MLB

Athletics fans boycott team by staying in parking lot during Opening Day

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Published March 29, 2024, 12:12 p.m. ET

How do you shame someone who has none?

That’s the question Oakland Athletics fans have been asking themselves for years as club owner John Fisher has strip-mined the team and prepared to move it out of the Bay Area.

So on Opening Day, thousands of A’s fans gathered in the parking lot of the Oakland Coliseum and rallied there instead of going into the ballpark to see the team play the Guardians.

Jorge Leon, the president of the team fan group Oakland 68s, told ESPN that staying on the outside was a challenging moment for him.

A group of fans and protesters gather in the parking lot outside the Oakland Coliseum before the Oakland Athletics played against the Cleveland Guardians in a baseball game on opening day, Thursday, March 28, 2024, in Oakland, Calif. The announced attendance was 13,522 â about half of the crowd at last yearâs home opener of 26,805. Many who bought tickets did not actually enter the stadium, with fan groups organizing a boycott in the parking lot to protest the teamâs planned move to Las Vegas.
A group of fans and protesters gather in the parking lot outside the Oakland Coliseum before the Oakland Athletics played against the Cleveland Guardians in a baseball game on Opening Day on March 28, 2024. AP

“This will be the first time since 2006 that I’ve missed Opening Day,” Leon said. “Opening Day used to be a holiday for all of us. We’d take the day off and celebrate from 11 a.m. to the first pitch. This is hard.”

“For a long time, I really believed that the A’s were actually dedicated to the community,” fellow Oakland 68s organizer Dennis Biles told the Associated Press. “And I really bought into that whole spiel.”

The A’s dropped their season opener to the Guardians, 8-0.

A’s owner John Fisher in 2023. Getty Images

The team went 50-112 last season after finishing 60-102 the year before, and there have been many games during that time in which you could actually count the number of attendees by hand because they were so few and far between.

“Everyone’s in such a good mood because we’re all here for the same thing,” A’s fan and San Jose State student Edward Silva told the AP. “Everyone knows the score. So everyone’s on the same page, and just creating a wonderful atmosphere.”

MLB has approved a plan for Fisher to move the franchise to Las Vegas, though there has still been wrangling with local leadership on the team’s stadium plans.

"Sell" signs outside the Oakland Coliseum.
“Sell” signs outside the Oakland Coliseum. D. Ross Cameron-USA TODAY Sports

Mayor Carolyn Goodman said last month the team’s plan to build a stadium on the Las Vegas strip “doesn’t make sense,” and said that while the city is excited about the prospect of Major League Baseball in general, the A’s should stay in the Bay Area.

Should the Athletics finalize the decision to move from Oakland to Las Vegas, there would be three seasons where they would be in limbo during stadium construction, and options for that period include staying in Oakland or playing in the interim in cities, such as Salt Lake City or Sacramento.