Oakland A’s owner John Fisher (left) is prepared to move his team to Las Vegas and build on the strip as an Oakland downtown stadium looks about dead (San Francisco Chronicle file photo)

A’s following Raiders to Las Vegas

That’s Amaury News and Commentary

By Amaury Pi-González

Bob Nightengale’s Twitter: Commissioner Rob Manfred tells @MadDogUnleashed that he’s no longer optimistic the #A’s will remain in Oakland (‘It just doesn’t look like it’s going to happen’) and likely will move to Las Vegas….”

The Oakland Raiders announced they were relocating to Las Vegas on January 22, 2020. Less than two years since then, the Oakland Athletics are poised to follow the Raiders and settle their new home in the desert.

Today, during an interview on Sirius XM, Rob Manfred, Commissioner of Baseball said he is no longer optimistic the A’s will remain in Oakland, and a move to Las Vegas is likely. On May 2, only 2,488 people came to see the A’s take on the Tampa Bay Rays, whom Manfred says thinks will remain in St. Petersburg.

The Oakland A’s and City of Oakland officials had been in discussions regarding a new stadium in Oakland, as part of the Howard Terminal project, but recently deadlines passed without any progress. Negotiations have been pushed for next year, but that will not work, since A’s President Dave Kaval already said (many times) that “all but doom our efforts to stay in Oakland”.

In just over a week there will be an election in Oakland. The biggest supporter for the new Howard Terminal project has been the Mayor of Oakland Libby Schaaf, however her term as Mayor is running out and soon will be done with that job. The uncertainty under a new Mayor of Oakland that will be elected in a few days and a new administration with newly elected officials is the nail in the coffin to Howard Terminal.

The new administration at Oakland City Hall will be taking over a bevy of problems like: affordable housing, homeless crisis, and spike in crime, shortage of police force and others that would override the importance of a new park for the A’s.

The Oakland A’s lost 102 games this season, finishing in last place and for the second time since 1968 playing in Oakland lost over 100 games and averaged under 10,000 people per game. The team average 9,973 per game which was last (No.30) all of teams in the major leagues.

The future of the A’s has been in limbo for a few years. There were plans to move the team from the Oakland Coliseum to other places in Oakland, as well as southern Alameda County, in Fremont, about 25 miles south of Oakland, with a population of 230,000, the fourth most populated city in the Bay Area. Even the City of Sacramento was a place years ago; there was talk they could relocate.

I have written and spoken in my Podcast how important was this off-season for the future of the Oakland organization. There were many disagreements about the new stadium situation, but one that everybody seemed to agree was that by this 2022 season’s end, the team was ready to make an official announcement.

While the team has not made an announcement, at the time of this article, prior to the second game of the World Series, the Commissioner of Baseball made news on Sirius XM. The commissioner has ran out of patience, since has previously said in more than one occasion, he was “not very confident” that Oakland and the A’s could come to an agreement.

Amaury PI Gonzalez does News and Commentary at http://www.sportsradioservice.com