The Oakland Athletics are one of the most interesting ball clubs in baseball, with many World Series wins, Hall of Fame players and over 120 years of storied history. Although, they haven’t always been in Oakland, CA. After over 50 years in Philadelphia, PA, and a thirteen-year stint in Kansas City, MO, they moved to the “bright side of the bay”, settling into the new ‘Oakland Coliseum’, now known as RingCentral Coliseum, in 1968. It didn’t take long for the team to find their footing in Oakland, three-peating in 1972, 1973 and 1974. With a solidified fanbase and a great team, the Athletics were the best franchise in baseball.

Since those great years in the 70s their superteams of the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Athletics haven’t gotten close to a championship again. Slowly, their fanbase and stadium started to deteriorate as well. Infamously, an earthquake hit them during the 1989 World Series against the Giants. 

In the current day, the Athletics have been stripped dry of their  talent, fans and may soon lose their home of Oakland altogether. This past offseason, the Athletics have let go of all their stars, specifically Matt Olson, Matt Chapman, Starling Marte, Sean Manaea and others. It seems all too familiar for A’s fans, who haven’t seen a serious World Series contender since the 2015 season, even then they only made it to the Wildcard game.

Oakland is a tough market, with San Francisco and San Jose both in the same area. Because of this, the attendance at their games have always been pretty low. This is mostly due to the state of their stadium, which is now run-down and outdated far from its glory days of the 70s and 80s. In 2019, the Oakland Raiders, the NFL team which shared the stadium with the A’s for their entire tenure, decided to depart to the desert, moving into a new billion-dollar stadium in Las Vegas, NV, making the A’s the only team left at the Coliseum.

When the Golden State Warriors left for the other side of the bay, San Francisco, in 2020, it left the Athletics as the only team left in one of California’s biggest markets. Soon, there may be no team left in Oakland, as the A’s are looking to leave what has been their home for almost 55 years.

Fans in Oakland are not pleased with what ownership has done with the team, and are obviously not happy with the idea of leaving their home for a new, shiny future in “Sin City”. An unofficial boycott is taking place at A’s home games, seeing their lowest attendance in franchise history. On Apr. 19, a record-low attendance at Oakland Coliseum was counted at 3,748, the lowest since 1980. The next day, it was 2,703.

Oakland baseball is going through their biggest crisis since the early 1980s, and are most likely going to leave for different large market cities such as Las Vegas, Portland, OR, or Charlotte, NC. There is no fault from the fans, who are rightfully upset at what the ownership has done to the team. The owners, for their part, are ignorant to the fact that their fans love the team, but are not supporting those who run it any longer.

Is there any hope for the A’s fans? Will there even be a sports team in Oakland in the future? Only time will tell. For now, however, the boycott will continue.