Know what I would love to do? Close my eyes, wake up in five years and see what became of the Oakland A’s grandiose plans.
The potentially unprecedented three-year, home away from home arrangement while they await the opening of their new ballpark in Las Vegas. The long-term extensions for homegrown players and investments in the free-agent market. The escalation of the payroll to levels that anyone who has paid attention to John Fisher’s nearly two decades of ownership will find difficult to comprehend.
Forgive my skepticism, considering Fisher’s shameful departure from Oakland and Major League Baseball’s role as his willing accomplice. But I’ll believe the A’s are serious about winning when I see it.
According to a source briefed on their plans, the A’s project payrolls in the $130 to $150 million range during the ramp-up period before they move into their new park, then $170 million-plus once they are established in their fixed-roof stadium. Fisher’s personal mouthpiece, team president Dave Kaval, declined to confirm those numbers, but said, “we’re budgeting numbers we think are in the higher side of the league.”
The average major-league payroll last season, according to Spotrac, was $165.7 million. As salaries continue to rise, the “higher side”by 2028 should indeed be more than $170 million. For a franchise that opened last season with a major-league low $56.9 million payroll – and has not ranked in the top 15 in player salaries since 1994 – the numbers would be nothing short of transformative. And shocking.
“We expect to have a competitive payroll that is going to enable us to have the resources necessary to field a competitive team, year in and year out,” Kaval said in an interview Saturday. “We think that is necessary for the Vegas market.”
Blowing out payroll absolutely will be necessary, considering the A’s will require strong attendance from a fan base that includes tourists as well as locals. Their local media revenue is almost certain to decline, reflecting their move from the nation’s tenth largest Designated Market Area (DMA) to the 40th. Las Vegas will be the smallest media market in the majors, behind Milwaukee at No. 38.
But their permanent relocation is still four years away.
In the interim, the A’s will spend one more depressing season in Oakland. Their home city – or cities – in the three seasons after that have yet to be determined. But unless the A’s play at their Triple A park in Summerlin, Nev., within the city limits of Las Vegas, they essentially will be vagabonds from 2025 to ‘27.
Remember the 1976 movie, “The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings”? Meet John Fisher’s Traveling No-Stars.
It is not unusual for a relocating team to play in one park in a new home city and then move into another. The Nationals did just that upon arriving in Washington, D.C., spending three seasons at RFK Stadium before opening Nationals Park in 2008. But a team playing home games in a different city for the majority of a full season? As best as I can determine, the only example – the Hartford Dark Blues of the National League playing their 1877 season in Brooklyn – occurred nearly a century and a half ago.
Oh, but this gets better.
If the A’s play outside the Bay Area, a very real possibility unless they end up at Oracle Park, the Giants’ home stadium, or – gasp – remain at the dreaded Oakland Coliseum, they will lose their contract with their local television network, NBC Sports California. Under that deal, which runs through 2033, they received $67 million last season, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Sacramento, a city Kaval has acknowledged is outside the network’s contractual boundaries, is another potential option for the A’s, as is Salt Lake City. Both of those media…
This article was originally published by a theathletic.com . Read the Original article here. .