The Oakland A’s shouldn’t move. It makes no sense the franchise’s ownership doesn’t seem to have any semblance of a plan despite being at this for months. Hell, the fact Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao destroyed John Fisher’s half-hearted relocation attempts in a single meeting with Rob Manfred underscores just why he didn’t want her talking to the commissioner in the first place.
Liars hate it when someone exposes their lie. And make no mistake, John Fisher, Dave Kaval and company are liars of the highest order and not particularly skilled ones at that. Seriously, the Weekend At Bernie’s crew had a more coherent plan than what A’s ownership is trying to foist on the public.
Seriously, the team believes that 30 percent of tickets sold by Las Vegas will go to tourists. If that’s the plan, why bother even having a home at all? That kind of defeats the purpose of being the home team, no?
Wait, I have an idea! If the Oakland A’s move, it shouldn’t be to Las Vegas. Or Salt Lake City. Or Austin. Or wherever else. John Fisher should make them a permanent traveling team. It’s brilliant and accomplishes everything he wants. The Gap heir doesn’t have to spend any money on things like building a stadium, players or staff. Not that he has money to spend on any of those, mind you.
The A’s can play home games in the road team’s stadium, they can still have some contests in Las Vegas, they can hit up markets without a franchise, spend some time at its Arizona complex and go anywhere else they want. Best of all, Fisher won’t have to spend a dime on a new facility. It’s his wet dream come to life.
Just cut out the middle man of having a stadium or a hometown. Those are inconvenient concepts that don’t mesh with capitalism. If the goal is to make as much money as possible, go wild with it.
Now, some of you are probably complaining this isn’t a realistic solution or that it would never happen. This is MLB that we are talking about, though. Let’s go over just why exactly this would be allowed.
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Here’s why the Oakland A’s should really move to nowhere
1) MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred would never allow it
The MLB Commissioner’s office has proven time and again that it does not care what owners do no matter how embarrassing. John Fisher was allowed to hire a hospitality major to represent his relocation pitch to the Nevada state legislature. The Houston Astros purposely lost games for six years.
Marge Schott was dropping N-bombs, being anti-Semitic and letting her dogs poop all over Riverfront Stadium and all the league mustered was a nine-month suspension. It took Schott praising Hitler during a magazine interview in 1996 for the league to intervene and finally remove her.
The runway for nonsense owners enjoy is infinite.
2) Other owners would find that embarrassing
Did you not just read what I wrote? Baseball owners are cool with other owners acting like douchebags in case they want to act like a douchebag at some point in the future.
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3) Players would veto it
MLB has basically given players a fat double deuce over the past 20 years or so. Seriously, their input does not matter. That sucks but it is simply the truth.
4) Players wouldn’t want to play for the traveling A’s
The A’s aren’t signing free agents regardless of if they play in Oakland, Las Vegas, nowhere or the moon. This team isn’t going to spend any cash just because they have a new stadium. We have proof of that concept.
John Fisher’s other team, the San Jose Earthquakes, has routinely been among MLS’ lowest spending sides despite getting a new stadium in 2015. That is a story for another time but, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if players don’t want to play for the A’s because they won’t be signing anyone.
5) The team wouldn’t be good
John Fisher and Dave Kaval do not care about teams “being good” or even competitive since that costs money. The A’s have won in spite of themselves, and the San Jose Earthquakes had one fluke season in 2012 that was surrounded by a bunch of awfulness.
6) Fans wouldn’t turn up to watch the team play
This is just categorically false. If the A’s played their home games against the Rangers in Dallas, people are going to buy tickets. And given what we know about the drawing power of professional sports, playing MLB games in Triple-A ballparks across the country would draw reasonably well.
More importantly, the lower capacity of these venues allows ownership to jack up ticket prices, something the A’s already plan on doing in Vegas. This isn’t to say series against sides like the Detroit Tigers or Cleveland Guardians would be easy sells, but those can always be moved to spring training sites to minimize costs.
Let’s get real here
The most prominent complaint people have with this concept is the notion that sports teams must have a home. Why? Under who’s orders. If we are a slave to capitalism, this is the idea that makes the most amount of money with the smallest capital outlay. Additionally, America is a free country so this should be perfectly acceptable.
Of course, there are those who will dismiss this plan as stupid. And you are absolutely correct. This is a really stupid idea. But is it any dumber than the Oakland A’s demanding a stadium be built in Oakland with a bunch of bells and whistles, getting that proposal, getting a bunch of grant money to make it happen and then deciding they would instead move to Vegas because it’s slightly cheaper and the politicians there are easily corruptible?
As nervous first-time sports radio callers like to say, I’ll take my answer off the air.
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