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The Oakland Athletics are a charter member of the American League, a franchise that dates to 1901, and in their nomadic century-plus of existence they’ve bounced from Philadelphia to Kansas City to Oakland. Now, they’ll head to Las Vegas. With a pair of rubber stamps from the Nevada Assembly and Senate on Wednesday, all that is needed to make the Las Vegas A’s a reality are approval from the governor of Nevada and the owners of the other 29 Major League Baseball teams, both at this point formalities.

They are the second team to move to Vegas from Oakland since the NHL’s Golden Knights became the city’s first major sports franchise. However, the A’s path to the desert hasn’t had the twists and turns like the route of the Raiders. Comparing and contrasting the two offers a fascinating study in a city’s embrace of an MLB team next to one in the NFL and reminds that no matter how much politicians try to squeeze sports franchises and restrict the use of public tax dollars, in the end, the allure of having a new team always outweighs the alternative.

The background

Raiders: ​​The Raiders, who moved back to Oakland in 1995 after a 13-year sojourn in Los Angeles, had long been hoping for never-to-come-to-fruition improvements to the Oakland Coliseum, but by the mid-2010s had mostly given up hope. The team initially hoped to be part of a plan in which the Oakland Coliseum was demolished, replaced by a baseball stadium for the A’s in the northeast parking lot, a Raiders football stadium in the southwest lot and a hotel with restaurants, shops and bars in the middle. The A’s nixed it.

Then the Raiders’ eyes turned to Los Angeles, in a joint plan to share a stadium with the Chargers in Carson. Though it was originally backed by an NFL owners committee, the plan was scuttled in favor of the Rams’ move from St. Louis to Inglewood, California, with the Chargers joining the Rams in L.A. Raiders owner Mark Davis said his team finished third in a three-team race.

The Raiders — who had already put together a pair of stadium proposals in two years — then focused on Las Vegas, all the more prepared to put together their plans. — Paul Gutierrez

A’s: For more than 20 years, the A’s have been trying to extricate themselves from the same dingy, plumbing-challenged, possum-infested Oakland Coliseum from which the Raiders ran. First, they wanted to go to San Jose and were blocked by the San Francisco Giants, who invoked their territorial rights. Then they wanted to build a new stadium in Oakland, and between organizational blundering and governmental intransigence, that failed, too. Whether it was flirtations with Fremont or all the different sites in the Oakland area, whatever the A’s considered, they always wound up in the same place: limbo.

That changed in May 2021, when Major League Baseball allowed the A’s to pursue potential relocation outside of the Bay Area. A’s owner John Fisher and team president Dave Kaval focused on Las Vegas, and while A’s officials spoke publicly about “parallel paths” — one in Vegas, one in Oakland — the decades of botched efforts to remain in the Bay, where they’d been since 1968, suggested that perhaps they weren’t so parallel after all. While the project to build a waterfront stadium at the Howard Terminal site in Oakland had more momentum than past efforts, a confluence of factors — chief among them, the success of the Golden Knights and Raiders in Las Vegas and MLB commissioner Rob Manfred waiving a $1 billion relocation fee for the A’s — made a move their primary path. — Jeff Passan

The announcement

Raiders: On April 28, 2016, Davis announced in a meeting of the Southern Nevada Tourism Infrastructure Committee, which boasted the star power of international soccer star and Las Vegas Sands Corp. pitchman David Beckham, that he was pledging $500 million toward the construction of a $1.4 billion, 65,000-seat domed stadium near the Las Vegas Strip. Davis said he hoped to turn the Silver State into the Silver and Black State.

“We have made a commitment to Las Vegas at this point in time, and that’s where it stands,” Davis said that day. “If Las Vegas can come through with what we’ve been talking about, and we can do a deal here, then we’re going to be the Las Vegas Raiders.”

When less than a year later, NFL owners voted 31-1 in favor of letting the Raiders relocate from Oakland (the Miami Dolphins were the lone dissenting vote), an ashen-faced Davis seemed stunned at the inevitable conclusion. Making his way to lunch at the Arizona Biltmore resort, where the owners meetings were occurring, Davis was stopped by the likes of NFL Hall of Famer John Elway to offer congratulations, and Davis’ first two calls to share the news were to his mother Carol and then-UNLV president Len Jessup. After all, the Rebels would be “sharing” the stadium with the Raiders.

“My father always said, ‘The greatness of the Raiders is in its future,'” Davis said. “And the opportunity to build a world-class stadium in the entertainment capital of the world is a significant step toward achieving that greatness. … The Raiders were born in Oakland, and Oakland will always be part of our DNA.” — Gutierrez

A’s: All of this started April 20, when the A’s announced they’d entered a “binding agreement” to purchase a 49-acre parcel of Las Vegas land on which they would construct a new $1.5 billion retractable-roof stadium to open in 2027. The city of Oakland, already forlorn after the Golden State Warriors‘ move to San Francisco and the Raiders’ to Vegas, were facing the extinction of professional sports in its city.

Then again, it almost felt like Oakland had lost the A’s already. The team that prided itself on being competitive despite miserly payrolls had gone from “Moneyball” to “Major League,” trading all of its best players in a fire sale that foretold a terrible 2023 season. On the day of the announcement that they would move to Las Vegas, a city that sells dreams of winning, the A’s were an MLB-worst 3-16. The A’s pledged to contribute $1 billion toward a $1.5 billion project, leaving $500 million to wheedle in public funding.

Despite the support of Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo and other government officials, the timing of the announcement left the team with a finite window to secure funding: The Nevada Legislature’s 2023 session would end in early June. And only a few weeks after the A’s laid out their plans, when in mid-May they left behind their “binding agreement” and pivoted to a smaller site on the Las Vegas Strip, it left some wondering if the A’s had missed their window. — Passan

The governmental approval process

Raiders: On top of the $500 million pledged by Davis for the new stadium, Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson pledged an additional $150 million. The remaining $750 million would be raised by public taxes. “We’re going to make them an offer they can’t refuse,” Davis often quipped of the Nevada government. Four and a half months after his announcement, the Southern Nevada Tourism Infrastructure Committee voted unanimously to recommend and approve $750 million for the stadium on Sept. 15, 2016. The Nevada Senate voted 16-5 on Oct. 11, 2016, to approve the funding bill, titled Senate Bill 1. It barely passed, as the bill needed 14 votes. On Oct. 14, the Nevada Assembly passed it, 28-13, and two days later, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval signed the bill into law. The Raiders, in the midst of a 12-4 season and their first playoff appearance since 2002, were riding a wave of goodwill, both on the field and in the political spectrum: The same party controlled the governor’s mansion and the state legislature at the time. — Gutierrez

A’s: Less than two weeks after the A’s shifted sites, the Nevada Legislature introduced a bill that would put $380 million in public money toward a new stadium. The bill, called the Southern Nevada Tourism Innovation Act, was for $120 million less than the A’s were seeking — and would need a majority vote from the 21-person Senate followed by the same in the 42-person Assembly before being signed into law by Lombardo.

In a hearing, Democrats who control the Senate grilled the two men the A’s hoped would sell their vision: Las Vegas tourism executive Steve Hill and Jeremy Aguero, an analyst whose projections for the A’s invited even more skepticism. The A’s are seeking a 30,000-seat stadium, which would be the smallest in MLB, and Aguero projected attendance at 28,000. Only one team in MLB this year, Atlanta, fills its stadium to a higher percentage of capacity than Aguero’s projected 93.3% for the A’s.

The Senate’s dubiousness did not last. After Lombardo mandated a special session, a new bill was introduced and included two non-baseball-related, Democrat-backed provisions that Lombardo, a Republican, had previously vetoed as well as minuscule concessions from the A’s — including a suite at the new stadium for community groups and a $2 million pledge a year for the same. On Tuesday, the Senate passed the new bill by a 13-8 vote. A day later, after a few minor amendments of its own, the Nevada Assembly did the same. And now Lombardo, long a proponent of the Las Vegas A’s, needs only the swoop of his signature to make it law. — Passan

The build timeline

Raiders: In an emotional ceremony paying tribute to the 58 lives lost in the Oct. 1 mass shooting less than two miles away, the Raiders broke ground on Allegiant Stadium on Nov. 13, 2017. The team would hold its first practice in its new home on the corner of Al Davis Way and Dean Martin Drive less than three years later, on Aug. 21, 2020. Davis, lording over the scene from beneath the 95-foot tall Al Davis Torch on the Los Angeles Coliseum peristyle-inspired end of the stadium with lanai doors that open to the Strip, addressed the team. “Welcome to the Death Star,” Davis said, “where our opponents’ dreams come to die.”

It had been an awkward three-year farewell to Oakland, as the Raiders played three lame-duck seasons at the Coliseum, sharing it with the A’s, who had removed several sections of Raiders season-ticket holders seats to the Raiders’ dismay. The team also saw its Coliseum rent triple at the same time that money from stadium naming rights was lost. And while Davis said he hoped to leave the Bay Area with a Super Bowl championship before departing for the desert, the Raiders were a combined 17-31 in their last three years in Oakland (they went 12-12 at home). Fans booed quarterback Derek Carr off the field in the Oakland finale, a dispiriting loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars, and threw trash and food at players as they left the field the final time. Carr said it was time for some “fresh air.” — Gutierrez

A’s: In 2014, after getting stonewalled in their attempt to move to San Jose, the A’s signed a 10-year extension on their lease at the Coliseum (it expires after the 2024 season). The team says it plans to spend the 2025 and 2026 seasons at Las Vegas Ballpark — the 10,000-capacity stadium that houses its Triple-A affiliate — before moving into the new stadium for the 2027 season.

Timelines, of course, are met most easily when there is a deal in place. (There isn’t.) Or when there are plans for a stadium. (Public officials have seen only renderings.) Or when an organization has approval to move, and that timing is entirely unclear: While the plan was for MLB owners to vote on the A’s moving to Las Vegas at the owners’ meetings this week, that vote is now off. A 2027 opening for the new Vegas park remains the goal. But much like the lack of forethought led to the legislature’s public disillusionment, the longer the A’s take to firm up their plan, the less likely a well-executed one becomes. — Passan

The public response

Raiders: Fans gathered at the iconic WELCOME TO FABULOUS LAS VEGAS sign at the southern end of the Strip and celebrated after the vote was announced in 2017. And while Davis made the decision to not allow fans into Allegiant Stadium in 2020 due to the pandemic, the Raiders have averaged 61,590 fans in 17 regular-season home games since — despite some continued COVID restrictions in 2021 (they averaged 62,045 in eight games last season, when no restrictions were in place).

It is a decidedly more mellow atmosphere than in Oakland, where Raider Nation and the Black Hole cut an imposing image. Allegiant has a true Las Vegas club vibe, with halftime concerts befitting a Super Bowl halftime show, from Santana to Ice Cube to John Fogerty performing. Alas, while the Raiders did a pre-move study to show that most season-ticket holders would be Raiders fans, Las Vegas is a destination city, and those personal seat licenses and accompanying seats are expensive. So if/when the team is not doing well, it’s easy enough for those fans to recoup some of those costs by selling seats to visiting fans, as evidenced by Bears fans overtaking Allegiant Stadium in 2021 and Broncos, Chiefs and 49ers supporters doing the same last year. — Gutierrez

A’s: To be clear, this is not like when the Raiders, an iconic brand in the dominant American sport, were coming to Vegas. Nor is it like the Golden Knights, who built their identity around becoming the first major professional sports team in Las Vegas.

Here is the reality about the A’s. Even after a recent seven-game winning streak, they are 19-50 — on pace to go 45-117 this season. They have the lowest payroll in baseball, and it’s not really close. Fisher, their owner, is widely regarded inside the game as one of the worst in the sport, loath to devote the proper resources — payroll, infrastructure, manpower and other areas — to winning. The team’s farm system can’t provide immediate help. Las Vegas, which could have potentially gotten an expansion franchise, instead stands to inherit a team whose problems go well beyond a dreadful stadium.

Though there are plenty in Las Vegas who want the A’s to come — casinos, commerce wonks, labor unions — the loudest voices belong not to the advocates but the aggrieved. Oakland fans are livid. They believe that if Fisher would sell the team, the new owner could work with Mayor Sheng Thao and make Howard Terminal a reality. Fans gathered Tuesday at the Coliseum for a so-called reverse boycott, when more than 27,000 fans showed up and feted Fisher with booming, relentless chants of “Sell the team.” They were there to say that Oakland is a baseball city and that their refusal to show up to the stadium isn’t an indictment on the fan base. It’s the natural reaction to an owner who treats them like John Fisher does. — Passan

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Buffs coach: Stars ‘should be going 1-2’ in draft

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Buffs coach: Stars 'should be going 1-2' in draft

BOULDER, Colo. — For the horde of NFL talent evaluators and some bleachers full of fans, Colorado coach Deion Sanders said Friday that they all got to see the top two players available in this year’s NFL draft.

Quarterback Shedeur Sanders and Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter were among the 16 Colorado players who took part in the school’s showcase event for scouts, coaches and personnel executives from every NFL team. And Deion Sanders said the two marquee players confirmed what he has known for a long time.

“It’s tremendous,” Sanders said. “… They should be going 1-2 [in the draft], that’s the way I feel about it. They are the two best players in this draft. … The surest bets in this draft are those two young men, and I didn’t stutter or stammer when I said that.”

Neither Shedeur Sanders nor Hunter took part in most of the position drills or physical testing, but Sanders had a throwing session for just under an hour and Hunter was one of the wide receivers who participated. Neither player worked out at the scouting combine earlier this year, so it was the first time Sanders had thrown in such a setting since the end of the season. He showed some full seven-step drops and play-action from the shotgun and under center.

“I think I did pretty good, to my expectations,” said Sanders, who set the career FBS accuracy mark in his two years at Colorado (71.8%) to go with his 4,134 passing yards and 37 touchdowns last season. “I know I did the best in college football right now, for sure.”

Asked after the throwing session whether he believed he was the best quarterback in the draft, Sanders said: “I feel like I’m the No. 1 quarterback, and that’s what I know. But at the end of the day, I’m not stuck on that because it’s about the situation, so whatever situation, whatever franchise believes in me, I’m excited to go. … I’m comfortable in any situation.”

Players Hunter, who did not speak to the media after the workout, and Sanders met with the Cleveland Browns contingent, including team co-owner Jimmy Haslam, on Thursday night in Boulder.

“They got me really full,” Sanders said. “I definitely needed to go to the sauna after that. … It was a good vibe.”

Said Deion Sanders said: “[I] spoke to the owner, truly delightful. He was engaging. … I think one of those guys is going to be there [at No. 2].”

Hunter, the No. 1 player on Mel Kiper Jr.’s Big Board, did not do any defensive drills Friday, but he ran a full assortment of routes.

Colorado safety Shilo Sanders, Shedeur’s brother, offered plenty of encouragement, shouting commentary and clapping after each throw, including “not a lot of quarterbacks can make that throw” after one deep completion.

The highly attended event — by NFL representatives as well as fans packing small bleachers — had a festive atmosphere. Deion Sanders named it the “We Ain’t Hard 2 Find Showcase,” complete with a large lighted “The Showcase” sign next to the drills.

Hunter, who has said he wants to play offense and defense in the NFL, won the Chuck Bednarik (top defensive player) and Fred Biletnikoff (top receiver) awards in addition to the Heisman. He said whether he will primarily be a wide receiver or a cornerback in the NFL depends “on the team that picks me.”

On Friday, Deion Sanders said “ain’t nobody like Travis.”

Hunter had 96 catches for 1,258 yards and 15 touchdowns as a receiver last season to go with 35 tackles, 11 pass breakups and 4 interceptions at cornerback. In the Buffaloes’ regular-season finale against Oklahoma State, he became the only FBS player in the past 25 years with three scrimmage touchdowns on offense and an interception in the same game, according to ESPN Research.

He played 1,380 total snaps in Colorado’s 12 regular-season games: 670 on offense, 686 on defense and 24 on special teams. He played 1,007 total snaps in 2023.

Shilo Sanders, who hoped to show teams more speed than expected, ran a 4.52 40-yard dash after he measured in at 5-foot-11⅞, 196 pounds. He did not participate in the jumps or bench press that opened the workout, citing a right shoulder injury.

With all NFL eyes on the Colorado campus to see Shedeur Sanders throw, one player who made the most of it was wide receiver Will Sheppard. Sheppard, who measured 6-2¼, 196 pounds, ran the 40 in 4.56 and 4.54 to go with a 40½-inch vertical jump and a 10-foot-11 broad jump.

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O’s Henderson off IL; will make ’25 debut vs. KC

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O's Henderson off IL; will make '25 debut vs. KC

Baltimore Orioles All-Star shortstop Gunnar Henderson was activated from the 10-day injured list and will make his season debut Friday night against the Kansas City Royals.

Henderson has been sidelined with a right intercostal strain and missed the first seven games of the big league campaign.

The 23-year-old Henderson will lead off and play shortstop against the host Royals.

Henderson was injured during a spring training game Feb. 27. He was fourth in American League MVP voting last season when he batted .281 and racked up career bests of 37 homers and 92 RBIs.

Henderson completed a five-game rehab stint at Triple-A Norfolk on Wednesday. He batted .263 (5-for-19) with two homers and four RBIs and played four games at shortstop and one as the designated hitter. He did commit three errors.

“I think everybody’s looking forward to having Gunnar back on the team,” Baltimore manager Brandon Hyde said Thursday. “The rehab went really, really well. I talked to him a couple days ago, he feels great swinging the bat. The timing came, especially the last few days. He just had to get out there and get some reps defensively and get some games in, and it all went well.”

Baltimore optioned outfielder Dylan Carlson to Triple-A Norfolk to open up a roster spot. The 26-year-old was 0-for-4 with a run and RBI in two games this season.

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Life after OMG: Can 2025 Mets replicate their 2024 vibes?

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Life after OMG: Can 2025 Mets replicate their 2024 vibes?

When New York Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns attempted to assemble the best possible roster for the 2025 season this winter, the top priority was signing outfielder Juan Soto. Next was the need to replenish the starting rotation and bolster the bullpen. Then, days before pitchers and catchers reported for spring training, the lineup received one final significant reinforcement when first baseman Pete Alonso re-signed.

Acquiring a player with a singing career on the side didn’t make the cut.

“No, that is not on the list,” Stearns said with a smile.

Stearns’ decision not to re-sign Jose Iglesias, the infielder behind the mic for the viral 2024 Mets anthem “OMG,” was attributed to creating more roster flexibility. But it also hammered home a reality: The scrappy 2024 Mets, authors of a magical summer in Queens, are a thing of the past. The 2025 Mets, who will report to Citi Field for their home opener Friday, have much of the same core but also some prominent new faces — and the new, outsized expectations that come with falling two wins short of the World Series, then signing Soto to the richest contract in professional sports history.

But there’s a question surrounding this year’s team that you can’t put a price tag on: Can these Mets rekindle the magic — the vibes, the memes, the feel-good underdog story — that seemed to come out of nowhere to help carry them to Game 6 of the National League Championship Series last season?

“Last year the culture was created,” Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor said. “It’s a matter of continuing it.”

For all the success Stearns has engineered — his small-market Milwaukee Brewers teams reached the postseason five times in eight seasons after he became the youngest general manager in history in 2015 — the 40-year-old Harvard grad, like the rest of his front office peers knows there’s no precise recipe for clubhouse chemistry. There is no culture projection system. No Vibes Above Replacement.

“Culture is very important,” Stearns said last weekend in the visiting dugout at Daikin Park before his club completed an opening-weekend series against the Houston Astros. “Culture is also very difficult to predict.”

Still, it seems the Mets’ 2024 season will be all but impossible to recreate.

There was Grimace, the purple McDonald’s blob who spontaneously became the franchise’s unofficial mascot after throwing out a first pitch in June. “OMG,” performed under Iglesias’ stage name, Candelita, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Latin Digital Songs chart, before a remix featuring Pitbull was released in October. Citi Field became a karaoke bar whenever Lindor stepped into the batter’s box with The Temptations’ “My Girl” as his walk-up song. Alonso unveiled a lucky pumpkin in October. They were gimmicks that might have felt forced if they hadn’t felt so right.

“I don’t know if what we did last year could be replicated because it was such a chaos-filled group,” Mets reliever Ryne Stanek said. “I don’t know if that’s replicable because there’s just too many things going on. I don’t know if that’s a sustainable model. But I think the expectation of winning is really important. I think establishing what we did last year and coming into this year where people are like, ‘Oh, no, that’s what we’re expecting to do,’ makes it different. It’s always a different vibe whenever you feel like you’re the hunter versus being the hunted.”

For the first two months last season, the Mets were terrible hunters. Lindor was relentlessly booed at Citi Field during another slow start. The bullpen got crushed. The losses piled up. The Mets began the season 0-5 and sunk to rock bottom on May 29 when reliever Jorge Lopez threw his glove into the stands during a 10-3 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers that dropped the team to 22-33.

That night, the Mets held a players-only meeting. From there, perhaps coincidentally, everything changed. The Mets won the next day, and 67 of their final 107 games.

This year, to avoid an early malaise and to better incorporate new faces like Soto and Opening Day starter Clay Holmes, players made it a point to hold meetings during spring training to lay a strong foundation.

“At the end of the day, we know who we are and that’s the beauty of our club,” Alonso said. “Not just who we are talent-wise, but who each individual is as a man and a personality. For us, our major, major strength is our collective identity as a unit.”

Organizationally, the Mets are attempting a dual-track makeover: Becoming perennial World Series contenders while not taking themselves too seriously.

The commemorative purple Grimace seat installed at Citi Field in September — Section 302, Row 6, Seat 12 in right field — remains there as part of a two-year contract. Last week, the franchise announced it will feature a New York-city themed “Five Borough” race at every home game — with a different mascot competing to represent each borough. For a third straight season, USA Today readers voted Citi Field — home of the rainbow cookie egg roll, among many other innovative treats — as having the best ballpark food in baseball.

In the clubhouse, their identity is evolving.

“I’m very much in the camp that you can’t force things,” Mets starter Sean Manaea said. “I mean, you can, but you don’t really end up with good results. And if you wait for things to happen organically, then sometimes it can take too long. So, there’s like a nudging of sorts. It’s like, ‘Let’s kind of come up with something, but not force it.’ So there’s a fine balance there and you just got to wait and see what happens.”

Stearns believes it starts with what the Mets can control: bringing positive energy every day and fostering a family atmosphere. It’s hard to quantify, but vibes undoubtedly helped fuel the Mets’ 2024 success. It’ll be a tough act to follow.

“It’s fluid,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “I like where guys are at as far as the team chemistry goes and things like that and the connections and the relationships. But it’ll continue to take some time. And winning helps, clearly.”

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