Showdown Brewing Between Oakland and Sacramento?

Jason Burke | Apr 8, 2024

Nov 12, 2023; San Francisco, California, USA; Golden State Warriors majority owner Joe Lacob on the / Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

Last week, the Oakland A's announced that they plan to play their games from 2025-27 at Sutter Health Park in Sacramento, home of the Triple-A River Cats. The River Cats happen to be the affiliate of the San Francisco Giants.

While scrolling through social media yesterday, I saw a tweet that was interesting.

Hot take:

Fisher was never really interested in paying for a ballpark, and is 6-12 months away from putting the A’s on the market and has set himself up for a bidding war between new ownership groups in Las Vegas, Sacramento and Oakland. https://t.co/UWtxn4X43H

— OaklandStadiumWatch (@OakStadiumWatch) April 7, 2024

I've been trying to do some quick math with the ballpark project this entire time, and each time I get more confused by Fisher's actions. The current valuation of the A's (per Forbes) is $1.2 billion. There have been estimates that with a new ballpark, the team could be worth between $2-2.5 billion. So if Fisher isn't able to get local investors at the valuation he wants them at, then he'd have to pay for nearly the entire project himself.

The ballpark is estimated at $1.5 billion, with $380 million from Nevada and $200 million in debt financing. That leaves nearly a billion dollars to be paid from Fisher's family or his own pockets, and that's before any project overruns. So if he pays a billion dollars to increase the value of the team by a billion dollars, then he's not really making much there is he? A lot of this depends on the valuation of the franchise when the project is over and what it ends up costing in full, but generally, there isn't a huge profit to be made here, which could have him second-guessing this whole ballpark thing.

Maybe this is why municipalities are growing tired of funding these stadiums for billionaires.

You know what lends three-way showdown theory some credence? The Las Vegas Review-Journal published something that wasn't a glowing endorsement of the Oakland A's over the weekend. Do they see the writing on the wall in Vegas?

While this hot take is certainly sizzling, the one thing that I would take issue with is that there is a local investor in Las Vegas that actually wants the A's. If Las Vegas doesn't get the A's through the route they're traveling, then Sin City would almost assuredly get the west coast expansion team. That's the team that an ownership group in Nevada would want to buy in on.

If, and this is a huge if, but if John Fisher sees Vegas collapse and finally decides to sell the team, he would certainly receive offers from his friend Vivek Ranadivé in Sacramento, as well as Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob and other Bay Area groups.

The people of Sacramento are excited about showing that they're a big-league town, but what is their appetite for publicly funding a ballpark project?

Obviously, if Fisher gets to choose who he sells the team to, then anyone that would keep the team in Oakland would be at a disadvantage. However, if relocation is involved, then the League would certainly be hands-on in the process. Could they see nudging Fisher towards Oakland as a way to save face?

If Vegas falls apart and John Fisher sells, then it will be a battle between Oakland and Sacramento for the future of the A's franchise. The exact scenario A's fans were mad about on Thursday when Sacramento undercut Oakland's negotiations for the lease extension by offering the A's sanctuary and making them pay zero rent.

But there is another scenario here, perhaps a more likely one in some regards. If the A's end up in Vegas (that's the tricky part), then both Sacramento and Oakland would be competing for an expansion franchise. Vegas would have their team, so they'd be out of the running, but Salt Lake City and potentially Portland would also be in the mix. Again, Oakland and Sacramento would be pitted against each other.

While taking questions on Thursday after the press conference, Ranadivé was a bit more open than MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred probably wanted him to be about the entire process.

"So I've been in touch with the commissioner and I've gotten to know him, Rob Manfred, and they [MLB] will be creating a new team,” Ranadivé said. “They want it to be on the West Coast. They'd love for it to be in California, and I think this is a good showcase for us. We can prove that there's a market here, that we can make the team successful. I think we're in pole position to get the new franchise."

While he didn't go overboard divulging details, Lacob's approach to courting an MLB franchise is a bit more subtle. When asked about buying the A's back in October, Lacob said that if Fisher wanted to sell, "we might be interested."

Lacob has been very careful not to rock the boat, seemingly looking for his time to strike. Perhaps that opportunity will present itself soon. One of these two scenarios is almost assuredly going to happen in the coming years.