LAS VEGAS – A major professional team playing in a minor league would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, and if that were the case, the Oakland Athletics probably would too Move to Las Vegas.
There is current precedent for a major pro team making a similar transition while awaiting construction of the new venue. The NFL’s Chargers played in an MLS stadium after moving from San Diego to Los Angeles, and the NHL’s Arizona Coyotes called a college arena at home while waiting for what they hope to get a new building of their own.
A’s president Dave Kaval said he plans to break ground next year and move to a new stadium in Las Vegas in time for the 2027 season. The team has reached an agreement with Bally’s and Gaming & Leisure Properties to build a potential $1.5 billion park on the Tropicana Hotel lot on the Las Vegas Strip. The A’s are demanding nearly $400 million in public support from the Nevada legislature, which could vote on a proposal this week.
The club’s lease at the Oakland Coliseum runs through 2024, and there’s a chance the A’s will play the 2025 and 2026 seasons at Las Vegas Ballpark, home of their Triple-A affiliate, the Aviators.
Las Vegas Ballpark is 53 years younger than the Coliseum and was voted the best Triple-A park in the country by Ballpark Digest for three straight years (minus the 2020 COVID closure year). But there are only about 10,000 seats. The A’s proposed stadium on the Strip would have a seating capacity of approximately 30,000.
The A’s are attracting 8,695 fans per game this season in Oakland — the only franchise to draw fewer than 10,000 per game. Another lame duck season in Oakland is unlikely to boost those numbers, which could give the A’s an incentive to attempt a move even earlier than 2025.
“Anytime you’re such a short-term player, last season is going to be horrible whatever it is, so most teams try to act as quickly as possible when that happens,” said sports economist Victor Matheson, a professor at the college of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. “As soon as they say, ‘Hey, let’s go,’ you know you’re going to lose track of your local market.”
The Montreal Expos were Major League Baseball’s youngest team, relocating to Washington in 2005 and becoming the Nationals. At home games between Montreal and San Juan, Puerto Rico, they averaged 9,356 fans, with a reduced roster that only won 67 games.
Other franchises have taken the temporary step of playing in much smaller venues while awaiting construction of a new venue.
The Chargers left San Diego for Los Angeles in 2017 and played three seasons at the 30,000-seat stadium, home of MLS’ LA Galaxy. The Chargers had hoped to play there for two years, but delays in building Inglewood’s state-of-the-art SoFi Stadium forced them to stay an extra season.
After leaving a San Diego fan base upset at their departure to an area indifferent at best to the Chargers, they regularly played in front of fans cheering on the away team for those three years. Even now, the Chargers are the second team at SoFi after the Rams, who returned to the area from St. Louis in 2016.
Unlike the Chargers, the Rams played in a stadium more suited to professional football: the spacious but aging Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on the University of Southern California campus.
The Coyotes just wrapped up their first season at Arizona State University’s Mullett Arena, a 5,025-seat venue ideal for college hockey but far from suitable for an NHL team. Still, the Coyotes are slated to play two more seasons there after being ejected from the arena in suburban Glendale after negotiations for a lease extension fell through.
Unlike the Chargers, however, the Coyotes aren’t sure they have a new arena in the works. This week, Tempe residents voted against it a $2.3 billion entertainment district that would include a new arena for the Coyotes.
What the Chargers and Coyotes have in common is moving to venues well below the standards of their leagues, albeit temporarily. That’s the route the A’s could take, hoping that fan interest in Las Vegas will greet them even if the big league stadium isn’t finished yet.
“By and large, it’s a bit unusual that we don’t have the facilities,” said Scott Stempson, sports history expert at the University of Nebraska. “It doesn’t look like they’re loudly striving to get the A’s in Vegas that I’ve heard about.”
That was the situation in Memphis, Tennessee, when the NFL’s Oilers left Houston in 1997. While waiting for the stadium to be built in Nashville, the Oilers pledged to play at the Liberty Bowl in Memphis for two years.
One problem: Nashville and Memphis are two cities that share a common state but little else. Memphis residents would not turn out in droves to cheer for a team that would one day be Nashville’s, and those who live in Music City were in no hurry to make the six-hour round trip eight times Year.
After a season of drawing few crowds, the Oilers relocated early to Nashville and played at Vanderbilt Stadium for a season. Over the next season, the Oilers changed their nickname to the Titans, played to a full capacity crowd at their new home, and came within yards of winning the Super Bowl.
This might be something for the A’s to hold on to. As they play to dwindling crowds in Oakland and ponder the idea of playing at a minor-league park for at least two years, the long-term plan is paramount.
It might just be a bit bumpy before they get there.
“They have completely destroyed this (Oakland) fan base with their actions over the last few years,” Matheson said. “When they finally say, ‘Okay, we’re done with you guys,’ what do we expect from ‘you guys’?”
___
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb And https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, transcribed, or redistributed without permission.
