City of Oakland offer leaked ahead of lease extension meeting with Athletics

According to Casey Pratt of ABC7, the offer from the city of Oakland to the Athletics ahead of their scheduled meeting on Tuesday to discuss a lease extension at the Coliseum has leaked.

Pratt had most of the details on Twitter. According to the Tweet, the city is looking for a 5-year deal with the option for the Athletics to opt out after the third year, increased rent payments of $19.4 million per year, for the Athletics to sell their stake in the Coliseum prior to the conclusion of the extension, and to grant the city one full year of exclusive negotiating rights to set up owners for an expansion team.

As Pratt mentioned, remaining in Oakland allows owner John Fisher to retain the full $70 million annual RSN rights fee payment from NBC Sports California. We all know how cheap Fisher is so it's within the realm of possibility that Fisher would jump at the opportunity to keep receiving those checks.

The increased rent payments would be beneficial to the city, providing a massive influx of cash that the city can use for various purposes. And getting the rights to the Coliseum would be huge rather than having Fisher squat on the land and prevent the city from doing anything with the space.

The real interesting part, however, is the bit about getting an expansion team for Oakland. It has been reported that Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob has had a standing offer on the table to buy the Athletics for a considerable period of time.

Could Oakland get an expansion team?

There would certainly be others willing to line up and purchase an MLB team given the chance but what better outcome would there be than getting a team in place with a local owner who has proven that he's committed to spending money on the product and building winning teams.

In my opinion, getting Oakland an expansion team has always been a pipe dream. There are too many variables, and commissioner Rob Manfred has been outspoken about being on Fisher's side during this travesty of a relocation process.

Whether MLB would support an expansion franchise heading back to Oakland is unclear. However, what is clear is that Oakland is willing and able to support a major league team, assuming the owner isn't actively trying to up and leave with the franchise.

We've seen Oakland support the team over the years. We saw 15k fans at Fans Fest just a couple weeks ago. And we saw upwards of 20k fans in the Athletics' parking lot during the Opening Day boycott this past Thursday night.

There are fans here and they're desperate for a team that loves them back. Or at the very least, an owner who doesn't actively loathe the city and the fanbase.

The city's offer seems fair, and it does seem like a pathway to a deal. Whether it's within those exact parameters is unclear as of now. But from where we're sitting, the offer looks like it could solve problems for both sides and be an effective win-win outcome.

The lease extension meeting is set for Tuesday morning. We'll keep an eye on this story and update when we learn more.