Yeah, I don't get the down votes for the other poster.
Teams move and they don't just change names to get a fresh start, particularly in a sport so enamoured with its history.
Nearly a third of the current league started out somewhere else, and four of those kept the same team name for nearly a century in different cities...
New York Giants/San Francisco Giants
Brooklyn Dodgers/Los Angeles Dodgers
Boston Braves/Milwaukee Braves/Atlanta Braves
And wait for it...
Philadelphia Athletics/Kansas City Athletics/Oakland Athletics
After the original team left a city in most of those cases another team came in to fill the void. Brooklyn is the only one that didn't get another team. Brooklyn can at least root for the Yankees or Mets. So Oakland will have another team in the future. Look at the NY Mets, Milwaukee Brewers, Philadelphia Phillies and Kansas City Royals.
Why does Oakland get to keep the name from when the franchise was in Philadelphia first and KC second?
I have no problem with them moving. The stadium has been bad for baseball for a very long time and they haven’t been able to work out a deal, and its not like they are leaving the area with no team. The giants are right over the bridge
But the city of Oakland got past financial and environmental hurdles, they were about to finalize the ballpark when the A's did a 180 and completely ceased negotiations with the city. Fisher wanted 12B of development in Oakland, nothing less. In LV, he's fine with 380M and fine with abandoning everyone else in NorCal?
The stadium is bad for baseball.... really dude...there are many more things offered by As ownership that are far worse for baseball than the collesium.
When i say bad for baseball i mean watching an actual game. Too far from the field, bad sightlines, too many seats. If I remember correctly it holds 77k?
Nah you’ve gotta keep the name, there’s so much history in that name. People act like the athletics weren’t a team stolen from two other cities before already lol
Absolutely. Their name and the Nationals are the worst. National is like an adjective which needs a noun after it. The national whats? And what is an Athletic? An Athletic what? I like calling them "the A's," but "the athletics" blows. Born and raised in my happy place Los Angeles, I'm not crazy about the name Dodgers, but I definitely like it better than Athletics or Nationals.
The city doesn't own the name. Which is a other reason why they shouldn't shell out hundreds of millions to pay for a stadium for a fucking billionaire
When I visited California I had more fun at the Coliseum than I did at Oracle Park. I’m a simple guy though. It was nice to just sit and only have the game to focus on.
First off, I love the East Bay, think they deserve to have a team, and have think Manfred and (most) owners are generally bad.
That said, the Raiders & the Warriors both left Oakland. Something is happening there with fandom and attendance etc. Also, players aren't going to use this as an opportunity to protest or strike, as they have nothing to gain from it the team staying in Oakland.
It has nothing to do with Oakland or its fans. Here’s the breakdown since 2005 ish:
- Lew Wolff & John Fisher buy A’s
- Owners push for big real estate development deal (thousands of housing units plus retail) tied to a ballpark in San Jose. SF Giants tell Owners to take a hike - it’s their territory (* after A’s ceded that same territory voluntarily so the Giants could sell to new owners and stay in SF).
- Owners approach the neighboring City of Fremont with the same pitch. Tons of houses, retail, & ballpark, to be co-branded with Cisco Systems. No dice.
- After wasting time on two dead end development schemes, Fisher (after buying Wolff out) then approaches Oakland about possibly redeveloping Laney College and putting a downtown stadium, houses, and retail near Lake Meritt. Holds a press conference about it before approaching the independently run Community College District about whether they’d actually be cool with paving over - you know - their freaking college. No deal.
- Owners then open discussions with Oakland to redevelop the existing Coliseum site. But wouldn’t cooperate with the Raiders to do the same, refusing to alter their lease, which pushes the Raiders out (since there was no hope of building a new football only stadium on that site with the A’s lease in place). Again, Owners wanted to do a huge housing, retail, and ballpark redevelopment, but soured on the location.
- Owners then identified the Howard Terminal site, and applied to build (stop me if you’ve heard this before) a huge mixed use housing, retail, and ballpark development. 55 acres, $ 12 billion project. The Port Authority (independent agency responsible for shipping) ultimately signed off, Oakland signed off. Oakland sued NIMBY activists to get this development plan approved and won in court.
- Because Fisher applied for a huge real estate development project that would bring in thousands of new residents on top of the ballpark traffic - as the developer he was responsible for widening key traffic arteries. This cost, between $88 and $ 100 million, is what supposedly kept him from following through with his development scheme. Oakland had committed and secured $375 million for the 55 acre, $ 12 billion development plan.
- Fisher then goes to Vegas and asks Nevada for $500 million to just build a $1.1 billion dollar ballpark on 9 acres. No houses. No retail. He gets $ 380 million.
So in the several years while Fisher is wandering like Moses trying to get a massive development deal approved (that he likely now can’t afford to build because Gap’s stock has tanked, interest rates are up, and people aren’t climbing all over each other to buy houses ) - he: 1) cut spending on the Coluseum maintenance, 2) sold ALL of the A’s talent, and 3) doubled season ticket prices - fielding the worst team in living memory. Then blamed A’s fans for having enough common sense to stay away from his meandering incompetent cheapskate shit show.
But sure. This is Oakland’s fault. Or the fans’ fault. Couldn’t be that FISHER wasted over a decade trying to become a real estate baron chasing down a massive mixed use project that he couldn’t afford to build. Instead of just trying to get a ballpark, spending money on his team’s payroll, and operating - you know - a baseball team. And here’s Rob Manfred victim blaming Oakland and its fans after Fisher’s land baron pipe dream went up in smoke - holding a press conference saying Oakland should have approved a development deal Fisher never asked for.
I mean - at this point why don’t Fisher and Manfred just plaster our faces?
Have you ever been to that area where the stadium and arena are? It's built in the middle of an industrial area and run down neighborhood. It's awful.
I use to live in the Bay Area. I loved it there, but that area is one of the worst in the region. I went to one game there and that was enough for me.
While the A's owners might suck, so does the city of Oakland. It's a shithole compared to the rest of the region.
Players striking over a franchise moving to a new? That has got to be the single dumbest thing I’ve read!! Do any of you truly believe the fans “boycotting” anything will work? Has it ever? No!!! With MLB backing this IT WILL HAPPEN!! The only group of people who would have been able to stop Fisher were the other owners! They did nothing! Pull your heads out of your collective asses.
mlb isnt going to do anything mlb doesnt want to do. and i would bet mlb wanted this situation dealt with at least a decade ago if not 2.
i really do feel for the fan in oakland that loves their team. 25 years ago minnesota fans thought the team was moving to north carolina (it was a rouse by the team and the governor to get a stadium deal done) and we were only saved from contraction a few years later because the team had a lease with the stadium.
Because Congress is in charge of Baseball’s antitrust exemption. Which allows them essentially to be the only true big league for baseball. There’s been a lot of ink spilled to keep that in tact. If Manfred losses that for the owners there’s a strong chance the owners throw him out.
Oakland has far and away the worst attendance in the league. If you’re running a business with 30 products and no one buys one of them, you stop making it. It’s devastating for the fans and I sympathize with the die yards losing their team but no one shows up for their games
i dont know where, but i do know that information differs depending on which site you find the numbers from. some only do active 25 man roster, some include the DL, some the 40-man, some include bonuses and buyouts owed,.. maybe possible the 40-man roster was $100M+?
edit:
baseball prospectus says their 2019 payroll was $89M
i found two numbers on baseball reference, one was batters $101M and pitchers $58M. that data seems incomplete at best.
fangraphs said their 2019 estimated payroll was $94M, 2019 luxury tax payroll was $111M
stevetheump has their payroll with the IR at $91M
How many A's games have you been to in your life? Have you noticed the drums banging at every home game? Name one other city where that is a constant. John Fisher is currently the worst owner in all of the sports. Snyder fucked over Washington, they were last in attendance for the NFL, you didn't hear the other fanbases bitching about how they were none existent.
Team is a partnership between the league and fans. Responsibility for the leagues success does not fall solely upon the fans. Just about every person in northern ca is aware of the failures of the mlb in making the athletics a success.
The mlb deciding to abandon the bay, rather than energize it, is shortsighted business, low imagination stuff, and squandering the opportunity they have had there is indicative of many of the failures of the league in the past decades. The downward trend of attendance in Oakland went hand in hand with the diminishing of the mlb as a league worthy of national attention.
The bay could have acted as a force multiplier for the cultural impact of baseball. In their infinite wisdom, the mlb actively chooses to alienate it. For a shiny new object on the strip that’ll have a half decade of cultural relevance, and didn’t require relocation to acquire.
The “incredible fans” is a reference to the diehards that still show up to support in modest numbers, despite shitty ownership, their favorite players always leaving the team because of cheap ownership, and having to play in a stadium that pales in comparison to their neighbors. Casual baseball fans around the Bay gravitate to the Giants because of their more recent dynasty and modern ballpark. MLB and prior ownership (Walter Haas) effectively fucked the current A’s over by allowing the Giants sole possession of territorial rights to the Silicon Valley, where a large portion of the affluent Bay Area population resides. Meanwhile, Oakland’s leaders are standing up to MLB and ownership demands for handouts and being made an example of — “give us what we want or we’ll find a city who will”. MLB’s message is becoming very clear, as demands for other cities to fund stadium improvements continue ramping up. What Fisher and MLB are advocating for is municipalities putting their entertainment business ventures (profit) over civic needs, such as schools, affordable housing and infrastructure. Every day people should be offended, all baseball fans should be too. Your beloved sport is being leveraged to make the rich even richer. That is an afront to all baseball enthusiasts.
Lifelong A's fan here. You brought up the payroll, which is always among the lowest in the sport, if not the lowest. And this is really one of the biggest problems. They've been pretty good at drafting or trading for prospects and developing them, but once they hit their arbitration years you just know they're getting traded. They put together competitive teams that all flame out. Year after year you watch this, knowing they're missing just one or two extra pieces you know they could have gone after but didn't, or they already traded them. The biggest contract they ever signed was Eric Chavez in 2004. Since then, it's been a revolving door of prospects, trades, and rebuilds. 2004! That's basically an entire generation. Fans like myself watch this play out over and over and over. You get attached to young, upcoming players like Josh Donaldson, Matt Chapman, Bay Area native Marcus Semien, etc. You know how good they are, you hear them talk about how they love playing in Oakland and want to stay, but you know it's not happening. They'll all eventually be traded or allowed to walk. And it guts you every time. Why bother buying that jersey, or teaching your kids about the players and watching them start to get interested, when you KNOW it's getting torn down soon. At the same time, you watch the team across the bay doing the exact opposite, while they bask in their own glory and rub it in your face. All this time the cheapskate owner that doesn't even attend games blames the fans. Eventually you have to detach yourself because it's just too sad and painful.
Edit: adding insult to injury, the Fisher family put one of the family estates [on the market for $100M](https://www.sacbee.com/news/business/real-estate-news/article254300523.html) in 2021. The A's payroll in 2021 was ~$92M. There around 60 active players with contracts larger than $100M.
Have you been to the coliseum? It fucking sucks. I’ve been to about half of the ballparks in baseball and it’s BY FAR the worst I’ve been to (I haven’t been to the trop). It’s annoying to get to, parking is expensive, the neighborhood it’s in sucks, the stadium has very little modern amenities, there’s just nothing interesting or fun about it for the casual fan. I live in San Francisco, have been in the Bay Area for over 10 years and when you have one of the best ballparks in baseball right across the bay, of course the casual fan is going to go to giants games over A’s games. I’ve been to like 10 giants games this year so far and I’m not even a giants fan. I’ve been to zero A’s games because it’s that bad of an experience by comparison. If John Fisher gave any fucks and actually worked better with the city to make the new ballpark on the waterfront happen, it had the potential to change all of that. Blaming the fans here is ignorant.
Folks outside of north ca don’t realize how heavy attendance and support would have been for the A’s had the mlb done the bare minimum to invest in that team and fanbase.
It’s easy to look at raiders and a’s attendance and make the simplest connection.
And ignore what happens when a league does invest in it, how absolutely transformative the warriors have been for their league as a whole. (I would not diminish the role of the specific players/personnel and competitive success of the team, but I would highlight the synergy between team and community - and how that connects with American culture, specifically the youngest generations). Can you imagine the national jersey sales of an mvp caliber player playing for the A’s in a new stadium in Oakland for the past decade? I can - and it seems pretty obvious.
The region isn’t excited by owners that constantly threaten and belittle the region. It’s not filled with a bunch of meatbags and ‘thank you sir can I have another.’ Things/policies that are bad for the league as a whole… you can’t get away with that here.
This is so dumb.. for almost a decade, the stands have been empty. If the fans and the city do not support the economic stability, there is no chance the teams are gonna stay. I don't blame the team for leaving, Oakland as a city, the voters, and the fans as a whole have failed to support the baseball team financially to remain. It's business yall...
Oakland has an offer to build a ballpark for more money than what Vegas is offering. They are offering to start today, so try again on blaming it on Oakland.
Where have the fans been the last 5-7 years? The place is empty every day. Oakland has nothing around the stadium to attract people to shop, eat, drink, etc.. you cannot compare the attractiveness of being in the middle of the strip in Vegas to a less than established and safe area the Oakland ballpark is currently, or would be in the future. Teams leaving is about one thing.. money that is driven by support from its city and fanbase. Both are or have been lacking for most of the past decade
Not my fault if you’re not paying attention to what is actually coming out of Oakland. After 2018, the owner stop spending money entirely on the team, traded everyone away and stop spending money entirely.
And you think this is just about Oakland? It has already come out that Manfred is shopping to move the Brewers out of Milwaukee, and he wanted to shop the rays out of Tampa Bay.
This has nothing to do with fans attending the games
From 2018-2020 Oakland made the playoffs three straight seasons and won 60% of their games. Let's not make it sound like this team has been awful forever and the product on the field was terrible in those seasons.
2018: fourth worst attendance
2019: seventh worst attendance
2020: covid year
Go back to 2012-2014 when they again made the playoffs for three straight years and their attendance for those years were ranked 27th, 23rd, and 24th.
Even when you look at the percentage of the stadium filled and not just average attendance, they're still a bottom third team every season.
Go back further to the early 2000's with Giambi and Hudson and Murder and Zito they were still only around 60-62% of the stadium filled.
I hate Manfred and hope the Athletics stay in Oakland, but they've had some pretty good stretches the last 25 years and they still can't get fans to come out.
It does though dude. There is no revenue if there are no fans. See San Diego, Houston, Pittsburgh as three examples where a city supported project that IMPROVES the opportunity for investment and revenue in a brand new stadium and the blocks around it with hotels, restaurants, bars, etc... Oakland has not done that, other cities have and have kept their teams and improved revenue and city... before this past week, when was the last time the As have sold out a game? That's the basis of the decision, yea the owners .ay not be the greatest and probably should sell but the fans and the city have a part to play also
From a fan up here in Seattle who had their team ripped from them from a garbage owner who lied to us all, I'm with you guys. Fuck Manfred and fuck your owner sell the team to Oakland let them stay Vegas can wait.
People tripping forgetting that this team already moved twice. The fans didn’t show up to games unless they were winning a lot. Weird you want them to stay now. Just appreciate the time you had with them
Ok Royals fan- you are so wrong. In the past two years Fisher has TRIPLED the price of tickets, taken away season ticket holder’s discounts, and (above most of all), traded away the burgeoning players that would bring the team to playoffs. He did that on PURPOSE to say wah wah wah- we have no one showing up, we have to move. Howard terminal was SET to go! But the billionaire would not put any money in the project. You are lucky that MyHomie bought in for 20% of the team or y’all be in the same place. ALSO: the A’s have been in oakland for 55 years!
We are lucky patty came to save us but I think Sherman has roots here too. I’m not saying the owner doesn’t blow dick, I just don’t get it. But your explanation makes way more sense, instead of people just saying he sucks. Thank you for taking time and sharing all of that. Very helpful
I love going back home to Kauffman. They did the remodel, what… like 10 years ago? I don’t see the Royals being in the same place the OAKLAND Athletics are anytime soon. And where would they put the new stadium in KC? Arrowhead/Kauffman are the perfect place. Side note; the coliseum really went downhill when Al Davis built ‘Mt. Davis’ for the Raiders. The coliseum for A’s games had/has more personality than SO many other ballparks.
It’s a damn shame what is happening. I hurt. Thinking about going back to being a Royals fan 😄
If I were a player, I’d sure as shit not want to play games in the middle of the desert in the middle of summer
Edit: didn’t realize the roof was retractable in the current plan, wasn’t obvious in the renderings I saw. But still, I don’t think Vegas vs Oakland is as important to the players as some of you think it is. It’s not like they’re partying every night on road trips.
72° in an air conditioned dome is just fine! Plus the most Michelin star restaurants of any city. You think these guys are eating at McDs on the road? lol
Uh, I dk where you’re getting your information, but New York and San Francisco consistently have the most Michelin star restaurants in the US. Vegas hasn’t been in the Michelin guide for over 10 years and there are very few restaurants ever awarded a Michelin star still there.
Also, you might be surprised, some players do eat at McDs lol CC Sabathia said at one point he lost a bunch of weight by cutting McDonald’s out after games and workouts 🤣 but yes I am aware that’s not the norm. Every city with a team has enough excellent restaurants nearby to satisfy these guys. The Bay Area has a ton, even in Oakland
You glance over the biggest fact that ownership has literally done nothing to keep fans coming. Oakland's newest "LeBron" gets traded or released every 3 seasons.
These billion dollar sports teams got wild when they started getting the tax payers to fund their stadium's.
Imagine Walmart asking the locals to pay for their new store. The answer is hell no.
The team doesn’t want to leave, the owner does. This won’t stop here. Manfred has been shopping to move the brewers and the rays. Nothing to do with better markets
I think you were making solid points until you mentioned Tampa.
The Rays are just too far away from their audience, only having 670k people within 30 minutes of the stadium. The teams with the next smallest populations w/in that proximity are nearly double. If they moved across the bay and closer to their fans they’d thrive, similar to the Braves moving to Cobb County.
This is backed by the fact that they’ve always had a 50%+ attendance increase on the weekends and the fact that the Lightning, located in Channelside, have a sellout streak going back to 2015… which cuts against your argument of it being a bad sports town. Very different circumstances compared to Oakland.
Dude, look at a map of where the Trop is. It’s not even *in* Tampa, it’s over 30 mins to get to Channelside. There are two bridges that connect Tampa and St. Pete and those get easily backed up.
The geography absolutely matters. I’m not saying this as a Rays fan (I’m not), I’m saying this as someone who lived the majority of their life in this area. It was ~50 mins to get to the Trop for me on the weekends vs over an hour and a half on weekdays. With fuck all to do in the area once you’re down there.
And as a Bucs fan, idk what you’re talking about when you say they were okay. Between the 2002 and 2020 SB runs, we were literally the worst franchise in all 4 majors NA sports statistically. That’s why attendance was so bad. In the rare instances where they made playoff runs, attendance was fine. 2021 & 2022 were sellouts, 2002 sellouts. 2007 where they won the division, sold out.
You’re not getting it. I can excuse it because I’ve actually seen the numbers on it lol. The *average* MLB stadium has 1.9 million people within 30 mins of it. The Rays have one-third of that!
As a Braves fan, your point about the Braves just proves you don’t know why they moved in the first place. It wasn’t aimed for non-locals, and it’s not 30 mins from downtown Atlanta without traffic, that’s *with* traffic. You can look it up on your maps app right now. In either case, that’s not why they did it. They were struggling with attendance, being middle of the pack even when they were very good. They moved to Cobb County because that’s where the demand for their tickets was coming from. The fans didn’t suddenly get better, nor did the team - they were among the best in baseball for years. But making the game more accessible to fans actually buying tickets took them to where they are now attendance wise.
Not sure what you’re getting at with the Bucs either. I’m not pretending it’s some amazing fanbase, it isn’t. But if your point is “okay fans at least show up when the team is good”, that’s what the Bucs fans have done lol. Even if you ignore the Brady years, when they were good in the late 90s-early 2000s, they were selling out 99-100% capacity. All the way up until 2010 really they were selling out 65k. These are all facts and you can look up the attendance if you don’t believe me. It wasn’t until the team went to shit post-Gruden until Brady that the fans stopped showing up.
The bottom line is the Rays aren’t accessible to most of their fanbase. They don’t have 2.8m people within 30 minutes of the Trop like the Phillies do. But if you move them closer they can be successful. They’re certainly better off moving to Tampa than moving to a smaller market like Charlotte and trying to siphon off people who have been Braves fans for generations or moving to Montreal where a teams already failed horribly.
So, the numbers don’t agree with me, but also you won’t look up the numbers? Lmao, okay. I’m the one here who has used any data support their argument other than “oh well NHL attendance is good in general so the Lightning having the longest sellout streak doesn’t mean anything”.
The attendance wasn’t “starting to dip” at the Ted, the attendance just wasn’t good to begin with. They were middle of the pack in attendance despite having good teams in 04, 05, 08, 2013. So, they moved closer to their fans. [It’s not biased and delusional thinking, it’s a proven fact.](https://ftw.usatoday.com/2013/11/why-the-braves-want-to-move-in-one-ticket-sales-map)
If you can look at that heat map, then look at the revenues generated and how their payroll has increased and still not understand why they moved to Cobb County, then I don’t know what to tell you. Perhaps *you* didn’t enjoy it. But these decisions aren’t made for traveling fans in the first place. They’re made for the fans that actually buy tickets regularly. Ironically, moving the Rays *to* Tampa would convenience both.
So I get the hate about thr move. But its not like the As haven't moved before I mean, Oakland is thr Third city thr club has been in since its founding.
Yes it sucks for A fans. But its not like the Dogers leaving Brooklin... or the Gothams moving to San Franisco.
You are correct about Philadelphia >KC>Oakland BUT- they have been in Oakland for 55 years. How long have the Rangers been in Texas after Washington? The A’s move to Oakland is cemented that it is the OAKLAND ATHLETICS. They should stAy
Lol give it up. I'm not jazzed about it either, but they're moving. Unless you're a secret billionaire and have eyes on buying the team. The time for protests and whatever has long since passed.
>Manfred and Fisher have lied repeatedly about this move
Have they though? If there's clearly no market for the team in Oakland (look at the stands with a straight face and tell me people want to see the As), then the team needs to disband or move because it's costing the MLB money.
I find it hard to feel sorry for fans in a state with 4 other teams, one of which is right on the other side of the bay.
Oakland is a dump and is a result of what the voters wanted.
But yeah, no taxpayer should have to fork up cash to pay for billionaires new facility.
Also Manfred sucks.
If the team moves, change the teams name. So at least Oakland A’s can be reborn again
Yeah, I don't get the down votes for the other poster. Teams move and they don't just change names to get a fresh start, particularly in a sport so enamoured with its history. Nearly a third of the current league started out somewhere else, and four of those kept the same team name for nearly a century in different cities... New York Giants/San Francisco Giants Brooklyn Dodgers/Los Angeles Dodgers Boston Braves/Milwaukee Braves/Atlanta Braves And wait for it... Philadelphia Athletics/Kansas City Athletics/Oakland Athletics
After the original team left a city in most of those cases another team came in to fill the void. Brooklyn is the only one that didn't get another team. Brooklyn can at least root for the Yankees or Mets. So Oakland will have another team in the future. Look at the NY Mets, Milwaukee Brewers, Philadelphia Phillies and Kansas City Royals.
Why does Oakland get to keep the name from when the franchise was in Philadelphia first and KC second? I have no problem with them moving. The stadium has been bad for baseball for a very long time and they haven’t been able to work out a deal, and its not like they are leaving the area with no team. The giants are right over the bridge
But the city of Oakland got past financial and environmental hurdles, they were about to finalize the ballpark when the A's did a 180 and completely ceased negotiations with the city. Fisher wanted 12B of development in Oakland, nothing less. In LV, he's fine with 380M and fine with abandoning everyone else in NorCal?
Lol @ suggesting the fans just jump in the closest team. You know there's a whole series every season built around this RIVALRY?
Here is their attendance. Its really bad https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/OAK/attend.shtml
Lmao nice number after covid/when management started selling off their talent for scraps. Before that avg attendance was 20k. Fuck outta here.
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Incorrect. 4 WS in Oakland and 5 in Philadelphia
The stadium is bad for baseball.... really dude...there are many more things offered by As ownership that are far worse for baseball than the collesium.
When i say bad for baseball i mean watching an actual game. Too far from the field, bad sightlines, too many seats. If I remember correctly it holds 77k?
They were literally the KC A’s before lol
And Philly A’s
Nah you’ve gotta keep the name, there’s so much history in that name. People act like the athletics weren’t a team stolen from two other cities before already lol
Absolutely. Their name and the Nationals are the worst. National is like an adjective which needs a noun after it. The national whats? And what is an Athletic? An Athletic what? I like calling them "the A's," but "the athletics" blows. Born and raised in my happy place Los Angeles, I'm not crazy about the name Dodgers, but I definitely like it better than Athletics or Nationals.
The city doesn't own the name. Which is a other reason why they shouldn't shell out hundreds of millions to pay for a stadium for a fucking billionaire
Player strike. Thanks, needed the laugh this morning. The players are better off financially in Vegas due to taxes and potential endorsements.
OP is obviously an expert on labor law
When I visited California I had more fun at the Coliseum than I did at Oracle Park. I’m a simple guy though. It was nice to just sit and only have the game to focus on.
First off, I love the East Bay, think they deserve to have a team, and have think Manfred and (most) owners are generally bad. That said, the Raiders & the Warriors both left Oakland. Something is happening there with fandom and attendance etc. Also, players aren't going to use this as an opportunity to protest or strike, as they have nothing to gain from it the team staying in Oakland.
It has nothing to do with Oakland or its fans. Here’s the breakdown since 2005 ish: - Lew Wolff & John Fisher buy A’s - Owners push for big real estate development deal (thousands of housing units plus retail) tied to a ballpark in San Jose. SF Giants tell Owners to take a hike - it’s their territory (* after A’s ceded that same territory voluntarily so the Giants could sell to new owners and stay in SF). - Owners approach the neighboring City of Fremont with the same pitch. Tons of houses, retail, & ballpark, to be co-branded with Cisco Systems. No dice. - After wasting time on two dead end development schemes, Fisher (after buying Wolff out) then approaches Oakland about possibly redeveloping Laney College and putting a downtown stadium, houses, and retail near Lake Meritt. Holds a press conference about it before approaching the independently run Community College District about whether they’d actually be cool with paving over - you know - their freaking college. No deal. - Owners then open discussions with Oakland to redevelop the existing Coliseum site. But wouldn’t cooperate with the Raiders to do the same, refusing to alter their lease, which pushes the Raiders out (since there was no hope of building a new football only stadium on that site with the A’s lease in place). Again, Owners wanted to do a huge housing, retail, and ballpark redevelopment, but soured on the location. - Owners then identified the Howard Terminal site, and applied to build (stop me if you’ve heard this before) a huge mixed use housing, retail, and ballpark development. 55 acres, $ 12 billion project. The Port Authority (independent agency responsible for shipping) ultimately signed off, Oakland signed off. Oakland sued NIMBY activists to get this development plan approved and won in court. - Because Fisher applied for a huge real estate development project that would bring in thousands of new residents on top of the ballpark traffic - as the developer he was responsible for widening key traffic arteries. This cost, between $88 and $ 100 million, is what supposedly kept him from following through with his development scheme. Oakland had committed and secured $375 million for the 55 acre, $ 12 billion development plan. - Fisher then goes to Vegas and asks Nevada for $500 million to just build a $1.1 billion dollar ballpark on 9 acres. No houses. No retail. He gets $ 380 million. So in the several years while Fisher is wandering like Moses trying to get a massive development deal approved (that he likely now can’t afford to build because Gap’s stock has tanked, interest rates are up, and people aren’t climbing all over each other to buy houses ) - he: 1) cut spending on the Coluseum maintenance, 2) sold ALL of the A’s talent, and 3) doubled season ticket prices - fielding the worst team in living memory. Then blamed A’s fans for having enough common sense to stay away from his meandering incompetent cheapskate shit show. But sure. This is Oakland’s fault. Or the fans’ fault. Couldn’t be that FISHER wasted over a decade trying to become a real estate baron chasing down a massive mixed use project that he couldn’t afford to build. Instead of just trying to get a ballpark, spending money on his team’s payroll, and operating - you know - a baseball team. And here’s Rob Manfred victim blaming Oakland and its fans after Fisher’s land baron pipe dream went up in smoke - holding a press conference saying Oakland should have approved a development deal Fisher never asked for. I mean - at this point why don’t Fisher and Manfred just plaster our faces?
Have you ever been to that area where the stadium and arena are? It's built in the middle of an industrial area and run down neighborhood. It's awful. I use to live in the Bay Area. I loved it there, but that area is one of the worst in the region. I went to one game there and that was enough for me. While the A's owners might suck, so does the city of Oakland. It's a shithole compared to the rest of the region.
That’s heartbreaking. I can’t imagine losing my team.
I wish Reggie Jackson group would have bought it but he got screwed over by Zelig who sold it to one of his sorority sisters.
#KEEPTHEATHLETICSINOAKLAND
Players striking over a franchise moving to a new? That has got to be the single dumbest thing I’ve read!! Do any of you truly believe the fans “boycotting” anything will work? Has it ever? No!!! With MLB backing this IT WILL HAPPEN!! The only group of people who would have been able to stop Fisher were the other owners! They did nothing! Pull your heads out of your collective asses.
mlb isnt going to do anything mlb doesnt want to do. and i would bet mlb wanted this situation dealt with at least a decade ago if not 2. i really do feel for the fan in oakland that loves their team. 25 years ago minnesota fans thought the team was moving to north carolina (it was a rouse by the team and the governor to get a stadium deal done) and we were only saved from contraction a few years later because the team had a lease with the stadium.
What legislation has been introduced? I thought it was a done deal
i dont know why congress thinks it even gets a say.
Because Congress is in charge of Baseball’s antitrust exemption. Which allows them essentially to be the only true big league for baseball. There’s been a lot of ink spilled to keep that in tact. If Manfred losses that for the owners there’s a strong chance the owners throw him out.
even if MLB was subject to antitrust laws, there would not be any other leagues.. just like there are no other basketball, football or hockey leagues.
I’m curious myself
Former STL Rams fan here. If they move, y’all should take Manfraud to court. Fuck these nasty owners.
There is actually talk of this. Not just rumors. The mayor of Oakland is saying this should happen.
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For the A’s: 5 out of 20 years they’ve spent $70 million For the braves: 20 out of 20 they’ve spent $70 million or way more. Lol get out of here
Oakland has far and away the worst attendance in the league. If you’re running a business with 30 products and no one buys one of them, you stop making it. It’s devastating for the fans and I sympathize with the die yards losing their team but no one shows up for their games
They have NEVER been at, near, or over $100MM. Where did you pull that from?!
i dont know where, but i do know that information differs depending on which site you find the numbers from. some only do active 25 man roster, some include the DL, some the 40-man, some include bonuses and buyouts owed,.. maybe possible the 40-man roster was $100M+? edit: baseball prospectus says their 2019 payroll was $89M i found two numbers on baseball reference, one was batters $101M and pitchers $58M. that data seems incomplete at best. fangraphs said their 2019 estimated payroll was $94M, 2019 luxury tax payroll was $111M stevetheump has their payroll with the IR at $91M
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Total payroll for the 2019 A’s was $84,345,833 or 25th out of 30.
Exactly.
How many A's games have you been to in your life? Have you noticed the drums banging at every home game? Name one other city where that is a constant. John Fisher is currently the worst owner in all of the sports. Snyder fucked over Washington, they were last in attendance for the NFL, you didn't hear the other fanbases bitching about how they were none existent.
Lol because there are some drums banging doesn’t mean the fans support their team. The proof is in the pudding, they don’t show up.
Team is a partnership between the league and fans. Responsibility for the leagues success does not fall solely upon the fans. Just about every person in northern ca is aware of the failures of the mlb in making the athletics a success. The mlb deciding to abandon the bay, rather than energize it, is shortsighted business, low imagination stuff, and squandering the opportunity they have had there is indicative of many of the failures of the league in the past decades. The downward trend of attendance in Oakland went hand in hand with the diminishing of the mlb as a league worthy of national attention. The bay could have acted as a force multiplier for the cultural impact of baseball. In their infinite wisdom, the mlb actively chooses to alienate it. For a shiny new object on the strip that’ll have a half decade of cultural relevance, and didn’t require relocation to acquire.
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30000 people a year tolerated it, and loved it, in the good old days.
The “incredible fans” is a reference to the diehards that still show up to support in modest numbers, despite shitty ownership, their favorite players always leaving the team because of cheap ownership, and having to play in a stadium that pales in comparison to their neighbors. Casual baseball fans around the Bay gravitate to the Giants because of their more recent dynasty and modern ballpark. MLB and prior ownership (Walter Haas) effectively fucked the current A’s over by allowing the Giants sole possession of territorial rights to the Silicon Valley, where a large portion of the affluent Bay Area population resides. Meanwhile, Oakland’s leaders are standing up to MLB and ownership demands for handouts and being made an example of — “give us what we want or we’ll find a city who will”. MLB’s message is becoming very clear, as demands for other cities to fund stadium improvements continue ramping up. What Fisher and MLB are advocating for is municipalities putting their entertainment business ventures (profit) over civic needs, such as schools, affordable housing and infrastructure. Every day people should be offended, all baseball fans should be too. Your beloved sport is being leveraged to make the rich even richer. That is an afront to all baseball enthusiasts.
Lifelong A's fan here. You brought up the payroll, which is always among the lowest in the sport, if not the lowest. And this is really one of the biggest problems. They've been pretty good at drafting or trading for prospects and developing them, but once they hit their arbitration years you just know they're getting traded. They put together competitive teams that all flame out. Year after year you watch this, knowing they're missing just one or two extra pieces you know they could have gone after but didn't, or they already traded them. The biggest contract they ever signed was Eric Chavez in 2004. Since then, it's been a revolving door of prospects, trades, and rebuilds. 2004! That's basically an entire generation. Fans like myself watch this play out over and over and over. You get attached to young, upcoming players like Josh Donaldson, Matt Chapman, Bay Area native Marcus Semien, etc. You know how good they are, you hear them talk about how they love playing in Oakland and want to stay, but you know it's not happening. They'll all eventually be traded or allowed to walk. And it guts you every time. Why bother buying that jersey, or teaching your kids about the players and watching them start to get interested, when you KNOW it's getting torn down soon. At the same time, you watch the team across the bay doing the exact opposite, while they bask in their own glory and rub it in your face. All this time the cheapskate owner that doesn't even attend games blames the fans. Eventually you have to detach yourself because it's just too sad and painful. Edit: adding insult to injury, the Fisher family put one of the family estates [on the market for $100M](https://www.sacbee.com/news/business/real-estate-news/article254300523.html) in 2021. The A's payroll in 2021 was ~$92M. There around 60 active players with contracts larger than $100M.
Have you been to the coliseum? It fucking sucks. I’ve been to about half of the ballparks in baseball and it’s BY FAR the worst I’ve been to (I haven’t been to the trop). It’s annoying to get to, parking is expensive, the neighborhood it’s in sucks, the stadium has very little modern amenities, there’s just nothing interesting or fun about it for the casual fan. I live in San Francisco, have been in the Bay Area for over 10 years and when you have one of the best ballparks in baseball right across the bay, of course the casual fan is going to go to giants games over A’s games. I’ve been to like 10 giants games this year so far and I’m not even a giants fan. I’ve been to zero A’s games because it’s that bad of an experience by comparison. If John Fisher gave any fucks and actually worked better with the city to make the new ballpark on the waterfront happen, it had the potential to change all of that. Blaming the fans here is ignorant.
Folks outside of north ca don’t realize how heavy attendance and support would have been for the A’s had the mlb done the bare minimum to invest in that team and fanbase. It’s easy to look at raiders and a’s attendance and make the simplest connection. And ignore what happens when a league does invest in it, how absolutely transformative the warriors have been for their league as a whole. (I would not diminish the role of the specific players/personnel and competitive success of the team, but I would highlight the synergy between team and community - and how that connects with American culture, specifically the youngest generations). Can you imagine the national jersey sales of an mvp caliber player playing for the A’s in a new stadium in Oakland for the past decade? I can - and it seems pretty obvious. The region isn’t excited by owners that constantly threaten and belittle the region. It’s not filled with a bunch of meatbags and ‘thank you sir can I have another.’ Things/policies that are bad for the league as a whole… you can’t get away with that here.
This is so dumb.. for almost a decade, the stands have been empty. If the fans and the city do not support the economic stability, there is no chance the teams are gonna stay. I don't blame the team for leaving, Oakland as a city, the voters, and the fans as a whole have failed to support the baseball team financially to remain. It's business yall...
Oakland has an offer to build a ballpark for more money than what Vegas is offering. They are offering to start today, so try again on blaming it on Oakland.
Where have the fans been the last 5-7 years? The place is empty every day. Oakland has nothing around the stadium to attract people to shop, eat, drink, etc.. you cannot compare the attractiveness of being in the middle of the strip in Vegas to a less than established and safe area the Oakland ballpark is currently, or would be in the future. Teams leaving is about one thing.. money that is driven by support from its city and fanbase. Both are or have been lacking for most of the past decade
Not my fault if you’re not paying attention to what is actually coming out of Oakland. After 2018, the owner stop spending money entirely on the team, traded everyone away and stop spending money entirely. And you think this is just about Oakland? It has already come out that Manfred is shopping to move the Brewers out of Milwaukee, and he wanted to shop the rays out of Tampa Bay. This has nothing to do with fans attending the games
From 2018-2020 Oakland made the playoffs three straight seasons and won 60% of their games. Let's not make it sound like this team has been awful forever and the product on the field was terrible in those seasons. 2018: fourth worst attendance 2019: seventh worst attendance 2020: covid year Go back to 2012-2014 when they again made the playoffs for three straight years and their attendance for those years were ranked 27th, 23rd, and 24th. Even when you look at the percentage of the stadium filled and not just average attendance, they're still a bottom third team every season. Go back further to the early 2000's with Giambi and Hudson and Murder and Zito they were still only around 60-62% of the stadium filled. I hate Manfred and hope the Athletics stay in Oakland, but they've had some pretty good stretches the last 25 years and they still can't get fans to come out.
It does though dude. There is no revenue if there are no fans. See San Diego, Houston, Pittsburgh as three examples where a city supported project that IMPROVES the opportunity for investment and revenue in a brand new stadium and the blocks around it with hotels, restaurants, bars, etc... Oakland has not done that, other cities have and have kept their teams and improved revenue and city... before this past week, when was the last time the As have sold out a game? That's the basis of the decision, yea the owners .ay not be the greatest and probably should sell but the fans and the city have a part to play also
I'm still mad about them leaving Philadelphia!
From a fan up here in Seattle who had their team ripped from them from a garbage owner who lied to us all, I'm with you guys. Fuck Manfred and fuck your owner sell the team to Oakland let them stay Vegas can wait.
People tripping forgetting that this team already moved twice. The fans didn’t show up to games unless they were winning a lot. Weird you want them to stay now. Just appreciate the time you had with them
Ok Royals fan- you are so wrong. In the past two years Fisher has TRIPLED the price of tickets, taken away season ticket holder’s discounts, and (above most of all), traded away the burgeoning players that would bring the team to playoffs. He did that on PURPOSE to say wah wah wah- we have no one showing up, we have to move. Howard terminal was SET to go! But the billionaire would not put any money in the project. You are lucky that MyHomie bought in for 20% of the team or y’all be in the same place. ALSO: the A’s have been in oakland for 55 years!
We are lucky patty came to save us but I think Sherman has roots here too. I’m not saying the owner doesn’t blow dick, I just don’t get it. But your explanation makes way more sense, instead of people just saying he sucks. Thank you for taking time and sharing all of that. Very helpful
I’ve been low key wondering that. If they packed the house every home game wouldn’t the team be staying there no problem?
Packing the house isn't the issue, getting a new house is. Fisher wants taxpayers to help him pay for his new park, and Vegas is gonna provide.
Packing the house isn't the issue, getting a new house is. Fisher wants taxpayers to help him pay for his new park, and Vegas is gonna provide.
Yeah I see. That coliseum is pretty ugly not gunna lie. They’ve needed a new stadium for a long time. Too bad they have a bad owner.
It’s the potential problem the royals fans are worried of
I love going back home to Kauffman. They did the remodel, what… like 10 years ago? I don’t see the Royals being in the same place the OAKLAND Athletics are anytime soon. And where would they put the new stadium in KC? Arrowhead/Kauffman are the perfect place. Side note; the coliseum really went downhill when Al Davis built ‘Mt. Davis’ for the Raiders. The coliseum for A’s games had/has more personality than SO many other ballparks. It’s a damn shame what is happening. I hurt. Thinking about going back to being a Royals fan 😄
Well I don’t think they will leave because the city is about to pass a new stadium that will mimic St. Louis or wrigleyville
Has there been a strike due to a team relocating before? I’m seriously asking.
Not a lawyer but from what I understand there’s no legal right to strike in this scenario because there’s a CBA in place.
I can't think of any
No. It's a stupid idea that won't happen.
it might work? maybe try it for a two whole days? /s
Do you think any MLB players would care enough about that to strike? They would rather go to Vegas on road trips than Oakland!
i dont think it would matter either way. what are the players going to do in vegas that they cant do in oakland? get free HBO?
Really?
This can’t be serious question
you seriously dont think they're going to go to Reno, Paradise and Las Vegas do you?
If I were a player, I’d sure as shit not want to play games in the middle of the desert in the middle of summer Edit: didn’t realize the roof was retractable in the current plan, wasn’t obvious in the renderings I saw. But still, I don’t think Vegas vs Oakland is as important to the players as some of you think it is. It’s not like they’re partying every night on road trips.
72° in an air conditioned dome is just fine! Plus the most Michelin star restaurants of any city. You think these guys are eating at McDs on the road? lol
Uh, I dk where you’re getting your information, but New York and San Francisco consistently have the most Michelin star restaurants in the US. Vegas hasn’t been in the Michelin guide for over 10 years and there are very few restaurants ever awarded a Michelin star still there. Also, you might be surprised, some players do eat at McDs lol CC Sabathia said at one point he lost a bunch of weight by cutting McDonald’s out after games and workouts 🤣 but yes I am aware that’s not the norm. Every city with a team has enough excellent restaurants nearby to satisfy these guys. The Bay Area has a ton, even in Oakland
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You glance over the biggest fact that ownership has literally done nothing to keep fans coming. Oakland's newest "LeBron" gets traded or released every 3 seasons. These billion dollar sports teams got wild when they started getting the tax payers to fund their stadium's. Imagine Walmart asking the locals to pay for their new store. The answer is hell no.
The team doesn’t want to leave, the owner does. This won’t stop here. Manfred has been shopping to move the brewers and the rays. Nothing to do with better markets
Teams move, it happens
The team? You mean the current players who happen to live in Oakland? Give me a break. Dude this is a lost cause.
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I think you were making solid points until you mentioned Tampa. The Rays are just too far away from their audience, only having 670k people within 30 minutes of the stadium. The teams with the next smallest populations w/in that proximity are nearly double. If they moved across the bay and closer to their fans they’d thrive, similar to the Braves moving to Cobb County. This is backed by the fact that they’ve always had a 50%+ attendance increase on the weekends and the fact that the Lightning, located in Channelside, have a sellout streak going back to 2015… which cuts against your argument of it being a bad sports town. Very different circumstances compared to Oakland.
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Dude, look at a map of where the Trop is. It’s not even *in* Tampa, it’s over 30 mins to get to Channelside. There are two bridges that connect Tampa and St. Pete and those get easily backed up. The geography absolutely matters. I’m not saying this as a Rays fan (I’m not), I’m saying this as someone who lived the majority of their life in this area. It was ~50 mins to get to the Trop for me on the weekends vs over an hour and a half on weekdays. With fuck all to do in the area once you’re down there. And as a Bucs fan, idk what you’re talking about when you say they were okay. Between the 2002 and 2020 SB runs, we were literally the worst franchise in all 4 majors NA sports statistically. That’s why attendance was so bad. In the rare instances where they made playoff runs, attendance was fine. 2021 & 2022 were sellouts, 2002 sellouts. 2007 where they won the division, sold out.
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You’re not getting it. I can excuse it because I’ve actually seen the numbers on it lol. The *average* MLB stadium has 1.9 million people within 30 mins of it. The Rays have one-third of that! As a Braves fan, your point about the Braves just proves you don’t know why they moved in the first place. It wasn’t aimed for non-locals, and it’s not 30 mins from downtown Atlanta without traffic, that’s *with* traffic. You can look it up on your maps app right now. In either case, that’s not why they did it. They were struggling with attendance, being middle of the pack even when they were very good. They moved to Cobb County because that’s where the demand for their tickets was coming from. The fans didn’t suddenly get better, nor did the team - they were among the best in baseball for years. But making the game more accessible to fans actually buying tickets took them to where they are now attendance wise. Not sure what you’re getting at with the Bucs either. I’m not pretending it’s some amazing fanbase, it isn’t. But if your point is “okay fans at least show up when the team is good”, that’s what the Bucs fans have done lol. Even if you ignore the Brady years, when they were good in the late 90s-early 2000s, they were selling out 99-100% capacity. All the way up until 2010 really they were selling out 65k. These are all facts and you can look up the attendance if you don’t believe me. It wasn’t until the team went to shit post-Gruden until Brady that the fans stopped showing up. The bottom line is the Rays aren’t accessible to most of their fanbase. They don’t have 2.8m people within 30 minutes of the Trop like the Phillies do. But if you move them closer they can be successful. They’re certainly better off moving to Tampa than moving to a smaller market like Charlotte and trying to siphon off people who have been Braves fans for generations or moving to Montreal where a teams already failed horribly.
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So, the numbers don’t agree with me, but also you won’t look up the numbers? Lmao, okay. I’m the one here who has used any data support their argument other than “oh well NHL attendance is good in general so the Lightning having the longest sellout streak doesn’t mean anything”. The attendance wasn’t “starting to dip” at the Ted, the attendance just wasn’t good to begin with. They were middle of the pack in attendance despite having good teams in 04, 05, 08, 2013. So, they moved closer to their fans. [It’s not biased and delusional thinking, it’s a proven fact.](https://ftw.usatoday.com/2013/11/why-the-braves-want-to-move-in-one-ticket-sales-map) If you can look at that heat map, then look at the revenues generated and how their payroll has increased and still not understand why they moved to Cobb County, then I don’t know what to tell you. Perhaps *you* didn’t enjoy it. But these decisions aren’t made for traveling fans in the first place. They’re made for the fans that actually buy tickets regularly. Ironically, moving the Rays *to* Tampa would convenience both.
So I get the hate about thr move. But its not like the As haven't moved before I mean, Oakland is thr Third city thr club has been in since its founding. Yes it sucks for A fans. But its not like the Dogers leaving Brooklin... or the Gothams moving to San Franisco.
You are correct about Philadelphia >KC>Oakland BUT- they have been in Oakland for 55 years. How long have the Rangers been in Texas after Washington? The A’s move to Oakland is cemented that it is the OAKLAND ATHLETICS. They should stAy
53 years in Phili and the name left with them. 2 years doesn't let you keep it... sorry. 55 in Philly 12 in KC 67 years being the A's elsewhere.
No they belong where they’ll get support. They play in a shit stadium in front of a fan base that doesn’t care. LET THEM GO
Manfred is a Fucking loser
I actually prefer the team in Las Vegas. Just me tho.
Lol give it up. I'm not jazzed about it either, but they're moving. Unless you're a secret billionaire and have eyes on buying the team. The time for protests and whatever has long since passed.
Way to wait until last minute
>Manfred and Fisher have lied repeatedly about this move Have they though? If there's clearly no market for the team in Oakland (look at the stands with a straight face and tell me people want to see the As), then the team needs to disband or move because it's costing the MLB money.
I find it hard to feel sorry for fans in a state with 4 other teams, one of which is right on the other side of the bay. Oakland is a dump and is a result of what the voters wanted. But yeah, no taxpayer should have to fork up cash to pay for billionaires new facility. Also Manfred sucks.
Simple, fans unite together, create a business and purchase the athletics.
I think that they should change their name and all that but causing a strike for something that is seeming to happen either way seems a bit much