The exodus of major sports franchises from Oakland has become a point of concern for the people in the city. The city once boasted three big league teams, the Golden State Warriors, the Oakland Raiders, and the Oakland Athletics. But all of them have moved out of Oakland for one reason or another.
Advertisement
The Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris addressed this issue during an appearance on the ALL THE SMOKE podcast, where hosts Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson raised the topic.
The Vice President of the United States was born in Oakland, California. As a native of the city, she admitted that she is crushed by this trend of teams leaving.
Harris said, “Oh, it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart. Remember we used to have all of them…You know, you just drive by that area, when I go to Oakland…and just pass Colesium. It breaks my heart, and good good teams [have left Oakland].“
The 59-year-old also talked about the impact this will have on the economic engine of the region. She believes that teams moving out of the city will leave the vendors and businesses near the stadiums that thrived during the season languishing.
Harris represented California in the United States Senate from 2017 to 2021. So she has closely monitored the impact of those teams on the economy of the area.
However, all three teams have left Oakland in the last five years with the Warriors being the first ones to leave in 2019.
Oakland no longer Home Sweet Home
The Warriors, based in Oakland since 1971, started planning their departure from the city at the beginning of the 2010s. Once their new arena, the Chase Center, was ready for them to move in, they left the city. The following year in 2020, the Raiders followed suit.
This year, the Athletics became the last team to move out.
There has been a common theme among the teams’ reasoning for moving out. They all wanted better facilities in the arena/stadium where they played.
While the Warriors moved primarily to make more money through ticket sales (as the audience in San Francisco can supposedly afford higher ticket prices), the other two teams were unhappy with the lack of support from the city’s administration.
The Raiders and the Athletics shared the same stadium, but once they received offers from Las Vegas for new facilities, they decided to move out.
The Athletics waited as they were promised a waterfront ballpark called the Howard Terminal project in 2018. However, once they realized in 2021 that Covid had delayed the development of the project, they also had to move away from Oakland.
