A's Temporary Home Option?
MLB owners are expected to vote on, and approve, the A's relocation bid to Las Vegas this week. As has been discussed many times, there are still plenty of pertinent questions that remain unanswered, but chief among them could be where the team plans to play while their proposed ballpark is being built in Las Vegas. The A's lease at the Coliseum expires after the upcoming 2024 season.
Oakland's Mayor Sheng Thao has already said that if the A's want to extend their lease, the city will have some demands, like keeping the A's name and the team's history, plus a guarantee of an expansion franchise in the coming years. Major League Baseball would probably like to avoid that option if possible.
The San Francisco Chronicle has also mentioned that the Giants could be willing to allow the A's to play at Oracle Park for 30-40 games, so that is another option. Yet, the A's would still need a second home to play the other half (or more) of their games, so it doesn't quite fix the A's problem. Would the Giants also be willing to risk the public backlash in the Bay Area for actively helping a team leave the area? Keep in mind that they would be attempting to convert some of those abandoned A's fans, so if they helped the team leave that could be money left on the table long-term.
The A's could also play in one of a number of minor league ballparks, but it's tough to see the Player's Union signing off on that for at least three full seasons.
So where do the A's end up?
The Chronicle has said that the A's haven't reached out in regards to a lease extension to the Joint Powers Authority, who runs the Coliseum site for Oakland and Alameda County.
That could mean that MLB has something up their sleeve, or that they are flying by the seat of their pants and hoping for the best. This entire relocation process has been more of the latter.
The potential option that nobody has mentioned could be having the A's play in Mexico City for that interim period. The ballpark that the Giants and San Diego Padres played in back in April in the Mexico Series holds over 20,000 fans and was opened in 2019. While that may not be quite the norm in terms of capacity for a big league ballpark, it's still more than any of the minor league options, and honestly more fans that would show up during three lame duck seasons in the Bay Area.
Mexico City has been mentioned as one of the down-the-list expansion options, and this could be a way to move them up the list, if the city can get MLB through this difficult transition time.
There would obviously be travel concerns, with Mexico City being located 857 miles south of San Antonio, Texas. Realignment wouldn't happen until the league officially expands, so the A's would still be in the same division as the Angels, Mariners, Rangers, and Astros.
From Houston to Oakland, it's a four hour and ten minute flight. Houston to Mexico City is two and a half hours. The Rangers would go from just under four hours to just under three. Seattle would be hit the hardest by this, taking away one of their shortest flights of the season when they go to Oakland at two hours and five minutes and replacing it with the equivalent of another flight across the country. The Angels would also get two hours added to their flight, going from an hour and a half to three hours and forty minutes.
The rest of the American League would only make the trip once per season, and in many cases the trip could actually be shorter than traveling to the west coast. While each team plays each other every season now, the National League teams don't travel to every park every year. Some would make the trip twice in three seasons while some would only do it once.
One factor here could be how willing John Fisher is to leave the RSN deal in the Bay Area, which is slated to pay him $60 million per season while he's in town. Would MLB pay him some amount of money and also take over the team's broadcasting like they have already started doing in some markets?
Then there is the question of the potential referendum vote in Nevada that has the potential to wipe away all of the $380 million in public funding that the A's secured and put their entire Las Vegas plan in financial jeopardy. If that were to come to a vote, and pass, then having the team in a market that could already be viewed as an expansion candidate would be beneficial. Baseball wouldn't have to scramble to find another home for the A's while they figure things out. They wouldn't have to come crawling back to Oakland after spurning them at every turn.
They could just say the A's live in Mexico City and pick two new expansion sites.
If all of this came to pass, there would need to be agreements hammered out and potentially another ballpark built specifically for the A's, but the team would have their new home, and they could play games in their new city, building up a fan base, as that ballpark is being built. It would be like playing at the Las Vegas minor league park, but in more of a Major League facility that doesn't feel like a watered down version of the product.
Obviously, this is all just speculation. Yet, with the league and the team going radio silent ahead of a vote that could rip the A's out of Oakland with no additional information at hand, one would hope that there is a plan in place that would make at least a little sense. It would also be the first time something has seemed at least thought out during this entire process.