Humans Out, Cats In at Oakland A’s Ballpark

The Oakland A’s are preparing to move from RingCentral Coliseum, but it seems that their fans have already done so.

The team is seeing record-low attendance at the start of the 2022 season. While the team’s home opener on April 18 drew 17,503 fans, the numbers plummeted from there.

• The following day brought 3,748 to the park, a 42-year low. 
• That record lasted one day: On April 20, attendance sank to 2,703.

Among those not present were core members of the A’s leadership. Owner John Fisher, team president Dave Kaval, and other executives spent part of the week in Las Vegas meeting with landowners of sites that could one day house a new A’s ballpark.

The team is simultaneously pursuing a new home in Vegas and a waterfront development in Oakland.

The A’s traded key players over the offseason, unloading Matt Olson, Matt Chapman, Chris Bassitt, and Sean Manaea. Kaval has argued that a new ballpark would improve attendance and allow the team to maintain a more expensive roster.

Cat Attendance on the Rise

Though human attendance has been on the decline, feral cats are helping make up the difference.

A colony estimated at 30-to-40 cats flourished in and around the coliseum during the pandemic and continues to live there.

“You have to give them an ‘A’ for dealing with the rodents, but we don’t need as many in the army right now,” stadium authority executive director Henry Gardner told Oaklandside. “We are overstaffed.”