SACRAMENTO -- On March 31, the team formerly known as the Oakland Athletics, played their first home game of the 2025 campaign at Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento, after relocating from the Bay Area after 57 seasons.
A near sell out crowd filed in from Northern California and beyond, eager to witness, and be part of history, wearing their Athletics merchandise and cheering ferociously. Even though the A’s were trounced by the Chicago Cubs 18-3 that day, there was an undeniable feeling of hope. It felt like the start of a new era in Sacramento.
Now, over two months into the season and 32 home games later, it seems as though the A’s honeymoon phase in Sacramento has come to an end.
Attendance has begun to drop, and fans don’t have the same excitement as they did in March. In order to understand the reasons behind the quick loss of interest, it is first important to understand what happened in Oakland.
The Athletics announced the move to Sacramento on April 4th, 2024. This was set to be their temporary home for the 2025-2027 seasons while they waited for their new stadium to be built in Las Vegas, where they planned to eventually relocate.
This news broke the hearts of baseball fans, as the announcement meant the end of the historied Oakland Athletics, a franchise who had won four world series titles and produced many Hall of Fame players.
So, in the 2024 season, with the relocation news public, the fans made it a point to show their undying support. They wanted to take in the play and the legacy of the Oakland Athletics one last time, but also wanted to let the A’s management know how they felt, constantly chanting “sell the team” throughout.
These chants were aimed at A’s owner Jon Fisher, who fans feel was always motivated by the money and the monetary potential of moving to Las Vegas, rather than the success of the team.
The A’s won their final game in Oakland against the Texas Rangers, 3-2, in front of an emotional sellout crowd. Workers gave out cups of dirt after the game, so that attendees could have lasting memories of the historic Oakland A’s franchise.
Through many years of dormancy, complacent behavior within the organization and hesitating to spend money on big talent, Jon Fisher and Athletics management sucked all the life out of what once was a fiery baseball city.
So, here lies the reason behind why the A’s are already losing interest in Sacramento.
When you don’t do anything to change what went wrong in the last city, can you be surprised when things go the exact same way? Management and team performance have been horrid the last few years, and with that combination, you cannot expect to maintain a fanbase, especially in a new city.
The excitement factor was enough to bring the proud citizens of Sacramento out to watch the first few home games. Unfortunately, there were no other reasons to keep people invested.
The fact of the matter is, winning trumps all in sports. Even with controversial management, if the A’s were winning baseball games, who knows, they might have never needed to leave Oakland. But this is far from the case, as they are off to a horrid 24-40 start through 64 games this season, sitting at last place in the AL West by 5.5 games.
With these kinds of performances, of course attendance numbers have fallen off, and will likely continue to do so. Sutter Health Park only sits 14,000 people, and with just over 10,000 attendees per home game, this is the A’s lowest attendance average in the past three seasons.
So these three years will go just as it seems Jon Fisher wanted them to. The A’s will do what they’re going to do on the field, just as long as they have somewhere to play home games until the stadium in Vegas is ready.
If asked, the people of Sacramento would probably tell you that the A’s don’t feel like home at all. After all, the A’s weren’t even willing to attach “Sacramento” to their name for the three years they’ll be playing there.
At the end of these three years, Sacramento citizens will be able to say that they got to see a professional baseball team play in their city. They’ll continue to wear the merchandise around the city and show off the photos and memories from the games, all great things.
In the future when people look back into the Sacramento history books, the years 2025-2027 will likely include the fact that the A’s played in the city. Not that they won a lot, but that there was a professional baseball team in the city, and that is perfectly fine. That is more than enough, as that is something not all cities can say. The question will always remain though.
What if? What if the A’s management took things seriously during their time in Sacramento? Could the “A’s” have truly embraced Sacramento and possibly turned things around, maybe even started to win games and compete for division titles? Could Sacramento have become a baseball city?
With the A’s move to Vegas looming maybe Jon Fisher has something up his sleeve for when the team gets there. More often than not however, history tends to repeat itself.
If the A’s go into Vegas with the same management and lackluster roster, and fans still aren’t supporting him or the team, what will Fisher do then, when there is no backup plan? Only time will tell, once the Athletics arrive in Las Vegas in 2028.