It is official, it is happening, and if you are reading this in Las Vegas, it is time to get excited. The Athletics are coming to the desert, and the full picture of how this move came together is one of the most dramatic stories in modern professional sports. Here is everything you need to know about the timeline, the deal, when games start, and where the team is playing in the meantime.
How We Got Here: The Short Version
The Oakland Athletics played at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum from 1968 until 2024 -- fifty-six seasons in a stadium that aged from functional to outdated to genuinely embarrassing over that span. The story of why they left is long and full of failed negotiations, broken promises, and a years-long public fight over a proposed waterfront stadium at Howard Terminal that ultimately collapsed.
The short version: ownership and the city of Oakland could not agree on the terms of a new stadium deal. The franchise, controlled by billionaire heir John Fisher, announced a relocation to Las Vegas in April 2023. Major League Baseball owners voted to approve the move. The team played out its final Oakland season in 2023, then relocated to a temporary home in Sacramento while the Las Vegas stadium was built.
"This isn't just a team changing cities. This is Major League Baseball arriving in Las Vegas for the first time in history."
The Stadium Deal: What Nevada Put On the Table
Nevada did not get a major league baseball team by accident. The state put together a serious package to make it happen. In 2023, the Nevada Legislature approved $380 million in public funding for the new stadium on the Las Vegas Strip. That money came with conditions -- the team had to build on the approved site, meet construction milestones on a defined schedule, and fulfill community benefit commitments negotiated with the state.
The total project cost is estimated at $1.5 billion. The Athletics are responsible for the remainder beyond the public contribution. The stadium is being built on the former Tropicana Hotel site at 1501 S. Las Vegas Blvd., on the southern end of the Strip at Tropicana Avenue. When it opens, it will be the first Major League Baseball stadium built on the Las Vegas Strip, surrounded by the most recognizable entertainment corridor in the world.
The Temporary Home: Sacramento
While the Las Vegas stadium goes up, the A's are playing their home games at Sutter Health Park in Sacramento, California. Sutter Health Park is the home of the Sacramento River Cats, the Triple-A affiliate of the San Francisco Giants. It holds about 14,000 fans for baseball. Yes, that is a minor league stadium hosting a major league team. Yes, it is unusual. No, it has not stopped the A's from playing professional baseball and developing the roster that will eventually take the field in Las Vegas.
The Sacramento arrangement runs through the 2027 season. By all current projections, the Las Vegas stadium will be ready for the 2028 season. That is the target. That is what the construction timeline supports. That is the year Las Vegas becomes a legitimate Major League Baseball city.
The 2028 Opening: What We Know
Opening Day 2028 at the new Las Vegas stadium is the moment everyone is building toward. The stadium will seat 33,000 fans in a climate-controlled environment under a translucent retractable roof. Natural grass on a retractable field slab. The building is designed to handle Las Vegas summer temperatures -- which means air conditioning that can keep the interior comfortable even when it is 110 degrees outside on a July afternoon.
The location puts the stadium within walking distance of major casino resorts, the Las Vegas Monorail, and millions of annual tourists. The A's will have an audience unlike any other baseball franchise in the game. Every team that visits Las Vegas will be playing in front of a stadium full of fans who include not just locals but visitors from every market in baseball. Home field advantage in Las Vegas is going to be genuinely strange and genuinely loud.
MLB History Is Being Made Here
This is the first time Major League Baseball has placed a franchise in Las Vegas. The city already has the Raiders in the NFL and the Golden Knights in the NHL and the Aces in the WNBA. Baseball completes the picture. Las Vegas is now a four-sport major league city, which puts it in a group that includes only a handful of markets in North America.
For Las Vegas residents who grew up watching sports happen everywhere else, the arrival of the Athletics is not just about baseball. It is about the city arriving at a level of sports legitimacy that was not even imaginable fifteen years ago when the conventional wisdom held that Las Vegas could never support a major professional sports franchise.
What to Do Right Now
Get on the season ticket waiting list. Seriously, do it today. The fans who are first in line when the stadium opens will be the ones with the best seats at the best prices. The deposit is fully refundable until seat selection, so there is no risk in getting your position in line.
Watch the 2026 season in Sacramento. The roster is young, the talent is real, and the players who are performing this year are the same ones who will be taking the field in Las Vegas in 2028. Follow the development. Learn the names. By the time Opening Day arrives, you want to know who you are cheering for.
Las Vegas, the A's are coming. Everything we know says 2028. Everything we see in the construction photos says it is real. Get ready.