Understanding the Anger Is Important for Las Vegas Fans
If you are a Las Vegas resident who became an Athletics fan when the team moved here, you may have encountered Oakland fans online who are furious -- not just disappointed, but genuinely angry in a way that feels personal and lasting. Understanding that anger is not about relitigating old arguments. It is about understanding the foundation you are building your fandom on, and the genuine human cost of franchise relocation.
Who Is John Fisher?
John Fisher is the owner of the Las Vegas Athletics and has been the controlling owner of the Oakland Athletics since 2005. He is a billionaire heir to the Gap clothing fortune. By all accounts, he is not a baseball-obsessed owner in the mode of the late George Steinbrenner or Steve Cohen. He is an investor who owned a baseball team, and his approach to ownership was shaped by that financial framing rather than by a love of competition.
Fisher's tenure in Oakland was defined by low payroll, cost-cutting, and a series of deals and negotiations around a new stadium that ultimately went nowhere. The A's had one of the lowest payrolls in baseball for most of Fisher's tenure. The team's analytics-driven approach, famous from the Moneyball era, became in later years a justification for not spending money rather than a philosophy for maximizing value.
The Stadium Saga
The core of the Oakland anger is not the move itself -- franchise relocation is part of sports history -- but the way it happened and the years of narrative that preceded it. For well over a decade, Fisher and the A's organization were locked in negotiations with the City of Oakland and Alameda County over building a new stadium to replace the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, which had been one of the worst facilities in major league baseball for at least two decades.
There were multiple stadium proposals. The Howard Terminal project -- a waterfront development near Jack London Square -- spent years in environmental review, city negotiations, and public debate. Supporters of the project put in enormous personal investment of time and advocacy. The city ultimately approved the project, which made the subsequent announcement of the Las Vegas move feel to many Oakland residents like a double-cross.
The organization has maintained that the Howard Terminal project was not financially viable without public subsidy levels that were not forthcoming. Oakland officials and advocates dispute this characterization. Whatever the factual resolution of that argument, the perception among Oakland fans was clear: Fisher never wanted to stay, and the negotiations were conducted in bad faith.
The Sacramento Interim and What It Meant
While the Las Vegas stadium was under construction, the A's played in Sacramento at Sutter Health Park, home of the Sacramento River Cats, a Triple-A minor league stadium. The optics were damaging. A major league team playing in a minor league park, in a market between the city it left and the city it was headed to, while attendance was predictably low and the team was deliberately not competitive.
For Oakland fans, the Sacramento years were confirmation that the franchise had checked out. For Las Vegas fans, they were a preview of what the product would look like before the stadium opened and the organization had genuine local stakes in building something worth watching.
What It Means for Las Vegas
For Las Vegas fans, the Fisher controversy is relevant for a few reasons. First, Fisher remains the owner. The same decision-maker who drew the ire of Oakland is the one who controls the franchise in Las Vegas. Whether his approach to ownership changes in a new market is an open question that only time will answer.
Second, the Oakland community's experience is a reminder that the connection between a team and a city is real and valuable, and that it can be broken. Building that connection in Las Vegas takes time and investment -- in the product on the field, in community engagement, and in the kind of consistent presence that turns casual fans into committed ones.
Third, some Oakland fans will never support this team again, and that is a legitimate choice. Others will follow the players they love regardless of the city on the jersey. Las Vegas fans can welcome both groups or neither. What they cannot do is pretend the history did not happen and expect the broader baseball world to simply accept the franchise at face value without acknowledging it.
The Las Vegas Athletics have a chance to build something genuinely new. Making good on that chance requires acknowledging where they came from.
Find Las Vegas A's tickets and gear through our affiliate partners. Purchases made through these links support independent coverage at no extra cost to you.