Oakland A’s Reach Deal on Las Vegas Stadium

If the move happens — plenty of deals with the A’s have fallen apart over the franchise’s long history — Las Vegas would become the fourth home for the A’s, a team that was born in Philadelphia as an original American League franchise in 1901, left for Kansas City, Mo., in 1955, then moved to Oakland before the 1968 season. The last major league team to switch cities was the Montreal Expos, who left Canada and became the Washington Nationals before the 2005 season.

M.L.B.’s commissioner, Rob Manfred, has expressed support for an A’s move out of Oakland, saying in December, “We’re past any reasonable timeline for the situation in Oakland to be resolved.”

The move would be the end of major professional sports in Oakland, a port city that has in recent years become an extension of California’s Silicon Valley. The N.F.L.’s Raiders, who were formed in the city in 1960, moved to Los Angeles before the 1982 season, moved back to Oakland in 1995 and moved to Las Vegas in 2020. The N.B.A.’s Golden State Warriors, who officially moved to Oakland from San Francisco before the 1970-71 season, moved back across the Bay three seasons ago. And now the A’s would join the Raiders in Las Vegas.

Baseball would be following the N.F.L., the N.H.L. and the W.N.B.A. into a Las Vegas market long coveted by sports leagues and team owners even as it was once considered taboo because of its strong association with gambling.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/20/sports/baseball/oakland-athletics-stadium-las-vegas.html