What's Real and What's Fake with the A's Trademark Troubles

There has been a lot of confusion about the A's trademark filings, so here is what's happened

Apr 1, 2025; West Sacramento, California, USA; General view of Sutter Health Park before the game between the Athletics and Chicago Cubs. Mandatory Credit: Ed Szczepanski-Imagn Images | Ed Szczepanski-Imagn Images

Earlier this month, the A's ran into some trademark issues with the terms "Las Vegas A's" and "Las Vegas Athletics," leading some to speculate if the move to Las Vegas was dead, or if the A's may undergo an entire rebranding to get around this blockade. After speaking with a source familiar with the issue, neither of those options appear to be the case.

According to the source, these types of rejections happen fairly regularly, and are later cleared up. Non-final office actions are ordinary in the application process, and this is why Major League Baseball has the league offices and its lawyers that are versed in trademark law handling these issues—not each individual club.

While we're not afraid to poke fun at the A's for their own shortcomings, this one isn't on them, as they weren't even the party submitting the paperwork. It's also hard to call this a failure, as this is a frequent occurrence across brands and markets, and it shouldn't ultimately stop them in their quest.

What we wanted to do was just debunk a couple of things that we've seen to set the record straight.

Sacramento A's Approved

As CBS Sacramento initially reported, the trademark for "Sacramento Athletics" was denied around the same time as the "Las Vegas A's" and "Las Vegas Athletics." However, "Sacramento A's" was approved, we confirmed with our source, which is interesting.

Could owning that trademark open up more merchandise sales in Sacramento in 2026 and 2027 now that they hold that specific TM and can shut down unauthorized vendors? Perhaps. We'll have to check with the team on that one.

But the interesting part of the trademark here isn't that it was approved, but when MLB applied for it in the first place. The "Sacramento Athletics" trademark was filed back on April 4, 2024, which is the same date that the club announced they'd spend an interim three years in the California capital. It took until December 30, 2025 for a decision to be made on that one.

The "Sacramento A's" filing was done on the same day, but actually looks to have been approved back in October of 2025. In short, this wasn't the A's scrambling to come up with a backup plan, it was just the timing of the announcements that made it appear as though they were one after another.

What about Las Vegas A's/Athletics?

This is also a tad interesting, as MLB didn't file for the "Las Vegas Athletics" TM until a few days after the Sacramento ones, on April 8. 2024. The "Las Vegas A's" TM was also filed on the 8th.

While it seems odd that they would wait for a full year after they had announced that the team was leaving for Sin City to file for this trademark, even filing for a different city designation in the meantime, perhaps that can be explained away with part of why they were rejected in the first place.

Part of the reason is that "Athletics" is too general, and can refer to basically any kind of sport or college program. It also doesn't help that the franchise has yet to land in Las Vegas, establishing residency and brand awareness for "Las Vegas A's." That would seem to be what's at play here. Once their planned arrival date is closer, this should end up being approved.

The plan is to continue to go through the necessary paperwork to get this pushed across the finish line, though the timeline on that was not stated. The earlier the better, since the team could start selling Vegas merchandise to their soon-to-be fans.