The season just started, and the Oakland A's attendance is already embarrassing
By Chase Gordon
The Oakland A’s had the lowest average attendance in the MLB last year by far with less than 10,000 fans per game. And this year isn’t shaping up to be any different.
Despite a decent turnout (by Oakland standards) for Opening Day against Ohtani and the Los Angeles Angels with almost 27,000 fans in the stands, the A’s attendance is already embarrassing a week into the season. Just over 3,000 fans showed up to Monday’s extra-inning slugfest against the Cleveland Guardians. In other words, the A’s filled a shameful 6% of RingCentral Coliseum's capacity.
The next two home games didn’t fare much better for Oakland. 3,407 fans attended Tuesday’s win against the Guardians and Wednesday’s loss saw just shy of 5,000.
Triple-A teams have higher attendance than the Oakland A's
JJ Cooper of Baseball America noted on Twitter that 11 out of 13 Triple-A games outdrew the A’s on Wednesday. Many of the Triple-A games more than doubled the A’s attendance on each night Monday through Wednesday.
The continued trend of shockingly low attendance comes as the A’s organization explores a potential relocation to Las Vegas. Commissioner Rob Manfred confirmed in February that the baseball club is primarily focused on a move to Las Vegas as opposed to staying in Oakland (though he did not rule it out completely). The A’s efforts to secure a new stadium in Oakland have been plagued with court battles and uncertainty.
Many A’s fans have been frustrated with ownership and the way the team has been managed in recent years. These sentiments combined with poor team performance play a large part in their reluctance to buy tickets. With discontented fans, low attendance, and no Oakland stadium deal in sight, the move to Vegas is becoming an increasingly likely reality.