ARLINGTON, Texas — One of Rob Manfred’s first trips after his election as baseball commissioner nine years ago was to Oakland to consult with Athletics owner John Fisher on attempts to keep the team in the Bay Area.
Unable to make that work, the A’s will instead move to Las Vegas and become only the second Major League Baseball team in more than a half-century to shift cities.
All 30 MLB team owners gave their approval Thursday to Fisher’s relocation plan, which was endorsed by Manfred.
“There was an effort over more than a decade to find a stadium solution in Oakland. It was John Fisher’s preference. It was my preference,” Manfred said at a news conference. “This is a terrible day for fans in Oakland. I understand that, and that’s why we’ve always had a policy of doing everything humanly possible to avoid a relocation and truly believe we did that in this case. I think it’s beyond debate that the status quo in Oakland was untenable.”
After years of complaints about the Oakland Coliseum that predated Manfred’s appointment, and an inability to negotiate government assistance for a new ballpark in the Bay Area, the A’s are moving to a stadium to be built on the Las Vegas Strip with $380 million in public financing approved by the Nevada government. The team plans for the ballpark to open in 2028.
“I understand that this is an incredibly difficult day for Oakland fans, and I just want to say we gave every effort and did everything we could to try and find a solution there,” said Fisher, who didn’t take questions. “I’m very excited about the opportunity in Vegas. The fans there are terrific.”
Players’ association head Tony Clark declined comment on the decision.
Since the Washington Senators became the Texas Rangers for 1972, the only other team to relocate was the Montreal Expos, who became the Washington Nationals in 2005.
The Athletics’ lease at the Coliseum runs through 2024, and they will remain next season at the outdated and run-down stadium, where they have played since moving to California in 1968. It remains unclear where the team will play after that until a new ballpark opens.
Manfred said a variety of alternatives are being explored, including the A’s possibly staying at the Coliseum in the interim period. He said the preference will be to “find an 81-game home” for the team, unlike the unique situation with the Blue Jays in 2021, when pandemic travel restrictions caused MLB to shift home games to the team’s spring training facility in Dunedin, Florida, and then its Triple-A ballpark in Buffalo, New York, before going back to Toronto at midseason.
Las Vegas will become the A’s fourth city, the most for an MLB team. The A’s played in Philadelphia from 1901-54, then moved to Kansas City for 13 seasons before going to California.
ALL-STAR GAME: Major League Baseball will play its 2025 All-Star Game in Atlanta, four years after moving the event from Truist Park to Denver’s Coors Field over objections to changes in Georgia’s voting rights laws.
Atlanta was awarded the 2021 All-Star Game in May 2019, but MLB moved it in April 2021, just three months before the game was played.
“I made the decision in 2021 to move the event, and I understand, believe me, that people had then and probably still have different views as to the merits of that decision,” baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said Thursday during an announcement that followed an owners’ meeting.
Next year’s All-Star Game will be at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, and the 2026 game will be in Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park to mark the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL has canceled plans to play regular-season games in Paris in 2025 after failing to find a promoter, two people familiar with the decision told The Associated Press.
MLB and the players’ association agreed to the Paris games in their March 2022 labor deal and incorporated them as an attachment to the collective bargaining agreement. The people familiar with the decision said it became apparent in recent months that no progress was being made to make the games work financially.
Regular-season games will be played in 2024 in Seoul, South Korea, for the first time when the Los Angeles Dodgers open the season against the San Diego Padres on March 20-21. In addition, the Houston Astros and Colorado Rockies will play at Mexico City on April 27-28.
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