Brett Davis-Imagn Images
As things currently stand, the Athletics will start playing their home games in Las Vegas when the MLB kicks off its season in 2028. However, the team has encountered a bit of a setback after losing its bid to trademark a name with a history that stretches back 125 years.
Plenty of professional sports franchises have called multiple cities home over the course of their existence, and that includes the MLB team known as the Athletics.
The A’s originally set up shop in Philadelphia all the way back in 1901, and they spent more than five decades in the City of Brotherly Love before moving to Kansas City in 1955. However, that tenure didn’t last nearly as long, and they relocated to Oakland in 1968 to kick off yet another chapter.
That one officially came to an end in 2024 following the contentious situation that ended with owner John Fisher deciding to move the team to Las Vegas. Last season, the Athletics traded the Oakland Coliseum for a minor league ballpark in Sacramento, which will serve as their temporary home until they arrive at a new stadium in Sin City that’s slated to open for business in 2028.
There are plenty of logistical issues that need to be sorted out in the interim, which now includes a hurdle concerning the franchise’s name.
The USPTO says the Athletics can’t trademark “Athletics” because it’s too generic
The A’s name is a nod to the Athletic Base Ball Club of Philadelphia, which spent a lone season as a National League team before folding in the wake of the 1876 campaign.
The franchise currently holds close to 20 trademarks that were secured during its time in Oakland, but the move to Las Vegas necessitated some new filings to get the same protections. However, the team has encountered a hitch after having multiple applications denied.
Josh Gerben, an intellectual property attorney who does a fantastic job keeping tabs on these kinds of legal issues, brought this quandary to my attention in a post where he noted the United States Patent and Trademark Office rejected applications for the “Las Vegas Athletics” and “Vegas Athletics,” saying they are “primarily geographically descriptive” and subsequently ineligible for legal protection.
The denial hinges on the argument that the trademark is broad to the point where it could apply to any sort of athletics in the Las Vegas area. Gerben notes that the team pointed to its preexisting trademarks in an attempt to make its case, but the USPTO treated them to an incredible taste of bureaucracy by saying prior registrations are not taken into consideration when evaluating new applications.
Gerben says the A’s will likely have an easier time securing the trademark once they begin operating in Las Vegas, and they could take the case to court in the hopes of addressing the problem before that day arrives. However, they’ll have a harder time battling people looking to make a quick buck with unlicensed merchandise until the trademark issue is sorted out.