Sorry, Sacramento: Your MLB Team Will Only Be Known As the Athletics 

Very little about the ongoing relocation saga of the A’s has been normal, and that now certainly applies to the club’s preferred naming during its planned three-year interim stay in Sacramento. 

The MLB club issued a set of “brand transition guidelines” this week in which it made the radical decision to drop any geographic signifier from its name while it plays the 2025–2027 seasons at Sutter Health Park. The franchise said it now prefers to be called the Athletics on a first reference and A’s on subsequent ones. Abbreviations for box scores and listings such as league standings will refer to the team as “ATH,” instead of a reference to a city or state.

The shift was teased this past summer when the league’s release of the 2025 regular-season schedule also listed the A’s as “ATH” without a geographic signifier. But the team’s latest step shows the further depths to which the franchise is committed to being known this way—and also spotlights the team’s current itinerant nature. After an emotional farewell in September in Oakland, the A’s intend to move in 2028 to Las Vegas, where demolition recently occurred at the planned ballpark site.

Even other major pro teams that have gone without a traditional nickname, even temporarily, such as the NHL’s Utah Hockey Club or the NFL’s Washington Football Team before they became the Commanders, still led their franchise identity with a place name. 

Local Issues

The A’s, MLB, and MLB Players Association all continue to make various preparations for the 2025 season at Sutter Health Park—also the home of the Giants’ top minor-league affiliate, where extreme summer temperatures have been a serious issue. 

The three parties recently agreed to maintain a grass field there, and newly issued game times for next year show the A’s playing 60 of 81 home games at night in an attempt to mitigate the heat effects. But union leader Tony Clark said during the World Series that the team playing in a minor-league ballpark still presents many complications.

“There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done,” Clark said of the Sacramento situation. “It’s taken a while to polish some of the rough edges. We’ve been able to move forward on some of that, but any way you bake it, it’s making the best of what is a very challenging situation.”