The Oakland Athletics have a rich history here in the Bay Area dating back to 1968. Over the years, the organization has dealt with a lot of controversy surrounding their payroll and stadium. The A’s have never really been big spenders by any means, but local fans continue to support their home team and enjoy the convenience of the easily accessible Oakland Coliseum.
This all changed in May of 2021 when the MLB unanimously approved the A’s to consider relocation for the future. The owner of the team, John Fisher, and the rest of the league talked about relocating the franchise to a bigger market with a newer stadium. This resulted in the decision to move the team to Las Vegas and build a whole new stadium there. The plan was originally to remain in Oakland until 2028, when the stadium would be completed, but the current lease for the Coliseum would expire at the end of the 2024 season. For the time being, the team is moving to Sacramento to play at Sutter Health Park for the next three seasons.
“I know the stadium is getting pretty old and rundown, but I feel it’s added a lot of character over the years,” Senior Angus Olaes said. “I think it kind of represents the A’s as an organization being a scrappy and underdog type team.”
With a net worth of over $3 billion, owner John Fisher seemingly has no intention of building up the Oakland A’s to be a true contending team. Year after year, he provides just enough money to keep the team going, but other than that, he doesn’t have it in his best interest to care what the players, coaches, and fans want to see. It’s causing fans to be less inclined to go watch games because they’re less motivated to go and support the organization. The average attendance of league games this year is just over 26,000, while the A’s have an average of only about 6,200.
“I think the move to Las Vegas was bad, but I think if the A’s got a new stadium in the Bay it would be good. I think the fans and players don’t get what we deserve. The A’s are a very profitable team and their fans will show up for any team they put on the field,” Junior Oskar Jones said.
People have speculated the reason is that owner, John Fisher, isn’t trying to do anything big with the team in order to make fans so disappointed that nobody would care by the time they moved to Las Vegas. This plan has backfired in multiple ways. Starting in 2022, A’s fans started boycotting by not attending home games and immensely spreading the motto “Sell The Team” around social media, putting signs around the city, and actively proteting during games, all to support the players while expressing their frustration with ownership.
“A lot of people don’t realize the empty stadium is just a long lasting boycott to stop funding the Vegas stadium. The fans and players deserve a Bay Area stadium but the owner doesn’t seem to care,” Jones added.
The whole issue is that John Fisher is putting the blame on the fans because they are going to less games and spending less money on A’s related merchandise, while the fans themselves are putting the problem all in the hands of Fisher and believe that he’s the true problem in the organization. On April 2, several news outlets reported a fan found a team store sheet with specific rules for the stadium workers. It stated that if anything is seen promoting the motto “Rooted in Oakland”, it must be taken down, and that they shouldn’t try to highlight products focusing on the name “Oakland”. For a while now, fans of the A’s have done what they can to get Fisher out and bring back the atmosphere the team and stadium used to carry. But, in the end, the relocation of the Oakland Athletics has become almost inevitable.
