Owners unanimously voted to approve the Oakland A’s move to Las Vegas, clearing a major hurdle for MLB’s first relocation since 2005.
Major League Baseball took a major step on Thursday toward bringing the Oakland A’s to Las Vegas.
MLB owners unanimously approved the Oakland Athletics‘ proposed move to Vegas, which includes a new ballpark on the Strip that will be completed in 2028. While a legal challenge from Nevada teachers regarding $380 million in public funding for the proposed $1.5 billion ballpark is ongoing, the owners’ vote marks a major hurdle that MLB has cleared.
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The A’s spent decades trying to secure funding and the right location for a new ballpark in Oakland, which will soon have no remaining pro sports teams after the Golden State Warriors moved to San Francisco in 2019 and the Raiders moved to Las Vegas in 2020. Vegas also has the two-time defending WNBA champion Aces, the defending Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights, and the first-ever F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix races along the Strip this weekend.
Oakland fans protested the proposed move in droves by not attending games in the dilapidated Oakland Coliseum. The A’s averaged just over 10,000 fans per home game in the cavernous stadium, up from 9,973 in 2022. Those who did go to the games vocally urged majority stakeholder John Fisher to sell the team so it could remain in northern California.
The A’s’ stadium lease runs until the end of 2024, so the team will awkwardly remain in Oakland one more year. Current plans will have the A’s play in several temporary homes, including their Triple-A stadium in the Vegas suburb of Summerlin and the San Francisco Giants’ ballpark, until the new stadium is ready. The new site is expected to be on a nine-acre plot at the old Tropicana Hotel. It would be one of the smallest MLB stadium sites.
If the A’s’ move comes to fruition, it would be MLB’s first team relocation since the Montreal Expos moved to Washington D.C. to become the Nationals in 2005. It would also be the third time the A’s have moved in franchise history. After starting out in Philadelphia in 1901, the A’s moved to Kansas City in 1955 and then out to Oakland in 1968. The franchise won the 1972, 1973, 1974, and 1989 World Series titles in Oakland, but it seems like there’s just one more year remaining before the franchise becomes yet another pro sports team to make the move to Sin City.
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