The roof of Tropicana Field, located in St. Petersburg, Florida, which is the home ground for the Tampa Bay Rays of Major League Baseball, suffered damage on the morning of Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. As a result of hurricane destruction and an interstate relocation, the A’s and Tampa Bay Rays will be playing in minor league stadiums next season. (Zack Wittman/The New York Times)
By VICTOR MATHER
Teams in Major League Baseball are valued at billions and typically fill grand stadiums with 40,000 to 50,000 seats, charging top dollar for numerous games throughout the year.
So, what circumstances lead to two of these teams taking the field next season in venues that barely accommodate 10,000 spectators?
On Thursday, the Tampa Bay Rays disclosed that due to Hurricane Milton causing significant damage to the roof of Tropicana Field last month, they will be playing the upcoming season at George M. Steinbrenner Field, an 11,000-seat venue that usually serves as home for the Tampa Tarpons in the minor league Florida State League and the New York Yankees during spring training.
Meanwhile, after departing from Oakland, which had been their home for over five decades, the A’s will spend the next three seasons in Sacramento, California, awaiting the construction of their new stadium in Las Vegas, designated as their permanent base.
The Sacramento stadium, Sutter Health Park, located in West Sacramento, California, directly opposite downtown across the Sacramento River, has a capacity of around 10,000, with a few thousand more able to sit on a grassy hillside beyond the outfield. It usually serves as the home field for the Sacramento River Cats, a minor league team from the Pacific Coast League.
Although the Oakland/Sacramento/Las Vegas team could theoretically claim the fan bases from three cities, will any of these fans actually show up for the games?
In 2024, as the A’s made it clear they were leaving Oakland, they averaged 11,500 disappointed fans per game, the lowest attendance in the major leagues. Those fans are not likely to follow the team 80 miles northeast, preferring to seek other baseball options.
“There are countless teams filled with former A’s players; I see people continuing to support those players,” remarked Bryan Johansen, an engineer and co-founder of Last Dive Bar, a fan group for Oakland A’s supporters. “Most have pretty much given up on baseball.”
Fans in Las Vegas, looking forward to the team’s arrival in 2028, may be tempted to check out their future hometown team, but the distance poses a challenge, at a nine-hour drive away.
This situation leaves the fans in Sacramento, where there is only one major men’s professional sports franchise — the NBA’s Kings. Reactions among baseball enthusiasts in the California capital have varied, ranging from indifference to mild interest to genuine excitement.
The main draw for many attendees at the ballpark may actually be the opposing team, which could lessen any home-field advantage the A’s manage to establish in Sacramento. Others might come to see home runs, given that the small park is likely to see plenty of balls cleared over the fence.
There’s also a more persistent issue: the A’s on-field performance. Their 2024 record was a disappointing 69-93, which was actually an upgrade from their past two seasons.
In recognition of the team’s transient status, it will simply be referred to as “Athletics,” without any city designation.
The Tampa Bay Rays, on the other hand, are remaining relatively close to their roots. Last year, they averaged 16,500 fans per game at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, well below its full capacity of 42,000 (and many of those seats are seldom occupied, with attendance often restricted to 25,000). Therefore, they are unlikely to lose much in terms of ticket revenues, even while moving to their considerably smaller temporary venue across the bay in Tampa.
The damages inflicted on the Rays’ stadium by Hurricane Milton, which tore off its roof and damaged parts of the interior, are anticipated to require over a year and more than $50 million in repairs. The team had already planned to move into a new stadium by 2028, but for now, they expect to return to the Trop, as it is commonly called, once renovations are complete.
MLB teams have occasionally toggled between smaller parks over the years, either by choice or necessity. In 2007 and 2008, the Rays played select games at Walt Disney World, and in 2021 and 2022, two matchups occurred at a “Field of Dreams” park in Iowa.
In 2003, the Expos, preparing to exit Montreal, spent a significant part of the season in an 18,000-seat facility in Puerto Rico. The Toronto Blue Jays played the shortened 2020 season in an 18,000-seat stadium in Buffalo, New York, and kicked off the 2021 season at a similarly sized venue in western Florida to navigate pandemic-related travel restrictions crossing the U.S.-Canada border.
Soon after the Brooklyn Dodgers secured their sole World Series victory in 1955, their owner Walter O’Malley, eager to relocate the team to the West Coast, decided to stir things up in New York City by hosting 15 games over two years across the Hudson at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, New Jersey.
That stadium, which accommodated 24,000, was relatively large for a minor league arena and drew enthusiastic crowds from New Jersey fans for at least some of the games.
When asked how he made it to New Jersey for the inaugural game in April 1956, Dodgers slugger Duke Snider humorously replied, “I swam over. Not too bad. There was a bit of debris in the river. Maybe I’ll arrive via submarine next time.”
In the coming year, it’s doubtful that the remaining Oakland fans will venture to Sacramento by any means. Nevertheless, many of them, despite their disdain for John Fisher, the owner responsible for relocating the A’s, confess that abandoning the team entirely will be challenging.
“I have a big old A’s tattoo on my arm,” Johansen shared. “I’ve been a supporter for over 40 years. You just can’t erase that. I’ll continue to follow them just to keep tabs on John Fisher every step of the way.”
