Sacramento's Expansion Dream: Can the City Finally Get Its MLB Team?
With the A's leaving, Sacramento is once again dreaming of an expansion team. The history of those efforts and how realistic it actually is.
Sacramento has been talking about getting a major league baseball team for so long that the conversation has become a kind of civic ritual -- something that city boosters and local politicians return to regularly, that generates genuine enthusiasm and optimistic newspaper editorials, and that has so far produced exactly nothing in terms of an actual franchise.
The question of whether that changes now -- with the A's residency drawing national attention to the region's baseball appetite, with MLB's stated expansion plans, and with Sacramento making a more sophisticated case for itself than it has in past cycles -- deserves serious consideration rather than reflexive optimism.
The History of Near-Misses
Sacramento's MLB aspirations have a longer and more specific history than many people realize. The region has been formally considered for expansion franchises multiple times.
In the early 1990s, when MLB expanded from 26 to 28 teams, Sacramento was among the cities that submitted bids. The franchises ultimately went to Miami (the Marlins) and Denver (the Rockies). Sacramento was not selected, with the primary concerns centering on stadium situation and market size relative to the other candidates.
In the early 2000s expansion round that added Tampa Bay and Arizona, Sacramento was again considered and again not selected. The stadium question recurred: the city did not have a purpose-built MLB facility, and the commitment to build one was not sufficiently credible to move the application forward.
The most recent formal discussion of Sacramento as an expansion site came in the context of MLB's current expansion conversations, which have been ongoing since approximately 2019. Commissioner Manfred has identified expansion to 32 teams as a league goal, and Sacramento has been mentioned alongside Nashville, Portland, Charlotte, Montreal, and the Research Triangle in North Carolina as possible markets.
The A's temporary residency at Sutter Health Park has given Sacramento's case an unusual quality: the city is currently hosting major-league baseball games, demonstrating that the market has appetite for the product. Sacramento River Cats season ticket holders converted to A's season tickets at meaningful rates. The Sacramento region's baseball-going public turned out with enthusiasm for the novelty of major-league games in their backyard.
The Case For Sacramento
The arguments in Sacramento's favor for MLB expansion are real and have grown stronger over time.
The market is larger than it is often given credit for. The greater Sacramento metropolitan area has a population of approximately 2.4 million, which is comparable to the markets that support franchises in cities like Kansas City, Cincinnati, and Cleveland. The Northern California market, which includes not just Sacramento but the outlying areas of the Central Valley and the foothills, extends the relevant fan base considerably.
The stadium situation, which has historically been the primary obstacle, has evolved. Sacramento has demonstrated willingness to invest in sports infrastructure through the construction of the Golden 1 Center for the Sacramento Kings, a state-of-the-art NBA arena that opened in 2016 with substantial public-private partnership financing. The political infrastructure and community appetite for major professional sports investment is demonstrably present.
Sacramento also occupies a unique geographic position as one of the few large markets in the country that is not already within an established MLB team's territory. San Francisco and Oakland bracket the region to the west, but the territorial rights question for Sacramento specifically would depend on how MLB structures the expansion. Given that the A's are now in Las Vegas and the Giants are the only Bay Area franchise, there is at least an argument that Sacramento falls outside existing territorial restrictions.
The Case Against
The honest case against is primarily about timing and competition.
MLB's expansion process is moving slowly. The league has been discussing expansion for six years without formally committing to a timeline or a market selection process. Multiple cities are pursuing expansion franchises, and the competitive dynamic means that cities with more resources, stronger stadium proposals, or more politically influential advocates will have advantages.
Nashville has been widely regarded as the leading expansion candidate for the second American League expansion slot (Portland being frequently cited for the National League). Nashville has a larger metropolitan population than Sacramento, stronger demographics for sports investment, and a state and local political apparatus that has shown willingness to commit public resources to major league sports. The Nashville stadium conversation is further along than Sacramento's.
The financial investment required for an MLB expansion franchise is also a significant barrier. Expansion fees have escalated dramatically over the decades -- the most recent MLB expansion franchises, the Rays and Diamondbacks in 1998, paid $130 million each. Contemporary expansion fees are estimated at $2 billion or more, based on the prices paid in recent NBA and NHL expansions. Finding an ownership group willing to commit that kind of capital to Sacramento requires identifying people with both the resources and the specific interest in the Sacramento market.
The A's Variable
The complicating factor in all Sacramento expansion discussions is the A's residency itself. On one hand, the residency has been genuinely beneficial for Sacramento's expansion case: it has demonstrated market appetite, generated national media coverage of Sacramento as a baseball city, and put the region in MLB's consciousness in a way that decades of lobbying had not.
On the other hand, the A's presence -- even as a temporary tenant -- has created ambiguity about Sacramento's ultimate status. Is Sacramento a potential MLB city in its own right, or is it a satellite market that serves the Las Vegas franchise? MLB officials will have to answer that question as expansion proceeds, and the answer will depend partly on how well the A's permanent move to Las Vegas is received.
If Las Vegas becomes a resounding success, it may reduce the appetite for Northern California expansion, since the region would be seen as served by the Las Vegas market. If Las Vegas struggles, Sacramento's case as an alternative Northern California market would be strengthened.
The Realistic Assessment
Sacramento will not have a major league baseball team for a minimum of five to seven years, and quite possibly longer. The expansion process is slow, the competition is real, and the stadium commitment would need to be substantially more advanced than it currently is.
What the A's residency has done is create a window -- a period in which Sacramento is visible as a baseball market, in which local enthusiasm can be channeled into serious expansion advocacy, and in which the political and financial groundwork can be laid for a credible bid.
Cities that succeed in attracting expansion franchises generally spend years in preparation before the formal selection process. They build political coalitions. They secure land and develop stadium financing frameworks. They cultivate relationships with the league and with potential ownership groups. Sacramento is in the early stages of that process.
The dream is reasonable. The timeline is long. The work is just beginning.
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