ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Major League Baseball owners approved the move of the Oakland Athletics to Las Vegas in a unanimous vote Thursday.
Owner John Fisher intends to move the team to a new stadium in the city before the 2028 season. It’s not yet clear where the A’s will play in the 2025-27 season. The team’s current stadium lease at the Oakland Coliseum expires after next season. Possibilities include a stint at the Coliseum in Oakland or perhaps a move to a Triple-A stadium in Sacramento, people briefed on the talks said. However, as of Thursday, the matter has not yet been decided and there is no indication that a decision is imminent.
The A’s plan to build a 33,000-seat stadium in Las Vegas for an estimated $1.5 billion, with the team expected to raise about $1 billion of that sum. The approval from baseball’s owners has been long-awaited and brings the A’s one step closer to making the move a reality, which is likely to happen eventually. But the team’s departure from Oakland is not yet complete.
Nevada lawmakers and the governor have approved $380 million in funding, but a political action committee backed by teachers in the state is trying to get the funding through a public vote next November. If this happens and the public subsequently votes against providing the money, the move could at least be delayed.
The availability of public money is a major incentive for owners and has persuaded Fisher to build a stadium outside Oakland, despite protests from the city’s mayor that similar financing could be arranged.
“We are disappointed with the outcome of this vote,” Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao said in a statement. “But we don’t see this as the end of the road. We all know that there is still a long way to go before shovels get into the ground and that this step involves a number of unresolved issues.”
Thao also said she has “made it clear” to MLB commissioner Rob Manfred that “the A’s branding and name should remain in Oakland” and that the city will pursue opportunities to expand the team. “Baseball has a home in Oakland, even if the A’s ownership moves,” she said.
Las Vegas would be the smallest media market for baseball. Before the owners’ meeting, MLB prepared a report examining the economics of the move. A person briefed on the report, who was not authorized to speak publicly this week, called the viability of Las Vegas “doubtful,” especially because the A’s’ success would depend heavily on the tourists who visit them. But what if tourists aren’t as interested in baseball games as hoped?
“Nobody knows what kind of payroll they can sustain — it all depends on where it all goes,” the person said.
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The exact revenue figures in the report and the underlying assumptions MLB used to calculate those numbers are not known. In Las Vegas, the team would likely be a constant recipient of revenue-sharing money from other team owners. However, the league predicts that local revenues will be higher in Las Vegas than they have been in Oakland in recent years, meaning the A’s would ultimately need less support than they currently receive.
Ultimately, Fisher and MLB believed they had exhausted their options in Oakland after years of trying to secure stadium deals. Thao and Manfred publicly disagreed about how negotiations between the A’s, MLB and the city unfolded.
“I know this is a terrible day for the fans in Oakland. I understand that,” Manfred said at a press conference on Thursday. “That’s why our policy has always been to do everything humanly possible to avoid relocation, and I firmly believe we did that in this case.”
Fisher said the A’s “made every effort and did everything we could” in Oakland to find a solution, adding, “It’s only in the last few years that we’ve started to turn our attention to another market.” On his way out of the Loews Hotel, Fisher declined an interview request from The Athletic.
If the A’s current stadium lease expires after next season, they could stay in their current home, the Oakland Coliseum – but that would require a deal with the city. Thao laid out terms that would make a deal viable for the city, including that the A’s leave the team name behind so another franchise could one day use it there again.
A game in Sacramento at a minor league stadium is also said to be an option. They have an incentive to stay in the Bay Area because if they leave, their current TV contract would likely be in jeopardy – as would the revenue that comes with it. There is probably a new TV contract waiting in Las Vegas, but probably not until the new stadium opens.
“We are examining various alternatives (for 2025 to 2027), including a temporary stay in the Colosseum for the remaining years,” Manfred said on Thursday.
Manfred has long said that the MLB could grow from 30 to 32 teams if the A’s and Tampa Bay Rays find new homes. The expansion comes with a windfall for the current owners: The league is charging the ownership group that gets a new franchise a hefty fee, expected to be in the billions. All owners therefore had some incentive to move forward with the A’s stadium process.
Baseball’s owners are also unlikely to stand in the way if one of them has gotten to the point of being promised $380 million in public money in a lawsuit. All owners seek public funding for stadiums, and the more one receives, the more another may potentially receive later.
On Tuesday, the first day of the owners’ meeting, a plane flew over Arlington, Texas, with a banner urging the A’s to stay in Oakland. The flight was arranged by a member of a group of three A’s fans who were hanging around the Loews Hotel that day: Jorge Leon.
Leon and his fans Jared Isham and Gabriel Cullen finally met with Fisher in the lobby on Tuesday night and had a brief conversation that did not result in a change of heart from the owner. While Fisher was dining at the lobby restaurant a short time later, they presented Fisher with a customized gift box filled with A-related memorabilia.
MLB always has security at owners’ meetings, but the guards paid special attention to Fisher’s movements. Although the result of the vote was by no means a surprise, its appearance created more public interest in the league’s owners’ meetings than usual.
Painful news for A’s fans
The news was expected, but that didn’t mean the impact of the move vote was any less painful for A’s fans.
“We all saw this coming. It was always a formality, but it still hurts,” said Mike Davie, a longtime resident of the Coliseum stands. Ever since he was a toddler, Davie’s summer holidays included going to A’s games. He is affectionately known among A’s fans as the Mayor of Oakland. Even though the A’s will play the 2024 season in Oakland, Davie doesn’t expect to be walking the turnstiles at the Coliseum often – if at all – next season.
“I just can’t imagine being a fan next year,” he said. “This year I put the game in the background, the radio and stuff. But I can’t imagine doing that next year. Going to games won’t be a priority.”
Since the A’s owners announced their intention to move the team in April, fans have been fighting to keep their team in Oakland. They staged reverse boycotts and Unite the Bay events, flew planes reading “A’s Belong in Oakland – #VoteNo” over owners’ meetings in Arlington, and sent letters and videos making their case to the other 29 owners about why baseball belongs in Oakland . However, all these efforts appear to have fallen on deaf ears. Leon said Wednesday he never expected to change the owners’ minds.
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“The vote will not be a setback,” said Leon, president of the Oakland 68s fan group, hours before the vote became official. “I think we are very realistic people who assume that it will be a yes vote. And so we just sit down and come up with other ideas and see what we can do to disrupt the whole thing.
“I’ve told people that we don’t expect that flying a plane outdoors or attending the owners’ meeting will change the vote. I think we just want to disrupt it and make it harder for them.” – Melissa Lockard, MLB senior editor and writer
The fans will continue to protest next season
This fight will continue into next season, as the groups that organized the various protest events plan to continue them until the A’s officially leave town, starting with a planned boycott of opening night that will include riots in the parking lot of the There will be a tailgate during the game.
“We’ve got a whole season left to be obnoxious and do our thing,” said Paul Bailey of fan group The Last Dive Bar.
While the consensus among A’s fans is sad right now, there’s a chance this vote in Oakland isn’t the end of the story. For Fisher, this is a hurdle in his efforts to move the team, but Last Dive Bar’s Bryan Johnson points out that there is still a lot of work to be done before a move can take place, and Fisher’s track record of failing to do so is to conclude stadium contracts leaves the door open as to whether this move will reach its destination.
“So what’s to say that this game in Las Vegas is going to be such a resounding success?” Johnson said. “They have what they didn’t have all along (in previous relocation attempts): They have the commissioner’s support for the move and they have a city that just says, ‘Yeah, do whatever you want here.'” But it is still Fisher and he still has to do this job and he still has to put a shovel in the ground. And he hasn’t been able to do that to date, so there’s still a glimmer of hope that he won’t be successful and will be forced to either sell or work something out in Oakland.” – Lockard
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—Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic contributed reporting on this story.
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(Photo: G Fiume/Getty Images)