I feel like every team is leaving Oakland now, but, why?
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Shortest answer is the owners can make a lot more money in Las Vegas.
Las Vegas has a significant tourism board that dwarfs the Bay Area. While people want to visit San Francisco and see the Golden Gate Bridge, not a lot of people, outside of locals, want to visit Oakland.
Couple this with Las Vegas locals have been vying for sports representation. The LV Golden Knights were the city’s first professional team and it has been wildly successful. Not just as local fans, but as a destination fan trip for out-of-towners to see their favorite team and add a few days in Vegas for fun. Las Vegas can also absorb travelers with the tens of thousands of hotel room capacity. And Las Vegas out by the strip is sized block for block for mega resorts, so fitting a stadium or two in is pretty easy.
Ultimately it’s because the stadium is outdated and not fan or team friendly and the team ownership couldn’t get a new stadium construction deal in the Oakland area.
Basically Oakland wanted the team to build a new stadium near the current stadium because the infrastructure is in place; the team refused that and wanted to build a new stadium in a different part of town where they also wanted to do other developments they could profit from. The city didn’t want to commit to that plan from the A’s because they weren’t comfortable with the redevelopment plan.
So there was a standstill.
Meanwhile, the NFL that shared the stadium with the A’s, the Raiders, got a sweetheart deal in the entertainment mecca Las Vegas for a modern stadium.
So the A’s owner wanted something similar, and Las Vegas and the state of Nevada agreed to fund much of not most of the cost of a new baseball stadium. The A’s bought land in Las Vegas for the stadium to be built on.
The problem is the stadium in Las Vegas won’t be ready for at least four years.
The A’s needed a place to play until then because Las Vegas has a minor league stadium that the MLB players union will not allow A’s games to be played in because Las Vegas has very hot summers. And the A’s and Oakland could not come to an agreement on a temporary lease for the A’s to keep playing at the Oakland Coliseum. And for some reason, the A’s didn’t make a deal to play across the SF Bay to play in the SF Giant’s home stadium.
So the A’s found the minor league stadium in Sacramento, CA as acceptable as a temporary home for three or four seasons.
So the A’s are relocating, the new home is not ready, and their current lease is ending.
Why is anyone leaving Oakland? The answer is probably pretty similar
A’s ownership wanted a new stadium and they wanted the City of Oakland to (at least in art) pay for it, either via tax breaks, muni bonds, or outright cash. City of Oakland (rightly) told them to pound sand.
Vegas was dumb enough to say, “sure, we’ll take it in the butt to get you to come here”.
The people of Oakland have realized that the billions they would have to pay to keep the teams do not come back to the city. The whole thing is a scam to shift the financial burden from Billionaire owners to taxpayers. They will claim the investment will pay off in tangential business growth, but studies have shown that is bullshit. Other cities are starting to follow suit. Kansas city voters rejected a similar proposal recently from Chiefs ownership. As an Oakland native and life long A’s fan, I am proud of the city for standing up to what was essentially blackmail.
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