Oakland A's headed to Las Vegas

I lived in Oakland in one of the title years, 1973. They drew flies. They had half-price night games on Mondays, which back then meant that a bleacher ticket was $.75 and a beer was a buck. So that's when we went.Wasn't crowded and this was one of the great teams in baseball history. Attendance for Gme 3 of the ALCS that year, Hunter vs. Palmer, was like 23K (I was there). It's always been a hard sell, even for its champs.

 

Will there be Bay Area A’s fans who adopt the Giants?

 

Around 1978 or 1979, they had attendance one game of like 978. It always stuck with me. I was a freshman in high school.
I'm 58 and retired, and nothing has changed. My entire adult life, the Oakland A's have been one hot mess. Let it go.

Come on, man!

 

One of the cable channels is showing Major League right now, which seems appropriate.

It’s a baseball stadium, not a repurposed football stadium.

 

Not quite the same, but the franchise now known as the Atlanta Braves won eight NL pennants in the 19th century in Boston, plus won the Series in 1914 before moving to Milwaukee, where they won another Series in 1957 before moving to Atlanta.

 

Yes 10,000 is a rough number when you’re defending keeping a team. But what do you do to draw more fans when the team across the Bay?

For the A’s the answer was sell off anyone the fans connected with. It was not investing in the team. It was just being terrible. And, shockingly, it didn’t draw fans back.

The blue print was staring at them in San Francisco literally in sight of the Coliseum. Invest in the team. Yes a stadium has a lot to do with that, which is what the A’s were missing. But the Giants also had an owner who wanted to jump ship. A buyer came in, saved the team and did the work. The group that bought the Warriors also wanted the A’s. He wanted to invest in the team and do it up in Oakland. The present owners passed. Instead they cried poor and did what they could to tank. Instead of landing their Barry Bonds, they got rid of anyone who could demand money.

So yeah, 10,000 people, but I think that’s what the owners wanted.

 

It's the Robert Irsay (Baltimore)/ Georgia Frontierre (Anaheim) game plan. Make the product and environment as shitty as possible so nobody goes. The game plan is as old as dirt. Just took so long, through multiple A's owners, to make it happen.

 

My point was for the attendance woes of the A’s, there was a chance to turn it around.

The Giants weren’t 978 bad, but they were bad. They turned it around by giving the fans something to come to the park for. Oakland just didn’t. Then it was too late.

And the Oakland fans are fun. Drums and music and flags and chants. They care. That’s all I was on about.

So “I’ll let it go” but I wasn’t on about much more than that … With my first post on the thread. But sure, I’ll let it go.

 

A's attendance:

1989 2.7M (2nd MLB) 33k/gm
1990 2.9M (2nd MLB) 35k/gm
1991 2.7M (3rd MLB) 33k/gm
1992 2.5M (4th MLB) 31k/gm

No, the A's fans have not "always" been a tough sell; that's just what the ownership has been selling and people have been buying.

 

The A's have drawn more than 2m fans multiple times - as recently as 2014. Its not like the Coliseum was a lot better 10 years ago and keeping people from going then.

 

Look, I'm never going to suggest fans owe it to anyone to pay good money to sit in a dump to watch bad baseball. I don't think this is some failure on the fans' part.

And ownership has been terrible.

But...

When the team only draws 10k a night, and the revenue isn't there to build a contending team in part because the stadium is a relic that floods with poo, and every effort to build a new stadium goes down with a whimper, it's time to go. There is no argument for keeping the team where they are.