Sacramento's MLB Expansion Push: Where Would a Ballpark Go? Who Would Own the Club?

With the A's expected to be playing their home games in Las Vegas starting in 2028, Sacramento is hoping to turn their fleeting relationship with Major League Baseball into a more permanent arrangement.

The Athletics left Oakland following the 2024 season, making their way up to Sacramento to get away from the "Sell the team!" chants while still holding onto a large portion of their TV deal with NBC Sports California. It's a win-win deal for the A's, who plan to be in town at Sutter Health Park through 2027.

Now Sacramento mayor Kevin McCarty is trying to get a win for his city and for Northern California. In an interview with the Sacramento Bee, McCarty said of his push for expansion, "This is very real. I think MLB is going to give a hard, hard look at Sacramento with only one team in Northern California."

Here are some of the other details that he laid out.

Where would a ballpark go?

While the exact plot of land is not yet known, the area that the mayor has his sights set on is in West Sacramento, where the A's and River Cats currently play games. West Sacramento Mayor Martha Guerrero also said that the site would be "near Sutter Health Park."

McCarty's reasoning for this location comes down to raising funds for a public-private partnership (something MLB is very keen on). He said that property taxes are more than double in West Sac what they are in Sacramento. That means that they'd be looking at roughly double what they were able to raise from the special taxing district that was set up for the soccer stadium in Sacramento.

They were able to raise "a couple of hundred million dollars" per the mayor, so doubling that would be at least $400 million that they'd be planning to set aside for a MLB ballpark project.

Who would own the team?

It sounds as though they have a number of minor investors lined up for this potential project, but they're looking to land that big-time investor as that main cog. The strategy they intend to deploy is also quite interesting.

With the San Diego Padres up for sale at the moment, they plan to reach out to whomever comes in second place in that bidding and get them on board for their project. It's not a bad plan, either, as the other expansion-hopeful cities all have their ducks in a row at the moment, so there aren't any quick ways to get back into the MLB ownership ring.

One paragraph stuck out when speaking about potential owners. "McCarty would not go into details about who would be involved in an ownership group, but said some of the deep‑pocketed investors vying to buy the San Diego Padres are already “on our radar” as potential lead owners for a Sacramento expansion bid."

This is speculation, but one known person that is in that mix and could also make sense as the head of a Sacramento project would be Golden State Warriors and Valkyries owner, Joe Lacob. He'd been after the A's for years, has considered the Los Angeles Angels when they were for sale (before being pulled off the market), and is now in the mix for the Padres.

His desire for a MLB franchise is well known, and Sacramento would provide a clear opportunity for him. From Sacramento's standpoint, he would lend them some serious credibility, given his track record of building up the Warriors' franchise value, which helped every NBA owner.

The one potential downside is that he wasn't able to weasel the A's away from John Fisher, didn't convince Arte Moreno to sell the Angels, and in this scenario, would have fallen short in the Padres bid. The dedication is there, but with the current crop of owners dedicated to getting a salary cap in baseball at the next CBA, a guy that likes to spend like Lacob may not be their cup of tea.

Sacramento's chances at expansion team

It's tough to put an exact percentage or give an honest assessment of the odds of Sacramento landing an expansion team at the moment, because they haven't "officially" announced that they're in the race. That is expected to come in May, which is when we will hopefully learn a little more about the details of the plan.

What we do know is that Salt Lake City and Portland are also in the mix, and will presumably be the biggest competition for the new team on the West Coast, while Nashville is the runaway favorite for a team in the East. Salt Lake City has their $900 million in public funding already approved and 100 acres to work with for the Big League Utah project.

Portland has renderings of a ballpark located at Zidell Yards and right next to the Willamette River. Last summer, Oregon lawmakers approved $800 million in bonds to help fund the construction for a ballpark on Portland’s South Waterfront.

Both options are much further along, and have more public money secured than Sacramento is even seemingly aiming for. That could be a red flag for Sacramento already, but again, we'll have to wait until May to see what the plan actually looks like before coming to any hard conclusions.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred isn't expected to pick a location for the expansion franchises for a couple of years at least, so there is still time for West Sac to catch up and turn themselves into the frontrunners for a ballpark in Northern California.

Would a team in Sacramento work?

The one big question with this potential project concerns the San Francisco Giants. They have to be thrilled that the A's left town, freeing up all of Northern California for them to have to themselves. Sacramento is also a Giants town, so they may fight against an expansion franchise behind the scenes. They fought the A's moving to San Jose not so long ago, after all.

So on top of the other locations vying for an expansion team, this Sacramento dream may also be battling the local MLB team, too. We're not trying to say that there's not way this happens, but instead just laying out the obstacles that Sacramento will face in their bid for expansion.

If Sacramento was able to power through all of those challenges and land a new club, it would be interesting to see how A's fans in Oakland and the East Bay would respond to this team. There is a contingent that is fervently an "Oakland or bust" crowd.

Outside of that group, there could be a decent sized collection of fans that had either sworn off baseball or haven't been swayed by the Giants that could become part of the new core fan base for this team. A team in Sacramento could already have a built-in fan base, which is one facet of this conversation that could go their way.

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