That is why John Fisher’s Oakland Athletics baseball team will play in Sacramento.
Vivek Ranadivé, who owns the National Basketball Association’s Sacramento Kings, and the Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg are rolling the dice thinking by hosting Major League Baseball’s Oakland Athletics owner John Fisher’s team will eventually lead Major League Baseball to expand to the California capital. Sacramento is supposed to host Fisher’s team until a Las Vegas ballpark is built for the Athletics franchise. Sacramento was a shaky NBA city until a new arena was built for the Kings franchise. The team was headed to Seattle until the NBA stopped the move. Major League Soccer was scheduled to put a franchise in the city but that deal fell through for various reasons. But there could be a chance that Ranadivé succeeds based on the NBA’s experience with the New Orleans Hornets franchise after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005.
Oklahoma City had an available arena and a deal was cut which allowed the New Orleans Hornets’ ownership to use the Oklahoma City arena until New Orleans was able to get back on its feet. Oklahoma City did very well and that got the attention of the Seattle SuperSonics owner Clayton Bennett. Bennett could not get a new building built in Seattle and decided to leave the Seattle market in 2008. Bennett headed to Oklahoma City which had a functional NBA building. Sacramento does not have a major league baseball park. Sacramento has a minor league stadium that seats 10,000 people. The park can probably be updated to seat 14,000 people. John Fisher has a place for his team to play for a short time period and then he is headed to Las Vegas but Las Vegas is not a lock to host Fisher’s team. There is opposition in Nevada with groups not wanting to see public money going into a Las Vegas stadium. The saga continues.
Vivek Ranadive
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