A's to meet with Oakland officials about a lease extension
In recent weeks, the Oakland A's have blown past deadlines to secure a temporary home for the team as they attempt to relocate to Las Vegas. The team's current lease at the Oakland Coliseum ends in 2024, which currently leaves the club with three years from 2025-27 without a place to play.
According to John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle, "The A's will meet with officials from the City of Oakland and County of Alameda on Thursday to discuss a lease extension at the Coliseum."
This is big news.
Staying at the Coliseum would provide the A's with a reported $70 million per season thanks to their broadcast deal with Comcast Sports California, which has always been a reason why the team figuring out a way to stay in Oakland would make sense. It's hard to walk away from that much money, which would amount to $210 million over the three-year span.
Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao has said on numerous occasions that the A's would not be allowed to extend their lease without some major concessions. Two big asks have been leaving the A's name and history in Oakland when they leave, while getting a guarantee that the city would receive an expansion team when baseball adds a pair of teams in the coming years.
It's impossible to know what the A's are prepared to offer, because they will be getting a Major League caliber ballpark for three seasons and $70 million in RSN money, so to make it happen there will need to be something coming back to the city.
With the Las Vegas deal potentially falling apart with more national media scrutiny in recent weeks and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred saying he'd be "disappointed" if the A's Sin City ballpark didn't open for the 2028 season, where the A's end up playing baseball from 2025-27 could end up being a big deal.
If Vegas were to fall apart due to construction not starting on time, the challenges to the ballpark's public funding falling apart due to numerous challenges, or A's owner John Fisher being unable to secure his portion of the funding for the project, then MLB could step in at that point and really put some pressure on Fisher to either get a ballpark done or sell the team.
While it's not a guarantee that the A's will remain in Oakland for those three years, the fact that the two sides are speaking for the first time in nearly a year is a positive step. We'll have to see what's being said coming out of the meeting to determine if there's a path back to Oakland.