Yahoo Sports Where will the Athletics be playing their 2025 MLB home games?
The Athletics have left Oakland, but it will be some time before MLB officially moves to Las Vegas, where the team's long-term future lies.
After 57 seasons in the East Bay, the Athletics played their final game in Oakland on Sept. 26, 2024. In late 2023, Major League Baseball owners unanimously approved a proposal to relocate the franchise to Las Vegas, with plans in place to build a new ballpark on the Strip.
The Athletics completed the 2024 season in Oakland, but with no lease to continue playing at the Oakland Coliseum, the AL West club will move about 90 minutes northeast to Sacramento. The team has no plans to play as the "Sacramento Athletics," and instead will simply be called the Athletics until they take up residence in Las Vegas. That leaves one big question: Where will the Athletics play in 2025?
Here's what to know about the Athletics' new home stadium for the upcoming MLB season following their move away from Oakland.
Where will Athletics play in 2025?
The Athletics will spend the 2025 MLB season in Sacramento, playing their 81 home games at Sutter Health Park. In April, the team announced that they will play in California's capital city for at least three seasons, with an option to stay for 2028.
The 14,014-capacity venue is the home of the Triple-A Sacramento River Cats, who – per KCRA, an NBC affiliate in Sacramento – also plan to continue calling the stadium home. It is currently unclear whether a schedule can be worked out that meets both MLB and minor-league requirements.
The stadium, which opened in 2000, has the following field dimensions:
Left field: 330 feet
Center field: 403 feet
Right field: 325 feet
When is Athletics' 2025 home opener?
The Athletics will play their 2025 MLB home opener on March 31, when they start a three-game homestand against the Chicago Cubs at Sutter Health Park in Sacramento.
The opener is scheduled to start at 7:05 p.m. PT (10:05 p.m. ET).
Where will Athletics play after this season?
The Athletics will continue at Sutter Health Park for at least three seasons. The team confirmed in April that their contract to play in Sacramento runs through the 2027 season, and contains an option for 2028.
That will allow for time to complete construction on a planned 33,000-seat stadium on the Las Vegas Strip. The ballpark will be built on the site of the Tropicana, the iconic Vegas hotel that closed in April to allow work to begin on the new stadium.
The intention is to begin play at the stadium – which has been compared to a "spherical armadillo" and, per designer Bjarke Ingels Group, would include "the world’s largest cable net glass wall" – in 2028. However, as the option to stay in Sacramento one more year indicates, there is some possibility that the Athletics won't be in Las Vegas until 2029.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Where Athletics will play home games during 2025 MLB season
