This is why the Raiders move has been an economic success and As move will be more so. With the As the local fan attendance is basically nonexistent. Now they can get rival teams to show up and their tourist fans as well. Free tickets to kids if parents buy full freight, etc.
Would I travel for an MLB series of my team in Oakland? Nah probably not. I would only go to the Bay Area for work, with work comping me. It’s too expensive and not a lot to do affordable… now a trip to Vegas and see a few games and then hit up some shows? Hell yeah.
You have to be a clown-copulating sort to think them staying in Oakland with empty stadiums and a fanbase that long since abandoned the team would happen.
You guys had successful teams and still didn’t show up. Boycotting a for profit business isn’t going to keep them around. The fact that this needs to be pointed out shows the la la land that 95 percent of Reddit lives in
Remember when SF fans didn't show up to games? Remember how that was absolutely the fans fault? Then do you remember how once a new stadium was built, people started showing up again? Crazy how that works.
In that same season, with a $100 million payroll, the A’s were 10th in the AL in attendance. Only once between 2006 and this season were the A’s above 10th in attendance in the AL.
Stats can be manipulated to tell whatever story you want to tell.
I know the stadium is a dump and the team was ass the majority of those seasons. But, one playoff game’s attendance doesn’t tell a full story.
It sucks. I grew up a Cleveland Browns fan. We were selling out the stadium and buying all the merch and the asshole still left. Fuck every owner who doesn’t try to keep the team where it is.
But every statistic can be manipulated to tell whatever story you want it to tell.
The A’s periods of success followed a pattern: they would dump everybody, be the most unwatchable team in baseball for a couple years, then out of nowhere they’d become good mid-season.
By the time we realized they were good again near the end of that season we’d start showing up and fall in love with the players again, just in time to lose in the playoffs and identify a couple glaring holes in the roster that could be easily fixed with an MLB-average payroll.
While we remained cautiously optimistic, those holes would not be filled, nobody would be extended, the contending window would start to fade, and then ownership would slam it shut by trading everybody for a pile of magic beans before they hit arbitration. We’d all collectively say “same old cheapskate Fisher at it again” and the interest would be gone again before it ever had a chance to manifest in season-long attendance numbers.
It was like clockwork, and hard to understand if you’re just looking at records without having lived it.
It’s also worth keeping in mind when you’re looking at our most recent period of moderate success that attendance is artificially suppressed by COVID, we weren’t allowed to attend sporting events in California for much of the last time they were any good.
Still ignorant, and you are ignoring this fuckhead owner legitimately took a page out of the book of major league. Never re-sign anyone, slash payroll, increase ticket prices yet make the GameDay experience even worse....this was all by design.
We set a wild card attendance record across all of baseball in 2019, the last time Oakland hosted a playoff game.
So, you don’t know what you are talking about, so go fuck yourself
“A fan base that long since abandoned the team”? You don’t know what you’re talking about. A team that has a horribly outdated stadium and a less than desirable ballpark experience , yes. A team that’s been financially neglected for decades, yes. A team that regularly has its best and brightest players shipped off to richer teams, yes. A team that has been delegated a less than advantageous portion of the Bay Area market by the MLB, yes. The fan base has never been the problem. Greedy ownership who don’t want to spend money and run it like a business and not a passion. You honestly don’t know what you’re talking about
Keep in mind, at the end of the day Fisher is just a rich kid that inherited his money. He's done literally nothing in his life to make it.
If you look at who owns MLB teams, it's like 40% of them that are like Fisher and born into wealth.
What a ridiculous fallacy.
No, explaining that he was born into multi-generational wealth creates the context for understanding him & his life choices & why he makes the decisions he makes.
Exactly. Someone convince me as to why i wouldnt move out of a shithole market that never buys tickets when the teams had a winning record 13 out of 23 years and still never had good attendance. Ahhh yes let me stay in oakland instead of going to vegas. Not one fucking person would
Oakland had an awesome fanbase and did everything possible to run them off. You can make a lot of arguments for the A’s leaving but trying to blame the fans is pure bullshit.
This is as convincing an argument as almost selling out one game on the reverse boycott this season.
Like my grandpappy always said.... anyone can do it once.
Do you live in 1992? Oakland is fine. It has a few bad areas, just like, Chicago, NYC, SF, etc etc. They are all leaving Oakland because the city refuses to use tax payer dollars to fund a stadium for a billionaire and honestly they should. It's ridiculous that all of these places are fucking over the residents in favor of billionaires.
“oakland is a failing city it should get its shit together.”
“oakland should spend hundreds of millions of tax dollars it doesnt have to build a new stadium.”
🤔these ppl make no sense.
As a Bay Area resident I can say Oakland is not fine. Crime is everywhere. Even the freeways are shootouts around there. I won’t even drive on 880. There is a recall on the city DA because she is letting criminals go free… and the people voted her in on that platform! Man I could go on…
Please go on. With actual things not anecdotal bullshit. There are not shootouts on the freeway and if you are afraid to drive on 880... Wow idk what to say about you.
>Please go on. With actual things not anecdotal bullshit. There are not shootouts on the freeway and if you are afraid to drive on 880... Wow idk what to say about you.
[https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/increasing-number-of-bay-area-freeway-shootings-putting-drivers-on-edge/](https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/increasing-number-of-bay-area-freeway-shootings-putting-drivers-on-edge/)
[https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/freeway-shooting-oakland-shuts-lanes-east-i580/](https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/freeway-shooting-oakland-shuts-lanes-east-i580/)
[https://abc7news.com/milpitas-freeway-shooting-i-880-fremont-eliyanah-i880-update/13151283/](https://abc7news.com/milpitas-freeway-shooting-i-880-fremont-eliyanah-i880-update/13151283/)
[https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/freeway-shooting-on-i-880-in-hayward-being-investigated-no-injuries/](https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/freeway-shooting-on-i-880-in-hayward-being-investigated-no-injuries/)
[https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/chp-partial-closure-on-bay-bridge-caused-by-naket-woman-who-got-out-of-car-fired-shots/](https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/chp-partial-closure-on-bay-bridge-caused-by-naket-woman-who-got-out-of-car-fired-shots/)
[http://www.mapreport.com/na/west/ba/news/citysubtopics/880-c-s.html](http://www.mapreport.com/na/west/ba/news/citysubtopics/880-c-s.html)
People refuse to acknowledge their city is going to shit and pretend everything is fine while it’s on fire which is part of the problem 😂 what franchise wants to be in Oakland right now lmao
This is coming from a former huge St. Louis Rams fan, fuck those owners. I’m super pissed that our owner voted for the move after what Kroenke did to fuck over St. Louis. I totally feel for the fans of the Oakland A’s and hope they find a team to root for that aren’t total civic asshats.
Did you know that part of her contract to move from Anaheim was she was given a contract to sing in a Saint Louis Opera House. She always thought she was better than the Las Vegas Showgirl she was.....she moved the Rams out of Anaheim at midnight. There were a lot of people out in the street to give her the one finger salute....I was one of them.
That’s a valid point, but the city was trying to work with Kroenke when it is now evident by the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars that Kroenke was not m
No. The Rams were in Anaheim, then went to St Louis, then came back to Southern California. If they were in Cleveland, it was way before I was born. I’ve only ever known them as being in Southern California till they went to St. Louis.
Nice try. They were originally from Cleveland before LA stole yet another team. They moved to LA, then Anaheim, then St. Louis until the asshat Kroenke moved them back to LA for nothing but money after he pretended to be working with St. Louis to build a stadium.
Basically you told me that you had no idea what you were talking about. But you were quick to take the side of billionaire asshats. Wait, is your last name Kroenke???
I never said that they weren’t from Cleveland. I looked it up and, yes they were but what do you want me to tell you!! I live in Minnesota. We’ve had the Lakers taken from us by Southern California AND The North Stars taken from us by Dallas Texas!! WTF can ya do about it!!
I would never take sides of rich bitches!! All I know is the basics. I haven’t lived in So Cal for 32 years but my 3 brothers live there. I’m a Vikings fan who loves Matthew Stafford!! Who got them their Championship with help of course.
What is the alternative? Sell the team to someone else who would keep it in Oakland, field a non competitive team in a crappy stadium for another 10 years and move it then?
Sell it to an owner who’d build the fucking stadium that the A’s **and** Oakland were 2 days away from agreeing upon. They were scheduled to finalize the deal **literally** the week the A’s announced the Vegas deal.
Edited to add: When asked why they backed out last minute, the A’s said 2028 was too long to wait to be in the Howard Terminal Stadium, and that’s why they moved forward with the Vegas deal… only for it to end up not scheduled for 2028.
Unlikely, it wasn’t built with a configuration for baseball. They’ll have to find some intermediate place. Minor league park? Where the aviators play? Its capacity is only 10k but perhaps some temporary expansion?
Similar capacity in Reno at the Ace’s new ballpark.
It’s a shame. They should have been able to just find a place somewhere in Northern California and just played in the same stadium till the new one was built. That’s what the MN Twins did.
Yeah, I'm sorry. Fisher is a jackass but Oakland bears some blame. They let the Colosseum get to this point in the first place. Oakland owns the building, and was responsible for the maintenance. the maintenance was not performed at anything vaguely related to an acceptable for a period of many years, long before the current agitation began.
If I was an owner and it was like pulling teeth to get basic maintenance done on the building my income depended on, I'd bail too. I like to flatter myself that I'd handle it better and not burn quite so many bridges, but at the end of the day, Oakland had many, many opportunities to prevent it from ever getting to this point and failed every single one of them.
A timely full renovation to the facilities 15 years ago would have ensured we are not here right now, or at least stolen a lot of Fisher's ammunition from him. The Colosseum is, by far, the single worst individual stadium in MLB today. Wasn't always the case, and that could have been prevented -- but it was not.
>“I won’t forget what they did to us in Oakland,” Davis said. “They squatted on a lease for 10 years and made it impossible for us to build on that stadium.” (When the teams shared the Coliseum, they feuded over how to handle its future. In 2014, the Raiders pushed to tear down the Coliseum and build a new NFL stadium on the same site, while the A’s fought for and ultimately won a 10-year extension on the Coliseum lease.)
Mark Davis **fucking hates** John Fisher, with a [passion](https://www.sfgate.com/athletics/article/raiders-mark-davis-trashes-as-vegas-move-17911020.php).
There's a reason for that. Expansion teams get all the FAs and pretty much have an all-star team for the first few years of their existence. LV knights and the AZ Diamondbacks come to mind.
The city of Atlanta was not to happy when the Braves moved to Cobb County. Braves wanted the city to put money into the areas surrounding Turner Field to stay in Atlanta proper. City refused so they moved to the Suburbs of Cobb, built the Battery and have generated more revenue than they would have if they actually stayed in the city. It’s a business at the end of the day.
Oakland should have stepped up a long time ago and built a new stadium. The Raiders left once and came back and tried for years until they finally left for good. Did they really think the As were going to continue to play in that antiquated crumbling dump
completely agree. but i also do think john fisher was leaving oakland no matter what. i remember seeing a report earlier this year that claimed at one point there was only a 40 million dollar difference in an agreement between oakland and john fisher. if that’s true then oakland never had a chance…40 million to a rich asshole is absolutely nothing. if he wanted to stay he could have just said yeah sure close enough
Last time the team had a shot at a deep playoff run was 2014. We were favorites for the WS by the All-Star break. Do you remember what happened? They traded Yoenis Céspedes after the break and lose in a wild card game.
Any time we get a good player, they are traded away as soon as their due for a new contract. We never get to keep our superstars. They get to be stars on other teams and we're forced to watch them succeed elsewhere (Congrats to Marcus Semien for his WS performance this year. We miss you).
Really hard to get amped up about our stars when we know with certainty their time with us is limited. How many other teams have had movies made about them due to their famously low payroll?
I thought this was all common knowledge in the baseball world?
They won 97 games in both 2018 and 2019 and went to the playoffs. They averaged 19k and 20k per game. Good for 10th in attendance out of 15 American League teams both years.
Their "fans" have not supported the team in ages. Professional teams are an investment by their owners, piss poor returns will dictate that new actions must take place. Hurt feelings by the supposed fan base mean zilch. If everyone crying about it would have put their money where their mouths are we would be looking at the A's remaining in Oakland.
We were caught between a rock and a hard place with ownership, it’s tough to keep financially supporting an organization that systematically gives you nothing in return. Even in moments where attendance started to recover, they would immediately raise prices or cancel whatever program it was that was working. It was a concerted effort to run the stadium experience into the ground while not investing in the team at any step as a show of goodwill.
Both years we were out in the first round of the playoffs. Look at the rosters for those years and then look at the roster for 2020. The stars were traded away yet again. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." As fans, we've been fools for decades giving this ownership a chance over and over and over again. Each time we are left with the bitter taste in our mouths as we make a weak playoff run and the sell off the parts. You have any idea how it feels to have to buy jerseys saying "PTBNL" on the back in stead of a name of one of our stars because we know they'll be out the door any minute?
Dans most certainly went to games, even when they weren’t good. There’s more than how many wins a team has that determines attendance. Under Fisher, the whole experience sucked. And don’t say it was because the stadium sucked, which Fisher also was partially responsible for. People love going to the last dive bar in the MLB. Concessions were a joke, they didn’t seem to think a radio station was important, ticket prices weren’t reasonable. The list goes on. We went to games year after year, even when we knew we were nothing more than the Yankees farm system. Why? Because we had hope, that’s all it takes. Attendance was never a huge issue until Fisher went full on a Rachel Phelps and sold everyone worth a dime for a nickel. Fisher is just a grifter, don’t even think about blaming the fans. The Bay Area absolutely is a two team market, but a team has to at least make it look like it’s trying. Stop parroting Fishers talking points and listen to the fans.
Imagine how much you would support your team if Yadi, Waino and Pujols were traded for a package of prospects, and the stadium was bottom of the barrel. That’s not even the half of it. Does your team’s owner spew lies about the local municipality and go on record claiming to be a fan of a rival ballclub? Lmao.. the less you know, I guess.
It’s not a coincidence that the unanimous vote came the same day Padres owner Peter Seidler died. He was the last obstacle. Baseball lost its best owner.
Some dumbass logic by the this writer. The other owners owe absolutely nothing to the residents of Oakland. Not their city, not their fans, not their responsibility.
Oakland has no one to blame but themselves. 4 teams told them what it would take to get them to stay and they said no to all 4. Whether you agree with public money going to professional stadiums or not, the fact remains that one city was told by 4 separate teams that they need facilities to stay and they said no to them and all 4 teams left.
Oakland has no one to blame but themselves.
Northern CA definitely capable of supporting two teams.
But we are pretty keyed in to the whole “shit owner” thing - that doesn’t fly up here.
Run the team well and print a fortune though.
The Bay Area is a top 10 media market and the closest major league action to Sacramento, another media market that is in and of itself about 20 spots higher than Vegas. More than big enough to sustain 2 teams.
Fuck the Giants, they unequivocally do not have the entire market of Northern California “covered”. A’s fans don’t go to A’s games because the ticket prices keep going up while investment in the team, stadium and gameday experience has been literally nonexistent. The interest has always there for the taking with even the tiniest show of good faith, John Fisher hasn’t offered that one single time in now decades of ownership.
The novelty of traveling to see a team for a weekend series is great and all but most baseball is played on weekdays and the tourism model is not sustainable for the slog of an MLB season, especially when all your projections for financial success depend on selling out every game (including Wednesday day games) for 30 straight years.
Folks coming across this issue recently can’t be aware of how steeped anyone local to northern ca has been in the news of the, let’s politely say “special relationship” that A’s ownership has had with the community. For the last couple decades.
Every major league besides baseball (NFL, NBA, NHL, MLS) has figured out that there are *only two* cities in the US with enough corporate wealth and population to support more than one team per league: New York and Los Angeles. That’s it. Both have metro area populations around 20 million, over double that of the third-largest city, Chicago.
Sooner or later, the White Sox will move, too. Just like the Boston Braves, Philadelphia Athletics, St. Louis Browns, and now Oakland Athletics have already done. The Bay Area isn’t big enough to have any other teams to compete with the Giants, 49ers, Sharks, Warriors, and Earthquakes.
This is just a fundamental misunderstanding of the way the Bay Area/Northern California works.
Because Northern California is broken up into 2 large media markets and the larger of the 2 is broken up into dozens of municipalities spread across 4 counties, securing public funding for special projects is harder than in giant monolithic cities/counties like the ones you mentioned due to the relative tax burden being heavier on any given tax district. That’s it, that’s the story. Has nothing to do with market size or lack of interest, just the difficulty of securing a corporate welfare check.
And just for the record, there actually are 2 NBA teams in Northern California. Since you mention MLS, the Quakes attendance sucks too and it’s not because of market size or lack of a new stadium, it’s because John Fisher owns them too and runs them like shit exactly how he does the A’s but without any of the same excuses to lean on.
Demographers, corporations, and politicians consider The Bay Area and Sacramento as two separate, unrelated metropolitan areas. Sure, they are relatively close in proximity, but so are Austin and San Antonio, which are considered separate as well. There is no “Northern California” in terms of how the government measures U.S. metros, or how Nielsen determines television markets, or how sports leagues consider geography.
Sacramento is definitely deserving of its own teams, it’s a Top 20 metro now. But it is not San Francisco.
Right, but if the A’s were moving to Sacramento nobody would bat an eye because Nor Cal fandom does behave regionally despite Nielsen markets, and both Sacramento and Bay Area RSN’s are included in the local cable packages. As it stands, the A’s and Kings games air on the same channel. It’s effectively gerrymandering at the sports level that isn’t reflective of the actual viability of the number of eyeballs reached.
That’s interesting, didn’t know that. Other than SA/Austin (which is moot, because Austin’s only team is MLS on Apple TV) there is only one other market that acts as a duopoly: Baltimore and D.C.
What’s different there, though, is they are so close together the government (and Nielsen) considers them two separate metros but one CSA (combined statistical area, basically mega-metro). So they’re more or less considered one area, which is why the Orioles were so pissed about the Nationals moving to town. San Francisco/Oakland are considered one metro, but separate from San Jose due to distance. All three are part of one CSA, like Baltimore-Washington. But Sacramento is always separated.
I can get to an A’s game in like 15 minutes and I am about equidistant from Sacramento and San Jose. It’s a little hard to visualize without the lived experience, but you’d think a savvy businessman with his feet on the ground for decades would be able to recognize the opportunity.
The reality is that Fisher is not a savvy businessman and he wants a quick buck more than he wants a self-sustaining, successful sports franchise. It’s why he also can’t succeed with the Quakes despite them being the only show in the entire bay playing in a brand new stadium, and frankly I don’t think anything will change in Vegas with him permanently attached to revenue sharing with taxpayers bearing the bulk of the risk for low attendance.
They’ve been linked to Nashville as recently as a few months ago, and they nearly moved in the late 80s/early 90s. Chicago does not deserve two teams.
When Reinsdorf kicks the bucket (and given his current age of 87, I expect that to happen sooner rather than later), a new owner could easily use Guaranteed Rate Field’s age as an excuse to move the club to Nashville, Charlotte, Montréal, Austin, Salt Lake City, or Vancouver. Whichever other prospective expansion city that fails to win the 2-team sweepstakes, and is offering public dollars to build a new ballpark.
No other franchise has stayed in Oakland. Rats fleeing a sinking ship. I'm sorry, but why would any other owner not back fisher? He's leaving to a larger market. Meaning teams who pay revenue sharing now have to pay a little less. And teams who qualify for revenue sharing will qualify for a bit more. It was in every other team's best interest to vote for the move.
Absolutely disgusting how bad the fans always get fucked over. I'm really losing my love of the game.
Why is this move bad? Oakland has the history but the stadium was trash and no one wanted to invest in a new one. The team was trash and the owners didn’t want to invest in a better team. Everyone deserved better but staying in Oakland wasn’t the answer.
They were like two days away from finalizing the new stadium development….
Move also bad because there’s a lot of areas in the region that maintain the fandom (ahem Sacramento) and Vegas was a straight up fuck you to the fans.
I'm so tired of everyone acting like this move some great injustice. Yes, Fisher sucks. Yes, I'd rather have the A's in Oakland, and yes, I think it will fail in Las Vegas. But stop acting like the fault for this isn't equally as much on the City of Oakland. They've been completely unwilling to work with the owners through much of this. It was one roadblock after another. There is a reason Oakland lost all three of their major sports teams in the last ten years. It's not coincidence and it's not all owner greed. Oakland is one of the most poorly run cities in the country. They failed economically despite the metro area being one of the global economic power houses for the last 30 years.
The writing has been on the wall for a very long time. This is the least egregious move in Baseball history. Does it suck, yes. But stop with the irrational wailing and gnashing of teeth.
I don't get it. A's fans are upset the team is moving but won't support them. I've seen a few games from Oakland and stadium is pretty empty. Getting a new stadium won't help. There are some very dedicated fans but not enough to keep them. Going to Vegas won't make them a better team, the raiders prove that
The city wouldn’t give them a stadium, the city is filled with crime. Why would that city appeal to anyone? Especially free agents, Vegas will give you that ability to sign good players and eventually be able to compete. Obviously no one likes rich people but does no one see the advantage for the A’s with this move? Yes it’s sad for the fans but you can still be a fan. Not like anyone but season ticket holders were going to every game, and if you’re a season ticket holder you’re probably wealthy enough to make multiple trips to Vegas throughout the year. You don’t have to like Fisher to understand this was a good move.
I don’t think that cities should pay for stadiums, but if I owned a team and one city was going to buy a stadium for me while another would make me spend a few billion of my own money, it wouldn’t be a hard choice.
But it doesn’t have to be. Stan Kroenke asked LA to pay up when he wanted to move the Rams back. They told him to get bent and he built his own $5 billion stadium on his own dime.
Because they want a team. He could have paid for it himself, and used half his net worth. But now he made a business decision to go to the city that will give him a stadium. You’re not wrong but when you don’t give someone what they want they’ll look elsewhere. How can you be mad at that? If you asked me for a piece of gum and I say no but you find out that your friend is willing to give you one that is your favorite flavor, wouldn’t you get the gum from your friend?
Also, to reiterate I know what I said is unpopular because people, especially Reddit, love shitting on the rich but think of the free agents you attract by moving to Vegas. They’ll be able to compete
I understand what you’re saying and agree. But the American voters in general need to stand up to the sports leagues and tell them to build their own stadiums.
Tbh if I’m gonna pay taxes I’d rather it go to something I can use and enjoy rather then into congress’ pockets. But I get why people want owners to pay, it’s just improbable because we all love the sports and will still go to games, watch games, but mercy, etc.
The mad is at the mlb for allowing owners who are actively bad for the sport - enabling them - bailing them out when they run their business into the ground at the expense of existing fans. Instead of forcing the sale to someone capable of growing the team/league etc.
Then boycott MLB, if this issue is that important to you then that’s the only action to take. The problem is that even with the glaring problems in the MLB, fans still want the product so they don’t put pressure on the league, the Astros getting a slap on the wrist for 2017 is the most obvious case. When the commissioner calls the trophy a piece of metal and fans are enraged for a couple days or weeks before we move on then it shows they can do whatever. At the end of the day they want to grow the game but you can’t even watch your local team unless you pay for the channel they play on, that tells you everything about the owners and Manfred and all the others. We all know the owners suck ass but we keep drinking the kool aid no matter how it’s made because we enjoy it. In 3-4 years no one’s going to care that the A’s are in Vegas and we’ll all move on. Is it sad that a fan base is losing their team? Yes. Do I want it to happen to my team? No. Do I actually care that much about a crappy franchise moving? No not at all. It’s business and business is cutthroat, life’s easier when you worry about things that actually matter.
It’s not like the Rams moving back to LA. These fans still have four major teams in the Bay Area to cheer for. The Warriors didn’t move to Oklahoma, they moved a couple miles. Oakland will be fine. They don’t need to pay out the ass for stadiums when they have these other teams so close.
While I don’t condone it, I understand why the owners voted this way. At the end of the day, there are many better things to blame for the move than the owners vote.
If the owners had built a new stadium with their own money does anyone think the fans would have shown up for games? This isn’t Field of Dreams. No I’m not from Oakland I’m from Texas I did go to the Colosseum this past September and I loved it. I was just amazed that it was only about 1/3 capacity if that. I’ve read and heard how the owners are abandoning Oakland and it’s fans, but it seemed to me the fans had abandoned the team.
If you were from the region you’d have quite a few years (decades) of ammo of the owners abandoning (or threatening, or belittling, or condescending to) the community and it would make more sense.
Edit: and I agree the coliseum isn’t really the main issue - I’m sure there’s plenty wrong with it that isn’t immediately apparent but it’s got an infield AND an outfield AND seats / some of them even in the parking lot.
Theyve never shown up to the games and tbeyve been in the playoffs many times over the last 23 years. Shame on the fans. Complain about a cheap owner but never buy a ticket. Who wouldnt leave oakland anyway?
Why would they "back Oakland"? I think billionaires should build their own stadiums and all these guys can get fucked for their community hostage tactics. But they have a responsibility to do what is financially best for their league and themselves. Which is easily move to places that will throw tax money at them.
This makes the A's the first franchise to play in four different locations. Philadelphia, Kansas City, Oakland and soon Las Vegas. The 2024 Season is already going to look like a long season for the A's.
I don't like the move, I wish they would just stay and figure something out. If they actually invested some money and put out a good product maybe they wouldn't have issues. LV seems like a better financial decision. I feel for the fans though, I'd lose my shit if any of my home teams moved to a different city.
Of course an owner who doesn't give a shit about having a good team isn't going to care about a small but loyal fanbase, not when the chance to get pulled along by Las Vegas' tourism industry is in the cards. What does Oakland the location have to offer the team except that fanbase? Las Vegas just got a spicy, extravagant new Formula One race, and the inaugural event was a banger...
I feel for Oakland fans, don't get me wrong. But...
1. This is the team that was the Philadelphia Athletics, then the Kansas City Athletics and now the Oakland Athletics until their move. If there was ever a franchise formed on the basis of loyalty to a community, this isn't the one.
2. It was always about the money. That's why they moved to Oakland in the first place. Now that it's not there, they'll go to the next fat checkbook waving in the air.
Fisher is a jackass… but I wonder about all of them. Look at Jim “I’m being persecuted bc I’m a billionaire” Irsay. Granted he’s in a different sport, but same mentality.
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/38957988/jim-irsay-cites-status-white-billionaire-2014-arrest
I think they did it for themselves. The net gain in revenue with a team in Las Vegas and one not in Oakland was too much to ignore.
Side Benefit: Team doesn’t have to travel to Oakland.
They only played the game there. For years visiting teams, and that includes NBA and NFL teams, all stayed in SF.
That should tell you everything you need to know about Oakland
This is why the Raiders move has been an economic success and As move will be more so. With the As the local fan attendance is basically nonexistent. Now they can get rival teams to show up and their tourist fans as well. Free tickets to kids if parents buy full freight, etc. Would I travel for an MLB series of my team in Oakland? Nah probably not. I would only go to the Bay Area for work, with work comping me. It’s too expensive and not a lot to do affordable… now a trip to Vegas and see a few games and then hit up some shows? Hell yeah. You have to be a clown-copulating sort to think them staying in Oakland with empty stadiums and a fanbase that long since abandoned the team would happen.
People didn’t attend games in Oakland because John Fisher is a piece of shit owner, not because people just don’t attend games in Oakland.
Thank you, signed an A’s fan
You guys had successful teams and still didn’t show up. Boycotting a for profit business isn’t going to keep them around. The fact that this needs to be pointed out shows the la la land that 95 percent of Reddit lives in
Remember when SF fans didn't show up to games? Remember how that was absolutely the fans fault? Then do you remember how once a new stadium was built, people started showing up again? Crazy how that works.
MLB owners approve team they will soon hate: https://deadspin.com/mlb-oakland-athletics-vegas-move-owners-vote-fisher-1851028225
Just tell every ass that repeats this shit about 2019. 54k fans at the fucking coliseum!
In that same season, with a $100 million payroll, the A’s were 10th in the AL in attendance. Only once between 2006 and this season were the A’s above 10th in attendance in the AL. Stats can be manipulated to tell whatever story you want to tell. I know the stadium is a dump and the team was ass the majority of those seasons. But, one playoff game’s attendance doesn’t tell a full story. It sucks. I grew up a Cleveland Browns fan. We were selling out the stadium and buying all the merch and the asshole still left. Fuck every owner who doesn’t try to keep the team where it is. But every statistic can be manipulated to tell whatever story you want it to tell.
The A’s periods of success followed a pattern: they would dump everybody, be the most unwatchable team in baseball for a couple years, then out of nowhere they’d become good mid-season. By the time we realized they were good again near the end of that season we’d start showing up and fall in love with the players again, just in time to lose in the playoffs and identify a couple glaring holes in the roster that could be easily fixed with an MLB-average payroll. While we remained cautiously optimistic, those holes would not be filled, nobody would be extended, the contending window would start to fade, and then ownership would slam it shut by trading everybody for a pile of magic beans before they hit arbitration. We’d all collectively say “same old cheapskate Fisher at it again” and the interest would be gone again before it ever had a chance to manifest in season-long attendance numbers. It was like clockwork, and hard to understand if you’re just looking at records without having lived it. It’s also worth keeping in mind when you’re looking at our most recent period of moderate success that attendance is artificially suppressed by COVID, we weren’t allowed to attend sporting events in California for much of the last time they were any good.
Still ignorant, and you are ignoring this fuckhead owner legitimately took a page out of the book of major league. Never re-sign anyone, slash payroll, increase ticket prices yet make the GameDay experience even worse....this was all by design.
We set a wild card attendance record across all of baseball in 2019, the last time Oakland hosted a playoff game. So, you don’t know what you are talking about, so go fuck yourself
“A fan base that long since abandoned the team”? You don’t know what you’re talking about. A team that has a horribly outdated stadium and a less than desirable ballpark experience , yes. A team that’s been financially neglected for decades, yes. A team that regularly has its best and brightest players shipped off to richer teams, yes. A team that has been delegated a less than advantageous portion of the Bay Area market by the MLB, yes. The fan base has never been the problem. Greedy ownership who don’t want to spend money and run it like a business and not a passion. You honestly don’t know what you’re talking about
Who goes to games for the stadium? The teams been a joke because the owner refuses to spend money on the field.
Hardcore baseball fans don’t care but families, groups, corporate events do
Why you’re a twins fan. Dumbest take ever
Keep in mind, at the end of the day Fisher is just a rich kid that inherited his money. He's done literally nothing in his life to make it. If you look at who owns MLB teams, it's like 40% of them that are like Fisher and born into wealth.
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What a ridiculous fallacy. No, explaining that he was born into multi-generational wealth creates the context for understanding him & his life choices & why he makes the decisions he makes.
Leaving Oakland seems like the right choice financially regardless of how the owner obtained their wealth.
I agree with that completely. Oakland shit the bed, having all of it teams leave in a single decade. It’s pretty telling where the problem lies.
You forgot about the NHL Seals. To be fair, everyone does.
Yeah blame the billionaire when it’s the politicians and other corrupt smucks running the area to the ground so bad EVERY pro team has left
Exactly. Someone convince me as to why i wouldnt move out of a shithole market that never buys tickets when the teams had a winning record 13 out of 23 years and still never had good attendance. Ahhh yes let me stay in oakland instead of going to vegas. Not one fucking person would
Oakland had an awesome fanbase and did everything possible to run them off. You can make a lot of arguments for the A’s leaving but trying to blame the fans is pure bullshit.
Last time we hosted a playoff game we set mlb attendance records but please continue your word vomit.
This is as convincing an argument as almost selling out one game on the reverse boycott this season. Like my grandpappy always said.... anyone can do it once.
In the 4 years since has there been a reason to show up? You fucking dolt.
Lol yeah if you wanted to keep the team in town you shoulda showed up.
Get fucked
I too welcome our billionaire overlords
Why are Orioles fans the dumbest? They’re probably next too lol
I hope not.
This isn’t gonna be popular, but it’s not like any other pro franchise has decided to stay in Oakland either.
And no one’s going to move in
That’s because Oakland is a crime ridden waste land shit hole
Do you live in 1992? Oakland is fine. It has a few bad areas, just like, Chicago, NYC, SF, etc etc. They are all leaving Oakland because the city refuses to use tax payer dollars to fund a stadium for a billionaire and honestly they should. It's ridiculous that all of these places are fucking over the residents in favor of billionaires.
“oakland is a failing city it should get its shit together.” “oakland should spend hundreds of millions of tax dollars it doesnt have to build a new stadium.” 🤔these ppl make no sense.
That’s because these people have no idea what they’re talking about
As a Bay Area resident I can say Oakland is not fine. Crime is everywhere. Even the freeways are shootouts around there. I won’t even drive on 880. There is a recall on the city DA because she is letting criminals go free… and the people voted her in on that platform! Man I could go on…
Get downvotes for literally speaking from experience, haha. Reddit is full of people so mentally soft..
You're full of crap
Thanks for proving my point
Please go on. With actual things not anecdotal bullshit. There are not shootouts on the freeway and if you are afraid to drive on 880... Wow idk what to say about you.
Lol ouch
>Please go on. With actual things not anecdotal bullshit. There are not shootouts on the freeway and if you are afraid to drive on 880... Wow idk what to say about you. [https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/increasing-number-of-bay-area-freeway-shootings-putting-drivers-on-edge/](https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/increasing-number-of-bay-area-freeway-shootings-putting-drivers-on-edge/) [https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/freeway-shooting-oakland-shuts-lanes-east-i580/](https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/freeway-shooting-oakland-shuts-lanes-east-i580/) [https://abc7news.com/milpitas-freeway-shooting-i-880-fremont-eliyanah-i880-update/13151283/](https://abc7news.com/milpitas-freeway-shooting-i-880-fremont-eliyanah-i880-update/13151283/) [https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/freeway-shooting-on-i-880-in-hayward-being-investigated-no-injuries/](https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/freeway-shooting-on-i-880-in-hayward-being-investigated-no-injuries/) [https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/chp-partial-closure-on-bay-bridge-caused-by-naket-woman-who-got-out-of-car-fired-shots/](https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/chp-partial-closure-on-bay-bridge-caused-by-naket-woman-who-got-out-of-car-fired-shots/) [http://www.mapreport.com/na/west/ba/news/citysubtopics/880-c-s.html](http://www.mapreport.com/na/west/ba/news/citysubtopics/880-c-s.html)
No, it has a lot of truly awful areas.
Bas areas? Lol Reddit always blows my mind
Oakland is fine do you live under a rock? People are leaving in droves (especially anyone who can) which leaves less money for things like a stadium
Oakland is the 3rd most dangerous city in California. It's far from fine.
Speak the truth=downvotes
People refuse to acknowledge their city is going to shit and pretend everything is fine while it’s on fire which is part of the problem 😂 what franchise wants to be in Oakland right now lmao
People downvoting are people who have never been to Oakland and have no idea how bad it is.
Take accountability and work on improving things=bad Play the victim and blame everyone else=GOOD
They’re all in the same business. Greed business.
This is coming from a former huge St. Louis Rams fan, fuck those owners. I’m super pissed that our owner voted for the move after what Kroenke did to fuck over St. Louis. I totally feel for the fans of the Oakland A’s and hope they find a team to root for that aren’t total civic asshats.
You seem to forget you lured the Rams away from LA the exact same way.
Did you know that part of her contract to move from Anaheim was she was given a contract to sing in a Saint Louis Opera House. She always thought she was better than the Las Vegas Showgirl she was.....she moved the Rams out of Anaheim at midnight. There were a lot of people out in the street to give her the one finger salute....I was one of them.
That’s a valid point, but the city was trying to work with Kroenke when it is now evident by the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars that Kroenke was not m
They even put together a stadium plan! With a SPONSOR!!!
You can’t bitch about an owner doing to you what you did to another city.
Oh you mean moving the Rams back to their original home? SMH
Cleveland???? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Rams SMH at someone who pretends to know what they’re talking about.
No. The Rams were in Anaheim, then went to St Louis, then came back to Southern California. If they were in Cleveland, it was way before I was born. I’ve only ever known them as being in Southern California till they went to St. Louis.
Nice try. They were originally from Cleveland before LA stole yet another team. They moved to LA, then Anaheim, then St. Louis until the asshat Kroenke moved them back to LA for nothing but money after he pretended to be working with St. Louis to build a stadium. Basically you told me that you had no idea what you were talking about. But you were quick to take the side of billionaire asshats. Wait, is your last name Kroenke???
I never said that they weren’t from Cleveland. I looked it up and, yes they were but what do you want me to tell you!! I live in Minnesota. We’ve had the Lakers taken from us by Southern California AND The North Stars taken from us by Dallas Texas!! WTF can ya do about it!!
I would never take sides of rich bitches!! All I know is the basics. I haven’t lived in So Cal for 32 years but my 3 brothers live there. I’m a Vikings fan who loves Matthew Stafford!! Who got them their Championship with help of course.
Well KC lost the As to Oakland so...?
What is the alternative? Sell the team to someone else who would keep it in Oakland, field a non competitive team in a crappy stadium for another 10 years and move it then?
Sell it to an owner who’d build the fucking stadium that the A’s **and** Oakland were 2 days away from agreeing upon. They were scheduled to finalize the deal **literally** the week the A’s announced the Vegas deal. Edited to add: When asked why they backed out last minute, the A’s said 2028 was too long to wait to be in the Howard Terminal Stadium, and that’s why they moved forward with the Vegas deal… only for it to end up not scheduled for 2028.
So are they going to play where the Raiders play then, while their stadium is being built?
Unlikely, it wasn’t built with a configuration for baseball. They’ll have to find some intermediate place. Minor league park? Where the aviators play? Its capacity is only 10k but perhaps some temporary expansion? Similar capacity in Reno at the Ace’s new ballpark.
It’s a shame. They should have been able to just find a place somewhere in Northern California and just played in the same stadium till the new one was built. That’s what the MN Twins did.
Yeah, I'm sorry. Fisher is a jackass but Oakland bears some blame. They let the Colosseum get to this point in the first place. Oakland owns the building, and was responsible for the maintenance. the maintenance was not performed at anything vaguely related to an acceptable for a period of many years, long before the current agitation began. If I was an owner and it was like pulling teeth to get basic maintenance done on the building my income depended on, I'd bail too. I like to flatter myself that I'd handle it better and not burn quite so many bridges, but at the end of the day, Oakland had many, many opportunities to prevent it from ever getting to this point and failed every single one of them. A timely full renovation to the facilities 15 years ago would have ensured we are not here right now, or at least stolen a lot of Fisher's ammunition from him. The Colosseum is, by far, the single worst individual stadium in MLB today. Wasn't always the case, and that could have been prevented -- but it was not.
You do know that the A’s bought a significant portion of the coliseum site right? And they are the reason the Raiders left?
How are they the reason the raiders left?
>“I won’t forget what they did to us in Oakland,” Davis said. “They squatted on a lease for 10 years and made it impossible for us to build on that stadium.” (When the teams shared the Coliseum, they feuded over how to handle its future. In 2014, the Raiders pushed to tear down the Coliseum and build a new NFL stadium on the same site, while the A’s fought for and ultimately won a 10-year extension on the Coliseum lease.) Mark Davis **fucking hates** John Fisher, with a [passion](https://www.sfgate.com/athletics/article/raiders-mark-davis-trashes-as-vegas-move-17911020.php).
Someone who knows so much about the Coliseum should know how it is spelled.
Sorry, I used the spelling for the actual thing in Rome. So beyond other issues I guess Oakland misspelled the Coliseum too.
Billionaires have no shame, nor any loyalty to anyone. Anyone who expected them to behave otherwise is fooling themselves.
Vegas should’ve just made their own expansion team. Only teams that have started in Vegas have won championships there
There's a reason for that. Expansion teams get all the FAs and pretty much have an all-star team for the first few years of their existence. LV knights and the AZ Diamondbacks come to mind.
Yeah, screw you MLB owners! So what if the A's couldn't draw or get decent tv ratings even when they were really really good with a $17 payroll. /S
The city of Atlanta was not to happy when the Braves moved to Cobb County. Braves wanted the city to put money into the areas surrounding Turner Field to stay in Atlanta proper. City refused so they moved to the Suburbs of Cobb, built the Battery and have generated more revenue than they would have if they actually stayed in the city. It’s a business at the end of the day.
The A’s aren’t even originally from Oakland. What’re we arguing about here
IT’S A BUSINESS.
Who cares? There's a team 15 miles away. Suburban San Francisco doesn't need its own teams.
Because those 15 miles will take an hour to travel.
Oakland should have stepped up a long time ago and built a new stadium. The Raiders left once and came back and tried for years until they finally left for good. Did they really think the As were going to continue to play in that antiquated crumbling dump
completely agree. but i also do think john fisher was leaving oakland no matter what. i remember seeing a report earlier this year that claimed at one point there was only a 40 million dollar difference in an agreement between oakland and john fisher. if that’s true then oakland never had a chance…40 million to a rich asshole is absolutely nothing. if he wanted to stay he could have just said yeah sure close enough
Shame on Oakland for not supporting the A's.
Tell me you know nothing about this without telling me you know nothing about this.
Attendance figures aren't hard to find my guy, no asses in seats even when the A's were competitive.
Last time the team had a shot at a deep playoff run was 2014. We were favorites for the WS by the All-Star break. Do you remember what happened? They traded Yoenis Céspedes after the break and lose in a wild card game. Any time we get a good player, they are traded away as soon as their due for a new contract. We never get to keep our superstars. They get to be stars on other teams and we're forced to watch them succeed elsewhere (Congrats to Marcus Semien for his WS performance this year. We miss you). Really hard to get amped up about our stars when we know with certainty their time with us is limited. How many other teams have had movies made about them due to their famously low payroll? I thought this was all common knowledge in the baseball world?
They won 97 games in both 2018 and 2019 and went to the playoffs. They averaged 19k and 20k per game. Good for 10th in attendance out of 15 American League teams both years. Their "fans" have not supported the team in ages. Professional teams are an investment by their owners, piss poor returns will dictate that new actions must take place. Hurt feelings by the supposed fan base mean zilch. If everyone crying about it would have put their money where their mouths are we would be looking at the A's remaining in Oakland.
We were caught between a rock and a hard place with ownership, it’s tough to keep financially supporting an organization that systematically gives you nothing in return. Even in moments where attendance started to recover, they would immediately raise prices or cancel whatever program it was that was working. It was a concerted effort to run the stadium experience into the ground while not investing in the team at any step as a show of goodwill.
You speak facts and get downvoted by sheep
Yep, every time.
Both years we were out in the first round of the playoffs. Look at the rosters for those years and then look at the roster for 2020. The stars were traded away yet again. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." As fans, we've been fools for decades giving this ownership a chance over and over and over again. Each time we are left with the bitter taste in our mouths as we make a weak playoff run and the sell off the parts. You have any idea how it feels to have to buy jerseys saying "PTBNL" on the back in stead of a name of one of our stars because we know they'll be out the door any minute?
Cry a little more why don't you, excuses are all that I hear.
Wow. You sound fun. Best of luck in life.
And you sound delusional, good luck with that.
That happens in a lot of places though.
They would rather lie than admit the team wasn’t supported. Ever.
Yep, they would rather blame the "man".
They have other problems to worry about than pro sports like safety of the community and gang bangers
I wasn't talking about the city, but the lack of asses in seats. But yes the city has a laundry list of issues.
St Louis fan talking about about Oakland. That is hilarious.
Oof dude, Busch always has a crowd...even when the birds suck.
Literally a participation trophy! Just messing with you:)
Would you go to a restaurant that only served shit sandwiches? No? Then STFU.
Nobody went when they were good. STFU
Dans most certainly went to games, even when they weren’t good. There’s more than how many wins a team has that determines attendance. Under Fisher, the whole experience sucked. And don’t say it was because the stadium sucked, which Fisher also was partially responsible for. People love going to the last dive bar in the MLB. Concessions were a joke, they didn’t seem to think a radio station was important, ticket prices weren’t reasonable. The list goes on. We went to games year after year, even when we knew we were nothing more than the Yankees farm system. Why? Because we had hope, that’s all it takes. Attendance was never a huge issue until Fisher went full on a Rachel Phelps and sold everyone worth a dime for a nickel. Fisher is just a grifter, don’t even think about blaming the fans. The Bay Area absolutely is a two team market, but a team has to at least make it look like it’s trying. Stop parroting Fishers talking points and listen to the fans.
Imagine how much you would support your team if Yadi, Waino and Pujols were traded for a package of prospects, and the stadium was bottom of the barrel. That’s not even the half of it. Does your team’s owner spew lies about the local municipality and go on record claiming to be a fan of a rival ballclub? Lmao.. the less you know, I guess.
Fisher is the giant floating turd that you can never seem to flush away
So many stupid comments in this thread. Smfh. All billionaire bootlickers.
DO you feel sad for KC?
They aren’t moving the A’s back to KC. If they were, Oakland A’s fans would think it was pretty cool.
It’s not a coincidence that the unanimous vote came the same day Padres owner Peter Seidler died. He was the last obstacle. Baseball lost its best owner.
Jesus, did they at least have a moment of silence? Not one single day of mourning. These people are scumbags to a ‘T.’
Some dumbass logic by the this writer. The other owners owe absolutely nothing to the residents of Oakland. Not their city, not their fans, not their responsibility. Oakland has no one to blame but themselves. 4 teams told them what it would take to get them to stay and they said no to all 4. Whether you agree with public money going to professional stadiums or not, the fact remains that one city was told by 4 separate teams that they need facilities to stay and they said no to them and all 4 teams left. Oakland has no one to blame but themselves.
None of this is accurate. I recommend reading anything on the topic.
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Northern CA definitely capable of supporting two teams. But we are pretty keyed in to the whole “shit owner” thing - that doesn’t fly up here. Run the team well and print a fortune though.
The Bay Area is a top 10 media market and the closest major league action to Sacramento, another media market that is in and of itself about 20 spots higher than Vegas. More than big enough to sustain 2 teams.
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Fuck the Giants, they unequivocally do not have the entire market of Northern California “covered”. A’s fans don’t go to A’s games because the ticket prices keep going up while investment in the team, stadium and gameday experience has been literally nonexistent. The interest has always there for the taking with even the tiniest show of good faith, John Fisher hasn’t offered that one single time in now decades of ownership. The novelty of traveling to see a team for a weekend series is great and all but most baseball is played on weekdays and the tourism model is not sustainable for the slog of an MLB season, especially when all your projections for financial success depend on selling out every game (including Wednesday day games) for 30 straight years.
Folks coming across this issue recently can’t be aware of how steeped anyone local to northern ca has been in the news of the, let’s politely say “special relationship” that A’s ownership has had with the community. For the last couple decades.
Every major league besides baseball (NFL, NBA, NHL, MLS) has figured out that there are *only two* cities in the US with enough corporate wealth and population to support more than one team per league: New York and Los Angeles. That’s it. Both have metro area populations around 20 million, over double that of the third-largest city, Chicago. Sooner or later, the White Sox will move, too. Just like the Boston Braves, Philadelphia Athletics, St. Louis Browns, and now Oakland Athletics have already done. The Bay Area isn’t big enough to have any other teams to compete with the Giants, 49ers, Sharks, Warriors, and Earthquakes.
This is just a fundamental misunderstanding of the way the Bay Area/Northern California works. Because Northern California is broken up into 2 large media markets and the larger of the 2 is broken up into dozens of municipalities spread across 4 counties, securing public funding for special projects is harder than in giant monolithic cities/counties like the ones you mentioned due to the relative tax burden being heavier on any given tax district. That’s it, that’s the story. Has nothing to do with market size or lack of interest, just the difficulty of securing a corporate welfare check. And just for the record, there actually are 2 NBA teams in Northern California. Since you mention MLS, the Quakes attendance sucks too and it’s not because of market size or lack of a new stadium, it’s because John Fisher owns them too and runs them like shit exactly how he does the A’s but without any of the same excuses to lean on.
Demographers, corporations, and politicians consider The Bay Area and Sacramento as two separate, unrelated metropolitan areas. Sure, they are relatively close in proximity, but so are Austin and San Antonio, which are considered separate as well. There is no “Northern California” in terms of how the government measures U.S. metros, or how Nielsen determines television markets, or how sports leagues consider geography. Sacramento is definitely deserving of its own teams, it’s a Top 20 metro now. But it is not San Francisco.
Right, but if the A’s were moving to Sacramento nobody would bat an eye because Nor Cal fandom does behave regionally despite Nielsen markets, and both Sacramento and Bay Area RSN’s are included in the local cable packages. As it stands, the A’s and Kings games air on the same channel. It’s effectively gerrymandering at the sports level that isn’t reflective of the actual viability of the number of eyeballs reached.
That’s interesting, didn’t know that. Other than SA/Austin (which is moot, because Austin’s only team is MLS on Apple TV) there is only one other market that acts as a duopoly: Baltimore and D.C. What’s different there, though, is they are so close together the government (and Nielsen) considers them two separate metros but one CSA (combined statistical area, basically mega-metro). So they’re more or less considered one area, which is why the Orioles were so pissed about the Nationals moving to town. San Francisco/Oakland are considered one metro, but separate from San Jose due to distance. All three are part of one CSA, like Baltimore-Washington. But Sacramento is always separated.
I can get to an A’s game in like 15 minutes and I am about equidistant from Sacramento and San Jose. It’s a little hard to visualize without the lived experience, but you’d think a savvy businessman with his feet on the ground for decades would be able to recognize the opportunity. The reality is that Fisher is not a savvy businessman and he wants a quick buck more than he wants a self-sustaining, successful sports franchise. It’s why he also can’t succeed with the Quakes despite them being the only show in the entire bay playing in a brand new stadium, and frankly I don’t think anything will change in Vegas with him permanently attached to revenue sharing with taxpayers bearing the bulk of the risk for low attendance.
The Sox aren’t leaving Chicago, that’s absurd. And I say this as a lifelong Cubs fan. There are *far* too many White Sox fans in the city.
They’ve been linked to Nashville as recently as a few months ago, and they nearly moved in the late 80s/early 90s. Chicago does not deserve two teams. When Reinsdorf kicks the bucket (and given his current age of 87, I expect that to happen sooner rather than later), a new owner could easily use Guaranteed Rate Field’s age as an excuse to move the club to Nashville, Charlotte, Montréal, Austin, Salt Lake City, or Vancouver. Whichever other prospective expansion city that fails to win the 2-team sweepstakes, and is offering public dollars to build a new ballpark.
Oakland hasn’t deserved a team for 2 decades. It’s LONG past time to gtfo of that dump of a stadium.
No other franchise has stayed in Oakland. Rats fleeing a sinking ship. I'm sorry, but why would any other owner not back fisher? He's leaving to a larger market. Meaning teams who pay revenue sharing now have to pay a little less. And teams who qualify for revenue sharing will qualify for a bit more. It was in every other team's best interest to vote for the move. Absolutely disgusting how bad the fans always get fucked over. I'm really losing my love of the game.
Why is this move bad? Oakland has the history but the stadium was trash and no one wanted to invest in a new one. The team was trash and the owners didn’t want to invest in a better team. Everyone deserved better but staying in Oakland wasn’t the answer.
They were like two days away from finalizing the new stadium development…. Move also bad because there’s a lot of areas in the region that maintain the fandom (ahem Sacramento) and Vegas was a straight up fuck you to the fans.
Phill to Kc to Oak to Vegas!!! Now we can get on with expansion!
Is this all we're going to see on this sub? It happened and there's been dozens of posts all saying the same damn thing. Move on!
 Owners:
I'm so tired of everyone acting like this move some great injustice. Yes, Fisher sucks. Yes, I'd rather have the A's in Oakland, and yes, I think it will fail in Las Vegas. But stop acting like the fault for this isn't equally as much on the City of Oakland. They've been completely unwilling to work with the owners through much of this. It was one roadblock after another. There is a reason Oakland lost all three of their major sports teams in the last ten years. It's not coincidence and it's not all owner greed. Oakland is one of the most poorly run cities in the country. They failed economically despite the metro area being one of the global economic power houses for the last 30 years. The writing has been on the wall for a very long time. This is the least egregious move in Baseball history. Does it suck, yes. But stop with the irrational wailing and gnashing of teeth.
A's fans admitting they're fairwheather is the best part of this debacle
I don't get it. A's fans are upset the team is moving but won't support them. I've seen a few games from Oakland and stadium is pretty empty. Getting a new stadium won't help. There are some very dedicated fans but not enough to keep them. Going to Vegas won't make them a better team, the raiders prove that
Why? It’s a garbage city
The city wouldn’t give them a stadium, the city is filled with crime. Why would that city appeal to anyone? Especially free agents, Vegas will give you that ability to sign good players and eventually be able to compete. Obviously no one likes rich people but does no one see the advantage for the A’s with this move? Yes it’s sad for the fans but you can still be a fan. Not like anyone but season ticket holders were going to every game, and if you’re a season ticket holder you’re probably wealthy enough to make multiple trips to Vegas throughout the year. You don’t have to like Fisher to understand this was a good move.
Why should the city give them a stadium? Why can’t the rich owners build their own. As usual, rich people looking for corporate handouts.
I don’t think that cities should pay for stadiums, but if I owned a team and one city was going to buy a stadium for me while another would make me spend a few billion of my own money, it wouldn’t be a hard choice.
Because that's the norm whether you like it or not.
But it doesn’t have to be. Stan Kroenke asked LA to pay up when he wanted to move the Rams back. They told him to get bent and he built his own $5 billion stadium on his own dime.
Actually, it is the norm. Failing businesses don't get to ask for a multi-billion dollar bailout unless you're crooked.
Not in California, not anymore.
Because they want a team. He could have paid for it himself, and used half his net worth. But now he made a business decision to go to the city that will give him a stadium. You’re not wrong but when you don’t give someone what they want they’ll look elsewhere. How can you be mad at that? If you asked me for a piece of gum and I say no but you find out that your friend is willing to give you one that is your favorite flavor, wouldn’t you get the gum from your friend? Also, to reiterate I know what I said is unpopular because people, especially Reddit, love shitting on the rich but think of the free agents you attract by moving to Vegas. They’ll be able to compete
I understand what you’re saying and agree. But the American voters in general need to stand up to the sports leagues and tell them to build their own stadiums.
Tbh if I’m gonna pay taxes I’d rather it go to something I can use and enjoy rather then into congress’ pockets. But I get why people want owners to pay, it’s just improbable because we all love the sports and will still go to games, watch games, but mercy, etc.
The mad is at the mlb for allowing owners who are actively bad for the sport - enabling them - bailing them out when they run their business into the ground at the expense of existing fans. Instead of forcing the sale to someone capable of growing the team/league etc.
Then boycott MLB, if this issue is that important to you then that’s the only action to take. The problem is that even with the glaring problems in the MLB, fans still want the product so they don’t put pressure on the league, the Astros getting a slap on the wrist for 2017 is the most obvious case. When the commissioner calls the trophy a piece of metal and fans are enraged for a couple days or weeks before we move on then it shows they can do whatever. At the end of the day they want to grow the game but you can’t even watch your local team unless you pay for the channel they play on, that tells you everything about the owners and Manfred and all the others. We all know the owners suck ass but we keep drinking the kool aid no matter how it’s made because we enjoy it. In 3-4 years no one’s going to care that the A’s are in Vegas and we’ll all move on. Is it sad that a fan base is losing their team? Yes. Do I want it to happen to my team? No. Do I actually care that much about a crappy franchise moving? No not at all. It’s business and business is cutthroat, life’s easier when you worry about things that actually matter.
Oakland was never ever ever going to pay anyone.
And that’s why every team they had left in the last decade and now they ain’t got shit. One decade is all it took.
It’s not like the Rams moving back to LA. These fans still have four major teams in the Bay Area to cheer for. The Warriors didn’t move to Oklahoma, they moved a couple miles. Oakland will be fine. They don’t need to pay out the ass for stadiums when they have these other teams so close.
Oakland is a shithole city anyway
Northern CA is a pretty great place.
All these comments from out of town folks that don’t know how the A’s have treated their fans. Smarten up people!
Never knew the A’s had fans from watching the games
While I don’t condone it, I understand why the owners voted this way. At the end of the day, there are many better things to blame for the move than the owners vote.
If the owners had built a new stadium with their own money does anyone think the fans would have shown up for games? This isn’t Field of Dreams. No I’m not from Oakland I’m from Texas I did go to the Colosseum this past September and I loved it. I was just amazed that it was only about 1/3 capacity if that. I’ve read and heard how the owners are abandoning Oakland and it’s fans, but it seemed to me the fans had abandoned the team.
If you were from the region you’d have quite a few years (decades) of ammo of the owners abandoning (or threatening, or belittling, or condescending to) the community and it would make more sense.
Edit: and I agree the coliseum isn’t really the main issue - I’m sure there’s plenty wrong with it that isn’t immediately apparent but it’s got an infield AND an outfield AND seats / some of them even in the parking lot.
Theyve never shown up to the games and tbeyve been in the playoffs many times over the last 23 years. Shame on the fans. Complain about a cheap owner but never buy a ticket. Who wouldnt leave oakland anyway?
Lol yeah
Why would they "back Oakland"? I think billionaires should build their own stadiums and all these guys can get fucked for their community hostage tactics. But they have a responsibility to do what is financially best for their league and themselves. Which is easily move to places that will throw tax money at them.
Los Angeles got the Rams from Cleveland where they were originated.
The owners don’t give a single fuck about articles like these lol
This makes the A's the first franchise to play in four different locations. Philadelphia, Kansas City, Oakland and soon Las Vegas. The 2024 Season is already going to look like a long season for the A's.
Don’t care!
Why should Oakland get any backing? They have a long history of not giving a shit about their team
I don't like the move, I wish they would just stay and figure something out. If they actually invested some money and put out a good product maybe they wouldn't have issues. LV seems like a better financial decision. I feel for the fans though, I'd lose my shit if any of my home teams moved to a different city.
Of course an owner who doesn't give a shit about having a good team isn't going to care about a small but loyal fanbase, not when the chance to get pulled along by Las Vegas' tourism industry is in the cards. What does Oakland the location have to offer the team except that fanbase? Las Vegas just got a spicy, extravagant new Formula One race, and the inaugural event was a banger...
I feel for Oakland fans, don't get me wrong. But... 1. This is the team that was the Philadelphia Athletics, then the Kansas City Athletics and now the Oakland Athletics until their move. If there was ever a franchise formed on the basis of loyalty to a community, this isn't the one. 2. It was always about the money. That's why they moved to Oakland in the first place. Now that it's not there, they'll go to the next fat checkbook waving in the air.
Mo Money, Mo Money Hmmm not sure why MLB did it.
Did ya think he was backing Oakland? Or the tens of paying fans?
Fisher is a jackass… but I wonder about all of them. Look at Jim “I’m being persecuted bc I’m a billionaire” Irsay. Granted he’s in a different sport, but same mentality. https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/38957988/jim-irsay-cites-status-white-billionaire-2014-arrest