Inside The As

A's Admit They Could Have Tried Harder

Jason Burke

Aug 22, 2022; Oakland, California, USA; General view of the baseballs during batting practice between the Oakland Athletics and the Miami Marlins at RingCentral Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Stan Szeto-USA TODAY Sports
Aug 22, 2022; Oakland, California, USA; General view of the baseballs during batting practice between the Oakland Athletics and the Miami Marlins at RingCentral Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Stan Szeto-USA TODAY Sports / Stan Szeto-USA TODAY Sports
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The Oakland Athletics sent out a press release Thursday stating that the team's planned final game at the Coliseum has been deemed a sellout. Fans on social media were correctly pointing out that there are still some seats that could be made available (say 10,000 or more on Mount Davis), but from the team's standpoint, the tickets that have been made available to the public are all gone, hence the announcement of the sellout.

When the A's announced that this would be their final year in Oakland earlier this year, team president Dave Kaval took to Twitter and promised a celebration of the team's 50 plus years in Oakland.

The team has thrown together some Alumni Sunday events, bringing in some fan favorites for autograph sessions at Sunday home games, but there hasn't been a ton of celebration of the team's tenure at the Coliseum. On Thursday, along with the press release, the team also changed their profile picture on Twitter to the Coliseum with the years the team has played in Oakland.

What the tweet from above doesn't include in their list of numbers is how many ballpark renderings the team has produced while trying to move out of Oakland, or the number of people that it took to take all of that history away from a loyal fan base. That would be one person; owner John Fisher.

Now that we're in August, the team is trying to cram some nostalgia into the last three homestands, by bringing back popular promotions like free parking, $2 tickets, food and drink specials, and donating part of the proceeds from ticket sales to Boys and Girls Club of Oakland.

While this is meant to be viewed as a nice gesture by the team for offering an opportunity for fans to come out an enjoy one last game, it's being received as one last cash grab before the A's skip town. The team is essentially saying that these promotions have been options they could have carried out for years, but they have decided not to implement them. Instead they decided not to try to welcome fans to the ballpark to help fit their self-imposed narrative that nobody comes to the games.

The Los Angeles Dodgers broadcast even mentioned how the team cut payroll, then hiked season ticket prices over the years when they were in town over the weekend. The team has been driving fans away intentionally for years, and now they are trying to capitalize on their former fan's sense of nostalgia so they can squeeze just a few more dollars out of them before the A's head to Sacramento for the 2025 season.

Here's the thing: We're at the point in the season where the emotions surrounding the A's departure are becoming real. It's evident that the fans are running out of time to say goodbye--not only to the team, but to their home. That is why these promotions could be fairly effective.

Where the A's have continuously missed the mark is their obsession with chasing money. If they would have made tickets cheaper for the entire year, they would have made way more in concessions sales and parking than they have averaging under 9,000 fans per game. They could have had more staff on hand and actually helped the community on their way out. That is a story that future markets would buy into as a reason to root for the A's stopping in their town. Instead they're getting the narrative that this franchise has not clue what they're doing and that they like free money, which is not as appealing.

Instead, fans in Oakland are left with these re-runs of old promotions that were taken away because the team didn't want them at the ballpark. They don't provide a sense of nostalgia, they are a reminder that this team has tried very hard to leave town while blaming the fans for their decision.

All of that A's history that the team was bragging about in their social media post? Almost none of that has come since Fisher took over ownership of the club. The parts that happened under his watch, like the Manager of the Year awards that Bob Melvin won in 2012 and 2018, those were awarded in spite of Fisher. The front office was able to find the right group of bodies to win baseball games without the help of the owner's checkbook.

Yet, despite the protests, despite the evidence that the move panning out is a long-shot, and despite numerous visiting clubs saying how much they like the Coliseum, it's Fisher, who has never tried even a little bit to invest in the product he's supposed to be selling, that has made the decision to rip the team out of Oakland while reaching for money from the fans he's neglected for 20 years on the way out.

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Jason Burke
JASON BURKE

Jason is the host of the Locked on A's podcast, and the managing editor of Inside the A's. He's a new father and can't wait to take his son to his first baseball game at the Coliseum. 

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