Nov 173 min read

Oakland A's Strikeout

by Nirupama Shivakumar and Andrew Xie Nov 15, 2024

Sports teams have the “striking” ability to unify, connect and create bonds among fans and within cities. On Sept. 26th, Oakland Athletics (A’s) fans unified one last time behind the team in a win over the Texas Rangers, soaking up every final minute in the Oakland Coliseum. The game marked the end of a 56-year-old connection between the A’s to the city and its fans, as one of Major League Baseball’s most successful franchises is set to leave the city of Oakland and its dedicated fanbase. Beginning in 2025, the A’s will play at the Sutter Health Park in Sacramento, where they will play until permanently moving to Las Vegas in 2028.

This marks the third instance in the past five years that Oakland has lost a major league sports franchise. Two prominent teams from Oakland—The Golden State Warriors and the Raiders—recently moved, with the Warriors relocating to San Francisco in 2019 and the Raiders to Las Vegas in 2020, where they both saw revenue increases.

“I’m disappointed by the recent trend of Oakland teams relocating, as the city has a long-standing connection to its sports teams. These moves feel disheartening to me and countless other fans, as they take away the cherished memories we’ve shared watching and supporting them.,” stated Freshman Lucas Sutijono.

The Oakland Coliseum—the home of the A’s—has become a shell of its former self. Its deteriorating condition is why the team’s owner—John Fisher—began looking to build a new stadium for the A’s soon after he bought the team in 2005. The A’s originally proposed to build a new waterfront ballpark in 2018, moving away from the degraded Oakland Coliseum. The proposed 35,000-seat ballpark, known as the Howard Terminal project, would have come with other developments including a 400-room hotel, office spaces, and 3,000 units of affordable housing, benefiting the Oakland community.

But when the plans for Howard Terminal were reportedly impacted due to Covid, the A’s began exploring the option of relocating entirely. But relocation plans fell in limbo by late 2022 when Fisher missed the deadline to finalize the stadium plan in Oakland, prompting him to switch lanes and relocate the team to Las Vegas.

For the past 18 months, A’s fans have expressed their anger and shock towards the move. The concession stands at the stadium are mostly shuttered, and the stadium stands silent without the cheers of their loyal fans. Criticism towards the team’s owner is all too familiar: fans vilified Fisher for capping the team’s salary to one of the lowest in the league, trading away some of their most talented players and raising season ticket prices. Fans have also tried to reverse boycott the team on multiple occasions. Still, the most significant example came in June 2023, when fans piled into the Oakland Coliseum to protest the proposed move to Las Vegas, chanting "Sell the team!" and "Stay in Oakland!"

Walter J Haas—whose family owned the A’s from 1980 to 1985 during the team’s greatest successes in the Bay, winning a World Series title while setting a franchise attendance record—calls Fisher’s move “frankly unforgivable”.

But Fisher was unfazed, taking the Las Vegas government stadium funding which amounts to $300 million less than what Oakland set aside.

The move to Las Vegas was largely due to economic considerations. Considering that San Francisco and Las Vegas are much bigger cities than Oakland, the team’s management saw more opportunities, especially comparing the profits of other teams: San Francisco’s 49ers and Las Vegas’s Raiders raked in — 622 million and 780 million after the 2023 season respectively—compared to the A’s $240 million, .

“It's unlikely that another major sports team will establish itself in Oakland, given its comparatively smaller market size alongside major U.S. cities like San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. Larger cities tend to be more economically advantageous for teams, attracting more sponsorship, revenue, and fan engagement, making them more appealing relocation destinations than Oakland.,” Junior Raahil Sengupta said.

The loss is devastating for Oakland, and although teams want to stay loyal to their fan base, many other factors come to play such as affordability, effectiveness, and considering the future of the team and the kind of opportunities it will bring to the city.

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