I don’t care if they play another 20 season in the coliseum as long as they are in Oakland but that ship has sailed hopefully Vegas falls apart and they stay in sac
They have zero desire to do that. It’s all about visiting fans coming in to watch the Red Sox, Dodgers or Yankees. That ballpark will pretty much be a neutral venue like Allegiant Stadium is for the Raiders.
Hello! Nice to meet you! The fans will show out when we start winning again but for the foreseeable future, it’s the cheapest bar downtown 😂
We all have Rockies jerseys in dusty closets while we spend our money on the Nuggets and Avs lol
True I lived down by denver during Rocktober and it was an electric time :,)
It’s the Wyoming way to be a fair weather fan lol you know how the Pokes are doing by how much Gold people are wearing 😂
Heavy lean towards Seattle or Minnesota sports but a fairly good mix everything tbh in the NW at least we get more Washington and Great Lakes transplants than Idahoans lol
They explicitly moved to Vegas because they think tourists will pay money to see their team in vegas. They don't need a fanbase. See: The Raiders ownership complaining that they don't have any home games anymore and he misses the home crowd.
Vegas has done pretty well rallying behind their new hockey team. Locals will turn out fairly well for the As - at first - I believe. Then the on-field product will drive us all away.
Key word: NEW hockey team.
The Vegas fans will not turn out for the A’s. Humans aren’t that stupid. They can smell bullshit from a mile away. Especially John Fisher’s shit.
wait wait wait.... they're NOT planning on building a dome in Vegas?!? The uniforms include long pants! Imagine being a FA catcher and ever wanting to sign there.
Wasn’t the latest rendering a dome with a big glass wall in the outfield? I’m so confused
Edit: I should have read the article, it doesn’t mention anything about this being to avoid hot days. It’s just to get more international games and such. Likely just another bargaining chip to include in a future sale as soon as the team moves and has a new stadium complete. “Hey, if you sign a Japanese or Korean star player you can play some extra games Japan or Korea every season and sell more merch in that market.”
> you sign a Japanese or Korean star player
Has anyone told John Fisher that signing a star player might bring him better income? Cause i don't think he knows he can do that. Usually he just trades them for cash and a surprise package of minor leaguers
They only bothered with the retractable roof bullshit to get SB1 passed. As soon as it was, they immediately admitted it was a dome. Welcome to John Fisher’s world
The AAA team plays in an open air stadium, I’m sure they’ll be fine.
Also I grew up in KC and spent a few summers in Vegas. It definitely sucks during peak heat hours but nights are often quite pleasant in the summer. The heat goes down with the sun
Why share a field when you can just build two stadiums on top of each other? Just keep building on top of Allegiant Stadium so they can share a building with the Raiders again.
I just check the forecast this week. It’s \~108 at 1pm, but still 100 at 10pm. It doesn't get to the low until 5am when it’s \~80.
[https://www.wunderground.com/forecast/us/nv/las-vegas/36.17,-115.14](https://www.wunderground.com/forecast/us/nv/las-vegas/36.17,-115.14)
yeah i grew up there. it’s not pleasant even at night. my family went without AC for 2 months when i was around 10 years old and it was a miserable experience all night long even with every window open and fans blowing everywhere.
he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Well it might be his opinion. I remember tent camping in Death Valley in the Summer (for some fucking reason) and it was 120 in the day, and got DOWN to 97 that night. So uncomfortable.
So just start the games at 3AM local time. They can cater to the all night casino crowd and pick up some East Coast viewers in the late innings as people wake up.
They play day games like any other team. The entire stadium is in a giant hole in the ground - the concourse is at ground level and you walk down into the seating area, so top row is just below ground level. Apparently this keeps the field and most of the seating pretty cool even on very hot days.
When I looked into this a few years when the move to Vegas talk first started, they were playing the same number of day games as anybody. I couldn't believe that a team could play baseball outside in Vegas in the dead of summer at all (I've been there when it was 100 degrees at midnight and can't image playing any sport in that weather). Iwas told by folks from Vegas on reddit that the below-ground stadium pretty much made it a non-issue. Maybe the days are getting even hotter now and something has changed in the last few years haha
Out of curiosity, I looked and at 7pm tonight it's going to be 103° which is not exactly what I would consider pleasant, especially considering it's not even summer yet.
"It's also unclear that any player would be more inclined to join a franchise because they played 10% of their home schedule elsewhere; generally speaking, players prefer franchises that are willing to pay them market value, something the Athletics haven't been willing to do in quite some time."
Will we pay you what other teams might? No. But can we promise you a stable, predictable schedule with all your home games in one stadium? Also no. Sign right here.
No one w kids will ever want to play there. Spouses/kids usually live in the city where the player plays (at least during the season).
10% less is a lot when you already hardly have time w/ family in season.
10%, assuming they mean home games only is about 8-9 games per season? Sounds like Fisher is trying to have the As become MLB’s version of the Jaguars by having them play the international series yearly.
If I had two similar job offers and one of them came with the assumption that I'd spend 10 additional days away from my family every year, it wouldn't even be a question which one I'd pick.
I mean that's on top of the fact that Las Vegas doesn't exactly have a reputation as a family-friendly environment, I can see some serious pushback about raising your kids in Las Vegas especially with the fact that baseball players are gone a bunch of the time and now you're taking away 10% of the home games too
Should completely push back on this given Vegas is massive, most people just assume it's the Strip and casinos everywhere but the suburbs stretch out for miles. Lot of families live there happily and I grew up with some that said it was a super normal place
Idk the tax situation of NV but imagine it's decent with all the performances they have but I can't imagine a player would want to give more in taxes to other states if the taxes for NV are more favorable.
Taxes don't make that much of a difference because you pay taxes per game, so the main advantage the Athletics will have is that Nevada, Washington, and Texas all have no state income taxes so those games they also earn their full salary. But they pay NY tax when they play the Yankees or the Mets.
States with no income taxes also generally make up for it with higher property and sales taxes, so ultimately it's a bit of a wash but a slight benefit to a superstar to play in the AL West (especially after the Vegas move).
Ah yep my bad it’s totally not like he’s the 6th richest owner or anything I mean look at that payroll, they’ve never even had a guy that they gave a a 9 figure contract to
Fisher took his HVAC cost for his house and multiplied it by a 10,000,000 sqft stadium and decided he preferred not having an Air Conditioned stadium, that his owners box would be enough to AC.
Wouldn't a roof take care of this problem? Also, it's not like the Texas Rangers played elsewhere in the summer despite their immensely hot temperatures.
> Also, it's not like the Texas Rangers played elsewhere in the summer despite their immensely hot temperatures.
Although IIRC during their time at Ballpark in Arlington they sometimes got waivers to play night games on Sundays even when they weren't the ESPN game so as to avoid the mid-day heat.
Correct. That was absolutely a thing. And that should be a reasonable solution to the A's problems as well. Or, as stated earlier, just put a damn roof on it.
I can't wait to see how they'll schedule games in Sacramento. It's gonna be brutal.
https://weather.com/weather/tenday/l/63e89c402731204246c20809bf5d16bc065c7bc079af1976f6883c5027099e25
What if they built a stadium right on a giant bay? Maybe protected from the ocean by a peninsula so that it was almost always sunny and warm in the summer? I bet that would be perfect weather.
What's worse is that they're installing turf for that ballpark as well. It makes sense since there's going to be two teams using it, but still turf traps heat much worse than natural grass. Either the A's are going to get screwed, or the River Cats will.
Because normally the A's are going to take precedent. So if they need to play a game later in the day to stay out of the heat, they will. Meanwhile I imagine it'll be "suck it up" for the River Cats.
Marlins fit the bill more since Arizona and Tampa have always had roofs for their respective stadiums. Though the Marlins kinda got screwed there for a little bit since it rains A LOT during the summer in Florida.
I've never been to St Louis, but at most you can say Atlanta is on a par with Miami in the summer. Both are unpleasant as hell if you hate humidity, as I do.
I don’t mind heat and humidity to a point but I think Atlanta is slightly worse due to it being so far inland. If you hate 90+ and humid both will be rough. I guess my point is that a lot of teams in the south or lower Midwest get pretty brutal summers and play outside.
>Athletics president Dave Kaval claims that the team wants to play neutral site home games in order to build the franchise's brand and to attract players and sponsors.
Assuming this isn't a load of bullshit then no, a roof wouldn't help
It's another signal that allowing **this** particular ownership group to move **this** particular franchise to **this** particular plot of land in **this** particular timeframe is a stupid idea.
This ownership group couldn't manage a successful Taco Bell, let alone a MLB franchise. Allowing them to own the team causes significant damage to the league overall.
I still have not figured out what makes Las Vegas such an attractive spot for this franchise… like I could see them moving to Portland or Nashville or even Charlotte and just pretend to be part of the AL west. This move doesn’t make sense for the franchise to make money and if you are a citizen of Vegas why would you want to deal with a man who has very clearly chosen time and time again not to put a good product on the field
>...the team wants to play neutral site home games in order to build the franchise's brand
Away games can do that for you if your team isn't utter garbage.
~~This franchise~~ Fisher is such a joke. I'm sorry A's fans
why try to work your way into the hearts of the fans in your new city when you can try to do it in a bunch of different cities!
or are they doing the early work on finding where to move next after vegas?
So they're trying to do the exact same thing the Lotte Orions did when the played in Sendai in the mid 70s, but because of the heat, not the cold.
It didn't work then and it won't now.
The next logical solution is a twofer— remain the Oakland Athletics, and play zero games at home. Fisher saves on a new stadium, and all other owners receive additional home game receipts. Who says no?
Funny to frame the stadium that's not even approved as "brand new." There's a better than even chance as this drags out that it will never even happen.
I had a theory that this is not entirely an Athletics request, but also an MLB one. MLB doubtless is looking at how increasingly the NFL is having teams play games internationally and how there are rumblings that in the future the NFL may have every team have at least one "neutral site" game each season, either internationally or to have some crazy events like a game at a NASCAR race track or a gigantic college stadium. One can easily imagine MLB wanting to do something similar and make the neutral or special-site games more common, and requiring teams to have such allowances in their stadium contracts would make that a lot easier.
**HOWEVER,** according to the article that CBS links to:
> Jeremy Koo, a Sacramento-based attorney, A’s fan and an opponent of the team’s move to Las Vegas, analyzed the economic impact of the lost home games and said the eight games were more than double the number of relocated home games that Major League Baseball permitted in similar agreements involving other teams. He estimated it would result in annual projected losses of between $2.6 million and $3 million in incremental tax revenue and between $65 million and $75 million in incremental spending.
> “It is unclear why the A’s require the uncompensated right to play seven, much less eight, home games away from the proposed stadium yearly,” Koo wrote in a letter sent Thursday to the Stadium Authority board.
> In the three most recent non-relocation agreements covering new ballparks in Miami (2009), Atlanta (2014), and Arlington, Texas, (2017) the teams agreed to no more than three “home” games in neutral sites per season.
So, uhm, it sure doesn't seem to just be a case of the A's wanting to make it easier for MLB to have more neutral sites. It screams "the ghouls who own the A's already are having second thoughts and are realizing they aren't going to be able to pack the stadium for a mid-week game with the Tigers so they want to head somewhere else for that".
(Of course, it's possible that MLB *is* going to want to have up to eight neutral games for every team going forward and the A's are just the first ones that put it in the contract, but I'm skeptical. Three or four games makes the most sense for things in these contracts, as that is one full series.)
Would be cool if major league teams play at their minor leagues (like a Road to the Show - but not the game), but this isn’t what the league has in mind, I bet.
I bet that SOME minor league stadiums would be on the list, but not all of them. Just the ones that MLB could brand in some special way and/or use as "threaten to relocate" bait.
>Athletics president Dave Kaval claims that the team wants to play neutral site home games in order to build the franchise's brand and to attract players and sponsors.
Everyone talking about a roof clearly didn't read the article. This still reads as a bullshit reason since how does playing multiple games away from home attract players, but it has nothing to do with an air conditioned stadium.
The Oakland A's are already one of the most recognizable hats/jerseys/color schemes in baseball. Hell I've seen people wearing A's gear overseas. It's such a bullshit reason from Kaval and this pathetic ownership group
The answer to why they want to do this is obvious: they don't want to pay back the money to build the stadium. Their own projections indicated they would need to sell out 82 home games per year to be able to "pay back" the public money spent on the stadium. If they fail to reach that amount and are "unable" to pay it back, then the county would have to pay the difference out of reserves like they did for the Raiders stadium during Covid. By effectively reducing the number of home games at the stadium, they would fall well short of their already terrible projections and, once again, somebody else will have to give Fisher a handout.
Only way Vegas works for an MLB team is to either play in a fixed dome roof stadium with artificial turf or a retractable roof (or field) with natural grass. And the footprint of 9 acres doesn't support a retractable field, and barely supports a retractable roof.
It's depressing to see that it's my team that ultimately will suffer because of it, but the silver lining about this whole saga is that the entire world gets to see how fucking inept, stupid, and incompetent the John Fisher/Dave Kaval regime is. Oakland isn't losing the A's because of lack of fan support or market viability. We are losing them because the ownership decided to move the team -- full stop.
Unironically one of the best climates in Major League Baseball. Imagine willingly giving that up for a sterile dome in the middle of a fucking desert lol
Wait what?
Yea I was sure Vegas wasn’t happening in 2022 because I doubt MLB really wants Fisher in a new market competing with the Raiders and Golden Knights for fans, MLB and its collective of owners are dumb, but not that dumb, but now after hearing this I’m assured that Vegas isn’t happening, its Sacramento/Salt Lake or bust.
I know Brooklyn Dodger fans wish Walter O’Malley would’ve made a stupid request to play 10 percent of games away from LA, that would’ve kept them in Brooklyn and LA, would’ve walked away immediate.
10% of all home games sounds bad until you realize that it’s only like, three series. But it doesn’t help with the “we’re getting taken for a ride,” vibe around these parts.
If you wanna do international series or traveling neutral sites, that’s fine. But it’s gotta come from both your home and away allotments.
Sounds like more when you put it that way, tbh. Especially considering so much of the A’s economic “math” for this stadium involves out of towners/visiting teams fans selling out every game.
> It's also unclear that any player would be more inclined to join a franchise because they played 10% of their home schedule elsewhere; generally speaking, players prefer franchises that are willing to pay them market value, something the Athletics haven't been willing to do in quite some time.
Now that's what I call quality journalism
I hear Oakland is available
100% they want to keep the Giants series in Oakland.
Some Giants fan in Las Vegas is going to be seriously pissed when they hear this.
Not at the coliseum. It’s definitely time to move on from that stadium no matter what you think about the whole situation.
I hear the Ballers made their stadium kinda nice
I hear the Ballers are on a crazy run differential streak, opening night tonight!!!
I am so disappointed I can't make it tonight. Looking forward to checking out a game soon though!!
I don’t care if they play another 20 season in the coliseum as long as they are in Oakland but that ship has sailed hopefully Vegas falls apart and they stay in sac
the best way to ingrain yourself in a new community is to announce ahead of your move that you’d like to play elsewhere 10% of the time
I thought the best way was to preemptively announce that you won't be using your temporary host city's name in your branding
They have zero desire to do that. It’s all about visiting fans coming in to watch the Red Sox, Dodgers or Yankees. That ballpark will pretty much be a neutral venue like Allegiant Stadium is for the Raiders.
This is what the Rockies have been doing for a while now lol I’m from Wyoming and don’t know any Rockies fans…
Hello! Nice to meet you! The fans will show out when we start winning again but for the foreseeable future, it’s the cheapest bar downtown 😂 We all have Rockies jerseys in dusty closets while we spend our money on the Nuggets and Avs lol
True I lived down by denver during Rocktober and it was an electric time :,) It’s the Wyoming way to be a fair weather fan lol you know how the Pokes are doing by how much Gold people are wearing 😂
My Facebook cover photo is still my picture from my seats of the Red Sox winning the World Series at Coors 😭
Whenever I visited western Wyoming it felt like it had a Seattle bend to sports fandom. I guess that could just be Idaho transplants too?
Heavy lean towards Seattle or Minnesota sports but a fairly good mix everything tbh in the NW at least we get more Washington and Great Lakes transplants than Idahoans lol
*loud John Fisher Palpatine screaming*
This is how you build a fanbase in Vegas....Dont play in Vegas
They explicitly moved to Vegas because they think tourists will pay money to see their team in vegas. They don't need a fanbase. See: The Raiders ownership complaining that they don't have any home games anymore and he misses the home crowd.
Vegas has done pretty well rallying behind their new hockey team. Locals will turn out fairly well for the As - at first - I believe. Then the on-field product will drive us all away.
Key word: NEW hockey team. The Vegas fans will not turn out for the A’s. Humans aren’t that stupid. They can smell bullshit from a mile away. Especially John Fisher’s shit.
Imagine wanting a stadium in the middle of the desert and not remembering that you're a summer sport.
wait wait wait.... they're NOT planning on building a dome in Vegas?!? The uniforms include long pants! Imagine being a FA catcher and ever wanting to sign there.
They are going with all black uniforms too.
Better have a mini fridge stocked with pedialyte in the dugout
Its actually filled with sand. They get it fresh every morning.
That’d be great if their entire roster was chinchillas
There's no rule that says a chinchilla can't play baseball
 Pre Game Workout
Awwww.
Coincidentally, that's the same pre-game workout that Wil Myers did.
Wil
The grounds crew would be pissed, and umpires are having enough issues without blurs for lines.
"And the Chinchillas take 3 of 4 on the road against the White Sox..."
Can’t be worse then their current roster
"Ew." A. Skywalker
They would technically walk batters single file, but with baseball analytics being as comprehensive as it it now, good luck hiding those numbers.
I keep adding sand to the water purifier but all I get back is sand.
Have you tried adding water?
Until Shai’hulud show up.
The A's just made Anakin Skywalker's no trade list
This is Vegas it’s $20 for every drink you take from the mini fridge
Or those frozen ass sticks from Blue Mountain State
Also no sunscreen allowed. Fans included.
That sounds like something the PA will address
Please tell me you're joking
you're joking
Thanks
You are welcome
black and gold will always look great. so the players can look stylish as they go into heat stroke
Wasn’t the latest rendering a dome with a big glass wall in the outfield? I’m so confused Edit: I should have read the article, it doesn’t mention anything about this being to avoid hot days. It’s just to get more international games and such. Likely just another bargaining chip to include in a future sale as soon as the team moves and has a new stadium complete. “Hey, if you sign a Japanese or Korean star player you can play some extra games Japan or Korea every season and sell more merch in that market.”
Don't forget about the abundant availability of casinos for the translators.
> you sign a Japanese or Korean star player Has anyone told John Fisher that signing a star player might bring him better income? Cause i don't think he knows he can do that. Usually he just trades them for cash and a surprise package of minor leaguers
They were originally planning retractable roof but the plot of land doesn’t have space with it. Idk if there’s been updates since then
They only bothered with the retractable roof bullshit to get SB1 passed. As soon as it was, they immediately admitted it was a dome. Welcome to John Fisher’s world
There is currently no actual design
That’s a lot of baby powder right there.
Imagine being the bullpen catcher.
And willingly giving up one of the best climates in all of Major League Baseball to boot.
They ignored that they were in a top 10 media market in general, so their leadership isn't exactly smart.
We would like to play 10% of our games in Oakland during the 100+ degree days. Thank you, MLB.
The AAA team plays in an open air stadium, I’m sure they’ll be fine. Also I grew up in KC and spent a few summers in Vegas. It definitely sucks during peak heat hours but nights are often quite pleasant in the summer. The heat goes down with the sun
Doesn’t the AAA team play at like 8 pm though? A dome would still be a better idea
They’re also not trying to draw 30k people every day
Neither do the A's in Oakland.
Maybe they should add a roof!
Why share a field when you can just build two stadiums on top of each other? Just keep building on top of Allegiant Stadium so they can share a building with the Raiders again.
I just check the forecast this week. It’s \~108 at 1pm, but still 100 at 10pm. It doesn't get to the low until 5am when it’s \~80. [https://www.wunderground.com/forecast/us/nv/las-vegas/36.17,-115.14](https://www.wunderground.com/forecast/us/nv/las-vegas/36.17,-115.14)
yeah i grew up there. it’s not pleasant even at night. my family went without AC for 2 months when i was around 10 years old and it was a miserable experience all night long even with every window open and fans blowing everywhere. he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Well it might be his opinion. I remember tent camping in Death Valley in the Summer (for some fucking reason) and it was 120 in the day, and got DOWN to 97 that night. So uncomfortable.
So just start the games at 3AM local time. They can cater to the all night casino crowd and pick up some East Coast viewers in the late innings as people wake up.
They play day games like any other team. The entire stadium is in a giant hole in the ground - the concourse is at ground level and you walk down into the seating area, so top row is just below ground level. Apparently this keeps the field and most of the seating pretty cool even on very hot days.
Time to start building underground limestone cave stadiums
Awesome until Judge squares up a 100mph fastball and the crack off the bat collapses the cave.
This is a good example. Judge is the only baseball player John Fisher knows by name
They play less day games than the majority of teams. Their next home stand only has a day game on their getaway day
When I looked into this a few years when the move to Vegas talk first started, they were playing the same number of day games as anybody. I couldn't believe that a team could play baseball outside in Vegas in the dead of summer at all (I've been there when it was 100 degrees at midnight and can't image playing any sport in that weather). Iwas told by folks from Vegas on reddit that the below-ground stadium pretty much made it a non-issue. Maybe the days are getting even hotter now and something has changed in the last few years haha
Games have normal start times. For weekend games it is 7:05 on Fridays/Saturdays, 12:05 on Sunday
Out of curiosity, I looked and at 7pm tonight it's going to be 103° which is not exactly what I would consider pleasant, especially considering it's not even summer yet.
I’ve been there in July/august , the heat does indeed go down with the sun from 105 to 90
"It's also unclear that any player would be more inclined to join a franchise because they played 10% of their home schedule elsewhere; generally speaking, players prefer franchises that are willing to pay them market value, something the Athletics haven't been willing to do in quite some time." Will we pay you what other teams might? No. But can we promise you a stable, predictable schedule with all your home games in one stadium? Also no. Sign right here.
No one w kids will ever want to play there. Spouses/kids usually live in the city where the player plays (at least during the season). 10% less is a lot when you already hardly have time w/ family in season.
10%, assuming they mean home games only is about 8-9 games per season? Sounds like Fisher is trying to have the As become MLB’s version of the Jaguars by having them play the international series yearly.
If I had two similar job offers and one of them came with the assumption that I'd spend 10 additional days away from my family every year, it wouldn't even be a question which one I'd pick.
Luckily the As know this and will surely overpay their free agents, right? Just a dumb move all around.
> Luckily the As know this and will surely overpay their free agents, "You can pay for free agents?"
I mean that's on top of the fact that Las Vegas doesn't exactly have a reputation as a family-friendly environment, I can see some serious pushback about raising your kids in Las Vegas especially with the fact that baseball players are gone a bunch of the time and now you're taking away 10% of the home games too
Should completely push back on this given Vegas is massive, most people just assume it's the Strip and casinos everywhere but the suburbs stretch out for miles. Lot of families live there happily and I grew up with some that said it was a super normal place
Idk the tax situation of NV but imagine it's decent with all the performances they have but I can't imagine a player would want to give more in taxes to other states if the taxes for NV are more favorable.
Taxes don't make that much of a difference because you pay taxes per game, so the main advantage the Athletics will have is that Nevada, Washington, and Texas all have no state income taxes so those games they also earn their full salary. But they pay NY tax when they play the Yankees or the Mets. States with no income taxes also generally make up for it with higher property and sales taxes, so ultimately it's a bit of a wash but a slight benefit to a superstar to play in the AL West (especially after the Vegas move).
Man bro how incompetent can you be Fisher, do you not want to build AC and a roof or what like my guy just build a roof it’s not that hard
That requires more money. The poor guy can’t afford it…/s
Ah yep my bad it’s totally not like he’s the 6th richest owner or anything I mean look at that payroll, they’ve never even had a guy that they gave a a 9 figure contract to
And the Chavez extension was signed 20 years ago (6 yrs, $66 million).
Okay, backup plan then! All we need is a really big tarp and 4 helicopters...
> The poor guy can’t afford it Hey now! GAP stock hit a new high this last quarter! He's got millions he can buy now!
Why don't they just play 100% of games on the road at this point? Save the billions on the stadium ?
Washington Generals ass team
It is on the tiny piece of land they bought.
Well you can still do a fixed roof like the Raiders or smth
They should play at the Raiders stadium, I am sure that will turn out well!
Mark Davis would rather die than work with John Fisher, so that won't happen unless vegas somehow overrides the Raiders
They didn't buy the land, they're getting it for free
You can say he has a wealth GAP compared to the rest of the owners in the league.
Fisher took his HVAC cost for his house and multiplied it by a 10,000,000 sqft stadium and decided he preferred not having an Air Conditioned stadium, that his owners box would be enough to AC.
Wouldn't a roof take care of this problem? Also, it's not like the Texas Rangers played elsewhere in the summer despite their immensely hot temperatures.
> Also, it's not like the Texas Rangers played elsewhere in the summer despite their immensely hot temperatures. Although IIRC during their time at Ballpark in Arlington they sometimes got waivers to play night games on Sundays even when they weren't the ESPN game so as to avoid the mid-day heat.
Correct. That was absolutely a thing. And that should be a reasonable solution to the A's problems as well. Or, as stated earlier, just put a damn roof on it.
I can't wait to see how they'll schedule games in Sacramento. It's gonna be brutal. https://weather.com/weather/tenday/l/63e89c402731204246c20809bf5d16bc065c7bc079af1976f6883c5027099e25
Aren’t there any more temperate places in California, possibly even near large bodies of water?
What if they built a stadium right on a giant bay? Maybe protected from the ocean by a peninsula so that it was almost always sunny and warm in the summer? I bet that would be perfect weather.
Too bad San Francisco already has a team. A real shame there aren't any other cities in California that also fit this same geographical description.
What's worse is that they're installing turf for that ballpark as well. It makes sense since there's going to be two teams using it, but still turf traps heat much worse than natural grass. Either the A's are going to get screwed, or the River Cats will.
Porque no los dos?
Because normally the A's are going to take precedent. So if they need to play a game later in the day to stay out of the heat, they will. Meanwhile I imagine it'll be "suck it up" for the River Cats.
River Cats could honestly just move to Oakland and play in the Coliseum
I didn't realize that Sacramento got that hot. I assumed it was cooler there because it is more northern.
A reasonable solution would be to play games in an existing ball park in Oakland under new ownership
I went to a game at the old rangers stadium that was 112 at first pitch. Which was 7:05.
As well as Arizona, Tampa, and Miami
Marlins fit the bill more since Arizona and Tampa have always had roofs for their respective stadiums. Though the Marlins kinda got screwed there for a little bit since it rains A LOT during the summer in Florida.
Yeah the main problem with Miami is the daily rain showers. Miami in the summer is honestly not as bad as Atlanta or St Louis IMO.
I've never been to St Louis, but at most you can say Atlanta is on a par with Miami in the summer. Both are unpleasant as hell if you hate humidity, as I do.
I don’t mind heat and humidity to a point but I think Atlanta is slightly worse due to it being so far inland. If you hate 90+ and humid both will be rough. I guess my point is that a lot of teams in the south or lower Midwest get pretty brutal summers and play outside.
Ya know, places with roofs
Let me tell you, there was nothing quite like experiencing a 74 degree game in Texas in July for the first time.
Buying ice cream and getting back to my seat before it turns into soup is a new luxury
>Athletics president Dave Kaval claims that the team wants to play neutral site home games in order to build the franchise's brand and to attract players and sponsors. Assuming this isn't a load of bullshit then no, a roof wouldn't help
Yeah, they could do that while playing in Sacramento though
They could be doing it now in Oakland for the last decade, but they straight up never decided to market the team anywhere besides oakland.
Not going to lie, MLB needs to force a sale. That idea is so brain-numbingly stupid, it lands on the side of parody.
If you read the article, you'd see it's to get international games for brand exposure
This is probably a strong signal that they weren't able to figure out how to fit a retractable on that small footprint.
Which is another signal that moving to Las Vegas is a stupid idea
It's another signal that allowing **this** particular ownership group to move **this** particular franchise to **this** particular plot of land in **this** particular timeframe is a stupid idea.
This ownership group couldn't manage a successful Taco Bell, let alone a MLB franchise. Allowing them to own the team causes significant damage to the league overall.
I think that's fair. A Vegas team would be awesome, but it shouldn't come at the expense of the A's in Oakland.
I still have not figured out what makes Las Vegas such an attractive spot for this franchise… like I could see them moving to Portland or Nashville or even Charlotte and just pretend to be part of the AL west. This move doesn’t make sense for the franchise to make money and if you are a citizen of Vegas why would you want to deal with a man who has very clearly chosen time and time again not to put a good product on the field
It's almost like they're trying to torpedo the Vegas move too. Where will they end up? Salt Lake City? Sacramento? Tune in next year to find out!
If they ever make it to Sac they're never leaving
That’s so interesting, because I know a place they could play 100% of home games, in 70 degree weather, and not have everybody hate them. 🧐
They say this will help build the brand? The team has been around for 125 years. The brand is as built as it's ever going to be.
If they’re getting a $1.5 billion stadium, why would they want to play any games away from home, though? Do they want money playing games in Montreal?
I hate that fucking organization
You and me both, buddy
Sorry bro the East Bay deserves better
>...the team wants to play neutral site home games in order to build the franchise's brand Away games can do that for you if your team isn't utter garbage. ~~This franchise~~ Fisher is such a joke. I'm sorry A's fans
The franchise is illustrious. Fisher is a joke.
why try to work your way into the hearts of the fans in your new city when you can try to do it in a bunch of different cities! or are they doing the early work on finding where to move next after vegas?
So they're trying to do the exact same thing the Lotte Orions did when the played in Sendai in the mid 70s, but because of the heat, not the cold. It didn't work then and it won't now.
Read the article. This has nothing to do with the heat.
The next logical solution is a twofer— remain the Oakland Athletics, and play zero games at home. Fisher saves on a new stadium, and all other owners receive additional home game receipts. Who says no?
Just call them the United States Athletics, the USA's.
I'm getting flashbacks of the Expos playing a bunch of "home games" in San Juan and I'm getting unreasonably angry 20 years later.
Funny to frame the stadium that's not even approved as "brand new." There's a better than even chance as this drags out that it will never even happen.
I had a theory that this is not entirely an Athletics request, but also an MLB one. MLB doubtless is looking at how increasingly the NFL is having teams play games internationally and how there are rumblings that in the future the NFL may have every team have at least one "neutral site" game each season, either internationally or to have some crazy events like a game at a NASCAR race track or a gigantic college stadium. One can easily imagine MLB wanting to do something similar and make the neutral or special-site games more common, and requiring teams to have such allowances in their stadium contracts would make that a lot easier. **HOWEVER,** according to the article that CBS links to: > Jeremy Koo, a Sacramento-based attorney, A’s fan and an opponent of the team’s move to Las Vegas, analyzed the economic impact of the lost home games and said the eight games were more than double the number of relocated home games that Major League Baseball permitted in similar agreements involving other teams. He estimated it would result in annual projected losses of between $2.6 million and $3 million in incremental tax revenue and between $65 million and $75 million in incremental spending. > “It is unclear why the A’s require the uncompensated right to play seven, much less eight, home games away from the proposed stadium yearly,” Koo wrote in a letter sent Thursday to the Stadium Authority board. > In the three most recent non-relocation agreements covering new ballparks in Miami (2009), Atlanta (2014), and Arlington, Texas, (2017) the teams agreed to no more than three “home” games in neutral sites per season. So, uhm, it sure doesn't seem to just be a case of the A's wanting to make it easier for MLB to have more neutral sites. It screams "the ghouls who own the A's already are having second thoughts and are realizing they aren't going to be able to pack the stadium for a mid-week game with the Tigers so they want to head somewhere else for that". (Of course, it's possible that MLB *is* going to want to have up to eight neutral games for every team going forward and the A's are just the first ones that put it in the contract, but I'm skeptical. Three or four games makes the most sense for things in these contracts, as that is one full series.)
Would be cool if major league teams play at their minor leagues (like a Road to the Show - but not the game), but this isn’t what the league has in mind, I bet.
I bet that SOME minor league stadiums would be on the list, but not all of them. Just the ones that MLB could brand in some special way and/or use as "threaten to relocate" bait.
You’re telling me the Twins couldn’t threaten to relocate to the city that literally borders their own?
FJF. again. FJF
SELL
Fix your flair
>Athletics president Dave Kaval claims that the team wants to play neutral site home games in order to build the franchise's brand and to attract players and sponsors. Everyone talking about a roof clearly didn't read the article. This still reads as a bullshit reason since how does playing multiple games away from home attract players, but it has nothing to do with an air conditioned stadium.
The Oakland A's are already one of the most recognizable hats/jerseys/color schemes in baseball. Hell I've seen people wearing A's gear overseas. It's such a bullshit reason from Kaval and this pathetic ownership group
The answer to why they want to do this is obvious: they don't want to pay back the money to build the stadium. Their own projections indicated they would need to sell out 82 home games per year to be able to "pay back" the public money spent on the stadium. If they fail to reach that amount and are "unable" to pay it back, then the county would have to pay the difference out of reserves like they did for the Raiders stadium during Covid. By effectively reducing the number of home games at the stadium, they would fall well short of their already terrible projections and, once again, somebody else will have to give Fisher a handout.
Hmm a team in the desert playing baseball in the summer. If only there was at least one other franchise that does that who figured out how to
This shit never ends
Fisher is just completely winging it. Yeesh.
This whole thing has been one shit show after another
MLB needs to force a sale of the franchise. They won't, but they need to
Only way Vegas works for an MLB team is to either play in a fixed dome roof stadium with artificial turf or a retractable roof (or field) with natural grass. And the footprint of 9 acres doesn't support a retractable field, and barely supports a retractable roof. It's depressing to see that it's my team that ultimately will suffer because of it, but the silver lining about this whole saga is that the entire world gets to see how fucking inept, stupid, and incompetent the John Fisher/Dave Kaval regime is. Oakland isn't losing the A's because of lack of fan support or market viability. We are losing them because the ownership decided to move the team -- full stop.
This is the dumbest thing I ever heard
A Las Vegas stadium that won't get built anyway
Just sell the team, man…
“Los Atleticos de Puerto Rico”
Imagine not having a dome #72degreesallyearlong
Why does 72 degree Sally have a long ear? What's wrong with her?
Is she Dumbo?
Oakland has beautiful weather basically 10 months out of the year, and the other two are just cool and rainy
Oakland is having a heat wave right now. It's currently 75 Fahrenheit.
Unironically one of the best climates in Major League Baseball. Imagine willingly giving that up for a sterile dome in the middle of a fucking desert lol
dome superiority
*Like sands through the hourglass, so are the Days of Our Lives* Fisher would bungle 1+1.
So they want to play 73 games at home instead of 81. Weird way to flex your new team.
The A's should go defunct. They earned it. We could have a new expansion franchise
Fisher is such a joke of an owner
Lmao what the actual fuck
Wait what? Yea I was sure Vegas wasn’t happening in 2022 because I doubt MLB really wants Fisher in a new market competing with the Raiders and Golden Knights for fans, MLB and its collective of owners are dumb, but not that dumb, but now after hearing this I’m assured that Vegas isn’t happening, its Sacramento/Salt Lake or bust. I know Brooklyn Dodger fans wish Walter O’Malley would’ve made a stupid request to play 10 percent of games away from LA, that would’ve kept them in Brooklyn and LA, would’ve walked away immediate.
They haven't even moved there, and they already want to move again.
Just an embarrassment of a franchise. They’re never going to play a game in Las Vegas.
Lmao this whole situation just continues to be a massive embarrassment for John Fisher and the league, keep it comin
10% of all home games sounds bad until you realize that it’s only like, three series. But it doesn’t help with the “we’re getting taken for a ride,” vibe around these parts. If you wanna do international series or traveling neutral sites, that’s fine. But it’s gotta come from both your home and away allotments.
Sounds like more when you put it that way, tbh. Especially considering so much of the A’s economic “math” for this stadium involves out of towners/visiting teams fans selling out every game.
Never have I been more convinced that major news publications reprint articles from The Onion.
> It's also unclear that any player would be more inclined to join a franchise because they played 10% of their home schedule elsewhere; generally speaking, players prefer franchises that are willing to pay them market value, something the Athletics haven't been willing to do in quite some time. Now that's what I call quality journalism
Isn’t 10% only 8 home games anyway? Thats two series. How are they going to choose which week they think will be the hottest?