It looks like the city of Oakland might be in the verge of keeping one of its three professional sports teams. With both the NBA’s Golden State Warriors and NFL’s Oakland Raiders set to relocate in the coming years, the downtrodden city got some good news.
The Oakland Athletics announced on Friday that that they will name the location for a new baseball stadium in that very same city later in the year.
We are here. We are Oakland. A ballpark site in Oakland will be announced later this year. #RootedInOakland pic.twitter.com/7ZgBe1kj6z
— Oakland A's (@Athletics) April 21, 2017
For the A’s, this has been a long time coming. The team continues to share Oakland Coliseum with the Raiders. It remains the only two-sport venue in the professional sports world. It’s rundown and about as ugly as it gets. Just recently, the A’s drew a hair over 10,000 fans for their game against the Seattle Mariners on Thursday. That’s just sad.
The A’s have previously pushed for a new ballpark in the San Jose area, but that region was claimed by the cross-bay rival San Francisco Giants. Up until now, any idea of the MLB team getting a new venue seemed to be pretty unlikely.
It appears that with the Raiders’ decision to relocate to Las Vegas, it opened up an avenue for the A’s to get a new venue in Oakland. That’s great news for both the city and the team.