A’s to Play in Sac-Town for 3 Years Before Vegas Move

Posted on: April 4, 2024, 12:55h. 

Last updated on: April 4, 2024, 06:50h.

Corey Levitan Read More
Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas.

The Oakland Athletics announced on Thursday that they will play ball in Sacramento for three seasons beginning in 2025. The hosting venue will be Sutter Health Park, a 14K-seat baseball field that is majority-owned by the NBA’s Sacramento Kings.

The new home of the Oakland A’s for three seasons beginning in 2025 will be this little-known field in California’s capital city. (Image: visitsacramento.com)

Plans are for the A’s to share the little-known ballpark with the Sacramento River Cats, the San Francisco Giants’ Triple-A farm team, while waiting for a new stadium to be built for them on the site of the Tropicana casino-hotel. The historic Las Vegas Strip casino resort, which closed for good on Tuesday, is set to be demolished in October.

While the A’s play in Sacramento, they will drop the “Oakland” from their name, but not become the Sacramento A’s either. According to TMZ Sports, the team will be the city-less “Athletics” before moving to their permanent home in Las Vegas.

We look forward to making Sutter Health Park our home through our move to Las Vegas,” A’s owner John Fisher said in a statement. “We extend our appreciation to the Kings and the City of West Sacramento for hosting the A’s while we work to complete our new ballpark in Las Vegas.”

Reportedly, the Giants were unwilling to share their Oracle Park with their regional rivals, and so offered the A’s their farm team’s stadium instead.

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The first officially sanctioned designs released by the A’s for their Las Vegas ballpark were roundly ridiculed for emulating the Sidney Opera House and showing the sun setting in the east. (Image: Negativ)

Bally’s, the Rhode Island-based gaming company that operated the Tropicana, has repeatedly stated its intention to build a 30K-seat, $1.5 billion baseball stadium for the A’s on nine of the Tropicana site’s 35 acres.

Mortenson-McCarthy, the construction firm hired by the A’s, told the Las Vegas Stadium Authority last year that construction would start on the ballpark in April 2025, and finish in time for the start of the 2028 season.

Should the Vegas construction project get delayed or even canceled — a real possibility feared by many knowledgeable Las Vegas observers – the A’s will have the option to extend their Sutter Health Park tenancy for a fourth year.

Fisher’s fellow Major League Baseball team owners unanimously approved the Athletics’ relocation in November.

The current A’s lease at Oakland Coliseum expires after this season, and the acrimonious relationship between Fisher and the city of Oakland has reportedly ruled out extending it.

Though Las Vegas Ballpark, the 8,000-seat home of the Athletics’ Triple-A team, the Las Vegas Aviators, was initially considered, it was later rejected because the A’s didn’t like the prospect of playing outdoors in Nevada’s triple-digit summer heat. (And who can blame them? Go, Aviators!)