The Athletics have called Oakland since 1968, but after this season, they will leave the East Bay city for new pastures in Las Vegas, with a three year pit stop in Sacramento while their new stadium along the Vegas Strip is being built. Several years ago, owner John Fisher announced his intentions to negotiate for a new stadium in the Jack London Square neighborhood of Oakland, but issues with regards to where the funds for the stadium would come from caused Fisher to search for different options. The A’s stadium, the Oakland Coliseum, is notoriously outdated, with many structural issues with plumbing, as well as there being a strong presence of stray animals. Fisher is also notorious for being a “cheap” owner, shipping off better players to larger markets as Fisher did not want to be financially responsible for their new, larger contracts. This has caused the A’s to not have prolonged success since Fisher took over in 2005, only making the American League Championship Series in 2006, and making a maximum of three consecutive playoff appearances during his reign over the team.
Going into the 2021 season, the A’s had made the playoffs in the last three seasons, but failed to reach in 2021. This caused a massive roster overhaul, turning the A’s from a middle of the road if not better team to one of the worst in the sport, and since then Oakland has seen the worst attendance in baseball by a large margin. A’s fans had not sold out the Coliseum in the past three seasons, until September 26, 2024, on their final home game, when a sellout crowd of 46,889 fans watched their Oakland Athletics play at home for one last time. Kendrick Thompson, a stadium employee, predicted “lots of tears” from the A’s faithful at this final game, as Oakland will those the last of their three teams. He said, “This job saved my life. It gave me a purpose.”
Hosting the Texas Rangers, A’s fans filled their stadium up one more time, honoring the team’s time in Oakland, but a frustrated fanbase keeps making their issues clear. Chants of “sell the team” poured throughout the stadium, making their frustrations with Fisher clear. However, there is no stopping the inevitability that the A’s will likely never play another game in Oakland again. In a city where the Raiders fled to Las Vegas and the Warriors moved across the bay to San Francisco, the A’s were Oakland’s last remaining team. However, the final game in the Coliseum would go down as a victory, with the A’s triumphing over the Rangers, 3-2.
