[ESPN] The Oakland Athletics on Tuesday said they will start exploring the possibility of relocating with the blessing of Major League Baseball, a move that could put pressure on local government officials to greenlight a new stadium project that has spent years in limbo.How about Kansas City?
The A's, who have played in Oakland since 1968, have prioritized building a waterfront stadium in downtown Oakland at the Howard Terminal site. But after years of failed stadium plans -- and weeks after the organization requested that the city council vote on the $12 billion mixed-use development before its late-July summer recess -- the long-anticipated specter of the A's looking into relocation became a reality on Tuesday.
Or Philadelphia?
"The future success of the A's depends on a new ballpark," A's owner John Fisher said in a statement. "Oakland is a great baseball town, and we will continue to pursue our waterfront ballpark project. We will also follow MLB's direction to explore other markets."
Jackson's Hole?
The A's are the lone remaining major professional sports team in Oakland after the NBA's Golden State Warriors moved across the bay to the Socialist paradise of San Francisco
...where God struck dead Anton LaVey, home of the Sydney Ducks, ruled by Vigilance Committee from 1859 through 1867, reliably and volubly Democrat since 1964...
and the NFL's Raiders left for Las Vegas. Their pursuit of a new stadium to replace the now-55-year-old RingCentral Coliseum has included multiple sites in Oakland, dalliances with Fremont and San Jose, and two decades without a groundbreaking.
The Howard Terminal project -- in which the A's have proposed privately funding a $1 billion stadium and spending more on a development that would include 3,000 units of affordable housing, office and retail space, and a hotel -- is the latest effort and has been seen as the likeliest to succeed.
"We're hopeful that our really exciting plan for a waterfront ballpark that's privately financed will be taken up by the city council,'' A's president Dave Kaval told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named on Tuesday. "I think it's something that is kind of a once-a-generational opportunity to reimagine the waterfront. We're going to continue to pursue that and we're still hopeful that that could get approved, but we have to be realistic about where we are with the timelines.''