Report: MLB players union has had ‘ongoing dialogue’ on where A’s play after 2024
Oct 30, 2023, 10:19 AM
Courtesy of the Athletics
We know where the Oakland Athletics will play next season. It’s where they’ll play in 2025 that’s still undecided.
As the A’s ownership works toward relocating the team to Las Vegas, the team will need a temporary home because their lease at the Coliseum concludes at the end of the 2024 MLB season.
Before the World Series began Friday, Tony Clark, the executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Assn., and Rob Manfred, MLB commissioner, spoke to the media, providing several updates on Oakland’s relocation efforts.
According to Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times, Clark said the player’s union, “has had ‘ongoing dialogue’ with the league about where the A’s would play in the interim but said nothing has been decided.”
The union has no say in whether the A’s move, but Clark said the league needs to finalize a decision and its impacts on players ‘sooner rather than later.’
The A’s hope to build a $1.5 billion, nine-acre stadium where the Tropicana hotel currently stands. The ballpark, which was granted $380 in public funding for construction earlier this summer, would include a retractable roof and roughly 30,000 seats. But, the earliest projections for when the stadium could open is not until 2028. According to ESPN, Manfred also did not have an answer on where the A’s could play after the 2024 season.
Shaikin’s article also notes Clark also questioned why the A’s would relocate to a smaller market.
When will the owners vote to relocate the Oakland Athletics?
According to multiple reports, MLB owners are scheduled to vote on the A’s relocation at the next owner’s meeting in Dallas from Nov. 14 to 16. Approval from 75% of MLB owners is needed for the move to go through.
If the A’s relocate, they’d be the first team to move since the Montreal Expos became the Washington Nationals in 2005.
Las Vegas would be the fourth home for the franchise. The team originates from Philadelphia where they played from 1901-1954. The Athletics then moved to Kansas City until 1968, when they relocated to Oakland. The A’s have been looking to either update or move out of the Oakland Coliseum for years.
Could anything stop the relocation process?
This past summer, the Nevada State Education Association created a political action committee called Schools Over Stadiums, which is trying to block the use of public funding for a stadium.
Shaikin noted that Manfred is aware of the referendum, telling reporters that “if there was an adverse development with respect to that referendum, that would be a significant development.”
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