https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/02/athletics-to-meet-with-government-officials-about-coliseum-lease-extension.html

The Athletics have a meeting on Thursday with officials from the City of Oakland and County of Alameda to discuss a lease extension at the Coliseum, reports John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle.

The A’s are planning to move to Las Vegas for the 2028 season, a move that was already unanimously approved by all 29 other owners. But their lease at the Coliseum in Oakland is up after 2024, leaving them without a home stadium for the three intervening seasons. Various solutions for how to navigate that interim period have been considered, including playing in Sacramento, Salt Lake City, Reno, sharing San Francisco’s Oracle Park with the Giants or playing at the organization’s Triple-A field in Las Vegas.

Staying in Oakland never seemed to be a realistic option, with the relationship between the club and the city growing frosty during and after the stadium negotiations. Oakland mayor Sheng Thao has previously indicated that the city would have lofty demands in any lease discussions, such as the city retaining the rights to the name “Athletics” or a guarantee of a future expansion franchise. More recently, she indicated the city is willing to reopen talks with the club, but also relayed that she hadn’t spoken with owner John Fisher since he started focusing on the Vegas move in April.

It seems likely there’s a financial motivation for the sides to come back to the table. It was reported back in August that the club’s TV deal with NBC Sports California runs through 2033 and pays the club about $60MM per year. Jeff Passan of ESPN later reported that the club will actually receive about $70MM in 2024. But the deal lapses if the club leaves the Bay Area.

Sharing Oracle Park with the Giants would allow the club to continue collecting that money but would come with many logistical problems. The other proposed locations are not considered to be in the Bay Area and would result in forfeiting the deal. If the A’s want to get that TV money, staying in Oakland could be their best bet.

 

UPDATE 4/4/24:

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/04/athletics-home-games-sacramento-river-cats-2025-27-relocate-las-vegas.html

 

Well, the A's are apparently going to Sacramento

 

The 2024 season is officially the Athletics’ last year in Oakland. The team announced this morning that they’ll spend the 2025-27 seasons playing their home games in Sacramento’s Sutter Health Park ahead of their planned 2028 move to Las Vegas. There’s an option on the agreement for the A’s to spend a fourth year in Sacramento, presumably in the event that the construction of their new Las Vegas stadium is not completed on time.

Edited April 4, 20242 yr by rmc523

I hope the city of Oakland plays hardball and either:

 

a. forces Fisher to sell to local groups

b. forces MLB to grant an expansion team to Oakland with the A's branding and history.

 

There is zero incentive for the city of Oakland to play nice at this point.

10 minutes ago, Das Texan said:

I hope the city of Oakland plays hardball and either:

 

a. forces Fisher to sell to local groups

b. forces MLB to grant an expansion team to Oakland with the A's branding and history.

 

There is zero incentive for the city of Oakland to play nice at this point.

 How on earth could the city force him to sell?  He'd just take the team somewhere else for a few years....

1 hour ago, rmc523 said:

 How on earth could the city force him to sell?  He'd just take the team somewhere else for a few years....

No lease extension with John Fisher as owner.

 

7 minutes ago, Das Texan said:

No lease extension with John Fisher as owner.

 

...so they'll move somewhere else.  This dude isn't selling the team just as they're moving.  He'll sell after they get it up and running with a new park.  Nobody's going to want to buy the team mid-headache that is moving a franchise.

6 minutes ago, rmc523 said:

...so they'll move somewhere else.  This dude isn't selling the team just as they're moving.  He'll sell after they get it up and running with a new park.  Nobody's going to want to buy the team mid-headache that is moving a franchise.

Then they should just go somewhere else.  Not really sure why the City of Oakland should bend over backwards to appease John Fisher when he told them to fuck off last year, knowing he had no home for a number of years.

From a team perspective, staying there makes sense - their TV deals are for there and moving out of there will change (lower)those.  Plus the coliseum isn't being knocked down tomorrow (despite no team playing there aside from the A's that I know of), so it'll be there.

 

That said, the city definitely has the leverage right now.

12 minutes ago, rmc523 said:

From a team perspective, staying there makes sense - their TV deals are for there and moving out of there will change (lower)those.  Plus the coliseum isn't being knocked down tomorrow (despite no team playing there aside from the A's that I know of), so it'll be there.

 

That said, the city definitely has the leverage right now.

Thats kinda the point.  John Fisher was a petty prick last year, so why should the city of Oakland just simply let him get a lease extension without some major concessions coming their way?

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/03/latest-on-oaklands-proposal-to-keep-as-through-2025-27-seasons.html

 

Officials from the Athletics and from the city of Oakland are set to meet Tuesday to further explore the possibility that the A’s could remain at the Coliseum through the 2027 season, as the team is looking for somewhere to play until their planned new ballpark in Las Vegas is ready for Opening Day 2028.  Some major details of the city’s latest proposal are already known, as ESPN’s Tim Keown and KGO-TV San Francisco report that Oakland is offering a five-year lease at the Coliseum covering the 2025-29 seasons, with an opt-out clause after 2027 so the team can depart if its new Vegas stadium is indeed ready on time.

The price tag for the new lease is $97MM, which the city demands that the A’s pay in full whether they stay for a three-year or five-year team.  This stands out as the largest hurdle to an agreement between the two sides, as Keown notes that two other provisions “are not expected to be contentious” — the A’s would have to sell their 50% share in the Coliseum and surrounding land, and the team would also have to pay to convert the Coliseum’s surface into a soccer-ready state for the United Soccer League’s Oakland Roots SC franchise.

“The city is putting forward a very reasonable deal,” Oakland chief of staff Leigh Hanson said. “We don’t think there’s a poison pill in this deal.  We feel this is an accomplishable goal, and we are going forward understanding we have a short window to execute.”

Oakland’s offer also removes two previous demands from the city, covering the idea of Oakland retaining the Athletics name and team colors, or that Major League Baseball would guarantee Oakland a new team in the next round of expansion.  The new offer instead asks that the league commit to one of three options — either a vote on Oakland’s retention of the A’s name and colors, or helping work out a sale of the Athletics to an Oakland-based ownership group, or “a one-year exclusive right to solicit ownership of a future expansion team,” as Keown puts it.

A's want to pay 7-10  million, Oakland wants them paying 97 million.

 

Fisher is a cheap son of a bitch who has ran this team into the ground and Bruce Sherman would be proud to be like him.

I hope Oakland stands firm on this demand, it supposedly is non negotiable.  And Fisher should take it as he would make far more than that on the local tv money. 

41 minutes ago, Das Texan said:

A's want to pay 7-10  million, Oakland wants them paying 97 million.

 

Fisher is a cheap son of a bitch who has ran this team into the ground and Bruce Sherman would be proud to be like him.

I hope Oakland stands firm on this demand, it supposedly is non negotiable.  And Fisher should take it as he would make far more than that on the local tv money. 

The local TV deal is reportedly $67M, so  if you go for 3 seasons, they’re making $201M on the TV deal ($268M for 4 years, and $335M for 5 years, if necessary) vs $97M for all 5 years.

 

that number would drop if they move out of the Bay Area, but so would their “ballpark fees”.

simplest solution to me seems to be stay in Oakland even if it is the most expensive.

1 hour ago, rmc523 said:

The local TV deal is reportedly $67M, so  if you go for 3 seasons, they’re making $201M on the TV deal ($268M for 4 years, and $335M for 5 years, if necessary) vs $97M for all 5 years.

 

that number would drop if they move out of the Bay Area, but so would their “ballpark fees”.

simplest solution to me seems to be stay in Oakland even if it is the most expensive.

I had forgotten to add that caveat, so thanks for adding it.

 

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/04/athletics-home-games-sacramento-river-cats-2025-27-relocate-las-vegas.html

 

Well, the A's are apparently going to Sacramento

 

The 2024 season is officially the Athletics’ last year in Oakland. The team announced this morning that they’ll spend the 2025-27 seasons playing their home games in Sacramento’s Sutter Health Park ahead of their planned 2028 move to Las Vegas. There’s an option on the agreement for the A’s to spend a fourth year in Sacramento, presumably in the event that the construction of their new Las Vegas stadium is not completed on time.

The Chronicle’s Eli M. Rosenberg reports that the City of Oakland’s final offer to the A’s was a three-year, $60MM lease of the Coliseum (X thread). That’s a notable step down from the previous $97MM price point but still apparently didn’t move the needle for Fisher and Athletics ownership.

 

So, the A's must know that the drop in TV revenue associated with moving out of the Bay Area will be less than $20M/year, otherwise they'd stay there for 3 years.

Lindsey Adler of the Wall Street Journal reports that the A’s will not have a city associated with their name for the next three seasons. Rather than the “Sacramento Athletics,” they’ll just be referred to as the Athletics or the A’s, with no city designation

4 minutes ago, rmc523 said:

Lindsey Adler of the Wall Street Journal reports that the A’s will not have a city associated with their name for the next three seasons. Rather than the “Sacramento Athletics,” they’ll just be referred to as the Athletics or the A’s, with no city designation

Ok wtf

14 minutes ago, Admin said:

Ok wtf

pretty crazy

Pretty sure the MLBPA should throw a fit over this tbh.

Sacramento's stadium is not anywhere close to being up to Major League standards.

5 hours ago, rmc523 said:

Lindsey Adler of the Wall Street Journal reports that the A’s will not have a city associated with their name for the next three seasons. Rather than the “Sacramento Athletics,” they’ll just be referred to as the Athletics or the A’s, with no city designation

That’s lame.. might as well be the California A’s.

 

So dumb.. just the A’s.

😂

1 hour ago, SirFishFan said:

That’s lame.. might as well be the California A’s.

 

So dumb.. just the A’s.

😂

Given they were in Philly, Kansas City, Oakland, will be in Sacramento and Vegas, they could genuinely be the "US A's" at this point.

19 hours ago, rmc523 said:

Lindsey Adler of the Wall Street Journal reports that the A’s will not have a city associated with their name for the next three seasons. Rather than the “Sacramento Athletics,” they’ll just be referred to as the Athletics or the A’s, with no city designation

It would be funny if their road jerseys were blank in the front too lol

31 minutes ago, SilverBullet said:

It would be funny if their road jerseys were blank in the front too lol

Their owner would LOVE to just have to buy the cheapo blank jerseys. 

16 hours ago, Das Texan said:

Pretty sure the MLBPA should throw a fit over this tbh.

Sacramento's stadium is not anywhere close to being up to Major League standards.

I'd assume upgrades will need to be done in advance of them playing there.