Divorce often ends up with both sides unhappy with the situation, and that applies when the two sides are a municipality and its baseball team. Such is the situation in Oakland, California, where Major League Baseball’s Athletics seem ready to break up the marriage over a new stadium.
The issue is more complicated than that. Las Vegas is more than willing to open its arms and its pocketbook to help finance a stadium near the Strip.
Meantime while the A’s brass makes nice with Las Vegas officials, if you were an A’s fan, chances are good, you’re not showing up to a game this year. And the team will play to a stadium full of empty seats until Las Vegas is ready.
For Bay area fans, this double smarts because the area lost another Oakland team to Las Vegas when the Raiders left.
On May 2, only 2,488 fans showed up, the smallest attendance in more than four decades.
Unrelated to the potential relocation, the A’s favorite players are routinely traded away for more affordable alternatives. Their cavernous, concrete stadium, while maintaining a stubborn charm for some, is decrepit and grossly out of date.
For years, the A’s have been in the hunt for a sparkly new stadium or an energetic new city, creating a limbo that almost goads fans into staying away.
As recently as 2019, when Oakland hosted the Rays in a wild card game, the team drew more than 54,000 fans.
With the lowest attendance in the league, the A’s face three outcomes: A new stadium at Howard Terminal port along the downtown waterfront; a relocation to another city; or stay put in the Coliseum. Only three major league ballparks are older, all of them with historical significance and charm.
A’s President Dave Kaval said the team has to compete in the Bay area with the San Francisco Giants which has a relatively new stadium that opened in 2000 and a more successful franchise, with three World Series championships in the last decade. Kaval argues that staying in the Coliseum is no longer viable, not with the nearby Giants having dominated the market with a beautiful park next to San Francisco Bay.
“It’s especially important to have a waterfront, visionary ballpark in Oakland because we are a two-team market,” Kaval said. “I need to compete with the Giants, and I can’t have a substandard product, or people will just go to their games.”
Kaval has become a lightning rod for disgruntled fans and annoyed civic leaders, but he argues that at least the A’s are fighting to stay in Oakland, spending $2 million a month on the waterfront project. That is more than they spend on an annual basis on all but one of their players, shortstop Elvis Andrus.
“I think the A’s are cheap, but at least they are trying to stay in Oakland,” said Kevin Peters, 33, an A’s fan.
The NFL’s Raiders, who also played at the Coliseum in two separate eras, moved to Las Vegas for good in 2020. The NBA’s Golden State Warriors, who played in an arena just steps from the Coliseum for 51 years, moved to a glittery new palace in San Francisco in 2019, not far from the Giants’ ballpark.
“It’s an unfortunate situation for everyone,” said infielder Jed Lowrie, who has played seven years with the A’s, including three in which the team made the postseason. “As a big leaguer, you have to do your job. We understand there are grievances, but that’s above my pay grade. Hopefully it can get solved. Let’s put it this way: it has to be solved.”
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf supports the development place so long as protections are in place to protect public financing.
“It would be a tremendous loss for future generations of Oaklanders and not just Oakland A’s fans,” she said. “This is much, much bigger than baseball. This is about taking this precious asset that is the waterfront and putting it to best use for generations to come.”
Kaval said the waterfront park would add millions to the teams coffers and would end the cycle of player turnover. Not to mention bringing thousands of people to downtown Oakland for every home game.
The biggest hurdle is yet to come, however. To accommodate a new stadium and the associated development— a 35,000-seat ballpark, 3,000 homes, hotel rooms and retail stores, restaurants, parks, and other entertainment—the Howard Terminal site must be rezoned. And that faces lots of opposition and several lawsuits.
“The project in and of itself represents the question not just for the city, but the region and state, about whether or not you want to have a growing and industrial seaport in Oakland,” said Mike Jacob, the vice president of Pacific Merchant Shipping Association, a party in one of the lawsuits. “Instead of dealing with unresolved issues head on and being honest about the constraints of the site, the A’s and the city are content to put their head in the sand and not dealt with what’s in front of them.”
The site is currently being used as a truck staging area to load and unload the products carried by the ships, but it’s just a small fraction of the entire port.
“It’s 2 percent of the port property at the edge,” Kaval said. “Are you going to tell me the city of Oakland is going to turn down a $12 billion investment to have idling diesel trucks? Let’s call it for what it is. There is no existential crisis on the port, no risk of maritime or longshoreman jobs. Their argument is a complete fallacy.”
According to Steven Hill, the president of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, public financial assistance may be forthcoming to help lure the A’s to Las Vegas. If Hill is correct, that means local and state politicians have had a change of heart about using public money.
“There’s a spectrum of possibilities for that partnership and I think it’s worthwhile to explore some of them,” Hill said. “I think there’s a broad set of options that could be helpful in making this move forward.”
According to media reports, the team is considering partnering with the operator and owner of the land under the Tropicana, Bally’s and GLPI, respectively. A’s officials are expected to make a final decision on the Las Vegas location within the next month.
