The Oakland A’s aren’t guaranteed a move to Las Vegas just yet, but let’s just say the case is relatively official. We’ll say it like that.
We know that plans have been filed to build a stadium in Las Vegas, where the club should evolve from 2028. This is the major league baseball game plan.
But what we also know is that the A’s lease in their current (old) stadium in Oakland expires in a year, after the 2024 season.
And since the stadium in Vegas should be ready from 2028, there are three seasons where it is not clear what awaits the formation that plays in green.
Could the club take a page from the Arizona Coyotes book and play in a small stadium? The organization has a AAA club in Vegas, which can make the whole thing possible…
One of the solutions on the table is to talk to the Giants about going to play in San Francisco from 2025 to 2027. I don’t know if I believe in it – especially over a long three-year period – really, but hey.
Otherwise, there is always the possibility of extending the lease in Oakland for a few years. It is a possibility that is on the table.
Obviously, the stadium is outdated and empty. I don’t blame the fans, who are offered an awful product on the pitch and who know the plan is to move elsewhere.
But despite everything, the representatives of the city of Oakland, with Mayor Sheng Thao at the top of the list, are not closed to the project.
That said, if it does, the A’s are going to want something out of it.
If the A’s wanted to extend the lease for a few more years, the city’s demands could include keeping the “A’s” name in Oakland and changing the club’s name to Vegas.
I don’t know what the A’s plan is for this, but whether in Philadelphia (until 1954) or Kansas City (until 1967), the club always called itself the same: Athletics.
Signing a contract extension with Oakland could also be done on the condition of having the assurance of having a new club via the upcoming expansion.
It would obviously take a new stadium and we know that there have been plans to build one in Oakland, but to no avail. For years, nothing has changed.
I don’t think Major League Baseball, for three years in an old stadium in Oakland, would accept such conditions. It is not advantageous for them.
I’m not saying the people of Oakland will never have a club again, but I don’t think MLB wants to force it so quickly – and especially not for three more years of A’s in the old Coliseum.
Remember that in the history of the MLB, all the American cities that lost their team managed, years later, to regain a team.
Montreal, a Canadian city, is the exception in the history of major league baseball.
