Oakland is a city that has some of the most dedicated sports fans. When you have teams who have won multiple championships in the Athletics, Raiders and Golden State Warriors, there is a lot to be excited about. However, the city of Oakland chose to take the bad route by turning on their own fans.

In the last 25 years, the city of Oakland has made both the Raiders and Athletics one of the lowest budget teams in their own respective sports. This has caused these teams to only afford what they can for multiple years and in return, we see both of these teams fall short every season.

The Oakland A’s for many years under General Manager Billy Beane have been playing what is called “Moneyball,” where a small market team makes a successful team out of player analytics instead of proven unaffordable baseball stars. Every year while they were under Billy Beane as General Manager, the Athletics either missed the playoffs or were eliminated in the first round. They only made it to the American League Championship Series once in 2006, but never made it to the final dance in the World Series. They are still struggling to this day.

Meanwhile the Raiders, who arguably have the most dedicated fanbase in the NFL, have moved to Las Vegas. This was a slap in the face to all fans of the team. The reason being is because the city of Oakland refused to pass the rights to build a new stadium for the Raiders. The San Francisco Giants at one point offered their then named AT&T Park for the Raiders to share had plans proceeded for them to get a new stadium, yet nothing ever happened and Oakland ended up deciding to sell the team.

Many can agree; RingCentral Coliseum is an absolute dumpster. It is voted as one of the worst parks in both the MLB and the NFL and for many years the Coliseum was shared by both the Athletics and the Raiders. There are so many downsides to this stadium ranging from the cement falling apart, toilets constantly getting clogged due to poor pipework which also causes different sewage leaks every season, to the food provided in the concourses being some of the worst.

While Raider fans were patient with all of this and showed up every time the Raiders played, the same can’t be said about the Athletics who are top 5 in lowest attendance rate in the last two decades in MLB. The issue isn’t necessarily that the fans don’t like baseball, it is more of a revolt because the team refuses to spend any money to make the team better, along with the fact that the Athletics still play in the worst ballpark in MLB. Instead of seeing the stadium and lack of star players as the problem of doing anything to improve the Athletics, the city of Oakland is now considering selling the team to a new city, with Portland, Nashville and, you guessed it, Las Vegas as front runners.

We also shouldn’t forget that the city of Oakland lost the Golden State Warriors as well. The Warriors, who have won multiple championships at Oracle Arena in the last decade, have been relocated to the new Chase Center in San Francisco, as if San Francisco needed more traffic. While the trip isn’t far for Oakland fans, the Warriors were the only faint glimmer of hope that those fans had considering the Athletics and their turmoil, and now they are in the city across from them.

Oakland fans and the team owners simply wanted their respective teams to get a stadium that they deserve. Because the profit of helping these teams is apparently too overwhelming for the city of Oakland, instead these fans are on the verge of losing every one of the teams that they have, with the Athletics fate hanging on to a thread. Oakland fans have been some of the most dedicated fans of their teams for so many years, but you just can’t help but feel bad for the fans who really deserve better.