Oakland Athletics Could Be On Their Way To Sacramento As Attendance Plummets

Getty Image / Loren Elliott

The current situation involving the Oakland Athletics, owner John Fisher, the city of Oakland, and the team’s fans is incredibly sad. With the Athletics scheduled to move into a new Las Vegas stadium in 2028, fans have abandoned the team en masse.

Attendance in the first few home games of the season for the Athletics has reached a point of comedy. Reported attendance has been around 4,000 for each game, and frankly, there aren’t even that many people in the ballpark.

And, who can blame the team’s local fans for not showing up. Not only is John Fisher moving the team out of Oakland, but he’s putting a bare-bones team on the field. The Athletics’ payroll is around $61 million this year. That’s over $20 million less than the next lowest total, the Pittsburgh Pirates, at $83 million.  It’s not a case of the Athletics having a bunch of outstanding young players on cheap contracts, either. The roster is a joke, to be honest.

It doesn’t help matters when some of the team’s best players have been sent down or benched, with speculation that it has to do with those players wearing anti-ownership wristbands.  It’s an unmitigated disaster in Oakland right now.

The current lease between the Oakland Athletics and the Oakland Coliseum runs out after this season. But, with the ballpark in Las Vegas, if it even gets built, not opening until 2028, they need somewhere to play for three seasons.

There are a few options that have been kicked around. One option, and one that seemed likely at one point, was to extend the lease at the Coliseum for a few more years. But, that seems untenable now, given the fact that fans have completely abandoned the team. There’s no way they can go through the motions of 3,000 fans a game for another 320ish home games until 2028.  And, when the team met this week with city leaders, they remained far apart on a lease price, with the city demanding $97 million and the Athletics willing to pay a small fraction of that.

There’s also been speculation that they will move into Las Vegas Ballpark, home of the AAA Las Vegas Aviators, the current AAA affiliate of the Oakland Athletics. But, the stadium capacity is 10,000. The smallest major league ballpark right now, Cleveland’s Guaranteed Rate Field, holds over 34,000 people.  Plus, John Fisher would have to give up his lucrative local TV deal and would have to sign a new one in Las Vegas with a very, very, bad baseball team.

Now, speculation is growing that the team could head to Sacramento for a few years to play at Sutter Health Park, home of the San Francisco Giants’ AAA affiliate, the Sacramento River Cats. This would keep the team at least somewhat in the Bay area, as Sacramento is 80 miles inland from Oakland. But, Fisher would likely get to keep a bulk of his lucrative local TV deal.

Meanwhile, they’ve been, predictably, disastrous, on the field. They’re 1-5 with a -28 run differential through the first six games of the season.

All in all, it’s a complete and utter mess. Athletics fans don’t deserve this.