The A’s Say Goodbye to Oakland

After 55 years, the Oakland Athletics have finally called it quits and are relocating to Las Vegas. An organization that is famous for their depiction in movies such as Moneyball and for winning nine World Series Championships, making the jump to Sin City. It is hard to argue that this change is not unwarranted; years of terrible play, a miserly run organization, a disgusting stadium, and less than desirable surrounding area have finally been enough for the lowly Athletics to leave. Hopes are high for baseball fans that maybe a new setting and new money will help rejuvenate this once great team. 

The situation in Oakland has gotten so bad that there is at the time of writing this, an actual possum is living in the visitor’s broadcast booth at the disintegrating Oakland Coliseum, now called RingCentral Coliseum. That wasn’t made up. The gargantuan 56,782 capacity stadium consistently ranks lowest or in the bottom two of stadiums in baseball. It is the only stadium left that was meant to accommodate multiple sports as the Oakland Raiders used to play on the field before jumping ship to Las Vegas as well. There have been cases of sewage falling out of the stadium onto fans and feral animals living inside the stadium. The situation doesn’t get any better outside of the stadium. The surrounding area of the 50 year old stadium has also seen better days. As sports blogger Stadium Dude wrote about the stadium, “There’s nothing of note around it, and it gets seedy in a hurry meaning you really don’t want to be wandering too far on foot at night.”

Even though the A’s are just leaving Oakland now, fans of the A’s left the A’s a long time ago. Around the MLB there are teams like the Red Sox, Dodgers, Cubs, and Cardinals that regularly sell out games. The last time the Athletics did this was in 2019. Brent Phillips, outfielder for the Angels, put it best when describing his experience at the Coliseum last season, “I heard a pin drop.” 

Oakland is averaging a putry 11,025 fans per game, but that number will shrink lower as the season wears on. On April 5th, in just the Athletic’s fifth game of the season, they drew a whooping 3,407 fans for a game against the Guardians. For some context, on the same night, the Athletics Triple-A affiliate the Las Vegas Aviators had 6,950 fans in attendance, more than double that of the Athletics. 

For those wondering why no one wants to see the Athletics play, look no further than the dreadful team management threw together for this season. The Athletics started the season off to a hot 4-18 start. This puts them on pace to go 29-133 for the season, a mark that would make them the third worst team in MLB history alongside two teams from 1890 and 1899. The reason for the Athletics dismal performance is mainly because the management refuses to invest in bringing in new talent for the team. The Athletics have a payroll of only about $50 million for the 2023 season. Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer are both making a little over $43 million each for this season alone. One player making almost as much as an entire team.

The most mind numbing part about this whole situation for Athletics fans is that the Athletics could have actually been a very good team. The Athletics are known for churning out talented players and have had one of the best farm systems for decades. Being the small market team that they are, they use the talent they have and right as that player’s contract is due to expire, they send them off to a more competitive team. The A’s were competitive as recently as making brief postseason appearances in 2018, 2019, and 2020 before losing 100 games in 2022 and likely the same in 2023.

After years of rumors and speculation, the Athletics recently purchased land near the Las Vegas Strip. According to the A’s President Dave Kaval in the Las Vegas Review Journal, the 46 acre plot of land is set to hold, “A 35,000-seater stadium, with a partially retractable roof, will cost about US$1.5 billion to build on the site.” 

Late last year there were hopes for a new stadium to be built in Oakland and the Athletics to stay. The entire building project that included a new stadium, housing, and retail would cost about $12 billion according to The Mercury News. Plans seemed to be slowly moving in the right direction. These eventually fell through in a process Oakland mayor Sheng Thao said, “It is clear to me that the A’s have no intention of staying in Oakland and have simply been using this process to try to extract a better deal out of Las Vegas.” Not everyone involved seemed to see the situation this way, as MLB commissioner Rob Manfred saw the city of Oakland as taking the blame. “We have shown an unbelievable commitment to the fans in Oakland by exhausting every possible opportunity to try to get something done in Oakland,” he added. “Unfortunately, the government doesn’t seem to have the will to get it done.”

The Athletics follow the Raiders and the Warriors who both decided to leave town in recent years in search of better cities. Even though the Warriors only switched to across the Bay, Oakland will now be left without any major sports teams in 2027 when the Las Vegas stadium is set to be completed. It is never a good day for a city when they lose a major source of revenue, but for the hapless Athletics, this could prove to be a monumental shift in the future of the team. The Raiders and Golden Knights have proved that professional sports teams can do quite well in Las Vegas and the Athletics already have their Triple A team stationed in Las Vegas. This move will hopefully help both the Athletics organization and baseball as a whole, bringing new life to a sport in need of rejuvenation and a much needed shift from one of the biggest dark spots in baseball.