Oakland Athletics purchase land for new Las Vegas Stadium
After 55 seasons and years of struggle with the city of Oakland, the Oakland Athletics are officially ditching the Coliseum and Oakland for Las Vegas.
Team president Dave Kaval announced last night that the organization has purchased a 49-acre site just north of Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nev. Kaval told the Las Vegas Review-Journal about the team’s plans for the new stadium. A $1.5 billion dollar, 35,000-seat stadium with a partially retractable roof will be underway by as early as next year. The A’s hope to make the move to southern Nevada in time for the 2027 season.
“We’re turning our full attention to Las Vegas,” Kaval said. “We were on parallel paths before. But we’re focused really on Las Vegas as our path to find a future home for the A’s.”
The A’s decision to leave Oakland makes them the city’s third professional sports franchise to do so. The Golden State Warriors jumped across The Bay in 2019 to their new arena in San Francisco, the Chase Center. The Raiders, who shared the Coliseum in Oakland with the A’s, moved into their new Las Vegas home, Allegiant Stadium, in 2020. The A’s are following suit and will become Las Vegas’ third major sports franchise after a two-decade-long struggle with the city of Oakland.
“For a while we were on parallel paths [with Oakland], but we have turned our attention to Las Vegas to get a deal here for the A’s and find a long-term home,” Kaval told the Review-Journal. “Oakland has been a great home for us for over 50 years, but we really need this 20-year saga completed and we feel there’s a path here in Southern Nevada to do that.”
Oakland Sports fans get the shaft again:
Fans of Oakland sports have had a very rough five years. The Warriors built a dynasty in Oracle Arena, winning three championships in five straight NBA Finals appearances — then privately financing $1.4 billion of its own dollars to construct the brand new Chase Center in San Francisco.
Incompetent elected officials and a lack of public funding killed any chance of a new Oakland A’s or Raiders stadium in Oakland. Instead, the teams were forced to share the crumbling dual-use stadium long after all other franchises abandoned the concept.
Neither team managed to win a playoff game or series in the outdated stadium after 2006. The A’s were Oakland’s last hope to keep a professional team in the city. Unfortunately for the loyal eastern Bay Area fans, that hope seems to be over.
While loyal Oakland sports fans certainly do not deserve this, the city has had two decades to find a viable solution for a new stadium.
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