(Story & Photos by Marco Stoovelaar)
 Oakland Athletics will move to Las Vegas in 2028
Nederlands
   ARLINGTON, Texas / OAKLAND, California / LAS VEGAS, Nevada (USA) -
It's official, Major League-club Oakland Athletics will move to another city and another State.
On Thursday (November 16), the owners of all 30 Major League-clubs unanimously approved the relocation of the club from California to Las Vegas, Nevada.
That was done during a voting on the final day of the annual Owners Meetings, which were held this year in Arlington, Texas.
The A's will move to Las Vegas in 2028.
...The Swingin' A's Dixieland Jazz Band, led by...
...Bob Mielke (right on trombone), performed...
...during Oakland-games in 1969-1992...
...in the Oakland Coliseum...
(© Photo: Marco Stoovelaar) |
Next year, the A's will play its final season in the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, as the lease of the stadium expires after the 2024 season and was the club's home since 1968 when it first played in Oakland.
It is not yet known where the team will play its home-games in 2025-2027.
It is expected that the new stadium in Las Vegas will open in 2028.
On April 20 of this year, the club announced that it had entered a land purchase agreement in Paradise (adjacent to Las Vegas), Nevada, for a new ballpark, as it planned to leave Oakland.
Some three weeks later, it was announced that the location for the new stadium would be the site of the hotel/casino Tropicana Las Vegas.
According to reports, a partially retractable stadium (30,000 seats) will be built there, as well as a new hotel (1,500 rooms) and casino.
The Tropicana Las Vegas is located at the corner of Tropicana Avenue and South Las Vegas Boulevard in the south part of the famous Strip.
Located on the other corners of the intersection are the hotels/casinos of MGM Grand, New York-New York and Excalibur.
During a press conference on Thursday, Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said:
,,I know this is a terrible day for fans in Oakland.
I understand that, and that’s why we've always had a policy of doing everything humanly possible to avoid a relocation.
I truly believe we did that in this case.
I think it's beyond debate that the status quo in Oakland was untenable.
I absolutely am convinced that there was not a viable path forward in Oakland.
We look forward to being in Las Vegas; there’s tremendous support locally for having the A’s there.
We do believe over the long haul that Las Vegas will be a great asset to Major League Baseball''.
Athletics Managing Partner and Owner John Fisher addressed the Oakland A's-fans in a letter, which was published on the club's website on Thursday:
,,Dear Fans of the Oakland A's,
I know that today is a very difficult day with the vote by MLB owners allowing for the A's relocation from Oakland to Las Vegas.
I share a lot of those emotions - sadness that our team will be leaving its home since 1968, pride in what we have accomplished together on and off the field in Oakland, but also hope and optimism about the future of the A's in Las Vegas.
Since 2005, when Lew Wolff and I bought the team, we focused our efforts on developing a new privately financed stadium to position the A's for long-term, sustained success.
From the beginning, I wanted to stay in the Bay Area, which has been home to my family for generations and to the Athletics for over fifty years.
Even before we bought the team, it was clear that the A's needed a new stadium, with the Coliseum being one of the oldest ballparks in the game and with huge repair and maintenance issues.
We spent nearly all our time and effort exploring multiple locations in Oakland, Fremont, San Jose and then Laney College, the Coliseum and Howard Terminal in Oakland.
For the past 2 1/2 years, we also explored Las Vegas in parallel with those efforts.
...Action in the Oakland Coliseum...
...The centerfield-section (with the scoreboard)...
...was enclosed in 1996 and stands were added...
(© Photo: Marco Stoovelaar) |
I fell in love with the history and community around the A's from the beginning of my affiliation with the team.
I felt that I was in a unique position to succeed in building a new home for our team, which was critical to having a sustainable, winning team on the field for A's fans.
However, after the last 6 years of working on keeping the A's in Oakland, the hurdles proved too great.
We were unable to get a binding agreement from the City, with rising costs of infrastructure making it harder and harder for the city to pay for its part of the project, and organized opposition from maritime interests raising significant doubts we could ever get a stadium built.
In May 2021, MLB gave us permission to explore Las Vegas as an alternative market out of concern for the rate of progress being made by the A's in Oakland.
The need for a new stadium was reinforced in the 2022 Collective Bargaining Agreement between MLB and the Baseball Player's Association, which stated that the A's must have a binding agreement for a new stadium by January 2024 or lose revenue sharing.
Despite our best efforts, including 6 years of work and $100 million spent on securing a stadium in Oakland, we came to the difficult conclusion that we would not be able to have a binding agreement with Oakland by the January 2024 deadline.
The threat of a referendum delaying the process further confirmed that decision.
I want to thank the Mayor's office, the Port, the City Council, the State, and most importantly A's fans and our own employees, who were all dedicated to trying to make this work in Oakland.
I believe the collective motivations of everyone involved were honorable and I appreciate all the work that was done in support of this effort.
I also understand their disappointment and frustration, and the desire in the media to place all the blame on me and the A's organization for the inability to make this work.
All I can say is that we worked as hard as possible for 6 years to find a solution in Oakland.
To our fans, I am truly sorry.
While I know that today is a sad day, I hope that it is also the start of a new and bright future for the A's.''
...The former Mint Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas...
...In the front, the Golden Nugget Hotel/Casino...
(© Photo: Marco Stoovelaar) |
When the team starts playing in Las Vegas, it will be the fourth home-city of the franchise.
The club was founded in 1901 as Philadelphia Athletics, which won the World Series in 1910, 1911 and 1913.
In Philadelphia, legendary Connie Mack (who also was the owner) led the team as Manager in the first 50 years (!), which of course still is a record.
After the 1954 season, the club moved to Kansas City and went on to play as Kansas City Athletics.
Another move followed after the 1967 season, as the club continued as Oakland Athletics to become the fourth Major League-club in California, joining Los Angeles Angels, Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants.
In Oakland, the club won the World Series in 1972, 1973, 1974 and 1989.
The latter Series (known as the 'Battle of the Bay') against neighbour San Francisco Giants on the other side of the Bay Bridge, became wellknown, as it was interrupted by a major earthquake.
The Dodgers and Giants were the first clubs to settle in California after both relocated following the 1957 season.
The Dodgers moved from Brooklyn (a borough of New York City where it played since 1883).
The Giants-franchise also was founded in 1883 and was known as New York Giants through 1957.
Los Angeles Angels was an expansion team in 1961 and played under that name through 1965.
In following seasons, the club was known as California Angels (through 1996), Anaheim Angels (1997-2004) and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (2005-2015), before adopting original name again.
In 1969, there was another expansion in the Major League and San Diego Padres then became the fifth club in California.
The last Major League-team that relocated was Montreal Expos, which became Washington Nationals in 2005.
Other wellknown relocated teams are Atlanta Braves (which earlier played in Boston (1871-1952) and Milwaukee (1953-1965), before moving to Atlanta after the 1965 season), Baltimore Orioles (which played in Milwaukee (1894-1901) and St. Louis in (1902-1953) before moving), Minnesota Twins (which was known as Washington Senators in 1901-1960 before moving) and Texas Rangers (which was the new Washington Senators in 1961-1971 before moving again from the capital).
When the Athletics-franchise begins playing in Las Vegas, it will be the first Major League-club to be located in Nevada.
Since 1983, a Triple-A team plays in Las Vegas.
As Las Vegas Stars (1983-2000), it was the Triple-A team of San Diego Padres, as Las Vegas 51s (2001-2018), it was the Triple-A affiliate of Los Angeles Dodgers (2001-2008), Toronto Blue Jays (2009-2012) and New York Mets (2013-2018).
Since 2019, Las Vegas Aviators is the current name of the Triple-A team of Oakland A's, which already has a long connection with the city.
...Vegas Vic in Fremont Street...
...at the Strip in Las Vegas...
(© Photo: Marco Stoovelaar) |
However, it will not be the first time that Major League Baseball-teams or the A's will play in Las Vegas.
And also not the first time that a regular Major League-game is played there.
Since the nineties, several Spring Training-games have been played in the city.
During Spring Training this year, Oakland A's played a 2-game series against Cincinnati Reds in early March in Las Vegas during the Las Vegas Big League Weekend, which has been organized almost annually since the early nineties.
Later that month, Kansas City Royals and Colorado Rockies played two exhibition-games there.
The games were played in Las Vegas Ballpark, the home of Las Vegas Aviators (Oakland's Triple-A team), located in Summerlin, a community connected to (and partly within the city limits of) Las Vegas.
In 1996, Oakland A's played the first six games of the regular season at Cashman Field in Las Vegas, due to construction delays at the Oakland Coliseum.
As you almost surely will know, Las Vegas is the most populous city in Nevada and is an internationally renowned major resort city, known primarily for its gambling, shopping, fine dining, entertainment and nightlife.
Most of the wellknown luxurious and large hotels/casinos are located in downtown Las Vegas and at the famous Las Vegas Strip, such as Caesar's Palace, Treasure Island, Bellagio, The Mirage, Circus Circus, Fremont, Horseshoe, Golden Nugget, Sahara and the already mentioned MGM Grand, which will be across the new stadium.
The Strip also has been the location of wellknown former hotels/casinos, such as The Mint, Sands, Desert Inn, Dunes, The Frontier, Riviera, Showboat and Stardust.
Also located at the Strip of course is Vegas Vic, the famous neon sign portraying a cowboy, located at East Fremont Street on the exterior of The Pioneer Club, which was a former casino and closed in 1995.
However, Vegas Vic is still visible at the same location in Fremont Street, which since 1995 is a pedestrian mall, closed permanently to traffic and partially roofed by a canopy (Fremont Street Experience).
Las Vegas is known as the Entertainment Capital of the World, also because in most of these venues, famous (international) artists perform regularly, giving concerts.
A week ago, it was announced that on March 1-3 next year, Las Vegas Ballpark will be the site of the Inaugural Las Vegas College Baseball Classic with the participation of the baseball-teams of the University of California at Berkeley (Golden Bears), Ohio State University (Buckeyes), the University of Oklahoma (Sooners) and the University of Pittsburgh (Panthers).
In recent years, Las Vegas also became known for attracting many major sports-events and teams.
Besides the addition of a Major League Baseball-team in 2028, other major professional sports teams in Las Vegas are Vegas Golden Knights (hockey, NHL, since 2017), Las Vegas Aces (women's basketball, WNBA, since 2018) and Las Vegas Raiders (American football, NFL, since 2020.
The latter also relocated from Oakland (where it was known as Oakland Raiders) and also played its home-games in the Oakland Coliseum.
Besides of Triple-A Baseball-team Las Vegas Aviators, Las Vegas also is the home of three other Minor League-clubs, Henderson Silver Knights (hockey), Vegas Vipers (American football) and Las Vegas Lights FC (soccer).
Coming Sunday (November 18), for the first time, the Las Vegas Grand Prix (Formula One) will be organized.
A favorite to win the inaugural race is reigning World Champion Max Verstapppen from the Netherlands.
On February 11 next year, Super Bowl LVIII (American football final of NFL) will be played at Allegiant Stadium (home of Las Vegas Raiders) in Paradise, which borders Las Vegas.
(November 17)
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