Could the A’s really play in Las Vegas’ minor league park? Recent history says yes

A major professional team playing in a minor league venue would’ve been unheard of just a few years ago, which is what the Oakland Athletics likely will do if they move to Las Vegas.

There is recent precedent for a major professional team making a similar transition while waiting for the new venue to be constructed. The NFL’s Chargers played in an MLS stadium after moving from San Diego to Los Angeles, and the NHL’s Arizona Coyotes have called a college arena home while awaiting what they hope is a new building of their own.

A’s president Dave Kaval

has said he would like to break ground next year and move into a new Las Vegas stadium in time for the 2027 season. The team has an agreement with Bally’s and Gaming & Leisure Properties to build a potential $1.5 billion park on the Tropicana hotel site along the Las Vegas Strip. The A’s are asking for nearly $400 million in public support from the Nevada Legislature, which could vote on a proposal this week.

The club’s lease at Oakland Coliseum runs through 2024, and there is a chance the A’s would play the 2025 and 2026 seasons at Las Vegas Ballpark, home to their Triple-A affiliate, the Aviators.

Las Vegas Ballpark is 53 years younger than the Coliseum

and has been voted the nation’s best Triple-A park three years in a row (minus the COVID-shutdown year in 2020) by Ballpark Digest. But it seats only about 10,000. The A’s proposed stadium on the Strip would have a seating capacity of about 30,000.

The A’s are drawing 8,695 fans per game in Oakland this season — the only franchise pulling fewer than 10,000 per game. Another lame-duck season in Oakland isn’t likely to boost those numbers, which may incentivize the A’s to try relocating even sooner than 2025.

“Any time you’re a shorttimer like this, that final season is going to be terrible no matter what it is, so most teams try to move as quickly as they can when that happens,” said sports economist Victor Matheson, a professor at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. “Once they say, ‘Hey, we’re going,’ you know you’re going to lose it in your local market.”

The Montreal Expos were the most recent Major League Baseball team to relocate, moving to Washington in 2005 and becoming the Nationals. They averaged 9,356 fans for home games split between Montreal and San Juan, Puerto Rico, with a stripped-down roster that won only 67 games.

Other franchises have taken the temporary step of playing in much smaller venues while waiting for a new place to be built.