Matt Chapman on Vegas: "I've Heard That Before"
In an article published today on Sportnet.ca, Matt Chapman had some eye-popping quotes relating to the news that the A's could be headed for Las Vegas.
He told Shi Davidi, "I'm not going to hold my breath because I feel like I've heard that before. I've heard them do that dance for every year I was there, so, eight years."
Chapman also said that he would be happy for the players if the Vegas deal does go through, because they deserve a new stadium, and that he hopes that would lead to a different business model than the one the A's currently deploy, selling off their star players after a few years as part of the next churn.
Chapman also said that he feels bad for the fans in Oakland through all the stuff they've had to deal with--not only losing the Raiders and Warriors, but also with the way the front office operates.
"All of us knew we weren't going to be there long-term." He's not wrong. This is the way the A's have operated, especially with John Fisher as the team's owner. Fans have seen a few of these cycles in Fisher's tenure, which began in 2005. Chapman's current team, the Toronto Blue Jays, have been the benefactors of the two most recent tear downs, netting third basemen Josh Donaldson and Chapman via trade, and also signing Marcus Semien and Chris Bassitt via free agency.
Whether or not a new ballpark in Oakland or Las Vegas will change the way John Fisher decides to run his baseball team remains to be seen. The MLS team that Fisher owns, the San Jose Earthquakes, still don't spend like a top team even with a new stadium. In 2022 they ranked 23rd in payroll out of 28 teams with $1.07M separating them from the bottom team while being nearly $9.5M away from the top.
In San Diego, a smaller market than Oakland, their owner has decided to invest in his ball club, running a projected payroll of $249M this season (per FanGraphs) and being home to top stars like Fernando Tatís Jr., Juan Soto, Manny Machado, and Xander Bogaerts. The Padres are averaging 40,343 fans per game this season, second only to the Los Angeles Dodgers who draw 49,418 fans per contest. Petco holds a little over 42,000, while Dodger Stadium has a capacity of 56,000, so the opportunity to sell more tickets is there for the boys in blue.
Not all teams need to be run on a shoestring budget, and that is being proven. Baseball is a hugely profitable sport, but if you spend decades turning fans away and trading away their favorite players, you get attendance figures like the MLB-worst A's 11,026 per game this season.
"I feel like, in Oakland, the owners did not have the same goals as the players."
Read the entire interview here.