Going to the Oakland Athletics reverse boycott on June 13 reminded me of my favorite times at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum when a large, energized audience of crazy characters in the stands rooted for their heroes on the field. My boisterous nature meshed well with the Oakland crowd as I bellowed with the stadium wide chants of “Fisher, you suck” (the owner of the A’s is the miserly John Fisher, heir to The Gap Inc. clothing fortune), “Sell the team” and several obscene phrases with Fisher as the coital recipient. My own awkwardly phrased chant of “Don’t shop at the Gap” amused the witty in my section.
The passion in the stands was similar to my first game at the Coliseum, when I was still living in San Francisco and the Giants were the visiting team. With some trepidation, I traveled via Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) to East Oakland to meet with born-and-bred Oaklanders who grew up rooting for the A’s. We sat in the bleachers, the rowdiest part of the ballpark, and, as the interloper wearing a San Francisco cap, I received much good-natured razzing like “Go back to San Francisco!” I played off my fears as a visitor to the inner city when I responded with this ditty:
“I got robbed … in Oakland!”
My friends laughed so hard at my audacity, they joined in chorus as we sang this for several verses.
A few years later, I attended many A’s games after I moved to San Leandro, the adjacent town that’s closer to the Coliseum than much of Oakland. If the Oakland Coliseum is baseball’s “Last Dive Bar,” then San Leandro is the home where the drunk stumble to after closing time. This blue-collar suburb was also the heart of the Raider Nation, where, in the 1970s, many of the football players resided when sport salaries weren’t so Rockefellerian.
Living in San Leandro gave me an unique perch on the fruitless negotiations between the Raiders and Oakland. No matter how loyal nearby residents were, they went ignored by the treacherous Davis family, who engineered not one but two scorched-earth withdrawals from Oakland. And there was no East Bay savior such as Sheldon Adelson, willing to grease palms (but pulling out of funding the construction), to extract $750 million from Southern Nevada to build Allegiant Stadium.
Instead of the leaky Coliseum and the legendary parking lot parties where costumed fans got sauced before entering seating sections such as the mythic Black Hole, now fans attend the Roomba that sucks up tourist dollars. The Raiders report that out-of-state residents make up 40 percent of personal seat licenses while the Raiders’ tailgating experience, the province of local fans in their vans, recreational vehicles and trucks, is one of the worst in the NFL.
A’s fans dejectedly recognized the profitability of leaving downtrodden Oakland for bright lights of Las Vegas. Abject poverty is Oakland’s most serious problem, and after Nevada gave a king’s ransom to Mark Davis, I said the city would be committing a moral failure if it actually funded a counter offer, which was a paltry $350 million in the coinage of politicians’ promises. But fantasies of big payouts from longshots don’t pay the bills, so the Las Vegas Raiders are not run by the bookmakers, but bookkeepers.
I read about the restaurant choices inside Allegiant, a food court for the TV generation of celebrity chefs, a pricey come-on for the hot dog and beer crowd. But I have yet to visit the new stadium. Game ticket prices are astronomical, exceeding $500 for the cheapest seats. Even just the stadium tour (with a drink) is $86.
The A’s recently negotiated with the Nevada Legislature to build a 30,000-seat ballpark on the Las Vegas Strip, but the reception outside Carson City is at best chilly. The baseball team owners, who will vote if the A’s can relocate, are unhappy subsidizing Fisher’s miserly business practices, which resulted in a 2023 game attendance of 2,064. Even MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred is losing his cool by insulting the fans.
The gambling mecca for the world has an unique relationship with its sports teams. For decades, leagues scorned Las Vegas to maintain their image of integrity while billions were legally wagered at downtown sport books and casinos (and not legally everywhere else). Today, as sport wagering is available nationally via smartphone, the lovefest between the 23rd largest U.S. city and pro sports primarily exists to entertain visiting gamblers.
Las Vegas residents are great fans. In the 90 degree temperatures, tens of thousands of Golden Knights supporters showed their adoration at the Stanley Cup victory parade along the Strip. The other city champs, the Aces, are third in WNBA attendance despite the lack of a long-term fanbase. But even with great fans, the financial success of Las Vegas teams is from sports tourists.
The joke around the NFL is that Raiders’ home games is like an away venue as thousands of seats are occupied by visitors in opposing jerseys, but thanks to team disasters too lengthy to list here, attendance slipped almost 10 percent from the previous year. And the biggest fear of the backers of the Athletics’ potential move is that Fisher will not seek to be more competitive. He could continue to restrict player payroll, currently the lowest in MLB resulting in the worst win-loss record, while profiting from revenue-sharing intended to help teams located in small markets, hardly the description of the Bay Area metropolis. Or Las Vegas.
Reflecting the grittiness of Oakland life, A’s fans are naturally pessimistic. While it was wishful thinking believing a new ballpark would be built at Howard Terminal or at the Coliseum site, supporters remain loyal as evidenced by the reverse boycott.
A move to Las Vegas will bring a few Oaklanders with them, and sprout new fans in Nevada. But the departure wasn’t inspired by an uninterested city that won’t support its team, and if Fisher’s brand of fiscal mediocrity continues after the 550 mile drive southeast, will their new fans accept this?
Steve Fong, a part-time resident of North Las Vegas, is a California transit and bike advocate.
