All of Oakland's Major Sports Teams Have Left in Just a Few Years — Here's Why

The Oakland A's have played their final game in Oakland. The baseball franchise's future is very much up in the air, but that team is just the latest to leave the city that was once home to several major sporting franchises.

The Golden State Warriors moved from Oakland across the bay to San Francisco in 2019, and the Raiders left for Las Vegas in 2020. Given this exodus, many want to know why Oakland is suddenly the last place in the world that sports franchises want to be.

The story of Oakland losing its franchises is actually fairly straightforward, at least from one perspective. The Warriors moved across the bay because the stadium they were playing in was old and rundown, and left them lagging behind the rest of the NBA. The same was true of the A's and Raiders, who shared a stadium for years and wanted a new, more modern place to play.

When the local government would not give in to their demands for tax-payer financing for these new arenas (which usually just winds up benefiting the billionaire owners of the teams), the teams decided that they should look elsewhere instead of financing the stadiums themselves. Now, Nevada taxpayers are on the hook for the Raiders' new stadium in Las Vegas, and that could be the case for the A's as well.

Although the reason that these sports teams leave is basically that they were unwilling to play the games ownership requires to build new stadiums, it's nonetheless a tragedy for the city and the entire region. Oakland is a storied sports town. The Raiders were born there and had much of their success in that city, and the A's built something genuinely special while they were playing in Northern California.

That doesn't even get into the Warriors, who built a dynasty in Oakland during their final years playing in their old arena, only to find more limited success following their move to San Francisco. Of course, the move across the bay is not as large of an abandonment as the other two franchises.

The move is also a stark reminder that Oakland is no longer considered to be the most prestigious part of the bay, if it ever was.

The loss of sports teams could be a literal and economic downer for the residents, who will no longer have hometown teams to root for or the economic boost that comes with being home to several major sports franchises.

Ultimately, these moves speak to the broken economics of sports leagues more generally. Wealthy people buy teams to make money, and some then refuse to put any into making the facilities for those teams any good for players and fans alike. Oakland was once one of the great destinations in sports. Now, it's been hollowed out by forces that have very little to do with the sports being played.