Philly Plain Dealer

All eyes are on Las Vegas ahead of Super LVII. Will Taylor Swift show up? Who will Usher bring out at halftime? Will Mahomes maintain his dynasty or will Brock Purdy prove himself? There are a million stories popping up in the press surrounding football and the Super Bowl. However, Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman stole the show by telling the Oakland A’s to “stay in Oakland,” instead of moving to her city. 

Mayor Goodman said “I personally think they’ve got to figure out a way to stay in Oakland and make their dream come true.”

Few sports decisions are more loathed than the relocation of a beloved franchise from a small city to a larger city in the pursuit of profit. In the NFL, the Chargers are a sad and unloved franchise, so their relocation to Los Angeles from San Diego was not mourned heavily or chastised. I went to San Diego this Summer and attended a “Vikings Bar” and a “Jets Bar” and noticed that nearly every bar had its own dedicated NFL allegiance. An Uber driver explained to me that San Diego is a military hub in one of the most beautiful parts of the country, so transplants stay and when transplants stay, they root for their hometown NFL team. 

San Diego could afford to lose their team to LA, on the other hand St. Louis couldn’t. In 2023, seven years after the Rams left town – the St. Louis Battlehawks had an average of 35,104 people in attendance to watch XFL Football. That’s 20,000 more than the second XFL team, the San Antonio Brahmas. Can you guess where the 2024 UFL (the XFL and USFL merged) Championship Game is? St. Louis. Those people want their football back.

The people of Seattle will not rest until they get the SuperSonics back. But I’d be lying if I said that Oklahoma City was not a great addition to professional sports. Seattle lost one team, still had 2 out of 4 of the major sports teams, and then they got an NHL team. Oklahoma City became legitimized as city because they had Russell Westbrook, James Harden, and Kevin Durant. 

Austin, Texas is the 10th biggest city in the country – but it doesn’t feel like it because they don’t have a professional sports team. Cleveland is the 54th biggest city in the country, but they have a large national presence because of Lebron James, the Cleveland Browns, and the movie “Major League.” Sports teams equal media attention and media attention equals advertisers and advertisers equal money. 

Las Vegas is a terrible sports city. In Philadelphia people get excited when the Eagles play the Raiders because we (the collective we) get to go to Vegas! Las Vegas sports teams are bait for bachelor parties and will never build a fanbase because tourists will always outbid the local economy for tickets. It’s a nightmare what Las Vegas has done to Oakland. 

The Raiders used to be a tough and cool team with an iconic logo and crazy fans, now their home games are filled with the drunkest rich people from wherever the opposing team is from. Now, after a 2023 baseball season filled with Oakland Athletics fans refusing to buy tickets, then selling out games out of spite, and literally protesting the owner to “Sell The Team,” the MLB approved the A’s relocation to Las Vegas. 

But a ray of light has shined through for Oakland Athletics fans, as all eyes are on Las Vegas, the Mayor of Vegas says “I personally think they’ve got to figure out a way to stay in Oakland and make their dream come true.” She wants your dream to come true Oakland, and no one in Vegas is begging or protesting for 81 home games of losing baseball. 

Oakland, seize this opportunity, campaign the MLB to force your malevolent owner John Fischer to sell the team. The figurehead of Las Vegas just told the A’s to stay in Oakland, with no upheaval, protest, or political backlash on the biggest week of the year for her city. 

The A’s will remain in the Oakland Coliseum for the 2024 Season, giving the people of Oakland a solid 365 days to plead their case to the MLB, to their local government, and to the world. 

Why do I, a Philadelphia Phillies fan, care about the A’s? Connie Mack and Ty Cobb are Philadelphia Athletics Hall of Famers, the A’s were born in Philadelphia and raised here for 50+ years. The Philadelphia Athletics won 5 World Series, more than double the Phillies. Sure, that team hasn’t been in Philly in 70+ years, but I still claim dibs.

More importantly than Philly’s historical ownership of the A’s, I hate seeing a declining city lose their teams to an undeserving city. That’s right, Vegas doesn’t deserve the A’s. Oakland fans made signs, they made calls, they made noise and strategized, meanwhile the Mayor of Vegas is proudly stating that her city does not want them. 

This could happen to your city, you are at the whim of your team’s owner at all times (Green Bay Packers excluded). Life comes at you fast, wherever you live could experience a Silicon Valley like phenomenon and lifelong residents are displaced, a natural disaster could wreak havoc on your city, or economic shifts might hit your city hard steadily over the course of decades. Your city could lose its team. 

In a time period where the richest and most ruthless always win, I want to see John Fisher lose. The MLB, America, Oakland, and the world will be a better place with the Athletics in Oakland. From the city that birthed the A’s to the city that kept the A’s relevant into the 21st century, keep the A’s in Oakland.