A’s have signed a binding agreement to purchase land for a future ballpark in Las Vegas.

Cellar-Door · Apr 20, 2022

Oakland should say okay.... if you get a stadium you have to be top 10 in payroll every year, if you ever fail to be in the top 10 you have to sell the franchise to the city for $1.

VORP Speed · Apr 20, 2022

Since 2000, the A’s have the 6th highest winning % in MLB and have made the playoffs the 6th most times (11 times in 22 years). I don’t think the fans have that much to complain about.

jon abbey · Apr 20, 2022

VORP Speed said:
Since 2000, the A’s have the 6th highest winning % in MLB and have made the playoffs the 6th most times (11 times in 22 years). I don’t think the fans have that much to complain about.

They actually have the second best run differential in the AL right now at +14, behind, as we all expected, the illustrious franchise from Cleveland (+22). The AL East is a collective -4.

RIrooter09 · Apr 20, 2022

soxhop411 said:
Honestly I would love Manfred even more if he blocked the oak a’s from moving to Vegas as it’s clear what the ownership is trying to do here. And force them to sell the team.

fans deserve better than having an ownership group that currently run the a’s

Wait you love Manfred?

jaytftwofive · Apr 20, 2022

Charley Finley of all people admitted that the A's never should have left K.C. when he saw how good the attendance was with the Royals. And he moved them.

jaytftwofive · Apr 20, 2022

It's sad to say but they would do better in another city. The Giants have always been the more popular team there as proven by the attendance.

SemperFidelisSox · Apr 20, 2022

A’s fans didn’t show up last season when they had Olson, Chapman, Manaea, Bassit. This narrative that they went from sell outs to 3k because ownership blew up the team is crap.

PseuFighter · Apr 20, 2022

It's an awful stadium that's difficult to get to with nothing nearby in a region that's skyrocketed in price and become completely taken over by the Giants. They've tried for the new stadium on the waterfront for the better part of the past twenty years, and it's just not happening. Moving to Vegas isn't an awful plan at all.

MuzzyField · Apr 21, 2022

SemperFidelisSox said:
A’s fans didn’t show up last season when they had Olson, Chapman, Manaea, Bassit. This narrative that they went from sell outs to 3k because ownership blew up the team is crap.

A's fan is not the problem in this money grab equation.

The A's screwed themselves with the giving up of territorial rights to San Jose that the Giants never gave back after not moving there.

Egon safety tip to A's management, don't flush too many toilets at the same time!

Ale Xander · Apr 21, 2022

The AAAviators in Las Vegas drew 5,607 yesterday. (Tonight's game not over yet so couldn't find box score/attendance for tonight)

Van Everyman · Apr 21, 2022

RIrooter09 said:
Wait you love Manfred?

soxhop411
loves manfred

TDFenway · Apr 21, 2022

I have not been to a game in Oakland since 2006 and it was terrible then

Charlie Finley knew in 1968 he made a mistake when in Game 2 they only drew 5304

Attendance did improve when the BART subway opened but the team was a hard sell in San Francisco.

I see the A's winding up in Portland as I don't see them being viable for 81 dates in Vegas.

Marbleheader · Apr 21, 2022

The A's should move to Portland and the Rays to Nashville or Charlotte.

Yelling At Clouds · Apr 21, 2022

Tangential question, maybe should be moved to another thread: how do people here feel about expansion? Genuinely curious here, I haven’t formed an opinion on it.

Max Power · Apr 21, 2022

Yelling At Clouds said:
Tangential question, maybe should be moved to another thread: how do people here feel about expansion? Genuinely curious here, I haven’t formed an opinion on it.

In general, it would be nice to have 32 teams so there wouldn't have to be a daily interleague game. But 30 actually works better when you have two leagues and teams that play in basically 3 time zones. You ideally want divisions to be broken up by time zone so start times on the majority of games are the same for all the teams.

The easiest thing would be to have the Rays move to Montreal and the A's move to Portland. The AL East would all be even closer geographically and the Mariners would finally have a short flight for some of their road games.

Kliq · Apr 21, 2022

The A's never invested in their star players or made a serious attempt to try to retain them and thus establish a strong connection between key individual players and the local fanbase. You can argue that they have "won" a lot of games (but never actually won anything important and haven't won a playoff series in 15 years) but the fanbase lacks identifiable stars to grab on to; there is only so much support you can generate night-to-night as a baseball franchise for a bunch of nameless players that you know will likely not be on the team in two seasons.

YTF · Apr 21, 2022

Max Power said:
In general, it would be nice to have 32 teams so there wouldn't have to be a daily interleague game. But 30 actually works better when you have two leagues and teams that play in basically 3 time zones. You ideally want divisions to be broken up by time zone so start times on the majority of games are the same for all the teams.

The easiest thing would be to have the Rays move to Montreal and the A's move to Portland. The AL East would all be even closer geographically and the Mariners would finally have a short flight for some of their road games.

Daily interleague games are here to stay. With the new scheduling there will be more or them next season and IMO the universal DH makes an interleague game the same as any other.

pokey_reese · Apr 21, 2022

I knew some people involved in the 'get a team to Portland' movement when I was in Oregon. They are serious about it, and I don't think they would have a hard time getting an ownership group together or a stadium site worked out with the city. Concept drawings for a park on the river were pretty cool. It's clear that no matter what, the current situation is unsustainable, bad for fans, bad for players, and bad for the league. Get them out of there.

Toe Nash · Apr 21, 2022

Yelling At Clouds said:
Tangential question, maybe should be moved to another thread: how do people here feel about expansion? Genuinely curious here, I haven’t formed an opinion on it.

I posted this in an NBA thread but the NFL, NBA and MLB should all expand. You have ~20% more people living in the country than in the late 90s / early 00s when they last expanded, many more wealthy fans in cities, and more players from all around the world in every league. The supply and demand imbalance is clear from franchise values which have exploded even for less great markets. And obviously ticket prices.

The problem in baseball and basketball's case is that the best regions for expansion are the NY / NJ / CT area and southern CA, and the existing teams will not allow expansion there. If major league sports weren't a cartel of owners, there would be an additional MLB team in the NYC metro (probably southern CT) and probably LA, and then you could talk about moving the A's or whoever to LV and whatever you want to do with the Rays.

The counter-argument would be that fans have more other options for entertainment than they did in the 90s, which is true to some extent but I don't fully buy it. Adding two teams would increase the number by 7% in a country that again has 20% more people living in it.

Leather · Apr 21, 2022

Jesus. The St. Paul Saints were an independent league team from 2015-2019, playing 10 miles from The Twins, and drew 8,000 per game in those years. They drew 6,000 per game last year despite having 50% attendance for half the season.

LogansDad · Apr 21, 2022

Kliq said:
The A's never invested in their star players or made a serious attempt to try to retain them and thus establish a strong connection between key individual players and the local fanbase. You can argue that they have "won" a lot of games (but never actually won anything important and haven't won a playoff series in 15 years) but the fanbase lacks identifiable stars to grab on to; there is only so much support you can generate night-to-night as a baseball franchise for a bunch of nameless players that you know will likely not be on the team in two seasons.

This. I understand why the A's management has chosen to run the team the way they do, as it's clear that it hasn't really hindered their ability to "win games", but I can't blame the fans for not wanting to be on board anymore, as it has to be hard to watch literally every single player you grow attached to shipped out for somehow who will likely be successful two or three years down the road. I can't imagine this makes it easy to grow attached to the current crop of players. Sean Murphy is fantastic, but why bother caring about him when you know he is going to be playing for St Louis or something by the end of next season.

I realize that every fan base deals with this to some extent. But when you think about the way we reacted when Mookie got traded, it's understandable to me that the fans don't want to latch on when the face of the franchise gets traded every two years.

Marbleheader · Apr 21, 2022

Yelling At Clouds said:
Tangential question, maybe should be moved to another thread: how do people here feel about expansion? Genuinely curious here, I haven’t formed an opinion on it.

I don't think the league should expand when there are franchises ripe for relocation. The A's to Portland seems like a no-brainer to me. I get the nostalgia of the Expos but Montreal shouldn't get a team before Charlotte or Nashville. Move the Rays out, call them the Nashville Expos and redo the logo a bit.

Cellar-Door · Apr 21, 2022

Toe Nash said:
I posted this in an NBA thread but the NFL, NBA and MLB should all expand. You have ~20% more people living in the country than in the late 90s / early 00s when they last expanded, many more wealthy fans in cities, and more players from all around the world in every league. The supply and demand imbalance is clear from franchise values which have exploded even for less great markets. And obviously ticket prices.

The problem in baseball and basketball's case is that the best regions for expansion are the NY / NJ / CT area and southern CA, and the existing teams will not allow expansion there. If major league sports weren't a cartel of owners, there would be an additional MLB team in the NYC metro (probably southern CT) and probably LA, and then you could talk about moving the A's or whoever to LV and whatever you want to do with the Rays.

The counter-argument would be that fans have more other options for entertainment than they did in the 90s, which is true to some extent but I don't fully buy it. Adding two teams would increase the number by 7% in a country that again has 20% more people living in it.

NBA is putting a team in SEA within 10 years, I have zero doubt, the NBPA came out in support of expansion and the league is not shooting it down, obviously you have to convince the other owners to dilute the revenue share short term. The odds on favorite for the 2nd spot is Vegas who have facilities and a lot of interest, though hypothetically a couple other cities might show interest (KC, TB, etc.). the current TV deal ends in 2024-25, I would guess that's around the time the league really starts discussing it with the governor's board, since they can plan it into the new TV deal.

Philip Jeff Frye · Apr 21, 2022

LogansDad said:
This. I understand why the A's management has chosen to run the team the way they do, as it's clear that it hasn't really hindered their ability to "win games", but I can't blame the fans for not wanting to be on board anymore, as it has to be hard to watch literally every single player you grow attached to shipped out for somehow who will likely be successful two or three years down the road. I can't imagine this makes it easy to grow attached to the current crop of players. Sean Murphy is fantastic, but why bother caring about him when you know he is going to be playing for St Louis or something by the end of next season.

I realize that every fan base deals with this to some extent. But when you think about the way we reacted when Mookie got traded, it's understandable to me that the fans don't want to latch on when the face of the franchise gets traded every two years.

I have a good friend who grew up as a very serious A's fan in the bay area. He is now totally checked out on the team for exactly these reasons. That they haven't had any post-season success has only added to his frustration and fueled has "why should I bother cheering for these guys?" attitude.

lexrageorge · Apr 21, 2022

MLB has a choice to make: tell San Francisco Giants to go to hell about their "exclusivity rights" to San Jose, or deal with the fact that the A's will need to be elsewhere. That stadium is the worst in the league right now and it's a long way to 2nd place on that list. Between the dump the team plays in, the revenue cap that MLB's corrupt deal with the Giants imposes on the A's, and fans rightfully getting tired of the "same old story" when it comes to the team, there is no way the A's should stay in Oakland unless something gives. Which is a shame, as the A's had some pretty cool history from their time there, and the Giants are super-annoying.

Leather · Apr 21, 2022

Marbleheader said:
I don't think the league should expand when there are franchises ripe for relocation. The A's to Portland seems like a no-brainer to me. I get the nostalgia of the Expos but Montreal shouldn't get a team before Charlotte or Nashville. Move the Rays out, call them the Nashville Expos and redo the logo a bit.

The Montreal metro is nearly twice the size of either Portland's or Nashville's and about 1.6x the size of Charlotte. If they want a long-term home for a team and not run into this problem again in 10 years once the novelty wears off, Montreal makes the most sense from an economic standpoint. The economies of the other cities can't compare.

Nostalgia shouldn't be a factor but neither should should any sense of what's "fair". It's business.

axx · Apr 21, 2022

lexrageorge said:
MLB has a choice to make: tell San Francisco Giants to go to hell about their "exclusivity rights" to San Jose, or deal with the fact that the A's will need to be elsewhere.

Totally agree but there's zero chance the Giants lets that happen.

Sad Sam Jones · Apr 21, 2022

The thread title doesn't really make sense. It might be a repeat of the Expos next-to-last year, but in their final year they were a lame duck team that had already announced their relocation to DC, had scheduled some of their home games in other locations and were being operated by management assigned by MLB.

Marbleheader · Apr 21, 2022

Leather said:
The Montreal metro is nearly twice the size of either Portland's or Nashville's and about 1.6x the size of Charlotte. If they want a long-term home for a team and not run into this problem again in 10 years once the novelty wears off, Montreal makes the most sense from an economic standpoint. The economies of the other cities can't compare.

Nostalgia shouldn't be a factor but neither should should any sense of what's "fair". It's business.

Throughout the Expos 36 year history, they were in the bottom half of NL attendance for all but 5 years. They finished dead last 8 times and several years they were second to last. The South is a hotbed for baseball and in the states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky , Arkansas, and West Virginia (more than 1/5 of the states in the union) there is exactly 1 MLB team. Just my opinion, but I believe Charlotte and Nashville have a better chance of being more sustainable than Montreal. I get where you are coming from though.

Ale Xander · Apr 21, 2022

Quebec needs a 2nd hockey team more than it needs a single baseball team. Plus we don't need that Vermont maple sugar and milkfat revenue to change allegiances.

AlNipper49 · Apr 21, 2022

I'll stay up late to watch West Coast games with the exception of Oakland. That park is so bad that it makes even watching it on TV horrible. They have like 8 miles of foul territory, it sounds dead and looks like shit.

AlNipper49 · Apr 21, 2022

Marbleheader said:
Throughout the Expos 36 year history, they were in the bottom half of NL attendance for all but 5 years. They finished dead last 8 times and several years they were second to last. The South is a hotbed for baseball and in the states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky , Arkansas, and West Virginia (more than 1/5 of the states in the union) there is exactly 1 MLB team. Just my opinion, but I believe Charlotte and Nashville have a better chance of being more sustainable than Montreal. I get where you are coming from though.

Downtown Charlotte or Nashville would be literally perfect. Both are setup precisely perfectly to throw a park right in the middle of everything (Super gentrified core that gets non-gentrified in a matter of seconds).

lexrageorge · Apr 21, 2022

axx said:
Totally agree but there's zero chance the Giants lets that happen.

Technically, the 29 other owners could tell the Giants to pound sand. But they will only do that if they feel having the A's stay in Oakland is more important, which seems unlikely.

Daniel_Son · Apr 21, 2022

Not to derail the thread by continuing the expansion route, but has there been any talk about expanding into Mexico? Mexico City would probably be too far w/o an established network south of the border, but Monterrey would be a decent 1st candidate. They've already got a Mexican League team that leads the league in attendance, and it's not too far geographically (or culturally) from the southern teams.

DeadlySplitter · Apr 21, 2022

4429 today. Might as well track every game in this thread.

Max Power · Apr 21, 2022

Now I'm tempted to play the Daily Numbers with the A's attendance.

Humphrey · Apr 21, 2022

AlNipper49 said:
I'll stay up late to watch West Coast games with the exception of Oakland. That park is so bad that it makes even watching it on TV horrible. They have like 8 miles of foul territory, it sounds dead and looks like shit.

It's astounding that the worst of the cookie-cutter round multi-purpose stadia of the 60s/early 70s is the one still in use. The Trop's close behind, however.

lexrageorge · Apr 21, 2022

Humphrey said:
It's astounding that the worst of the cookie-cutter round multi-purpose stadia of the 60s/early 70s is the one still in use. The Trop's close behind, however.

I dunno. As bad as the Trop is (and it's clearly 2nd worst among MLB parks), it seems much closer to <insert your favorite ballpark> than it is to the Coliseum.

VORP Speed · Apr 21, 2022

The Trop is like if you saved and scrimped and scraped all your pennies together to buy a blackberry in 2007 to send emails for your new job and then a month later Apple announces the iPhone. And then you get laid off because your boss only hired you as a threat to some of his other employees to get them to shape up, and once they did, he didn’t need you anymore and it turns out you were an idiot to spend your own money on the blackberry. And so now you can’t afford a cell plan so you just use it as a paperweight or doorstop for 10 years and once you finally get re-hired you’re so poor from the decade of unemployment that you’re stuck using the blackberry while all your friends have, like, an iPhone 13 Pro Max and then they make fun of you for not being able to get a date, but you’re walking around with a blackberry in a belt holster so who’s going to date you??

Marbleheader · Apr 21, 2022

The Trop is more like a used bag phone

PC Drunken Friar · Apr 21, 2022

VORP Speed said:
The Trop is like if you saved and scrimped and scraped all your pennies together to buy a blackberry in 2007 to send emails for your new job and then a month later Apple announces the iPhone. And then you get laid off because your boss only hired you as a threat to some of his other employees to get them to shape up, and once they did, he didn’t need you anymore and it turns out you were an idiot to spend your own money on the blackberry. And so now you can’t afford a cell plan so you just use it as a paperweight or doorstop for 10 years and once you finally get re-hired you’re so poor from the decade of unemployment that you’re stuck using the blackberry while all your friends have, like, an iPhone 13 Pro Max and then they make fun of you for not being able to get a date, but you’re walking around with a blackberry in a belt holster so who’s going to date you??

I would

ponch73 · Apr 22, 2022

pokey_reese said:
I knew some people involved in the 'get a team to Portland' movement when I was in Oregon. They are serious about it, and I don't think they would have a hard time getting an ownership group together or a stadium site worked out with the city. Concept drawings for a park on the river were pretty cool. It's clear that no matter what, the current situation is unsustainable, bad for fans, bad for players, and bad for the league. Get them out of there.

As a Portland transplant, I agree that the City of Roses would make for an excellent relocation candidate for the A's.

Local and civic pride is extremely high here, and the city is a diehard sports town in the same way that Buffalo is. The MLS team, the Timbers, routinely sell out a 25,000 seat stadium and rank near the top of league attendance figures. The Trail Blazers, who just finished 13th in the Western Conference standings, still managed to fill a 20,000 stadium to 89% of capacity coming out of a pandemic.

Portland also appears underserved by the four major professional sports leagues given its ranking as the 19th largest Combined Statistical Area in the country (the two CSA's ahead of it, Denver and Cleveland, boast 4 and 3 major professional sports franchises, respectively, whereas Portland has only 1). In addition, Nike and Adidas (along with the connections and resources they bring to bear) are headquartered here.

Finally, the failed Lloyd Center mall on the city's inner east side would present the perfect location for a new MLB stadium (great highway and public transit access), much more so than a riverfront site where access, land and infrastructure cost, environmental impact, ground sinking, and liquefaction during an earthquake would be significant countervailing issues.

I worry a bit, however, that Portland's inept city leadership and national reputation for civic unrest during the pandemic may have had a chilling effect on major franchises considering relocating here. I'd be very surprised if Portland was ranked ahead of Las Vegas, Charlotte, Nashville and Austin/San Antonio by either A's ownership or Rob Manfred.

Bernie Carbohydrate · Apr 22, 2022

VORP Speed said:
The Trop is like if you saved and scrimped and scraped all your pennies together to buy a blackberry in 2007 to send emails for your new job and then a month later Apple announces the iPhone. And then you get laid off because your boss only hired you as a threat to some of his other employees to get them to shape up, and once they did, he didn’t need you anymore and it turns out you were an idiot to spend your own money on the blackberry. And so now you can’t afford a cell plan so you just use it as a paperweight or doorstop for 10 years and once you finally get re-hired you’re so poor from the decade of unemployment that you’re stuck using the blackberry while all your friends have, like, an iPhone 13 Pro Max and then they make fun of you for not being able to get a date, but you’re walking around with a blackberry in a belt holster so who’s going to date you??

I still miss my Blackberry.

candylandriots · Apr 22, 2022

VORP Speed said:
The Trop is like if you saved and scrimped and scraped all your pennies together to buy a blackberry in 2007 to send emails for your new job and then a month later Apple announces the iPhone. And then you get laid off because your boss only hired you as a threat to some of his other employees to get them to shape up, and once they did, he didn’t need you anymore and it turns out you were an idiot to spend your own money on the blackberry. And so now you can’t afford a cell plan so you just use it as a paperweight or doorstop for 10 years and once you finally get re-hired you’re so poor from the decade of unemployment that you’re stuck using the blackberry while all your friends have, like, an iPhone 13 Pro Max and then they make fun of you for not being able to get a date, but you’re walking around with a blackberry in a belt holster so who’s going to date you??

That is a very specific analogy.

Humphrey · Apr 22, 2022

Attendance fro the 3 game series averaged 3,600; which is equivalent to the average attendance of the 1952 Boston Braves (277K total for the season).

Red(s)HawksFan · Apr 22, 2022

Humphrey said:
It's astounding that the worst of the cookie-cutter round multi-purpose stadia of the 60s/early 70s is the one still in use. The Trop's close behind, however.

It's sad because before Mt Davis was added, it really wasn't a bad spot even as a "cookie-cutter" park. The view through the open end beyond CF gave it character. The foul territory was (still is) ridiculous but it gave the place character like the Monster or the ivy or the RF overhang give/gave Fenway, Wrigley, and Tiger Stadium character. After Mt Davis, it was just another anti-septic monolith with no character and no appeal.

PseuFighter · Apr 22, 2022

And goes without saying that Mt. Davis was added for the Raiders, who left again. So the team is left with a dump that was last fixed up, if you can even call it that, for football. Also worth mentioning the arena nextdoor is now abandoned with the Warriors getting their new rich person’s palace in SF.

The whole Coliseum complex needs to be torn down and turned into something better.

Humphrey · Apr 22, 2022

What's the problem with building a reasonable ballpark where the arena is considering it's most likely coming down as well- you don't lose much parking in the interim, then when the Mausoleum is finally razed, you get more back.

A’s have signed a binding agreement to purchase land for a future ballpark in Las Vegas.

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