Through the first six games of the Major League Baseball season, the Oakland Athletics are struggling to draw crowds.
The Athletics play at RingCentral Coliseum, formerly known as the Oakland Coliseum, which seats about 63,000 fans.
Only 3,407 people attended Tuesday’s home game against the Cleveland Guardians, the lowest since 2,488 appeared at a game against the Tampa Bay Rays last May and fewer than 11 of the 13 Triple-A games and seven college baseball games that same night.
The Athletics, who are in the same division as the Texas Rangers, have struggled to draw crowds in Oakland for over a decade, and the problem just worsened.
Since 2012, Oakland has averaged 27th out of 30 MLB teams in terms of attendance, and attendance at its away games has been substantially higher in most seasons.
The A’s have averaged less than 10,000 fans per home game each of the last two seasons and rank last among the 17 teams that had played home games in 2023 entering Thursday.
While some of it may be due to a lack of competitiveness in recent seasons, the problem likely goes beyond the product on the field.
The Athletics and the Oakland Coliseum Authority have battled over the lease for years. In 2014, the team decided to renew its lease for another 10 years but released an open letter to the venue managers detailing several problems within the stadium last summer.
The issues included broken and badly corroded seats, regular intruders, “continuous plumbing and water leaking issues,” sticking press box windows, dozens of feral cats, moths, and subpar technological capabilities.
Since then, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has confirmed that Athletics’ ownership is concentrated on moving the team to Las Vegas once the lease expires.
The team has been in Oakland since 1968 and recently became the subject of relocation rumors because of its stadium situation. Las Vegas has been the most frequently predicted spot, with a growing sports population that includes teams in the NFL, NHL, and WNBA.
The Oakland A’s have 75 more home games in 2023 and are well on their way to another near-last-place attendance finish after a 1-5 start to the season.
The team begins a road trip Friday and will return home to face the New York Mets on April 14.