While they play in Sacramento, the Athletics are going to tout Las Vegas on their sleeves.
A three-year deal between the A’s and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority will have A’s players wear a “Las Vegas” patch on their jerseys, starting this season. The A’s plan to play in West Sacramento, Calif. during that time, before moving into a new stadium In Las Vegas in 2028. Construction on that park is slated to begin in June.
“We’re going to be partners for a very, very long time, and we really thought that during these three years of interim play in Sacramento that celebrating coming to Vegas was something that was really important,” team owner John Fisher said by phone from Las Vegas.
The patch arrangement is unique — some might say odd — in several ways. Rarely would a team ever advertise a locale other than their current home, but the itinerant A’s are also in a position unlike any franchise before them following a messy departure from Oakland after last season.
“We like weird and wacky,” said Steve Hill, the head of the LVCVA, who has a long history working with the A’s, including fighting on their behalf for public funding in Las Vegas. “Every camera on every batter and every pitcher and every play in the field is going to have Las Vegas there. We know it will prompt conversation. One, it’s unique, but two, it’s going to associate the A’s with Las Vegas for the three years that they’re building the stadium and getting ready to come here. And that’s going to happen in their park in Sacramento, but it’s going to happen in Boston, in New York and Chicago and all these other markets that are going to be reminded … come to Vegas.
“Frankly, one of the reasons that something like this hasn’t been done, at least for a team that’s moving, is that they’re still in the city they’re moving from. We couldn’t have done this with the Raiders, for example, because it would have just been rude. They’re in the city they’re moving from, and that’s kind of in your face, just not appropriate. But because they’re moving to Sacramento for three years before coming here, it opened up that possibility of doing that. It’s an unlikely situation to occur again often.”
The Athletics will play at Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento, Calif. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)
Typically, teams feature a corporate partner for patch sponsorships. The LVCVA is a public entity, funded by tax dollars. The deal pays the A’s $2.5 million in 2025, $2.75 million in 2026 and $3 million in 2028, Hill said.
Jersey sponsorships need approval from Major League Baseball’s central office, which sets a minimum dollar value the deals must reach. People briefed on that process who were not authorized to speak publicly said the A’s deal is very close to the league minimum.
Hill fought for a state bill that made $380 million in public funding available for the team’s planned stadium in Vegas. The LVCVA works closely with the Las Vegas Stadium Authority, another public body that Hill runs. The stadium authority is responsible for several key deals the A’s have in Las Vegas, including their stadium lease, development and non-relocation agreements.
Perhaps the greatest oddity is that while the A’s will now carry the name of their future home on their jersey, they will not display the name of the city they actually play in, Sacramento, across their chest on the road as baseball teams typically do. The A’s, who were the Oakland Athletics from 1968 to 2024, do not want to be known as the Sacramento Athletics or Sacramento A’s, simply the Athletics or A’s.
For at least the 2025 season, they will also wear another patch, on the opposite sleeve, that mentions Sacramento. (The player’s dominant arm will carry the “Las Vegas” patch.)
“We’re very excited to be opening the season shortly here in Sacramento,” Fisher said. “It’s a great city and one that’s been extremely supportive of our coming there. But it’s always been clear from the beginning that our years in Sacramento were going to be interim years. I think Sacramento is an incredible market for an expansion team down the road, but we’re coming to Las Vegas, and so we felt that it was appropriate and was the right thing to just be the Athletics during these interim years.”
The money the A’s are making from the deal is small in the world of baseball sponsorship, but the team only started looking for a partner in the past few months, handcuffed for a time by the transition out of Oakland. It’s unclear how much the A’s courted more standard businesses, if at all.
The idea to have the LVCVA as a sponsor was originally the Athletics’, Hill said, hitting his radar for the first time perhaps in December. The LVCVA said it would listen, and the A’s made a presentation about it six weeks ago. The A’s handled the process internally, rather than contracting with an agency to find a sponsor.
The most lucrative baseball patch sponsorship is believed to belong to the New York Yankees, with Starr Insurance, at roughly $25 million per year.
The LVCVA’s annual advertising budget in 2024 was about $104 million, according to a report it published in the fall.
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(Top photo courtesy of the Athletics)
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