MLB Owners Unanimously Approve A’s Move To Las Vegas

As expected, the 30 MLB owners voted unanimously on Thursday to approve the Oakland A's pending move to Las Vegas.

A's fans from Oakland had attempted to sway ownership over the past few weeks with packages meant to highlight the team's long history in the Bay Area.

READ: OAKLAND A’S FANS ARE LITERALLY SENDING ‘STAY IN OAKLAND’ BOXES TO MLB OWNERS

Unsurprisingly, a group of billionaire owners were uninterested in emotional appeals, instead choosing financial incentives that will increase the collective value of MLB organizations. The decision also marks the first relocation approval since 2005 when the Montreal Expos moved to Washington D.C.

Despite the approval, there are still more questions to be answered before the Las Vegas A's become a reality.

OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA - JUNE 13: Oakland Athletics fans fill RingCentral Coliseum during a reverse boycott game against the Tampa Bay Rays on June 13, 2023 in Oakland, California. (Photo by Brandon Vallance/Getty Images)

A's Have Nowhere To Play For Multiple Years

Just a few weeks ago, the A's revealed the expected timeframe for their new stadium construction in Las Vegas.

READ: TIMELINE FOR A’S NEW STADIUM IN VEGAS REVEALED

With their new stadium set to be completed in time for the 2028 season and their lease at the Coliseum up after 2024, that raises an important question: where the heck will they play from 2025-2027?

Fans in Oakland are, quite reasonably, unlikely to support the team much in 2024, and the 10,276 per game average is likely to fall substantially. If the team attempted to stay at RingCentral for three more seasons afterwards, it's hard to imagine how bad attendance could get. The proposed alternatives aren't much better, including sharing Oracle Park with the San Francisco Giants or playing at the Giants' AAA stadium in Sacramento.

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred gave an exceptionally tone deaf quote in response to the vote, claiming that owner John Fisher cared about staying in Oakland. “There was an effort over more than a decade to find a stadium solution in Oakland,” Manfred said after the vote. “It was John Fisher’s preference. It was my preference. ... It didn’t happen.”

The league, and Fisher's, preference, was securing as much public financing as possible to build a new stadium. Rarely do sports leagues move from one of the largest media markets in the country to a more middling sized region on purpose. But taxpayers handing out hundreds of millions of dollars in free money is an easy win for billionaire owners.

It was essentially a foregone conclusion before Thursday anyway, but the A's move to Vegas is now a step closer to reality. Congratulations to John Fisher, Rob Manfred and the other MLB owners. They all got a lot richer today.