Here’s where the A’s might play until they move to Las Vegas

The path for the A’s to move to Las Vegas has been cleared by Major League Baseball.

MLB’s 30 owners did as expected and unanimously gave the A’s and owner John Fisher approval to relocate to Las Vegas at the league’s owners meeting Thursday morning in Arlington, Texas (The Chronicle and SFGATE are both owned by Hearst but have separate newsrooms). The approval comes five months after the Nevada legislature passed Senate Bill 1, making $380 million of taxpayer dollars available to the A’s to build their ballpark on the Strip.

A plethora of questions remain about the impending move, including what the new Sin City ballpark will look like, when construction will begin and when the A’s will actually move into their new facility. The move isn’t expected to happen until at least 2028, though, leaving four years of limbo for the A’s, and one massive question: What will they do until then?

The team’s lease at the Oakland Coliseum is only for one more season at the current $1.25 million-per-year rate. That leaves the A’s technically unhoused for 2025-2027. Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao wants to keep the team in Oakland, but has stated that she’s willing to negotiate a lease extension with the A’s, but the ballclub and MLB would have to make it worthwhile for Oakland.

“To extend the ballpark lease for the Oakland A’s to play here in Oakland, there’s going to have to be some conversation, some real conversation, some tangibles for our city of Oakland,” Thao said in an interview with NBC Bay Area’s Raj Mathai in August. “Including the possibility of an expansion team guaranteed, including the possibility of a name staying here in the city of Oakland. … I’m not going to stand here and allow for there to be abuse in this so-called relationship that we have.”

National baseball reporters have indicated for months that the A’s are looking elsewhere for a home for the years between when their lease ends and their new stadium is built. Exactly where, though, isn’t clear — and after the news of the approval vote broke Thursday, there were conflicting reports on where the team would play.

USA Today national baseball columnist Bob Nightengale reported that the A’s are “expected to play in a variety of sites” starting in 2025, including at the club’s current Triple-A stadium in Summerlin, a Las Vegas suburb. He also said they may play at the San Francisco Giants’ home, Oracle Park.

The San Francisco Chronicle’s John Shea reported in August on the possibility of the A’s playing at Oracle Park for around 30 to 40 games a season, because the club staying based in Northern California for at least half of its season would allow the team to still collect on its local television contract. 

The Athletic’s Evan Drellich reported that “nothing was decided” on Thursday about the A’s 2025-2027 home, adding that Sacramento, which is currently the Giants’ Triple-A affiliate but used to be an affiliate of the A’s, is a possibility too. Any plan to play in a non-Major League facility would need to be approved by the MLB Players Association.

In a press conference after announcing the relocation vote, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said the league is “exploring a variety of alternatives” for the A’s beyond the 2024 season, including staying at the Coliseum. But Manfred said he would “like to find a home for all 81” home games for the A’s, rather than splitting time between two locations. MLB recently had the Toronto Blue Jays split their time between Sarasota, Florida; Buffalo, New York; and Toronto in the 2021 season because of travel restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The relocation is happening in spite of several A’s fan protests, which included three fans flying to Arlington and having a conversation with Fisher, where they reportedly pleaded with the owner to “do the right thing.”