Big-league baseball is on its way to Sin City.
MLB owners on Thursday unanimously voted to approve the Oakland Athletics’ relocation to Las Vegas, according to multiple reports.
The A’s, whose owner John Fisher has been under fire from fans for failing to properly invest in the team, have not been able to strike a deal on a site for a new ballpark in Oakland, prompting the move to Vegas.
“There was an effort over more than a decade to find a stadium solution in Oakland. It was John Fisher’s preference. It was my preference,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said at a news conference. “This is a terrible day for fans in Oakland. I understand that and that’s why we’ve always had a policy of doing everything humanly possible to avoid a relocation, and truly believe we did that in this case. I think it’s beyond debate that the status quo in Oakland was untenable.”
One hurdle remains for the A’s as a Nevada teachers union is fighting the $380 million in public funding that is set to go toward the franchise’s new $1.5 billion stadium on the Vegas Strip, which isn’t set to be ready until 2028.
Should the relocation go through, the A’s would be the first MLB team to change cities since the Montreal Expos became the Washington Nationals in 2005.
“I understand that this is an incredibly difficult day for Oakland fans, and I just want to say we gave every effort and did everything we could to try and find a solution there,” said Fisher, who didn’t take questions. “I’m very excited about the opportunity in Vegas. The fans there are terrific.”
Players’ association head Tony Clark declined comment on the decision.
This would also be the third relocation in the Athletics’ history; they moved from Philadelphia to Kansas City in 1955 and then relocated to Oakland in 1968.
Where the team would play after 2024 is uncertain as the Athletics’ lease with the decrepit Oakland Coliseum expires after next year.
Furious fans largely stayed away from home games this season as the Athletics, who suffered through a miserable 50-112 season, had a league-low average attendance of 10,275.
The fans who did show up often brought signs imploring Fisher to sell the team.
It was a far cry from the golden age of Oakland A’s baseball, when they won three straight World Series championships from 1972-74 behind Catfish Hunter and Reggie Jackson.
It also was a far cry from the Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco Bash Brothers era in the late 1980s and early ’90s that saw the A’s reach the World Series in three straight years from 1988-90, winning the 1989 championship.
And even a far cry from the early Moneyball era in which the A’s regularly made the playoffs despite a miniscule payroll, though there was little in the way of postseason series victories.
The Athletics are the second team to leave Oakland for Las Vegas in recent years after the NFL’s Raiders made the same move in 2020.
The Vegas Golden Knights were Las Vegas’ first major sports team when they began as an NHL expansion club in 2017.
Oakland no longer has any major sports teams as the NBA’s Golden State Warriors moved to San Francisco in 2019.
— with AP