In a unanimous vote among the 30 Major League Baseball owners, the Athletics franchise has been approved to move from Oakland to Las Vegas (ESPN). It has been years in the making, but this is the official stamp from the league.
That means the league and the franchise will no longer consider, much less pursue, an effort to keep the team in Oakland, where it has been since 1968, after moving from Philadelphia, by way of Kansas City.
The funding to construct a new stadium in Las Vegas has already been approved locally, though there is a lawsuit seeking to stop the actual use of those funds. It’s not clear how legally viable the suit is, but no one expects this move to be blocked at this point.
The current timeline has the new stadium available for play in 2028, which means the A’s will now have four very awkward years of in-between-ness. They can play at the Oakland Coliseum in 2024, where they still hold a lease. But after that, it could be a mix-and-match of “home” locations, from that stadium to the Giants’ home ballpark across the bay, to the A’s minor league stadium in Las Vegas.
More details on the challenges the A’s and the league now face here at ESPN.
The league has not seen a relocation since the Montreal Expos became the Washington Nationals back in 2005. The league has also not seen expansion since 1998, but with this A’s move on the horizon and with the Rays situation settled, you can expect that is the next major topic for the owners to take up. My guess is that they’ll wait a minute for the RSN quagmire to settle down a bit, but if you told me there would be two new franchises and re-alignment of the divisions before the end of this decade, I’d believe you.