I was going to point out that a move to Vegas would make the A's the first team to play in all four (continental US) time zones, but Las Vegas is in fact in the Pacific Zone, albeit just barely. (They'll have to settle for being the first MLB team to play in four different cities.)

How soon after the A's eventually move do people start floating idea of Oakland as a location for expansion (or to move the Marlins or Rays too?)

They are moving - it's only a question of when. That waiving of the fee will make up a lot of the potential tv loss

I doubt Oakland will be seen as a ML site again just due to the Giants claiming it as their own about 2 seconds after the A's leave it. The Jays have tried this with Montreal to some degree, but the language barrier keeps it viable - Quebec sees itself as a country of its own within Canada, far more so than Texas in the USA for example.

I was going to point out that a move to Vegas would make the A's the first team to play in all four (continental US) time zones, but Las Vegas is in fact in the Pacific Zone, albeit just barely.

Move to Albequerque instead?

So is the stadium going to be on the strip? Maybe a dome with a casino, hotel, and John Fogerty having a residency on a stage?

John Fogerty having a residency

That would be enough to see the old man down the road run through the jungle!

Relocation fees - what a racket. Oh but MLB will waive them this time.

hat waiving of the fee will make up a lot of the potential tv loss

What TV loss? Given the trend in the Bay Area, I would doubt that there is much of a long-term future for NBC Sports Bay Area, much less for the A's to get a slice of the diminishing pie.

Move to Albequerque instead?

that would allow the Isotopes to move back to Springfield

Major League Baseball is reportedly willing to waive its relocation fee for the Oakland Athletics if they move the franchise to Las Vegas

What about moving back?

The key timing on this is the SF Bay Conservation and Development Commission is voting this week on the As waterfront park proposal, with intense pressure from some shippers and some unions to block it, while other entities (including the harbor and some other unions.) Baseball has been clear about leaking ideas just before local government meetings to pressure them to go forward and approve the As.

Obviously the As could move, but this announcement doesn't change the odds of that. The key question is whether the As ask for formally and get, formally, the vote of the super-majority of owners, who all have a big incentive to prefer Las Vegas to be a bidder for expansion.

The conflict has been entirely about the city and county preferring the As to build on the parking lot at the Coliseum site, and the As seeking leverage to move them from opposition to acquiescence.

Ed to add: Things will be different if MLB leaks start having no relation to forthcoming local (and crucial) governmental board votes. But so far, every leak has been timed to those, which suggests what's driving the cart.

(They'll have to settle for being the first MLB team to play in four different cities.)

They've played in a lot more than four. It's probably over 30 by now. You have the 25 MLB cities, they played in Japan a few years ago, and then the different Spring Training towns/cities.

[5] I remember seeing map a while back showing a heat map of the contiguous US colored by distance to nearest MLB park and Albuquerque would fill a big gap, though El Paso would do so even better and is also in the Mountain time zone. There’s one other section of the country that’s even more geographically barren and the best city to help there would be Salt Lake City, unless you scrape true bottom of the barrel cities like Bozeman.

Re 13: Ahem. They will have represented four cities, genius.

Actually, that's a good question: what MLB team has played games in the most cities? The Cubs have been around since 1876, and that year they played regular-season games in Louisville and Hartford (and elsewhere, of course). Later in the 19th century, the NL had teams in such places as Indianapolis, Providence, Syracuse, Troy and Worcester -- and that's to say nothing of neutral sites like San Juan, where the Cubs played the Expos in 2003.

If I wasn't so lazy, I'd research it fully...zzzzzzz...

Re: 15

With interleague play now a thing, it ruins the advantage a team like Milwaukee might have had in this discussion when they switched leagues.

Here are the list of games played outside the US/Canada.

There are also games played in Dunedin Florida and Buffalo New York when the Jays were in Covid-exile in 2020 and the start of 2021, but then again Buffalo had a team in the NL back in the 1880s, too.