November MLB Owners Meeting May Green Light Athletics’ Move To Vegas

There’s only one thing preventing the instant transfer of the Oakland Athletics to Las Vegas: lack of a place to play.

Approval of the franchise shift is expected during a meeting of Major League Baseball owners scheduled for November, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, although neither the team nor MLB has made that official.

A new, retractable-roof ballpark could be ready by the start of the 2028 season but that would leave the team in limbo for the next four seasons.

Possibilities include playing another year in Oakland, where the team’s lease has another year to run; sharing San Francisco’s Oracle Park with the cross-Bay Giants; playing in the Triple-A stadium already standing in Las Vegas; or some combination of all those ideas.

There’s also a chance the A’s could negotiate a short-term lease extension with Oakland city fathers but getting their consent could be difficult.

The ballpark has fallen into disrepair in recent seasons and is widely considered the worst facility in the big leagues. Coupled with a losing team that has been slashing payroll by trading its best players, those factors have killed attendance in Oakland.

Entering the weekend, the A’s were 46-100, 36½ games behind in the American League West. In fact, the only department in which Oakland led the majors was lowest payroll: $77,811,667, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts.

The team is virtually certain to finish with a record even worse than its 2022 incarnation, when it went 60-102 and finished 46 games behind the front-running Houston Astros.

Owner John Fisher, son of GAP founder Donald Fisher, insists he the team is not for sale. But he’ll need the approval of 75 per cent of his fellow owners to complete his long-sought transfer.

A three-man ownership committee, including Mark Attanasio of the Milwaukee Brewers, John Sherman of the Kansas City Royals, and John Middleton of the Philadelphia Phillies, has been considering the relocation request.

It will bring its recommendations to the upcoming meeting of all 30 owners.

Although there is concern in baseball circles about the transient nature of Las Vegas visitors, whose main interests have been gambling and shows, the city is involved in plans to erect a $1.5 billion domed stadium where the Tropicana Hotel now stands. ‘

The current hotel will be demolished, only to rise again at a site adjacent to the glittering new ballpark. Construction is scheduled to start in 2025.

Once they move, the A’s would become the first team in baseball history to represent four different cities, including Philadelphia, Kansas City, and Oakland before Las Vegas.

The team has a storied history that includes Hall of Famers Dennis Eckersley, Rollie Fingers, Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Grove, Rickey Henderson, Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson, Eddie Plank, Al Simmons, and managers Tony La Russa, Connie Mack and Dick Williams.