Inside the A’s Messy Divorce from Oakland

ESPN Daily

ESPN

Sports

4.6 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 20 September 2023

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today marks five months exactly since Oakland fans had their worst fears confirmed: The Athletics were leaving town, having reached an agreement for a shiny new stadium in Las Vegas. Fans felt betrayed and most of all, blindsided by the news. Up to that point, there had been promising talks about building a stadium in Oakland’s Howard Terminal, and A’s owner John Fisher has never explained his reasoning for killing that deal…until now. So today, ESPN’s Tim Keown brings us his findings from his sit down with Fisher — a rarity in itself — and why there still might be a chance that the A’s stay put. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Tim Cune, you've been tracking the saga of the Oakland A's as they plot this move to
0:06.3	Las Vegas.
0:07.6	And in the process, you've learned of a really revealing phone call that took place in
0:13.0	April.
0:14.0	Tell us what happened there and why it was so fascinating.
0:17.0	Well, Michelle, on April 19th, the Oakland mayor, Shang Tao, was driving home from one
0:24.0	of these typical political events, cut the ribbon for a business opening.
0:28.8	And as she was driving home, her phone rang and it showed up as Dave Cavill, the A's
0:35.8	president.
0:38.8	So she answered the phone and Cavill immediately and very matter of factly said, you know,
0:43.6	hey, I just got a heads up for you.
0:46.3	Somebody leaked to the press that we have a binding deal with Las Vegas.
0:51.4	Biggest sports news here coming out of the Bay Area.
0:54.6	The athletes reported closing in on a deal to build a ballpark in Las Vegas.
0:58.4	Big blow to A's fans in Oakland and all around the Bay Area.
1:01.7	A lot of fans are upset, they're angry about this and we can understand why.
1:07.7	The mayor was shell shocked by this because there are many reasons for her to have believed
1:12.4	that there was progress being made on the Howard Terminal Project to keep the A's in Oakland.
1:18.2	The A's and the City of Oakland had a summit plan.
1:21.3	They were meeting all week.
1:22.4	The City of Oakland flew out their attorneys for this thing.
1:25.0	They were trying to hammer out a deal last night after 9 p.m.
	...

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