poll:
How many times will the players outnumber the fans at home games between now and the end of the Coliseum experience?
Zero
sell the team
SELL
As an A’s fan living in Sacramento, I still won’t watch until Fisher sells
merkzy, are you Eric The Midget?
2 hours from me. Good I guess if I want to see my Dodgers.
Well, A’s ownership gave up on Oakland long time ago. Such a waste of time and discouraging to their fans whatever the number. I’m sure Fisher is saying viva Sacramento and Las Vegas all together…
“A’s players voiced concerns to the Chronicle about… the lights at a Triple-A stadium”
The lights in Buffalo were upgraded already for the Blue Jays. JUST SAYIN’. (coughBuffaloAthleticscough)
Blackburn should fit just right in a AAA stadium.
unknowneric – nice Dano.
They’re already selling out ads for the massive tarps they’ll need to put over sections of seats in the new stadium to condense crowds.
No context comparing the situation at Sutter Health Park to TD Ballpark, Steve?
As someone who was at TD Ballpark for the series against Boston in May of 2021, the setup for those games was interesting. The clubhouses had to be redone, temporary lighting installed, and remote cameras added. All to play games in front of more cardboard cutouts than people.
TD Ballpark is quite intimate, so the fan experience is amazing as you are so close to the action. As a business case, the fan spending barely moved the needle. IIRC, ticket sales were less than 2500 in a stadium that can seat about 7500 (8500 with SRO). The TV revenue is what mattered. It will be interesting to see what TV deal the As can wrangle.
Oakland Coliseum (1966) and Kaufman Stadium (1973). No need for major league baseball in these communities. Shame they cannot put a team in Manhattan. Charlotte might be an option at some point.
Put a team in Manhattan, KS?? Surely not Manhattan, NY.
Brooklyn would be top-10 in largest US cities if it were independent of NYC. It has the history, the population and the real estate – which should be considered more so than Manhattan. Manhattan is 13 miles long and 2 miles wide with some of the most expensive real estate (per square mile) in the world. You’ll be able to bring peace in the Middle East before building a stadium in Manhattan.
Agree, and I live here. Rudy, when he was Mayor, used to talk about a stadium over where the Javits Center is now. Bronx Bombers out to be in The Bronx. It’s a nice stadium (a little cold, and lacking in historical glory) and there’s plenty of mass transit to it, if you don’d mind the sardine approach for a few minutes.
Nothing wrong with the K…
I was at that stadium last year, and while I really liked the stadium experience, it’s in the middle of nowhere. The new plans for a downtown KC stadium make sense to this fan that wouldn’t be paying taxes to build it. Location, location, location.
Even if the Royals do need a new stadium, there’s no reason for them to leave Kansas City.
Sure seems like they are messing this all up at every single step. Failed franchise all due to the owner. Moving to Vegas wont turn things around.
Messy.
I hope NBC Sports simply drops the A’s or makes the deal terrible to the point that Fisher steps back and undoes Sacramento and has to refigure.
The A’s consistently set a plan w/o having the details in place, which gives all the negotiating power to other parties.
The way the A’s negotiate is to put out a lot of alternatives to make it look like they have all the cards, then they jump and play their card before knowing what everyone else has, and then they are at the mercy of everyone else while looking inept.
I expect this announcement will be another inept looking moment for a terribly run franchise (and my favorite team…at least it was for 30+ years).
They should. Or pay way less. Nobody will be watching
If the A’s had any long-term vision at all, they would have chosen Salt Lake City. Vegas is going to be SLC’s home MLB team in 2028 (no guarantee they get expansion), and they could have started building their Nevada/Utah fanbase.
I’m guessing NBC CA is so desperate to not have to give the entire $70M (if they would have stayed in OAK) that they are still giving them a sweet deal in Sacramento (maybe $35M), which I’m sure was the biggest reason the A’s rejected OAK’s latest proposal.
A’s are still going to get boycotted in Sacramento and the local sports radio station 1140 KTHK is against all this because they almost lost the Kings
Finally, if they A’s have to share a clubhouse with a AAA team and the stadium is branded for the Rivercats, that would be rediculous
The only way to salvage this is:
– Have the Rivercats play elsewhere
– Brand Sutter Health Park for the A’s
– Play a spring training game in SLC (vs the Bees (A’s vs Bees)) to remind SLC they have a new home team in Vegas
Once the A’s leave Oakland, there is no desperation on behalf of NBC Sports California. The A’s break contract.
Exactly. NBC can pretty much offer $1 million for the rights and would also have a breach of contract claim if the A’s go hunting for a better deal from Amazon or someone like that.
All of which are Easier Said Than Done.
You don’t break a naming-rights contract or a TV contract just to please mouth-breathing fanboys.
SLC can’t support an MLB team. Way too low of a population/density.
I lived in SLC for 13 years. People barely understand baseball, let alone care to watch. They aren’t going to care about a team in Vegas
The Bees outdrew the Rivercats by a large margin. The Amarillo Sod Poodles outdrew the Rivercats too.
Last person to leave the Bay Area, turn out the lights please.
There are 8 million people here and real estate prices are through the roof, what are you talking about?
Artificially through the roof. It’s a massive real estate and tax scam.
The owners should band together and drive Fisher out of their fraternity.
Is anybody else disgusted by the Giants banning kids from the ballpark?
> the Giants banning kids from the ballpark
You know that was an April Fool’s Day joke, right?
I think that was an April Fool’s joke? I Googled it and only found 2 articles about it, both dated April 1.
HAHA who would ban kids from watching baseball. You got April Fooled!
You couldn’t fool your mother on the foolingest day of your life if you had an electrified fooling machine.
I never claimed to fool anyone but good response smh.
But Clearly hogans goat got fooled by the article that came out on 4/1 about the Giants banning kids from their stadium, because they were disgusted by it.
The owners are absolutely on board with Fisher and they’re all thanking him. Him moving the team paves the way for them to get new stadiums in the future.
One little acknowledged fact, in the 55 years the A’s were in Oakland they drew more than 2 million just once. Reasons could be a lousy stadium, teams have been on a great lousy cycle, a person puts their life at risk driving to a night game there, and traffic is ridiculous there. I am sure more reasons exist.
@Arnold Ziffel – That’s easy to blow out of the water with 30 seconds of work.
baseball-reference.com/teams/OAK/index.shtml
You keep repeating that lie. So I will keep repeating the facts.
2,003,628
2,109,118
2,201,516
2,216,596
2,169,811
2,133,277
2,035,025
2,494,160
2,713,493
2,900,217
2,667,225
2,287,335
I will let you look up the years. Hint, only one of those is since Fisher took over the team.
The River Cats sold 388K tickets in 2023, an average of about 5,200 per game. That sounds close to the A’s typical attendance, so the team should feel right at home.
Okay, the A’s should do better than that in a new town, especially when a good draw like the Yankees, Red Sox or Cubs come to Sacramento. Though the team might try to put games like that in a bigger stadium, like San Francisco’s. I get the feeling that Sacramento will only get the run-of-the-mill games, while the better draws are scheduled elsewhere.
We’ll see. The entire relocation has been a long strange trip.
Perhaps for the best. The two sides, Oakland, and Ownership, clearly didn’t have any trust between them and any deal they made would probably end up being the cause of litigation afterwards. As to the players’ concerns about the quality of the facilities, if Fisher can’t get someone else to pay for it, the players will just have to cope. MLB is probably happy with this, because Fisher’s open greed makes it harder to convince other cities and states to pony up. Could the votes in KC have been affected by the negotiations in Oakland?
lol I know I’m a dreamer but imagine a world where a World Series game is played in a minor league ballpark in Sacramento. That would be goofy
Or even a playoff game
Haha.. that would be an interesting scenario!
I think they would have the playoff game in Anaheim . Anaheim was mentioned 2 weeks sgo as a possibility of the A’s playing games there during regular season
Buccos. I finally have something to root for this year. (I’m an Angels fan) That would be awesome for Manfred, wouldn’t it?
I read that if they stayed in the area and sac town was one the locations they would still get rsn payola
How does it workout with the Giants AAA team there?
Where will AAA giants play? 10000 capacity lol still wont fill up
Will they be called sacramento A’s? What a mess of a franchise. Oakland is kind of cursed. Warriors left, raiders left, athletics…
Athletics …is more representative of the franchise’s mobility than their players’ ability …at the moment
Please boycott the GAP. It’s how Nepotism baby John Fisher made his money
The A’s have no fans. If the few fans they have boycotted GAP, would anyone even know about it?
Is that why the A’s set regular season and playoffs records for attendance at individual games under a prior ownership group?!
When the A’s had competent, well funded ownership who were successful business persons, they thrived and made money in Oakland and drew large crowds.
When the A’s had COMPLETELY INCOMPETENT, UNDERFUNDED OWNERSHIP THAT REFUSED TO SPEND MONEY ON PLAYERS, STADIUM UPKEEP, HAD FIRE SALES AS SOON AS THEIR YOUNG FARM PLAYERS BECAME STARS,
THEN THOSE INCOMPETENT OWNERS LIKE FISHER DID NOT GET LOCAL SUPPORT.
That’s BS! The A’s have a ton of fans that packed the stadium and set attendance records for years in the late 80’s and early 90’s. After the strike 1994, they suffered a massive attendance loss, as did everyone else and then Al Davis and the Raiders ruined what was once a beautiful ballpark with his disgusting Mt. Davis wall. Then Beane played Moneyball, which was cute at first and then Fisher came in and the rest is painful
The city of Oakland would have blown the revenue on something ridiculous anyway. The city is in serious trouble and we know why
Do we?
Did we hear what the team will call itself? Oakland A’s, Sacramento A’s, Las Yegas A’s? Or will it be Fisher’s Barnstorming Traveling Circus?
Just looked at the picture of the park on Wikipedia. It looks like a pleasant minor league stadium. It sure looks better than that dump in Oakland, though much smaller, of course. The games will probably look better on TV, with a fuller park instead of the embarrassing acres of empty seats in the Oakland dump.
I actually think that the new location will bring more people to the stadium. People in the Central Valley would show up for Sacramento games vs traveling to see games in Oakland. Oakland shot themselves in the head
I believe you might see sell outs for most of the games. And more season tickets
Always. Yup you are all over it. Even bay area people will make the trek. Safer in Sac.
A’s offense is going to rake.
Left field: 330 feet (101 m)
Center field: 403 feet (123 m)
Right field: 325 feet (99 m)
And almost no foul territory.
The A’s need some batters to know how to play before they rake. It is hard to find anyone on the team that if they play on another team, they will be in AA.
Also, Fisher need to buy some players, because if they send this team to Vegas, he will have no fans showing up.
How long is it going to take for MLB to realize they need this guy(Fisher) gone. Hes truly embarassing the sport of baseball and will continue to do so, can anyone say hillbilly billionaire
Why would MLB owners view this as anything other than a win? Political leadership in other MLB cities surely noticed what happened with Oakland’s hostile city council and mayor.
Hahahahahah. Hostile in what way?
Did you see their demands for a 3 year lease extension? Keeping the team colors, name, exclusive negotiations for MLB expansion, and a $97m exit fee?
Also, see the vote regarding the KC stadium that happened in the past few days.
Dave, why would the MLB owners view this as a win when its taking money out of all of their pockets? Most of all out of Fisher’s pocket.
In what way was Oakland hostile?
Haters gonna hate, but the A’s are about to sell out every game in Sacramento the next 3 years and get more attendance than they would in the slums of Oakland. So many die hard baseball fans in this area + tons of ppl moved from the Bay Area up this way over the past 10 years. This is part of the problem for the Giants too. Giants attendance is down and a lot of their core fan base from the 3 WS is no longer attending games as regularly as they used to, probably in part because they live near Sacramento now.
I am an SF Giants die hard fan but I’ll be a season ticket holder for the A’s next year. Will also keep my tix for SF but I only go to a handful of games anyways.
Agreed. A’s need to move. I also think MLB needs to start moving the Marlins, White Sox, Pirates, Rays & Rockies.
Why on Earth would the Rockies be moved? They averaged over 32000 fans a game for a terrible team. You should never be in charge
Amen Barry. All so true
They’re going to be playing in front of an excited fanbase. The players won’t have to listen to “Sell!” chants at every home game.
With that BAD ATTITUDE, prior A’s Ownership should have let the Giants move to Tampa in the 1990’s
instead of helping the Giants stay in SF and thrive.
Giants Owners are a bunch of backstabbers.
I will never buy another Giants ticket, hat, shirt or anything.
@SportsFan0000
Weren’t the Giants close to moving to Toronto in the 70s? That would have been interesting. Toronto Giants.
Bring back the crab mascot
Oakland’s government has no sense of reality. Asking between $20 and $35 million a year for rent on the Coliseum? HAHAHA, right.
I experienced their lunacy first hand on an apartment they were trying to get built near Jack London Park. They wanted the tenants to park in a deck that they controlled and we found out that dozens of cars were getting smashed into every night. We asked what was going to be done to fix that and the answer was crickets.
The city of Oakland richly deserves having all of its business and community icons flee that rat dump. Keep electing the same clowns and maybe things will change. Or not.
When their options are a AAA stadium in Sac, and already have one foot out the door and their plans are delayed? Yeah, make em pay a ton. If they go to Sac, whatever. No one goes to the games anyways.
Oakland’s political leadership salted the earth with that $97m “termination fee” proposal. No way the A’s were going to pay an exorbitant lease to play in front of a hostile fanbase.
How appealing does Oakland look for MLB expansion? I’d love to be in the room for that sales pitch.
Yep. Typical MLB leases are under $5MM. The arrogance of Bay Area governments knows no bounds. They can enjoy their “$0” lease agreement now. Wonder how the taxpayers are going to enjoy the tax hike?
The city did not make money on the prior lease, it was a net giveaway.
Oakland’s sales tax is 10.25%. The city made millions per year in sales taxes. Now $0 for 2025+ Athletics events.
Show how little you know about the A’s, Fisher, finance and economics.
The A’s had a rent subsidized deal in Oakland that was a money loser for the City and County.
They were going to be charged “market rates” if they were openly moving to Las Vegas.
Why would Oakland help the A’s move to LV?!
How much does the City and County pay for police, fire, infrastructure around and in the stadium?!
The A’s, Fisher, Manfred are the big financial losers here
since they forfeit their 60-70M TV deal PER YEAR if they play in Sacramento which is not in the SF Bay Area.
SF Giants who only play 81 games in SF a year have refused
to cooperate and let the A’s play in Oracle park?!
Oakland’s maintenance budget for the stadium was $1MM.
The Athletics lease was $1.25-1.75MM. The city generated it’s revenue from sales tax. Have a nice day.
You are funny. The typical MLB lease is $11 million- $15 million and the teams actually pay for maintaining the park.
Says the guy who lives 3000 miles away in the slums of NY?!
All of the crap you are talking about happens in every major US city. Should the Cardinals flee St. Louis?
sports.yahoo.com/u-cities-highest-murder-rates-162…
The Rams left LA.
Took as much money as they could from St. Louis and Missouri
then went back to LA?!
The Raiders left Oakland, went to LA, went back to Oakland,
destroyed the baseball character of the Coliseum
with the new Davis seats in OF then went to LV?!
IT IS ALL ABOUT GREED AND GET AS MUCH TAXPAYERS CORPORATE WELFARE AS POSSIBLE.
IT WAS NEVER ABOUT ECONOMIC VIABILITY.
How is $19.4 million they asked for on the lease $20-35 million?
What a crock about condos near Jack London Square. I had a condo right of 3rd and Washington for years. Just sold it for more than $1 million and way over asking price because that area is HOT real estate.
What a cluster F. This ownership has done everything on the cheap for years and the poor fans are left with a shoddy team and now AAA field.
MLB should step in “for the good of the game” and resolve this mess..
And by NO means should should MLB ever consider Oakland for any expansion franchise. Just my opinion.
A’s should have been in San Jose years ago.
But they gave up the rights to the Giants who selfishly will not give it back. If San Jose was available none of these shenanigans would be going on today.
Blame A’s ownership for being dumb enough to be nice to the Giants years ago when they were looking to move themselves. And I hold the Giants just as accountable for this whole debacle