A fan stands over a sign calling for Oakland Athletics management to sell the team during the fourth ... [+]
Sometimes the best way to say goodbye is to simply walk away. That’s the approach Oakland Athletics fans are taking this season. The club has historically low attendance through their first 13 home games in what appears to be their final season playing at the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum.
The A’s are averaging a reported attendance of 6,243 fans per game. That’s less than half of the second-worst team’s attendance—the Miami Marlins are averaging 14,259. The MLB median for attendance so far this season is 27,001. The Los Angeles Dodgers lead the league with an average of 45,482, which means they sell more tickets in two games than the A’s have sold in 13 (81,167).
The only time Oakland achieved a five-digit attendance total was on Opening Day when they reported 13,522 fans in attendance, though many of the fans who purchased tickets may have opted to stay in the parking lot instead. Supporter groups—the Oakland 68s and the Last Dive Bar—hosted a community event outside the stadium to boycott owner John Fisher’s efforts to move the team out of Oakland. There certainly appeared to be a lot more people outside than in the seats.
There may not be an official or unofficial boycott ongoing, but fans are staying away all the same. Excluding their season-high attendance on Opening Day, they’ve averaged 5,637 fans per home game.
Fans have good cause to express their displeasure by withholding ticket purchases. After a protracted, public dispute with the city, the franchise announced it intends to move to Las Vegas by 2028. Oakland mayor Sheng Thao accused the team of using the city as leverage to negotiate with Las Vegas and that the club had “no interest in reaching a deal with Oakland at all.”
The latest nail in the coffin came on April 5 when the A’s announced a deal to play in Sacramento until the proposed Las Vegas stadium is ready, even though their funding agreement with the Nevada legislature faces legal challenges. The Sacramento agreement makes it all but certain that the A’s will leave Oakland after this season.
For their final dance with the city they’ve called home since 1968, they could set modern records for poor attendance. The last team to average fewer than 10,000 fans over a full season was the 2022 A’s, who averaged 9,849 as the product on the field atrophied due to Fisher’s lack of investment in talent—a precursor to relocation. Prior to that, the last club that averaged less than 10,000 was the 2004 Montreal Expos (not including the 2020 and 2021 seasons which had pandemic-related attendance restrictions).
There are parallels between the 2024 A’s and the 2004 Expos, who sold 9,254 tickets per contest. After a few years of threats from commissioner Bud Selig to contract the franchise, during which MLB actually purchased and took control of the organization, the club would relocate the following season. They began playing as the Washington Nationals in 2005.
If ticket sales don’t improve, the A’s will have the lowest attendance of any MLB team in 45 years. The 1979 Oakland A’s averaged only 3,787 fans per game. They had dominated baseball earlier in the decade, winning three consecutive World Series from 1972-1974, but owner Charley Finley refused to to adapt to the advent of free agency and either let their best players sign elsewhere or traded them before they reached the open market. They collapsed to a 54-108 record.
The debacle of the 2024 A’s is a black eye for MLB, and the rest of the league has to be displeased. The A’s are a revenue-sharing recipient and the league gave them preferential treatment by waiving their relocation fee. Now, visiting teams will have to play in a Triple-A ballpark in Sacramento for at least three years without the modern amenities and facilities of major-league stadiums.
For the present, the emptiness of the Coliseum is an embarrassment to the sport, but the fans have no obligation to spend their money on a franchise that doesn’t love them back.
