OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) – The Oakland Athletics have been have-nots for years, hamstrung by tight budgets and overshadowed by the glamorous Giants across the San Francisco Bay while sharing a dilapidated stadium with the Raiders.

Sure, they’ve won four championships since moving to Oakland in 1968, but their recent history has been defined as much by their tight budgets as their resilient successes. The A’s have lost four first-round playoff series in the last five years, while their payroll constraints partly caused by low revenues at the aging Coliseum have led to an annual departure of their biggest stars for bigger paydays elsewhere.

But with Lewis Wolff and billionaire partner John Fisher taking control of the A’s this week, the club has the third-richest ownership group in its sport. It is now backed by investors whose financial reach extends from luxury hotels to the vast fortune of The Gap clothing chain.

A larger player payroll certainly seems possible – a tantalizing prospect to fans who have spent several bittersweet years cheering on a so-called small-market team in one of the nation’s most populous areas. A new baseball-only stadium also seems a more likely possibility now, since Wolff was hired by the A’s in 2003 to spearhead the search. But where that stadium will be located remains an open question – Oakland, San Jose or even Las Vegas?

The questions won’t be answered quickly, but for now, the A’s are optimistic about the possibilities.

Wolff will be introduced as the managing general partner at a news conference Friday, but the former team executive will own only about 10 percent of the A’s. The biggest stake will belong to Fisher, the son of Donald Fisher, who founded The Gap.

Wolff, 69, is a fraternity brother of major league baseball commissioner Bud Selig who made his fortune in real estate investments – everything from San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel to Toronto’s SkyDome stadium. He has owned pieces of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors and the NHL’s St. Louis Blues.

John Fisher is the 165th-wealthiest person in the nation, according to Forbes magazine, with $1.7 billion. He was one of many businessmen who joined Peter Magowan to buy a small stake in the San Francisco Giants, although he later sold the family’s stake.

They seem an ideal match: Wolff is comfortable as a frontman, while Fisher prefers anonymity. Nobody knows whether Fisher has strong ideas about how a ballclub should be run, but his large investment should allow him to dictate if he chooses.

And that’s just the start of the unknowns. Nobody is certain what the new owners’ massive wealth will mean for the bottom line of the A’s, who scrimped and saved through Steve Schott’s ownership tenure.

Although Schott is a fabulously wealthy real estate developer, he kept the A’s on a strict budget to ensure profitability. But that earned derision from fans who watched Jason Giambi, Miguel Tejada, Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder and countless other stars leave town for bigger contracts.

In fact, the offseason departures of Hudson and Mulder seem to indicate the budget will stay in place at least as long as the A’s are in the Coliseum, since the sale to Wolff and Fisher already was in the works when general manager Billy Beane traded two of the majors’ most consistent starting pitchers for cheap prospects. And it’s possible Beane, who hasn’t said much about the ownership change, wouldn’t want things any other way. He’s considered one of the brightest, most innovative GMs in baseball history for leading the revolutionary changes in player evaluation during his tenure, valuing statistics over gut instincts in an approach that’s been adapted by his disciples in Boston, Los Angeles and elsewhere.

Although Beane occasionally grouses about his small payroll, nobody would have written a book (“Moneyball,” Michael Lewis’ bestseller) about Beane without Schott’s budgetary constraints. He seems to get an intellectual charge from fighting at a disadvantage, constantly retooling his franchise with younger players.

Beane has an escape clause in his contract that allows him to leave if the A’s are sold, but nobody expects him to use it. Wolff knows Beane’s value as well as anyone, and the club is expected to sign him to a contract extension with a raise.

For now, Wolff says the A’s have no intention of heading to San Jose. Wolff has firmly emphasized the Giants’ territorial rights to the South Bay, as well as his desire to build a baseball-only stadium in the Coliseum parking lot.

If they can’t get a suitable plan in Oakland, and if San Jose can’t resolve its territorial problems with the Giants to take advantage of its deeper corporate pockets and more enthusiastic government, the A’s could conceivably be on the move – to Portland, Las Vegas or another city.

But with Wolff’s vision and Fisher’s money behind the team, Baseball San Jose chair Mike Fox Jr., whose organization is dedicated to landing a major league team, can envision a time when the South Bay could be the club’s new home.

Wolff knows all about the A’s stadium issues from his recent job as Schott’s point man, and Fox believes Wolff will solve his new team’s most pressing problem.

While praising Schott’s work, Fox noted, “Lew is bolder. I would think there’s going to be a deal made somewhere, sooner than later.”

AP-ES-04-01-05 0305EST