One era ends so another can begin, the Oakland Athletics, winners of 9 World Series and a landmark of the Oakland sports scene since 1968 are leaving town. The baseball club will eventually call Las Vegas their fifth home, the A’s began their history in Philadelphia, then Kansas City, before moving to Oakland.
Sacramento was chosen as a “connecting flight” to Las Vegas given the hostile nature between Oakland fans and owner John Fisher. The lease to the Oakland Coliseum ends this season and the general feeling is that politicians, fans, and owners want this to be done with already, as negotiations of an extension agreement with the City of Oakland were stated as “far apart” earlier this week. Since the announcement that the club was looking to move, stadium attendance has plummeted, this season the A’s drew only 13,522 fans on opening night and did not reach 7,000 fans in any of the next six games.
John Fisher stated that while the decision to leave Oakland was hard, the club did its best to stay until Las Vegas was ready but instead thought best to move, “Even with the long-standing relationship and good intentions on all sides in the negotiations with Oakland, the conditions to achieve an agreement seemed out of reach. We understand the disappointment this news brings to our fans, as this season marks our final one in Oakland. Throughout this season, we will honor and celebrate our time in Oakland, and will share additional details soon.”
Sacramento new home of the Oakland A’s
The only thing Fisher has done over the past few years was destroy the club’s long-standing relationship with fans, who have boycotted showing up to games and protesting the owner for moving the team and letting it fall flat in the process.
On the field, Fisher has frankly given up putting a competitive team on display, the A’s last made the playoffs in 2020, since then they have produced two seasons where the club lost over 100 games.
While the end result of this brutal blow for Oakland fans will be seeing their team move to Las Vegas, that future venue will not be ready in the next few years resulting in operations being moved to Sacramento.
The club will play in the stadium of the Sacramento River Cats from 2025-27 and could possibly play the 2028 season as well. While in West Sacramento the team plans on being referred to as simply the “A’s” and “Athletics,” with no city name attached.
The club will play in Sutter Health Park — just over 10,000 seats, with grass outfield seats to increase capacity to 14,000.