A's announce Sacramento as temporary home until Las Vegas stadium ready
Its official: 2024 will be the final season of the Oakland Athletics playing in Oakland, California.
The team announced on "X" Thursday morning it will be playing at Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento starting next year until their new stadium in Las Vegas is complete.
The A's expect to play there for the 2025-27 seasons, with hopes to have their new stadium in Las Vegas complete and ready to use for 2028.
The announcement should be the final nail in the coffin for any remaining hopes of the A's remaining in the Bay Area, even after Las Vegas mayor Carolyn Goodman said they should figure out a way to stay on Feb. 8.
"I personally think [the A's have] got to figure out a way to stay in Oakland to make their dreams come true," she said on the "Front Office Sports Today," podcast.
"I think there's just an appetite [in Oakland]. I run into people from Oakland all the time. They want to keep the team and it's just the government up there. It costs money...I love the people from Oakland. I think they deserve to have their team."
Sutter Health Park is currently the home of the AAA Sacramento River Cats -- a former affiliate of Oakland that's now part of the San Francisco farm system -- and has a capacity of 14,000. While significantly below that of the Oakland Coliseum (63,000), it's easily above the team's average attendance at games in Oakland since 2019.
In a "Major League," story come to life, owner John Fisher has operated the team with a minuscule budget, refusing to sign promising players to lucrative deals and instead trading them for younger, cheaper options. The product became uncompetitive and fans didn't want to pay absurd stadium prices to an owner who isn't putting that money back into the team.
Since fans were allowed back into ballparks after the COVID-shortened 2020 season, the A's highest average attendance peaked last season at 10,276 fans, partially because they came to express their discontent with Fischer.
On June 13, 2023, the Oakland faithful organized a "reverse boycott," of the team, with 27,759 fans turning out with the message they still support the team, just not the owner.
Despite fan's best efforts, money talks. And in this situation it said "goodbye Oakland."
And that's a shame.
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