Oakland Reportedly a "Top Two" Expansion Site if A's Leave for Las Vegas
In a recent report, Bob Nightengale wrote, "Although the Oakland A’s will be moving to Las Vegas, the city may not be without a team very long. High-ranking executives say that if Oakland officials and an ownership group secure a site to build a new ballpark, they will join Nashville, Tennessee, as the top two expansion sites in the next five years."
This is buried in the notes portion of a recent article, but is something that fans of Oakland baseball will likely perk up at. A little over two weeks ago, Oakland mayor Sheng Thao had some demands for Major League Baseball in order for the city to extend the A's lease past 2024 in order to continue to playing at the Coliseum while their proposed ballpark in Las Vegas is built.
One of the potential demands was leaving the "A's" name in Oakland, while the other was a guarantee of an expansion franchise for the city.
Nightengale's report both makes perfect sense and zero sense at all. On the one hand, there isn't a clear second city, especially on the west coast, that would be ready for expansion and be on their way to securing funding for a potential ballpark. Mayor Thao has stated publicly how close the city and the A's were to a deal, so it stands to reason that the offer would stand if another ownership group wanted to swoop in to bring back baseball in Oakland.
On the other hand, why take away baseball from a city that the A's have called home since 1968 only to give them an expansion team a few years later? That would essentially be admitting to baseball fans everywhere that Oakland was given a raw deal and that MLB signed off on it. Most people are in agreement that an expansion franchise would have a better shot at success in Las Vegas than a relocated A's team with owner John Fisher at the helm.
The only explanation that makes a little sense is that MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred doesn't want to set a precedent of forcing an owner to sell their team, but he also sees that Oakland loves baseball and the Bay Area is top ten market. If Fisher thinks that Vegas will be better for himself, then Manfred has to let him leave instead of having hard conversations to get him to reconsider. He wants to be the fun Commissioner (call him Commish), not a lay-down-the-law Commissioner (Mr. Commissioner was his father).
There were also rumors reported by Casey Pratt of ABC 7 that A's legend and MLB Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson was "preparing to take a big swing. This involves legislation, a lawsuit, and potentially more." Before the end of that same day, Ashley Zavala of KCRA News said that lawmakers had "moved the legislation to the inactive file, meaning this likely isn't moving forward this year."
Could this legislation have been moved to the inactive file because word circulated that a franchise could be destined for Oakland and they didn't want to rock the boat?
If Oakland were to get an expansion franchise with the A's moving to Las Vegas, when the two teams meet up in Oakland, those crowds are going to be rowdy, and with good reason. The old A's would likely vault ahead of the Yankees, Red Sox, Giants, and probably even the Astros in terms of most disliked teams.
There is still a lot of work that needs to be done from where we are in the process, with owners still needing to approve the A's relocation, to the point where Oakland could even get an expansion franchise. If and when that time comes, maybe MLB will finally celebrate Oakland baseball.