Topline
The Athletics will follow the Raiders and Golden State Warriors out of Oakland, as they have reportedly signed a binding agreement to purchase land for a new major league baseball park in Las Vegas, becoming the third professional sports team to leave the struggling city in five years.
The Oakland A’s have signed an agreement to leave their aging California stadium for Las Vegas.
Key Facts
The purchase of the 49-acre, casino-owned land parcel came about after roughly 20 years of back-and-forth negotiations between the major league baseball team and Oakland, which is the third-largest city in the Bay Area and has the largest share of the region’s 10 poorest neighborhoods.
A’s President Dave Kaval told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Wednesday the team had turned its attention to Las Vegas after friction persisted in a roughly 15-year attempt to build a new baseball stadium along Oakland’s waterfront.
In 2010, Oakland first proposed the $12 billion Howard Terminal project, a major waterfront development centered around a $1 billion ballpark for the A’s—but the project continued to hit snags and in 2021, Major League Baseball allowed the A’s to explore relocation options citing the development’s slow progress.
The Las Vegas stadium will be a $1.5 billion, 30,000-seat ballpark with a retractable roof and will open by 2027, Kaval told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao said on Wednesday she was “deeply disappointed” by the A’s Las Vegas deal after the city’s “above and beyond” attempts to find “mutually beneficial terms” for the team and city.
The A’s follow National Football League team the Raiders, who left Oakland for Las Vegas in 2020, and National Basketball Association’s Golden State Warriors, who left for San Francisco in 2018.
Key Background
The A’s were working against a January 2024 deadline set by the MLB to get their ballpark deal finalized after announcing in 2009 they would not be staying at their 1960s-era Oakland Coliseum indefinitely. As professional sports teams have grown in wealth, Oakland, which is poorer than its neighboring San Francisco and San Jose, has struggled to compete with other cities to provide state-of-the-art facilities for their professional sports teams. The Raiders, who had been playing in the same aging multipurpose Coliseum stadium as the A’s, left Oakland for the brand new $1.9 billion Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. The Warriors left Oakland’s 1970s-era Oracle Arena for the $1.4 billion Chase Center in San Francisco, which was built in 2019. Oakland had the lowest opening day payroll in baseball at $58 million. On top of that, A’s attendance in Oakland has also experienced a sharp drop-off from an average of roughly 22,000 fans attending games in 2015 to less than 10,000 on average in 2022, according to the Athletic. Kaval said he expects 70% of the fans at the new stadium to be local to Las Vegas.
Tangent
In addition to Oakland’s struggles, Las Vegas has become an increasingly alluring location for professional sports teams. The Nevada city has been historically snubbed by pro teams because the state was one of the only places where sports gambling was legal. As more states began to legalize sports wagering, National Hockey League team the Golden Knights became the first pro team to play in Las Vegas in 2017.
Surprising Fact
The A’s would be the second MLB team to change cities in more than half a century. Since the Washington Senators became the Texas Rangers in 1972, the only team to relocate was the Montreal Expos in 2005, who became the Washington Nationals.
Further Reading
Oakland A’s enter binding agreement to buy Las Vegas ballpark site Las Vegas Review-Journal
Why Are Sports Gods Turning Their Back On Oakland? (Forbes)
Best City For Sports Fans: Why Las Vegas Has Something For Every Taste And Budget (Forbes)
Baseball’s Most Valuable Teams 2023: Price Tags Are Up 12% Despite Regional TV Woes (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/katherinehamilton/2023/04/20/oakland-losing-3rd-major-sports-team-in-5-years-as-as-sign-las-vegas-deal/