The Oakland Athletics have received widespread community from fans, players and MLB reporters for how they run baseball operations and their actions leading to the planned relocation to Las Vegas. It now appears that multiple MLB owners aren’t happy with the Athletics.
Oakland is the worst MLB team in 2023, ranking last in both average attendance and team payroll. While the cutbacks on player spending are a big issue with the MLB Players Association, team owners have another issue with Fisher and the league itself.
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According to John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle, several MLB owners of small-market teams are “upset” that the Athletics have received favorable treatment from the league office. Specifically, their issue stems from MLB not charging Fisher a relocation fee for moving the team.
“I heard from industry sources with close ties to MLB ownerships that some owners of low-revenue teams are upset that the A’s are receiving preferential treatment — no relocation fee, for instance.”
John Shea on small-market MLB owners’ frustration with the Oakland Athletics
Typically, MLB charges its teams a relocation fee in the ballpark of $300 million to move to a new city. While the Athletics have the smallest payroll in MLB, Fisher’s net worth is estimated at $2.3 billion. The fact that commissioner Rob Manfred chose to waive the fee is a major issue for some owners.
Team owners in small markets reportedly aren’t the only ones angered by the preferential treatment the Athletics receive and their approach to baseball operations. Owners of high-revenue teams strongly dislike how the A’s exploit revenue sharing and don’t use it to improve the team.
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“High-revenue owners aren’t thrilled that the A’s benefit from increasing revenue sharing but don’t seem to transfer the money into their baseball team, including payroll.”
SF Chroncle’s John Shea on the issues high-revenue team owners have with the Oakland Athletics.
Under MLB revenue sharing, all 30 teams pool 38 percent of the total revenue they earned across the season and the money is split among the clubs. MLB does this to help reduce the spending gap between teams in top markets with the highest annual revenue and clubs in smaller markets with reduced revenues.
Oakland Athletics payroll by year
- 2023: $60.508 million payroll (30th in MLB)
- 2022: $48.443 million payroll (29th in MLB)
- 2021: $90.4 million payroll (23rd in MLB)
- 2020: $36.72 million payroll (25th in MLB)
The issue for teams like the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets and San Diego Padres is that while they are spending more money than ever and pulling in the most revenue for the league, Fisher is slashing the Athletics’ payroll. Fisher was also the only MLB owner during the COVID-19 pandemic who ended stipends for minor-league players, a decision he later only reversed due to widespread criticism.
While Fisher has support from MLB for a move to Las Vegas, he is still not well-received by his peers and the league’s actions in the past year have only made things worse. However, the A’s are still on track to relocate to Las Vegas and the move will be very financially beneficial for Fisher and MLB.
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