Sacramento Embraces A’s, for as Long as They’ll Stay

On one hand, the recent weekend series between the New York Yankees and the A’s looked like any other. Yankees fans made up most of the crowd, which is not uncommon for many of the team’s road trips. Stomper, the A’s elephant mascot, made regular in-game promotions between innings, alternating between walking the stands and throwing T-shirts to fans from atop the home team’s dugout.

But one thing was different about this series. Instead of Yankees fans descending upon Oakland, they were at the intimate Sutter Health Park, a 14,000-seat stadium in Sacramento, California, where the A’s will call home through the 2027 season before moving permanently to Las Vegas.

From the fans gathered on blankets on the grass berm behind right field or in lawn chairs with the smell of barbeque smoking on the concourse, the three-year residence in California’s capital city will give the region the chance to show itself off to potential new audiences and with the potential for additional new visitation.

“Sacramento has this Midwest feel of a city,” said Jill Culbertson, director of sports development for Visit Sacramento. “It is one of the most diverse cities in the country. I don’t think people realize that you can get a taste of everything while you’re here and it might not fit any kind of perception that you have.”

Savoring the Opportunity

This year and the two that will follow are important for the city, which has seen some near-misses with other professional leagues. Home to the USL’s Sacramento Republic, the city was supposed to be home to a Major League Soccer expansion franchise before those plans fell through. Some may even remember the Sacramento Surge of the World League of American Football in the early 1990s, or the Sacramento Gold Miners from the Canadian Football League for two years, or the WNBA’s Sacramento Monarchs.

So no, Sacramento will not worry about when the A’s go to Las Vegas. It’s going to savor every pitch, hit, run and win while the team is in town and the resulting eyes that set onto Sutter Health Park as the skyline behind the outfield glows in the evening sun, the Tower Bridge beckoning for fans to who want to walk over the Sacramento River.

“To be able to kind of walk across the bridge into your ballpark for a major league sporting event is pretty darn cool,” Culbertson said. “It’ll be really good for this neighborhood, for everything over here in West Sacramento, too, in terms of development, bringing more people downtown to everything. Even if they leave in three years, they’re leaving an impact on the community.”

The idea of an MLB team being in a state of temporary living is not new. The Toronto Blue Jays, during the pandemic, spent two years away from Canada and instead played one season in Florida and another in Buffalo. The A’s are not even the only team calling a minor league facility home this season — the Tampa Bay Rays are using the Yankees’ Single-A ballpark this year after its stadium was damaged by Hurricane Milton.

While the A’s will not take the name Sacramento during its stay — the team’s uniforms have a Sacramento patch on one sleeve, on the other sleeve a patch promoting its future Las Vegas home. Whether the team has the name Sacramento of not, the A’s presence has meant Sutter Health Park has improvements from a new video board in right field plus a new clubhouse behind left field and lighting. The River Cats still play at the ballpark as well, alternating home games when the A’s are away.

“For three years, they are the Sacramento A’s,” Culbertson said. “This is where they’re living, and this is where they’re calling home and we’re happy to have them here.”

Increased National Recognition

The Athletics’ presence also means more time for Sacramento in the national spotlight to complement its reputation as the home of the Kings and one of the most loyal fan bases in the NBA. Loyalty for its sports teams runs beyond the NBA; the River Cats had the fifth-best attendance in the Pacific Coast League last season.

“It’s an incredible opportunity for Sacramento,” Culbertson said. “To get a chance to show off to MLB the support of passionate fans, it’s just a great opportunity.”

The city will also host a well-attended Ironman in October and the California International Marathon in December.

“There would be people that will know about Sacramento simply because the A’s are here, that maybe didn’t know anything about Sacramento before,” Culbertson said. “So the exposure is really cool. To be here and to be able to go to an MLB game in your backyard, it’s kind of like one of those surreal things.”

The surreal nature of the weekend series was repeated throughout town, whether in an Uber to the game, or walking around the Midtown Market on a Saturday morning. The same sort of thing was said over and again: “Can you believe the Yankees are in Sacramento?”

While this season is not yet at the halfway point, the true test won’t be whether the A’s are competitive but what their presence means for visitation in Sacramento. While the NBA’s Kings can draw tourism, those are often single games compared to a multi-day series.

“Anytime you get an opportunity to bring a pro team into town, whether it be for a short time or whether it be long term, you look at it as a chance for other people to see your destination,” Culbertson said. “ We have people traveling into town and we’re going to get them all here in Sacramento in the next three years because they’re going to be like, we’ve got to go see that place.”