CommunityMarch 15, 2026 • 10 min read

Oakland to Vegas: An Open Letter to A's Fans Making the Journey With Us

For the Oakland fans who are still here, still wearing green and gold, and choosing to believe in the Las Vegas future. This one is for you.

<h2>To the Fans Who Stayed</h2>

<p>This letter is for you. The Oakland fan who went to the Reverse Boycott and wore the "Sell the Team" shirt and cried when the final game ended and then, after some time, decided you were not done with the Athletics. The fan who followed the roster through Sacramento not because you forgave the ownership but because you could not stop loving the players and the game itself. The fan who looked at Las Vegas on the map and thought: maybe this is where the story continues.</p>

<p>You did not betray Oakland by staying. Oakland was betrayed by ownership, not by fans. The love you have for this franchise is yours. You earned it through decades of showing up at the Coliseum when the team was good and when the team was terrible. You earned it by knowing the prospects and following the farm system and arguing about the bullpen. Nobody can take that from you. Not the move. Not John Fisher. Not the new city.</p>

<h2>What Oakland Gave This Franchise</h2>

<p>Everything good about the Las Vegas Athletics was built in Oakland. The Moneyball philosophy that changed how every team in baseball is constructed. The championship tradition -- three consecutive World Series titles from 1972 to 1974, the 1989 title over the Giants. The farm system culture that developed players who could compete against teams spending three times the payroll. The community of fans who showed up year after year and created one of the most knowledgeable, passionate, and wrongly overlooked fan bases in the sport.</p>

<p>Las Vegas inherits all of that. We did not build it. Oakland built it. When we look at the green and gold and feel the weight of the history, that history is from the East Bay. We want to be clear about that because it matters. We are not erasing Oakland. We are carrying it forward to a new chapter that Oakland fans did not choose and many of them wanted no part of.</p>

<h2>We Understand Why Some Left for Good</h2>

<p>Many Oakland fans made the decision that the Las Vegas chapter was not their chapter. They returned the jerseys, canceled the subscriptions, refused to follow a franchise whose ownership had extracted value from their community for twenty years before finally leaving. That choice is understandable. It is more than understandable -- it is morally coherent. The people who left did not stop loving baseball. They stopped loving what this particular business did to their particular city.</p>

<p>If you are reading this and you are still not sure whether to make the journey to Las Vegas with the franchise, nobody here is going to pressure you. The community we are building in Las Vegas will welcome you if you come. We will not resent you if you do not.</p>

<h2>What the Move Means for Community</h2>

<p>The fans who followed the franchise to Las Vegas from Oakland represent something important for the new community being built here. You bring history. You know what the green and gold means at a depth that a brand-new Las Vegas fan cannot access. The casual Las Vegas convert who becomes an A's fan because the stadium is three blocks from their hotel is a valuable member of this fan base. But the fan who was at the 1989 World Series and then followed the team to Las Vegas is carrying something irreplaceable.</p>

<p>Both kinds of fans are welcome in this community. The Oakland history and the Las Vegas future are not competing narratives. They are the same story at different chapters. You can honor one without dismissing the other. This community intends to do exactly that.</p>

<h2>The Future Is Being Built Right Now</h2>

<p>The Las Vegas stadium rising on the Strip is being built partly for you. The 33,000 seats being designed with premium sight lines. The retractable roof keeping the desert heat out so baseball can be played the way it was meant to be played. The natural grass on a retractable field slab. All of it is the future that the franchise has been reaching toward for years.</p>

<p>Oakland deserved a version of this future. Oakland deserved a stadium that was not shared with the Raiders, was not falling apart, did not have sight lines blocked by a football expansion. Oakland deserved John Fisher's investment in a waterfront development that would have been transformative for the city. Oakland did not get what it deserved. Las Vegas is getting what Oakland earned.</p>

<p>The debt is real. The best way to honor it is to make the Las Vegas chapter something worth carrying the history into. Las Vegas Athletics Nation is committed to that. If you are making the journey with us, welcome. The seat is yours.</p>

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