It appears that what had long seemed like an inevitability appears to be finally happening: the Athletics appear headed out of Oakland and off to Las Vegas.
Reports emerged late Wednesday the team had purchased 49 acres of land near the Las Vegas Strip as it begins to eye work on a $1.5 billion, 35,000-seat stadium, with team president Dave Kaval noting the facility could be ready as early as 2027.
The Athletics had a timeline during which they needed to have a deal for a new stadium either in Oakland or Las Vegas. The current collective bargaining agreement stated the Athletics had to have a resolution for their home park, widely regarded as one of the league's worst, by 2024 or the franchise could lose its revenue sharing.
"We know this is a really difficult day for our fans in Oakland and the Oakland community,” Kaval told MLB.com. “We put an incredible six-year effort into trying to get this waterfront vision for a stadium approved. At the end of the day, the progress has not been fast enough. We're still maybe seven or eight years away from being even able to open a stadium [in Oakland] with the lawsuits and referendums and timing challenges.
“We have a pact in Las Vegas that we think can work and has the support from the league, so we are really putting all our focus in Las Vegas and the efforts there.”
The Sporting News is taking a look back at what led to the likely move from Oakland to Las Vegas, from the change in hands of ownership to the negotiations for a new stadium to the purchase of the land.
Athletics Las Vegas relocation timeline
March 31, 2005: There are multiple points from which the timeline of the Athletics' move from Oakland to Las Vegas can arguably start. We're going to begin at the first change in ownership hands that mattered. That would be when Los Angeles real estate developer Lewis Wolff and a group of investors purchased the team from Stephen Schott and Ken Hofmann for $180 million. Among those investors was John Fisher, the son of Gap chairman and CEO Don Fisher.
Wolff had already been the vice president for venue development and had been hired by Oakland in 2003 to start looking for a new stadium that would be exclusive to baseball. Since the Raiders returned from Los Angeles in 1995, the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum had been shared by the city's MLB and NFL teams.
The Associated Press reported at the time Wolff had met with the MLB ownership committee in January 2005 to state his intentions of keeping the Athletics in Oakland and building a baseball-only stadium in the city. The report noted voters in the area had been reluctant to pay for a new stadium with tax dollars, but that hadn't deterred Wolff.
"Our goal is to do it in Oakland," Wolff said, per the AP. "We're concerned that if we can't produce a venue, we don't want to continue playing in this shared facility longer than we have to."
March 31, 2009: Fast-forward four years and plenty of stadium turmoil, and MLB hit a boiling point waiting for the Athletics to find a solution. It was reported MLB Commissioner Bud Selig appointed a committee to assist the team in getting a stadium built in the region. Just a month earlier, the Athletics had halted a plan to try and find a ballpark in nearby Fremont.
"Lew Wolff and the Oakland ownership group and management have worked very hard to obtain a facility that will allow them to compete into the 21st century," Selig said, per the report. "To date they, like the two ownership groups in Oakland before them, have been unsuccessful in those efforts, despite having the significant support of their corporate partner Cisco.
"The time has come for a thorough analysis of why a stadium deal has not been reached. The A's cannot and will not continue indefinitely in their current situation."
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March 8, 2012: Three years since the formation of the committee, and little progress was made. The Athletics' attempts to build a new stadium in San Jose were continuously thwarted by the Giants over territorial rights, which led to a battle of sorts through statements.
The Modesto Bee chronicled the dispute, with the Athletics saying the Giants were given the territorial rights in San Jose back in the 1980s "without compensation" and on a handshake deal that was approved by MLB owners.
"MLB-recorded minutes clearly indicate that the Giants were granted Santa Clara, subject to relocating to the city of Santa Clara," the Athletics said, per the Bee. The Giants responded: "The Giants' territorial rights were not granted 'subject to' moving to Santa Clara County."
The Giants never ceded ground on the A's trying to reclaim the San Jose area as territorial rights, ending attempts to get a new stadium built in an area the ownership believed would be a better market.
June 25, 2014: A temporary solution is reached. The Associated Press reported the Athletics reached an agreement with the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority to extend their lease with the Oakland Coliseum for another 10 years.
In the report, Wolff ruled out Howard Terminal as a potential spot for a new stadium, as did Selig.
"I continue to believe that the Athletics need a new facility and am fully supportive of the club's view that the best site in Oakland is the Coliseum site," Selig said, according to the AP. "Contrary to what some have suggested, the committee that has studied this issue did not determine that the Howard Terminal site was the best location for a new facility in Oakland."
Nov. 18, 2016: Wolff officially ends his run as the managing partner of the Athletics. Fisher, who had owned a majority stake in the team, bought the 10 percent stake from Wolff, giving the Fisher family full ownership of the team, according to Forbes.
March 27, 2017: Following years of failed attempts to build a new football stadium in Oakland, the Raiders' plans to move to Las Vegas are officially approved by NFL owners. Though the team won't be scheduled to leave for another few seasons, it leaves the Athletics as the only sports franchise left in Oakland for the foreseeable future. The Warriors were already set to move within the Bay Area from Oakland to a new arena in San Francisco.
As The Athletic's Tim Kawakami wrote in May 2021, this set the stage for Fisher to secure the long-awaited stadium for the Athletics. City officials weren't going to so easily allow all three of their teams to leave the area within a decade, and after watching other teams in the Bay Area build up massive stadiums, Fisher had the chance to push harder for a new venue.
Sept. 13, 2017: The Athletics have reportedly found their new home. The San Francisco Chronicle reported the team began to target a 13-acre plot of land near Laney College. Kaval wrote a letter to Peralta Community College District Chancellor Jowel Laguerre asking to begin negotiations to purchase or lease the land, with the intention of playing the first game there in 2023.
Dec. 6, 2017: Well, that didn't last long. It took just a few months before the Peralta Community College Board of Trustees met and decided to direct the chancellor to call off the attempts to negotiate a stadium deal with the Athletics, according to The San Francisco Examiner.
The Examiner reported issues cited among opponents to the proposal were that it would displace residents in the area, make student life nearby more challenging and create problems with traffic and pollution.
"All we wanted to do was enter into a conversation about how to make this work for all of Oakland, Laney, and the Peralta Community College District," the Athletics said in a statement, per the report. "We are disappointed that we will not have that opportunity."
April 26, 2018: The failure to reach a deal in Laney meant it was back to the drawing board, and a destination that had been turned down four years earlier was suddenly back in play. Port of Oakland commissioners voted unanimously to begin negotiations over a one-year period with the Athletics on a possible ballpark at Howard Terminal.
The agreement meant the Athletics would pay $100,000 to the port to study the feasibility of a stadium in the area and examine other potential issues that could come up.
Nov. 28, 2018: The proposed stadium starts to take shape. The San Francisco Chronicle revealed a new design had been unveiled for a potential ballpark at Howard Terminal where the Athletics could move.
There were still many steps required, including undergoing an environmental review process for the port-based ballpark and to come to an agreement with the Port of Oakland, but it appeared to be heading in a promising direction.
May 14, 2019: The Port of Oakland approved a four-year plan for the Athletics to explore Howard Terminal as a possible ballpark site. The team would need to accomplish several tasks in order for the port to vote on a ballpark, including an environmental impact report, land use approvals from public agencies and finalizing a real estate agreement with the Port.
Oct. 2, 2019: Back in March 2018, the Athletics tried to purchase the Oakland Coliseum land from the county with plans to redevelop the site, according to NBC Sports, and Alameda County was on board. The Oakland City Council, however, filed a lawsuit against the county to try and halt the transaction. But MLB commissioner Rob Manfred sent a forceful message, threatening that if the lawsuit wasn't dropped, the Athletics could move to Las Vegas.
Just over a month later, the City Council would drop the lawsuit against the county.
April 23, 2021: The Athletics unveiled their proposed term sheet for the new stadium at Howard Terminal, and what was supposed to be a privately funded stadium all of a sudden was revealed to be asking for $855 million in public money.
May 11, 2021: Manfred's threat of the A's moving to Vegas no longer looks like just a threat. On May 10, MLB released a statement sharing concerns that the team's ballpark efforts were moving too slowly, and that the team might have to explore outside options.
It was reported on May 11 that the team would begin to explore the possibility of leaving Oakland, even as both the league and the team maintained hope in trying to stay in the Bay Area.
Oct. 27, 2021: The Alameda County Board of Supervisors signaled it would potentially help with funding part of the Howard Terminal ballpark idea following pressure from Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, according to Oaklandside. The report stated the city and county would use property taxes from the Howard Terminal project over 45 years to help improve the infrastructure of the surrounding area.
The vote was non-binding, leaving open the possibility either side could back out. The report stated the total project would cost $12 billion including the 35,000-seat stadium, along with 3,000 homes, hotels, a performing arts center and spaces for both commercial and retail.
March 12, 2022: The Athletic reports that while the Athletics will be receiving revenue sharing again as part of the new CBA, there is a stipulation they must meet: they need to get the stadium situation addressed. Ken Rosenthal reported that by Jan. 15, 2024, the Athletics must have a binding deal for a new stadium in either Oakland or somewhere else, and if they do not, they will be eliminated as a revenue-sharing recipient.
Oct. 4, 2022: Despite several key steps being made over the past year, including the approval to remove port priority use from Howard Terminal in June, according to The Las Vegas Review-Journal. Negotiations between the city and team had to be wrapped up by late September in order for the Oakland City Council to hold a binding vote on the project in 2022. Because they could not come to an agreement, negotiations were pushed back to 2023.
The Review-Journal had reported that back in June, Kaval had said that should negotiations be pushed into 2023, it could "doom our efforts in Oakland."
A few weeks later, while Manfred said the team still had work to do, he said time was "running out" for the team to remain in Oakland.
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April 19, 2023: Six months went by without much of an update on a new stadium until, at last, it appears the Athletics will be departing Oakland. The announcement by the team that the Athletics have purchased 49 acres of land in Las Vegas all but crushes any remaining hope from Oakland fans that the team will remain in the Bay Area.
Kaval told The Athletic that "we're not all the way there in Nevada," but said that now "we're focused on Las Vegas." Oakland mayor Sheng Thao, in a statement to the San Francisco Chronicle, made it clear how the city felt about the negotiations.
“I am deeply disappointed that the A’s have chosen not to negotiate with the City of Oakland as a true partner, in a way that respects the long relationship between the fans, the City and the team,” Thao said in a statement, per the San Francisco Chronicle.
“In a time of budget deficits, I refuse to compromise the safety and well-being of our residents. Given these realities, we are ceasing negotiations and moving forward on alternatives for the redevelopment of Howard Terminal.”
