There's Trouble in River City.

April 4, 2024 10:36 AM

The MLB season is just a week old and there's already major team news in Oakland

In 2023 the Oakland Athletics, under the ownership of John Fisher (heir to the Gap), announced a move to Las Vegas in 2028 after a failed attempt to get Oakland to build them a new dedicated ballpark. With the lease running out on the Oakland Coliseum after this season and the stadium in Vegas being far into the future, the question has been where the A's will play?

>And now we have an answer with a three year lease on Sutter Health Park in Sacramento - home to the Sacramento River Cats, the one time A's Triple-A affiliate (now San Francisco Giants). For the next 3-4 years, the A's will share the stadium.

The interesting question - who will draw more fans? The A's are currently seeing 6-7K fans per game in their opening home stand as they've gone 1-6 and the fans have organized a Summer of Boycott with block parties and parking lot tailgates instead of atttending the game. The River Cats, last season drew about 5K fans per game. (For the record, Sutter holds roughly 10K seats with 4K extra in the lawn versus the Oakland Coliseum (46-57K)

posted by drewbage1847 (47 comments total)

I have lots and lots of thoughts about this, but I tried to do my best and avoid editorializing
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:43 AM on April 4 [11 favorites]

Surely John Fisher’s college buddy, Rob Manfred, will put a stop to this.

On a more serious note, I’d like to see what kind of concessions and triggers Vivek Ranadive put into the contract for the field lease. Although it’s a sad state of affairs when I have to put my faith into one billionaire that he’ll be able screw over another, dumber billionaire and maybe keep my team in Northern California.
posted by turbowombat at 10:44 AM on April 4 [3 favorites]

Don’t worry, drewbage1847, I’m sure the rest of us will be doing plenty of editorializing. FJF
posted by turbowombat at 10:47 AM on April 4 [5 favorites]

I'm not even an A's fan (Red Sox fan from birth), but the fans are getting absolutely shafted by this whole thing and they should be in full pitchforks and torches mode.
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:50 AM on April 4 [16 favorites]

So now we have the Santa Clara 49ers and the Sacramento A's. Looking forward next to the San Rafael Giants and the Los Altos Hill Warriors.
posted by Nelson at 10:52 AM on April 4 [10 favorites]

For the fans: .
For the owners: fuck you guys
For me: Go Giants!
posted by chavenet at 10:57 AM on April 4 [12 favorites]

These teams are so valuable. So why do these cheap, incompetent fail-sons keep ending up owning them? Just sell the team and go buy an island somewhere!
posted by thecjm at 11:00 AM on April 4 [1 favorite]

F- fisher.
posted by CostcoCultist at 11:01 AM on April 4

Charlie Finley stole our team to become the Oakland A's, so fuck him. Will never not hate the A's.

And I feel bad for Oakland fans, but have you ever been to the Oakland Coliseum in the last decade or so? What a horrible facility.
posted by Windopaene at 11:02 AM on April 4 [2 favorites]

This Expos fan is just sitting here nodding in recognition.
posted by Capt. Renault at 11:04 AM on April 4 [14 favorites]

We can only hope that the lack of drinkable water finally catches up with Las Vegas before the move.
posted by timdiggerm at 11:06 AM on April 4 [3 favorites]

I'm curious - do other places like Europe also have staunchly conservative, anti-tax team owning billionaires who rely heavily on government funding for their privately used stadiums? Or is this a purely American phenomena?
posted by thecjm at 11:06 AM on April 4 [8 favorites]

so i'm not super familiar but i think the tradition in europe is for teams to be owned by members of the ruling families of authoritarian petrostates, who as i understand it are primarily interested in sportswashing the reputations of said authoritarian petrostates rather than in reducing taxes or getting stadiums built
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 11:20 AM on April 4 [17 favorites]

teams to be owned by members of the ruling families of authoritarian petrostates

also Deadpool
posted by chavenet at 11:22 AM on April 4 [5 favorites]

As an additional wrinkle, Comcast Sports Calfiornia has been saying that their television rights contract is with the Oakland A's, not the Vegas or Sacramento A's, and if the team moves, the deal is void and the team will lose $70MM a year in revenue.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:33 AM on April 4 [35 favorites]

In the mid-1990s, the Houston Oilers moved out of the city to Nashville, but there wasn't an "acceptable" stadium in Nashville for this team. A plan was hatched to have the Oilers play for a couple years in Memphis--a city that had sought an NFL franchise since the 1970s--then move to Nashville. Attendance was so poor in Memphis that the "unacceptable" stadium at Vanderbilt University suddenly became viable, and the Oilers moved there for one year prior to becoming the Titans we know today.

Will something similar happen with the A's in Sacramento? I'd like that to be the case, but a replication of the Oilers scenario would mean the A's would leave early for Las Vegas, and I predict the team will never play there. They'll end up either setting up shop in Sacramento, or they'll relocate to Salt Lake City.
posted by stannate at 11:38 AM on April 4 [3 favorites]

Charlie Finley stole our team to become the Oakland A's, so fuck him. Will never not hate the A's.

To be fair, he was just following Arnold Johnson’s lead in stealing them from Philly.
posted by non canadian guy at 11:41 AM on April 4 [4 favorites]

A huuuuuuuuuuge part of the situation the Oilers faced in Memphis was that Memphis campaigned to be the permanent home of the team and were snubbed in favor of their hated rival city Nashville. It felt like adding insult to injury when Memphis was offered the consolation prize of being "temporary" team home.

Memphis has a real cranky, obstinant, don't-give-us-no-bullshit personality as a city in some ways and that didn't sit well.

I don't think Sacramento folks have occasion or disposition to stick it to the A's to any similar degree.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:45 AM on April 4 [2 favorites]

to add to the confusion... the As are NOT moving to Sacramento. they are YOLO. South Sac. different county.
posted by wmo at 11:50 AM on April 4 [2 favorites]

Sacramento also stole our NBA team...
posted by Windopaene at 11:56 AM on April 4 [1 favorite]

A friend of mine, also a fellow ex-Memphian, recalling the Oilers/Titans fiasco: "Nobody does pettiness on a civic scale like Memphis. Nobody."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:04 PM on April 4 [4 favorites]

I'm curious - do other places like Europe also have staunchly conservative, anti-tax team owning billionaires who rely heavily on government funding for their privately used stadiums? Or is this a purely American phenomena?

Many of the stadiums end up getting built for other sporting events and then sold to local soccer teams for a song. I remember in the 90s or early 2000s Real Madrid was in bad financial shape and sold their training ground to the city in order to clear their debts and then the city turned around and let the team continue to use it. In short I think this is a universal thing and kind of par for the course for the wealthy where the state will bend over backwards to throw money at them while at the same time act miserly in doling out inadequate benefits for the worst-off.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:05 PM on April 4 [3 favorites]

I'm just excited that archaeologists may get to dig through the A's locker room midden and uncover physical evidence of the birth of the modern home run era (syringes and little bottles) that can then be displayed in Cooperstown.
posted by srboisvert at 12:05 PM on April 4 [8 favorites]

Charlie Finley stole our team to become the Oakland A's, so fuck him. Will never not hate the A's.

Baltimore Colts fans have entered the chat.
posted by hanov3r at 12:09 PM on April 4 [8 favorites]

Bring team demotion / promotion mechanics to American sports imo. Bottom two teams in the majors go down the minors, top two teams move up. Teams stay in the same city rather than moving around.

I'm quite curious how this works in the UK football IRT infrastructure costs, which seem like the primary driver for sports in the us.
posted by jonbro at 12:30 PM on April 4 [2 favorites]

I'm curious - do other places like Europe also have staunchly conservative, anti-tax team owning billionaires who rely heavily on government funding for their privately used stadiums? Or is this a purely American phenomena?

Sometimes it's the same guys, but that may not be common.
posted by LionIndex at 12:36 PM on April 4

I'm quite curious how this works in the UK football IRT infrastructure costs, which seem like the primary driver for sports in the us.

The short answer is badly. You can get huge increases in revenue with promotion (especially to the Premiership), and there is a parachute payment on relegation, but a rapid fall through the football pyramid is going to be financially disastrous. I believe there are occasionally clubs who decline promotion because they can't afford to bring their ground up to the standard of the next tier.
posted by hoyland at 12:46 PM on April 4 [4 favorites]

the A's would leave early for Las Vegas, and I predict the team will never play there

Right? Does anyone think that stadium is actually getting built? Maybe I'm totally off-base here, but it just doesn't seem likely.
posted by uncleozzy at 12:49 PM on April 4 [3 favorites]

Luton Town in England is the ne-plus-ultra example of this. This article mentions stadium renovations that had to happen upon their ascendency to the EPL.
posted by mmascolino at 12:51 PM on April 4

The last couple of years have been tough for Oakland sports fans. The Golden State Warriors moved to San Francisco in 2019. The Raiders moved to Las Vegas in 2020. And now the A's are moving to Vegas via Sacramento.

...to be replaced by the minor league Oakland B's.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:54 PM on April 4 [1 favorite]

Remember kids, it's not extortion if professional sports teams do it.

Seriously, the Buffalo Bills got NY State to pay for a new stadium despite being one of the smallest markets in the NFL and their owner being a billionaire. This shit should be illegal.
posted by tommasz at 12:57 PM on April 4 [9 favorites]

I'm curious - do other places like Europe also have staunchly conservative, anti-tax team owning billionaires who rely heavily on government funding for their privately used stadiums? Or is this a purely American phenomena?

*cough*
Canada
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 1:06 PM on April 4 [4 favorites]

Who else but Las Vegas would be interested in participating in this race to the bottom?

This is why the for-profit corporation I'm a fan of is Analog Devices Corporation. Go Analogs! Beat Digital!
posted by 1adam12 at 1:37 PM on April 4

And I feel bad for Oakland fans, but have you ever been to the Oakland Coliseum in the last decade or so? What a horrible facility.

Gotta say, I really disagree! It's fine, really good in some areas. I've been a fan since I was born functionally, but have been to a number of other stadiums too. When ownership spends money, it's a solid B- stadium. We were there during the A's playoff loss to the Rays, and while the outcome hurt, the energy was electric and the stadium was a blast.

This whole thing sucks though, I really hate it. We have season tickets, and this limbo sucked, so I guess it is good to know that I don't have to worry about next year. Ugh, Fisher destroyed a vibrant fan base.
posted by Carillon at 2:54 PM on April 4 [5 favorites]

The Oakland Coliseum is also directly accessible from BART, with an elevated walkway leading right up to the ballpark. I wonder what will happen to that area in the next five years?

When the NFL Chargers left San Diego for Los Angeles, their light-rail adjaacent stadium was converted into an SDSU college stadium (at a fairly low cost, borne by the CSU system). It's three stops from SDSU to the stadium on the light rail.
posted by JDC8 at 3:30 PM on April 4 [4 favorites]

And I feel bad for Oakland fans, but have you ever been to the Oakland Coliseum in the last decade or so? What a horrible facility.

I've had many lovely game days in beautiful Oakland weather at the Coliseum. It's a breeze to get to on public transit, everyone who works there has always been friendly, and all I want for a game is a hot dog and a beer and those are easy to come by. Plus A's fans are the best in the league.
posted by oneirodynia at 4:51 PM on April 4 [9 favorites]

The Oakland Roots and Oakland Soul soccer teams are other good options for people in the area to support. Time to start new traditions!
posted by babar at 6:05 PM on April 4 [4 favorites]

My folks are all excited to see some good soccer there
posted by suelac at 6:16 PM on April 4 [1 favorite]

I genuinely don't understand the hate for the Coliseum. I was just there yesterday (albeit to root for the opposing team) and I've been there at least once a year for the last ten years to do the same. It's no history-drenched cathedral ready to welcome the masses to worship at the green fields of grace like Fenway Park is, but as modern purpose-built sports structures go it's perfectly fine. It's easy to get there, the seats are reasonably comfortable, there's tons of food and drink options, everyone who worked there was incredibly nice and helpful, and the seagulls wait until the game is over before they descend. I'm not sure what more people expect of a place to see a baseball game...?
posted by jesourie at 6:52 PM on April 4 [14 favorites]

I took a friend and his then-girlfriend to the Coliseum a few years back. She spent five innings looking for sushi, and broke up with him shortly thereafter. He has thanked me many times over the years for arranging this event.
posted by turbowombat at 6:59 PM on April 4 [10 favorites]

I think the dugout and locker room facilities are not that modern compared to other venues. Plus Mt Davis (the extra seating section built to lure the Raiders back from their first move) looks like a death trap, even when fully covered in green vinyl.
posted by expialidocious at 7:02 PM on April 4

The sequel to Moneyball should be a doozy.
posted by mark242 at 8:43 PM on April 4 [3 favorites]

The "Mt. Davis" aspect of the stadium, while appropriate for football, is ridiculous for 99% of baseball games. Also the design of the stadium to accommodate the football field results in enormous amounts of foul territory for a baseball game. I imagine pitchers enjoy that aspect of the game but many others don't.
posted by mmascolino at 7:23 AM on April 5 [2 favorites]

As a long-time baseball fan, watching the A’s be the latest pawn in the never-ending process of team owners successfully transfer public dollars into private hands elicits a yawn at this point.

Fisher’s move is designed to permanently lock the A’s into being a team that gets revenue sharing payments from the rest of the league due to “market size”. There is no requirement that it gets spent on the team. It also pisses off the other owners.

But they stay quiet because they all benefit when another team executes the grift of getting tax payer dollars to put their baseball team at the centre of a real-estate play that has no downside for them.

Watch what happens in Kansas City now that the voters saw through a clumsy grift attempt by the team owners and refused to approve handing over tax dollars for a new stadium and surrounding real estate development where all the benefits go to the team owners.

I watch lots of baseball and I focus on enjoying the players on the field while acknowledging that a multi-billion dollar industry will attract the worse kinds of people wanting to own teams.

I cheer for organizations that care more about winning than profits. There are not many these days.
posted by grmpyprogrammer at 7:37 AM on April 5 [4 favorites]

"Sacramento also stole our NBA team..."

The piece of shit owners 'stole' your team, not the City, and you got the Royals (condolences - but you got 2015 too).
Oakland's lost its 3 major teams to piece of shit owners.
posted by WatTylerJr at 9:05 AM on April 5 [2 favorites]

have you ever been to the Oakland Coliseum in the last decade 35 years or so? What a horrible facility.

It was a shit pit all the way back to the 80s, and I say that as someone who went to events at the Stick throughout childhood. An easy-to-BART-to shit pit with generally decent weather, but a shit pit.
posted by majick at 12:52 PM on April 6

Hmm. the Sen̓áḵw development in BC is sited on 10.5 acres and has 6,000 housing units. The stadium is situated on 105 acres and is well served by rapid transit and surface roads and is half owned by the city. I'm not saying 60K new housing units would be better than a stadium in that location that can't keep anchor tenants but I'm not not saying it either.
posted by Mitheral at 1:58 PM on April 6