Report: Rob Manfred Details A's Sacramento Improvements
Earlier in the week, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred fielded questions from reporters about the Nike uniforms, robot umpires, and a slew of other burning questions the league is facing. He also talked a little about the A's layover in Sacramento before continuing their voyage to Sin City in 2028.
When Steve Hill spoke with reporters following the most recent Las Vegas Stadium Authority meeting, he mentioned that the Raiders stadium took about 31 months, so the A's proposed ballpark should take around the same amount of time. 31 months from April 1, 2028 would be around the beginning of September, 2025. The plan is to break ground around April of '25, but there would appear to be some room to maneuver in that timeframe if things aren't going as planned.
Manfred said that his belief is that the A's would have to break ground in April of next year in order to hit their target of being ready for Opening Day 2028, per The Athletic.
The MLB Commissioner also spoke of some of the upgrades that will need to get done before the A's start playing games in Sacramento next season, mentioning that a new home clubhouse will be constructed as a separate building, while also upgrading the visitor's clubhouse in the process.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out, because the most common thing we heard from A's players when asking what makes a park "big league ready" are some of the amenities. Paul Blackburn said that they'd have to figure out the clubhouse situation, since the current setup has the team's facilities beyond the wall in center. Having this new building connect to the dugout in some way could be a big deal.
The addition of artificial turf was also mentioned, and this seems to confirm that both the A's and the River Cats will be sharing the field there, with the turf being better able to withstand so many games. It also gets hot in Sacramento during the summer, and having a turf field outside with no way to cool the playing surface is another obstacle that will have to be figured out.
The final pieces will be the addition of new camera capabilities to facilitate TV broadcasts (NBC California is still presumably paying a pretty penny for those rights after all), as well as the addition of club seating and video boards.
Manfred also mentioned that he believes the team has received deposits from "13,000 people or something." Capacity for the ballpark is 10,624 fixed seats, which goes up to 14,014 with lawn seating and standing room tickets. In essence, he's saying that we should expect to see quite a few sellouts in Sacramento.
The first year should be a great one for attendance at the interim Triple-A ballpark, but it will be interesting to see how attendance holds up if the team makes progress towards Las Vegas, or somewhere that results in the team making progress towards leaving Sactown. There are some that believe that the team could end up staying there if things don't work in Vegas, after all. If the writing is on the wall and the A's aren't playing well for a fourth consecutive season, then will the fans still turn out in years two, three, and potentially four? That's just one of the many intriguing questions left with the relocation saga.
JASON BURKE
Jason is the host of the Locked on A's podcast, and the managing editor of Inside the A's. He's a new father and can't wait to take his son to his first baseball game at the Coliseum.