The Athletics officially announced on their Twitter feed on Thursday morning that they'll spend at least the next three seasons playing at Sutter Health Park in Sacramento. The deal includes an option for the A's to play a fourth year in Sacramento if the project in Las Vegas runs behind schedule.
Sutter Health Park is the minor league home of the Sacramento River Cats, the SF Giants Triple-A affiliate.
The Athletics met with representatives from the Sacramento side on Wednesday and it was leaked on Twitter that the two sides had come to an agreement to host the team for the 2025-2027 seasons.
The A's made that news official this morning and we now have clarity that 2024 will be the last season in Oakland for the franchise.
Official:
— Carmichael Dave (@CarmichaelDave) April 4, 2024
A’s to Sacramento….. pic.twitter.com/bg6RuYu8co
It's been a long and arduous journey for Athletics fans since John Fisher bought a controlling stake in the franchise back in 2005.
Fisher spent 20 years trying to move the A's out of Oakland, focusing on areas including Fremont and San Jose before pivoting to Las Vegas just a couple years ago.
The A's still don't have a concrete plan for their relocation to Las Vegas. There's no evidence that the team has the funding for the new ballpark at the Tropicana site and Schools Over Stadiums is still fighting to get SB1 onto a ballot referendum where the choice to publicly finance the ballpark would be given to the voters.
We just saw the voters in Jackson County, MO decline to fund new projects for the Kansas City Royals and Kansas City Chiefs and there's a lot of buzz that the voters in Las Vegas would do the same if given the opportunity.
Despite the question marks that remain in Las Vegas, the Athletics have decided that they no longer want to be in Oakland.
The A's met with Oakland and Alameda County on Tuesday but the sides were too far apart in negotiations and were not able to come to a deal.
The A's had initially offered $17 million total over 3 years but had reportedly increased the offer to $19.4 million per year while the team remained in Oakland. The city had asked for $97 million in total, with the annual fee being variable based on how many years the A's stayed at the Coliseum.
The Athletics then met with Sacramento on Wednesday and came to terms on a deal for the A's to play in a minor league park for the next three years.
It's been suggested that the A's will be able to rework their RSN contract to allow for a reduced payment. While the A's won't receive 100% of their current TV revenue, they could earn some portion of that $70 million annual figure depending on how the RSN wants to handle it.
It's been an incredibly difficult couple years to be an Athletics fan, to be blunt. The team has abandoned the city and the fan base with complete disregard to any of the historical or emotional factors involved.
Fisher and the Athletics will earn less money playing in Sacramento than they would have in Oakland, but the team clearly wants to just cut ties with the city and move on, regardless of the impact to the community or the workforce it employs.
Sacramento is complicit in ripping the Athletics out of Oakland, as is the MLB league office and Commissioner Rob Manfred.
Having an MLB team play in a minor league park for three years based solely out of spite for the city it currently resides in is a black mark on the league and it's something the fans will not soon forget.