A’s bring MLB action to Sacramento tonight. Here’s what fans need to know
Monday night, the Athletics move into their new home.
And along with their bats and gloves, they’ll bring something unprecedented to the Sacramento region: MLB-caliber baseball.
The A’s opened the 2025 season on the road, going 2-2 in a four-game set against the Seattle Mariners. Now they will host the Chicago Cubs for three games, Monday through Wednesday, in West Sacramento.
It starts what is planned as at least a three-year stint for the A’s playing at Sutter Health Park, a venue that can seat about 14,000 fans and whose diamond has hosted only minor-league baseball and occasional exhibition contests since it opened in 2000.
The team’s temporary stay will begin nearly a year after it was announced in April by Kings owner Vivek Ranadivé and A’s owner John Fisher. Ranadivé also owns the Sacramento River Cats, with whom the A’s will split a home field this season and at least the next two.
Here’s a quick recap of what has happened in the past year and what fans, casual observers and residents of California’s capital region should know as they navigate the start of the A’s first MLB season in West Sacramento.
Why are A’s moving to Sacramento?
Fisher and Ranadivé made the official announcement April 4 that the A’s would relocate from Oakland, where they played since 1968, to West Sacramento.
It’s an interim move as Fisher has said the team intends to permanently relocate to Las Vegas, with plans to construct a $1.7 billion stadium on the Las Vegas Strip.
The A’s lease of their longtime home, the Oakland Coliseum, expired at the end of 2024. In a stinging decision for Bay Area-based fans, A’s ownership decided not to extend the lease.
“We look forward to making Sutter Health Park our home through our move to Las Vegas,” Fisher said in a news conference last year at the minor-league stadium. “We extend our appreciation to the Kings and the city of West Sacramento for hosting the A’s while we work to complete our new ballpark in Las Vegas.”
A’s leadership says the Vegas stadium will be done in time for the 2028 season, but that the team will have the option to play a fourth season at Sutter Health Park if it is not ready by then.
A’s schedule highlights
Several series stand out as notable during the A’s 81-game home schedule in 2025.
They will host the San Francisco Giants, their longtime interleague rivals formerly across the San Francisco Bay, July 4-6.
Steve Fanelli, the A’s vice president of sales and business operations, said in January that the May 9-11 series against the New York Yankees and the Sept. 8-10 set against the Boston Red Sox were also quick to sell out. The finale of the Yankees series is also Mother’s Day.
The A’s won’t host every MLB opponent at Sutter Health Park this season. Those that don’t visit in 2025 – seven National League teams, including the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers – will play in West Sacramento next year.
How much will A’s tickets cost?
The A’s sold out season tickets by early January. With capacity for only 14,000 fans, demand can more easily outstrip supply.
Fans also snatched up single-game tickets for high-profile games, Fanelli said at the end of that month.
Hotly anticipated games among the first to sell out were next week’s home opener against the Cubs and at least two games against the San Francisco Giants on July 4 weekend, Fanelli said.
Ticket buyers have likely noticed exorbitant prices on secondary market websites. According to some recent media reports, including one from USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, the A’s have one of the highest median ticket price points among all 30 MLB teams. Nightengale reported the median A’s ticket last week at $181.
SeatGeek, which is MLB’s official ticket resale partner, as of Thursday showed the cheapest tickets available for the March 31 home opener going for $84 apiece.
The cheapest Giants-A’s game at Sutter Health Park listed SeatGeek was Sunday, July 6, coming in at $110 as of late last week. The cheapest available for the Yankees series in early May ranged from $97 for the Sunday game, on Mother’s Day, to $136 for the Friday night game.
Worth the money? Ranadivé would say yes.
“You’re going to see world-class baseball in the most intimate stadium in Major League Baseball,” he said during last year’s news conference announcing the relocation.
Baseball fans looking to buy resale tickets should be aware of deceptive listings. Single-game tickets for A’s home games were posted for sale as early as last fall — before those tickets even existed, through a controversial practice known as speculative listing.
How can you watch A’s on TV?
A’s broadcasts remain available on TV via NBC Sports California. The A’s formally announced in a Thursday news release that all 162 games will air on that channel, and that Jenny Cavnar, Chris Caray and Dallas Braden will return from last season for TV play-by-play and commentary.
MLB announced last week that a new, in-market streaming option is available to watch A’s, Giants and Philadelphia Phillies games. That direct-to-consumer service, through MLB.TV and Peacock, is available for $19.99 a month or can be bundled with MLB.TV’s access to out-of-market games for a total of $39.99 monthly.
Previously, local Northern California markets were “blacked out” and unable to use an MLB.TV subscription to watch A’s or Giants games.
The Athletics announced last month the team is partnering with iHeartRadio to broadcast all regular season and potential postseason games via KSTE-AM (650), also called Talk 650. The A’s previously had been aired on the radio by KHTK-AM (1140).
Ken Korach, will continue as the team’s main play-by-play announcer. He’ll be joined by Johnny Doskow, a former radio voice of the River Cats.
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Parking and traffic concerns
There are nine parking lots surrounding Sutter Health Park available to drivers, according to the River Cats and A’s. The stadium also has bike racks and a free valet service for cyclists.
Downtown Sacramento’s Amtrak train station, which can pull in Bay Area-based fans, is about a mile walk from Sutter Health Park.
West Sacramento city officials have encouraged fans to use an on-demand shuttle service called Via.
One concern on game days is freeway traffic. There is only one direct entry point to Sutter Health Park from Sacramento-area freeways — Interstate 80 via Jefferson Boulevard, just west of the interchange with Interstate 5. Construction and lane closures are common on and near that stretch.
Turf or real grass?
For months, it was anticipated that the A’s would play on artificial turf at Sutter Health Park rather than real grass. That created concern about on-field conditions and player safety: turf fields get significantly hotter, and summer temperatures in the Sacramento region regularly surpass 100 degrees.
The A’s initially indicated that the packed schedule at the stadium — which will host more than 150 regular season games this year between the River Cats and A’s — would necessitate turf to accommodate for wear and tear.
In October, however, The Sacramento Bee reported that the A’s would play on natural grass, with heat concerns a main factor in that decision.
No ‘Sacramento.’ Just the A’s
The A’s announced last year that the team will officially bear no city moniker. The official team guidance is that they are not the “Oakland Athletics” or “Sacramento Athletics,” but simply the “Athletics.” They are currently the only MLB team with that naming convention. All 29 others affix the team’s city or state name.
On TV broadcasts and similar formats, the team is now abbreviated “ATH” rather than “OAK” as it had been for decades.
Though they won’t officially use “Sacramento” in their name, the A’s in January revealed that player jerseys will feature a patch depicting the Tower Bridge, which connects West Sacramento to Sacramento over the Sacramento River, and a script of text beneath the bridge that reads “Sacramento.”
What if the A’s make the playoffs?
There’s no guarantee Sutter Health Park will host postseason games if the Athletics qualify for the MLB playoffs, the A’s have told season-ticket buyers.
The league has certain requirements to host what it calls “jewel” events — postseason games as well as All-Star Game festivities. Those potentially include added spaces for national and international media, news conferences and TV trucks, as The Bee reported in September.
It’s unclear where the A’s would play home postseason games instead. The San Francisco Giants’ Oracle Park or even the Oakland Coliseum are theoretical options.
Could MLB stay in Sacramento?
Ranadivé, the Kings and River Cats owner, has made his intentions clear: He wants MLB in Sacramento permanently.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred toured Sutter Health Park in January and, at a private event afterward, Ranadivé pushed for Sacramento to be considered if MLB expands beyond its current 30 teams.
Ranadivé called Sacramento and surrounding areas a “mega region” that make up “one of the biggest economies in the world.”
“So I’m just going to keep pitching you and saying ‘Sacramento, Sacramento, Sacramento,’” he said in the event, according to audio from the event shared with The Bee earlier this year.
The possibility of MLB expanding into new markets make the next three seasons a tryout of sorts: Is Sacramento ready for its own MLB franchise?
This story was originally published March 24, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
