The Oakland Athletics will soon move to Las Vegas.
On Thursday at the Owner's Meetings in Dallas, all 30 MLB owners voted unanimously to approve the A's move to Las Vegas. The A's and the City of Oakland never came to an agreement on a new stadium, and the team's lease at the Oakland Coliseum expires after the 2024 season.
Soon, the Oakland A's will be no more, and the Las Vegas A's will rise in their place.
But there may still be some holdups along the way before the A's can officially get to Las Vegas. Their new stadium in Vegas isn't supposed to open until 2028. As such, they'll have to improvise.
According to Bob Nightengale of USA TODAY, the A's will be using a few different ballparks for the next several years as their home until their new stadium in Las Vegas is complete.
The A's will split time between several ballparks, including Oracle Park in San Francisco and Las Vegas Ballpark in Sumerlin, Nevada, the home of the A's Triple-A affiliate, the Las Vegas Aviators.
A's expected to play at different sites
Just when it appeared that the A's couldn't make themselves look any worse, they did just that.
Owner John Fisher is already one of the most universally disliked owners in Major League Baseball and has felt the wrath of fans in Oakland, who desperately want him to sell the team.
But now, the A's move to Las Vegas is official. And to make matters worse for Fisher and the A's, while they leave Oakland, they still don't have a new stadium to call home just yet. It's a bad look for a franchise that has already been the center of a ton of bad press.
In essence, they'll be splitting Oracle Park with the Giants and also playing at a minor league stadium while they wait for their Major League ballpark to be built in 2028.
The A's could have potentially extended their lease at the Oakland Coliseum until the new stadium in Las Vegas was complete. That would have made more sense, as it would have given the A's a home stadium to play in as opposed to forcing them to use several different ballparks. But Fisher has elected to take the harder path, and the A's now do not have even a temporary home.
This will be the first MLB relocation since 2005, and only the second since 1972.
