The Athletics will drop Oakland from their team name during their temporary move to Sacramento ahead of their official relocation to Las Vegas, a team spokesperson confirmed to TMZ Sports Thursday (April 4).
The California franchise will simply be called 'the Athletics' while playing home games in the state's capital city for at least the 2025, 2026 and 2027 Major League Baseball seasons. The confirmation came hours after the A's announced their temporary move to Sutter Health Park, a minor league ballpark in Sacramento, Thursday morning.
"Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento will host the A's for the 2025-27 seasons - ahead of the team's move to Vegas in 2028," the A's wrote on their social media accounts.
Sutter Health Park has "just over 10,000 seats" and has grass outfield seating options to increase capacity to 14,000," according to ESPN's Jeff Passan.
"The option year for the A's moving from Oakland to Sacramento gives the team flexibility if its stadium in Las Vegas is not complete. Originally, the A's wanted to be in Vegas by 2027. Then it was 2028. Now it could be as late as 2029," Passan wrote.
The A's, Bjarke Ingels Group, which serves as the design lead, and HNTB, which is the sports/hospitality designer and architect of record, shared the designs of the upcoming stadium set to be located on the Tropicana site last month.
"The collaboration between BIG’s creativity and HNTB’s technical expertise allows for a truly innovative and bold design while ensuring an unmatched fan experience,” said Athletics Managing Partner and Owner John Fisher. “We hope to add to the dynamic atmosphere and liveliness of the Las Vegas Strip, creating a welcoming environment for all of Southern Nevada.”
MLB owners voted "unanimously" to approve the A's move to Las Vegas, USA TODAY reported on November 16, though the team has not yet figured out where it will play in 2025 and beyond before the completion of its new Las Vegas stadium. In June, Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo signed a bill pledging $380 million in taxpayer money to building a $1.5 billion Major League Baseball stadium on the Las Vegas Strip.
The A's, who had previously relocated from Philadelphia to Kansas City in 1955 and Kansas City to Oakland in 1968, will be the first MLB relocation since the then-Montreal Expos moved and rebranded as the Washington Nationals in 2005, Passan reported.
SB1, the bill calling for public funding of the A's proposed Las Vegas stadium, was approved by the state Senate and Assembly after additional amendments were included to have the franchise guarantee $2 million be annually invested into the local community, as well as funding other small concessions. The approval came hours after MLB commissioner Rob Manfred provided a tone deaf response to A's fans' "reverse boycott" on June 13.
Las Vegas has already added three professional sports franchises in recent years, which includes the NFL's Las Vegas Raiders, who moved from Oakland in 2020, the NHL's Vegas Golden Knights, who won their first Stanley Cup in franchise history this week, through expansion in 2017 and the WNBA's Las Vegas Aces, who relocated from San Antonio and rebranded in 2017, having since won back-to-back WNBA championships in the last two seasons.