A's Bad Reputation Among Players Will Make Las Vegas Dreams Difficult

Jason Burke | Jun 11, 2024

Jul 30, 2023; San Jose, CA, USA; San Jose Earthquakes and Oakland Athletics owner John Fisher at the game against Tigres UANL at PayPal Park. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports / Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

The Oakland A's are right. They do have some work to do to improve their brand.

Last week headline after headline talked about how the A's non-relocation agreement with Las Vegas came with an ask of playing seven games outside of their proposed new ballpark. In other words, they'd like to play roughly 10% of their home games away from home, and it left the people of Nevada a little concerned about the financial aspects of the deal and how the A's would pay back the bonds that were approved in SB1.

The A's claimed that they would like the option to play as many as seven games away from Vegas to help build up their brand, and in doing so, bring more people to visit Las Vegas.

First off, if they don't feel that they'll need to worry about drawing enough fans for a sellout each and every home game for 30 years (as they've claimed), then this shouldn't even be on the table. While baking in some number of games away from a team's home park is par for the course in these negotiations, seven is more than average, and if the ballpark is already packed, the only thing that'll go up is the ticket price.

That was last week.

Yesterday The Athletic dropped their annual MLB player poll, and it did not bode well for the A's. The responses to one question in particular was shared widely on social media. The question: "What organizations have bad reputations among players?" 40 out of 79 respondents said the A's, and when asked for their reasoning, one player said, "I mean, have you seen what they’re doing to the city of Oakland and their fans?" Another player questioned why the A's couldn't find a better interim solution that Sutter Health Park, where the A's plan to play games from at least 2025-27.

Given that response, the answers to the question "Which team would you sign with if contracts, state taxes and rosters were not a factor?" shouldn't be much of a surprise. The Atlanta Braves were the runaway favorites, but the attention-grabbing part of the response is that 25 different teams received at least one vote. There are 30 teams in baseball.

The five teams that weren't mentioned were the A's, Colorado Rockies, Kansas City Royals, Detroit Tigers, and the Chicago White Sox.

So yeah, the A's brand could use some help, but playing a couple of games in London or Japan or the moon isn't going to convince players to take John Fisher's money. The players are reacting to an organizational failure, and that starts with the guy that signs the checks. He's the problem.

Fewer games at home and more games on the road isn't necessarily a selling point to the players, either. To convince players to suit up for the A's, Fisher will need to offer more money (lol) or just go for the guys that aren't receiving many offers in the first place. It's not exactly a winning formula Fisher has working right now.

But hey, everything will be different in Vegas because they said so.