A's look to be headed to Sacramento

Jason Burke | Apr 4, 2024

Mar 20, 2024; Mesa, Arizona, USA; General view of the field prior to a spring training game between / Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports

You either die a hero, or live long enough to become the villain. Just over a decade after the Sacramento Kings were officially saved from relocation, KIngs owner Vivek Ranadivé is appears ready to rip a team away from Oakland.

BREAKING:

The Oakland A’s and Sacramento are finalizing an agreement to play temporarily in the capital city beginning next season.

There will likely be an official announcement as soon as tomorrow or Friday.

This story is developing…

— Carmichael Dave (@CarmichaelDave) April 4, 2024

After the A's and the City of Oakland met to discuss a lease extension on Tuesday, this seemed like the outcome that was destined to come. Neither the A's nor Oakland was touting further meetings, and both sides seemed disappointed with the other that they were still so far apart.

Oakland had originally asked for a $97 million payment in agreement for the lease extension, while the value paid per year would depend upon how long the A's ended up staying in town. At five years, it came out to $19.4 million per season, but at three years, which is how long the team would stick around if everything goes according to plan with their Vegas ballpark, then that payment would jump to $32.3 million a year.

Casey Pratt of ABC 7 mentioned on his YouTube channel that the city later offered a "pay as you stay" plan that would cost $19.4 million per season that the team played games in Oakland. While that still is a steep climb from the $1.5 million the team is paying in rent this year, if the A's leave Oakland, their tv contract with Comcast Sports California will also be void. That contract is set to pay the A's around $70 million this season. So in essence, the A's need Oakland to receive that money.

One big question is what kind of deal CSC and the A's have hammered out for a move to Sacramento. The team doesn't attract big audiences either in person or on tv these days thanks to ownership, so it's hard to imagine that they're bringing in much in the way of sponsorships that would help justify keeping the A's signed at anything close to what they're currently doling out.

If the A's to Sacramento news gets announced in the coming days, we can guess that they're getting enough from a new deal.

Pratt also said that he's been told that Oakland has yet to be notified that they are out of the running. This could be one last gasp chance for the city to make a better offer, or, in typical John Fisher fashion could just be pure negligence.

If the A's do end up in Sacramento, it will be interesting to see what they end up using as a name in the interim, since they'd be severing ties with Oakland and not yet in Las Vegas. The welcome they receive in a town that just went through this entire process with the Kings will also be fascinating to see. There will be some that will blame the Oakland for not being able to keep the A's, sure, but they are failing to realize some big mechanisms at play.

First and foremost, Fisher running the team into the ground and driving the fans away over the course of two decades. Secondly, the fact that Oakland didn't cater to the A's with anything their little hearts desired. As we saw on Tuesday night, municipalities are waking up a bit when it comes to publicly funded stadiums. On Tuesday, the people of Missouri voted to reject a stadium tax. Meanwhile, owners of the Chiefs and Royals have been floating relocation if that vote didn't pass. Now we'll see what happens next. The A's relocation was supposed to serve as the boogeyman to other cities, but apparently that's not working.

All that this temporary move to Sacramento will do is give A's ownership a way out of a sticky situation that was made of their own poor decisions. If Las Vegas falls apart, then maybe Sacramento feels like they'd have a good chance at just becoming the new home of the A's. In that regard, they'd have to fund a brand new ballpark, publicly financed of course, and would also be directly ripping a team out of Oakland in the process.

If Vegas falls apart, it's really hard to see the MLBPA giving the go-ahead for the A's to stay in a minor-league facility indefinitely--but that's a problem for another day.