When looking at a list of all 30 MLB teams, someone unaware of the situation might wonder 'Why isn't there a city associated with the Athletics?'. Well, the 2024 season marked the Athletics' final year in Oakland, as John Fisher, the franchise's owner, was ready to move on from his team playing in Oakland.
For now, the A's are playing in Sacramento, but the long-term plan is for them to move to Las Vegas, where crews broke ground on the site of their future Vegas stadium on Monday.
“This is an epic moment for our 124-year-old franchise,” Fisher said. “Nevadans love baseball, and that’s given me tremendous confidence about what the future could be here.”
Athletics break ground on new $1.75 billion Las Vegas stadium
The 33,000-seated stadium is scheduled for an opening in the spring of 2028, and, as mentioned previously, the Athletics are playing their home games in Sacramento until the stadium is ready.
Things ended poorly between the team and the city of Oakland. It was mostly Fisher that the city and fans were upset with, as he never spent the money to keep the team competitive and then was in a big hurry to get them out of the city they had called home since 1968.
The Athletics have been in the major leagues since 1901, when they were the Philadelphia Athletics from then through 1954 before moving to Kansas City. The A's then spent 12 years in KC before relocating to Oakland, and now they're temporarily in Sacramento before permanently (at least for now) moving to Las Vegas.
Attendance for A's games in Oakland hadn't been great during their final 10 years, but once it was known that Fisher planned to move the team, fans began to boycott games, adding to the animosity between the fans and the organization.
Unfortunately for Oakland and A's fans who rooted for them while they were there, the Las Vegas stadium is happening. This isn't even the only team that the city of Oakland has lost to Las Vegas, as the Raiders bolted the city in 2020 for a new fancy stadium in Sin City.
Until the stadium is ready, the Athletics will continue to be known solely as that. No city name will be attached to them until they're officially heading to Las Vegas for all 81 of their home games.