Indy Gaming: Down to their last strike, Oakland fans lament A’s pending departure
A year ago, I attended two Oakland Athletics home games to visit with fans and understand their feelings about the team moving to Las Vegas. The final game at the Oakland Coliseum is Thursday and I checked back with two of those fans about their thoughts on the team’s temporary home in Sacramento.
Please click here to sign up for Indy Gaming.
Jesse Feldman knows the emotions will take over Thursday afternoon when the Oakland Athletics’ last home game at the Coliseum nears the final out.
The A’s next home game will be in the spring some 86 miles north of the Coliseum in the 14,000-seat Sutter Health Park in Sacramento. In April, the A’s said the team would play in the Northern California city for three years until a $1.5 billion, 33,000-seat stadium on the Strip is ready in 2028. The team’s ownership claimed it tried its “very best” to secure a new stadium in Oakland.
After 57 years, the team will drop the name Oakland, going without a home city designation, and will just be known as the Athletics or the A’s.
A’s baseball has been part of Feldman’s life since he was a teenager. The season-long goodbye and the pending changes have been tough to manage for Feldman. A year ago, after the A’s announced plans to relocate to Las Vegas, Feldman and other fans hoped for an intervention that would keep the team in Oakland.
“It’s started to sink in that this is it,” Feldman, 45, said last weekend from his home in San Lorenzo, which he pointed out is “just three freeway exits from the stadium.”
He plans to take his 11-year-old son, Ethan, to the final game against the Texas Rangers. Like his father, Ethan has developed a deep love for the A’s. The father-son duo plan to wear their brightly colored mirrored sunglasses and outfit themselves in A’s jerseys with their nicknames, “V. Gorilla” for Jesse and “Dragon” for Ethan, stitched on the backsides.
Ethan lobbied his dad during the conversation to see a weekend game in Sacramento despite the potential of a nearly two-hour drive. Jesse, a software salesman, said he would try to see the A’s play on the road if a game coincides with a business trip. He plans to get tickets when the A’s play the San Francisco Giants across the bay at Oracle Park.
“We’re going to cry on Thursday. My buddy is going to be there and everyone we sit around will be there,” Feldman said of his seats down the left field line. “We’ll pay attention to the game, but we just want to be there at the end. We always thank the Coliseum staff for another wonderful night or another wonderful day at the ballpark. We’re going to do that Thursday. It's just going to be sad.”
Over in right field, Will MacNeil, 40, of Dublin, will once more lead a group of fans in “sell the team” chants directed at the ownership. Their handmade protest banners will be hung on the railing above the outfield. Like Feldman, MacNeil said the emotions will flow.
“We’re all handling this in our own way,” MacNeil said, adding that he viewed the A’s three games with the New York Yankees last weekend “as just regular days at the ballpark.”
MacNeil, too, said he “can’t give up his A’s fandom” and he refuses to attend any games in Sacramento.
“I think I’ll just be traveling on the road next season to see them play,” MacNeil said. “I still care about the players. This is not their fault.”
The A’s have the lowest home attendance total for any Major League team — 809,000 this season after Sunday. The Chicago White Sox have drawn more than 1.3 million fans at home this season despite tying the 1962 New York Mets with a Major League record for the most losses in one season — 120 games as of Tuesday night.
The weekend series with the Yankees drew more than 81,000 fans during the three days, including 33,198 on Saturday, and helped boost the team’s average attendance total for the season to more than 10,000 fans per game.
It didn’t appear that A’s owner John Fisher showed up in person to watch his favorite ballplayer, Aaron Judge of the Yankees, launch home runs Saturday night and Sunday afternoon as the Yankees swept the A’s.
“It’s definitely sad,” Judge told the San Francisco Chronicle about the end of the A’s run in Oakland, saying he used to watch games at the Coliseum while growing up in Northern California.
Fisher released a letter Monday to A’s fans, recounting some of the highlights of the team’s time in Oakland, including winning four World Series championships — all before his ownership.
“Oakland has been home for the greatest era in the franchise's more than 123-year history,” Fisher wrote.
He said an effort to build a new Oakland ballpark began in 2005.
“Over the next 18 years, we did our very best to make that happen,” Fisher wrote, mentioning an effort to erect a stadium at the Howard Terminal site at the Port of Oakland. “We came up short.”
“I know there is great disappointment, even bitterness,” Fisher added. “Though I wish I could speak to each one of you individually, I can tell you this from the heart: we tried. Staying in Oakland was our goal, it was our mission, and we failed to achieve it. And for that, I am genuinely sorry.”
MGM Resorts applies for a casino license in Abu Dhabi
MGM Resorts International became the first operator to apply for a gaming license in the United Arab Emirates.
At the Skift Global Forum last week, CEO Bill Hornbuckle said the company submitted a license proposal to the country’s General Commercial Gaming Regulatory Authority (GCGRA) for Abu Dhabi, one of seven emirates.
“I hope and believe this year we’ll understand more about Abu Dhabi and the federal mandate and go from there,” he said.
Former MGM Resorts Chairman and CEO Jim Murren oversees the regulatory authority’s board.
MGM Resorts is already in a partnership in Dubai on a 25-acre non-gaming resort development on Jumeirah Beach, one of the emirate’s man-made islands. The $1.2 billion project includes three hotel towers totaling 1,500 rooms and will be branded under the Aria, MGM Grand and Bellagio names.
Wynn Resorts is well under construction on a $3.9 billion integrated resort, first announced in 2022, on Al Marjan Island in Ras Al Khaimah. Company spokesman Michael Weaver said Wynn has applied for a gaming license through the UAE regulatory agency.
Observers predict the casinos in the Middle East — which has long been closed to gambling — could be immensely lucrative.
Earlier this year, gaming advisory firm CBRE Institutional Research wrote in a report that two potential gaming developments in the UAE could produce as much as $8.6 billion in annual gaming revenue — more than produced in 2023 by the 25 properties that make up a major portion of the Las Vegas Strip.
Nonsmoking casino group’s efforts target Nevada
The American Nonsmokers’ Rights (ANR) organization is stepping up its efforts to eliminate smoking on casino floors in Nevada, where only one casino on the Strip, Park MGM, is smoke-free.
Nevada Gaming Commission Chairwoman Jennifer Togliatti was among the regulators from 13 states who received a letter from the organization’s CEO Cynthia Hallett, asking that casino floors be mandated as smoke-free.
“In 2009, the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States (NCLGS), passed a resolution urging 100 percent smoke-free gaming environments be a requirement for issuing or renewing licenses,” Hallett wrote. “Despite this, many casinos have not taken action.”
Hallett also criticized Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV) last week about comments she made at a Semafor event when she was asked about smoking inside casinos. Titus said ventilation systems address secondhand smoke.
“The engineers who design ventilation systems have repeatedly told casinos to stop claiming that they protect workers and guests from dangerous secondhand smoke,” Hallett said in a statement. “These systems remove odor, not carcinogens and other harmful chemicals.”
Hallett will be part of an Oct. 9 panel discussion at the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, detailing survey results she said show that casino gamblers strongly favor smoke-free gaming.
What I'm reading
☑️ Campaign against sports betting in Missouri receives $4M from Caesars — Justin Byers, SBCAmericas
Caesars Entertainment, one of the nation’s top four sports betting operators, is spending more than $4 million in opposition to ballot a question that would legalize the activity in Missouri because the company’s three casinos were not included.
💵 Betfred to leave Arizona in early November — Chris Altruda, Action Network
That’s four states where the sportsbook operator is departing. Betfred operates within Virgin Hotel Las Vegas, where casino management is changing, so Nevada seems like the next exit.
🏇 Accel Entertainment to acquire Illinois venue, plans new casino – Laura Simon, Fox 2 News-St. Louis
The slot machine route operator, the second-largest in Nevada, will open a casino at the Collinsville Horse Track.
Updated at 11:40 a.m. on 9/25/2024 to reflect Wynn's licensing status in the UAE.