In the not-so-grand tradition of middle-aged punk rockers deriding Las Vegas, Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong expressed frustration during a September concert in San Francisco, with the Oakland A’s plan to move to Vegas. He rallied the Bay Area audience and expressed scorn for A’s principal owner John Fisher, shouting, “I f**king hate Las Vegas. It’s the worst s**thole in America.”
Earlier in the same concert, Rancid guitarist Lars Frederiksen better articulated the same issue, saying of Fisher: “His whole family makes money off the backs of Bay Area people, then he wants to f**k off to Vegas.”
It’s not hard to understand these sentiments. The NFL’s Oakland Raiders moved to Las Vegas in 2020, starting play at Allegiant Stadium one year after the NBA’s Golden State Warriors moved from Oracle Arena in Oakland to the new Chase Center in San Francisco.
Now that the A’s also have abandoned Oakland, the East Bay city of 440,000 people is without a major league sports team of its own—something lamented by Berkeley native Kamala Harris when her campaign stopped at the All the Smoke podcast in October. Speaking with hosts Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson—both played for the Warriors during long NBA careers—Harris said, “It breaks my heart … It was part of the economic engine of Oakland. The vendors … it was local folks, small businesses. I’m always going to think Golden State Warriors, that’s Oakland.”
Oakland basketball fans can make a short trip to see the team in San Francisco and ostensibly feel the Warriors are still the home team, but that won’t be the case with the A’s. The Major League Baseball team is set to play three seasons at Sutter Health Park in Sacramento while the organization hopes to build its stadium on the Las Vegas Strip for the 2028 season.
For two storied sports franchises from the same city to relocate to the same new city within a decade feels unprecedented. It’s especially exciting for Las Vegas, which will have added four teams in just over 10 years, and especially bitter for Oakland.
“I have been torn on it, because I have ties to a lot of things and people and so many great memories growing up in the East Bay,” says Eric Nagrampa, a Bay Area native living in Las Vegas, better known as DJ E-Rock. “My first baseball game, my mother took me to Oakland Coliseum, and my mom is still an A’s fan. She still brings up Jose Canseco. I know what the culture of A’s baseball and the fandom is like. But things happen.”
E-Rock grew up cheering for the San Francisco Giants and 49ers, but he lived in the East Bay during his high school years and also rooted for the A’s. “That’s part of the fabric of the Bay Area. It’s very diverse, just everything and anything meshed together, all walks of life converge. There’s just so much you’re exposed to living in the Bay Area,” he says. “It didn’t matter what part you lived in. If I lived in Walnut Creek or Concord, I’d still travel 45 minutes to downtown San Francisco.
“You’re never held to where you live. I feel like I spent my whole life there commuting … just to experience culture and sports.”
He’s turned that experience into a successful profession, working as a DJ in top nightclubs in Las Vegas, continuing a syndicated radio show, and still working in entertainment with his all-time favorite team, the 49ers.
Now that he’s lived and worked for years in both Vegas and the Bay, E-Rock understands and appreciates both places, even if Armstrong and other A’s fans do not.
“While I’m torn and it hurts to know my friends can’t take their kids to A’s games in the Bay Area, it makes me happy to think the people I’ve met here are growing their families and can take their kids and create new traditions and new stories in Las Vegas,” he says. “That [negative] sentiment, it’s a little misguided. You don’t hear that a lot on the ground. And I think people will support it when it gets here. It’s definitely a baseball town. This town loves the [minor league] Aviators and they get a great turnout.”
It’s difficult to predict how sports fans here or anywhere will adapt to the Athletics playing baseball in Las Vegas. Over the summer, Las Vegas native Bryce Harper, an all-star first baseman with the Philadelphia Phillies, told the Los Angeles Times he was unsure if the A’s move would be a wise one: “It’s a tough thing to see the A’s go away from Oakland. They have so much tradition and history there … I see it in Oakland. I don’t see it in Vegas.”
Vegas clearly loves its Golden Knights, but it’s the only local franchise that came to the Valley as an expansion team. The WNBA’s Aces moved from San Antonio. The Raiders, who had already bounced back and forth from Oakland to LA, seem to make sense in Vegas, where California permeates different aspects of local culture—and because Vegas loves football.
Michael Credico is vice president of food and beverage at the M Resort, the official team headquarters hotel of the Raiders. He’s also a native Las Vegan who grew up a fan of the LA Rams and Dodgers since they were the closest-to-home teams.
“Game day here really is next level,” he says of the atmosphere at the Henderson resort and its Raiders Tavern & Grill. “There are alumni [former players] who are just like fans, very loyal to the team, and they visit a lot for games and events. And we have the RTC buses picking up fans to take them to the stadium.
“They come in, eat at the Raiders Tavern or at Marinelli’s for breakfast, get on the bus, then come back and stop in for a drink after the game. They all stay together.”
The Raiders fandom has long been notorious, at times for rowdy antics at games, but mostly for their passion and dedication no matter the team’s win-loss record. Many of those loyal California fans have stayed with the Vegas team, and the local hospitality structure makes it easier, and more fun, to participate.
Like many locals, Credico is seeing Raiders culture expanding in Las Vegas. “A lot of people in Vegas have their own teams [they like] already, but a lot of those people are now rooting for the Raiders to do well,” he says. “There’s a soft spot now. If they weren’t true blue to their team, they’re starting to lean a little to the Raiders.
“I’m a diehard Rams fan but I want to see the Raiders do well for many reasons, including that they’re a big part of our partnerships [at M Resort]. We root for them and they root for us. And they’re doing so much charity and local fundraising, it made more people open their eyes.”
Of course, winning more games is the best way for a team to connect to the community—just ask the Golden Knights and Aces—and underwhelming results on the field surely have slowed the Raiders’ efforts. That will be a factor for the A’s as well; the team has had three straight losing seasons and the lowest attendance in baseball for the last two years.
And it’s not a done deal yet. The Las Vegas Stadium Authority is meeting this week on December 5 to review the proposal and financing for the stadium planned at the southeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue. It’s been reported that final approvals could be made at the meeting, where Fisher is expected to commit $1 billion of his own money along with a $300 million loan to get things rolling.
If everything goes to plan and we get to hear “Play ball!” announced on the Strip in 2028, that will be only the beginning—of another story Oakland and Vegas sports fans will have to consider whether they want to keep reading.
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